Life With Three

People ask me all the time, "How's it going with three?"

You know, when I was still pregnant with Addie I was terrified.  Both Bee and Jude were challenging babies especially in the beginning and I already knew how poorly I do life on very little sleep.  Bee was a preemie who needed constant care, she ate every 2 hrs for 5 months and then every three hours for the next two months.  She couldn't regulate her own body temperature for months and didn't smile or coo for way longer than a normal full term baby.  Then we had Jude.  He was colicky for 6 weeks but then didn't sleep for months.  I made it thru Josh's work weeks on maybe a total of 25 hrs of sleep in 7 days.  It was terrible, I felt terrible.  I wanted to throw my baby across the room to make him shut up so I could sleep.  Thankfully it ended and he started sleeping 4-5 hrs a night around 4-5 months.  So when I found myself pregnant a third time I was petrified at how exhausted I was going to be.  I was so anxious I would cry about it all the time.   I was and still am so grateful that Josh gets an amazing amount of time off for paternity leave, but I was prepared to just barely survive the first couple months.  What I was unprepared for was a super mellow baby.  Don't get me wrong, adjusting to three little humans who are pretty close in age and are all needy is pretty challenging.  But instead of just barely surviving the first couple months, I feel like we've been able to enjoy them.  

The first few weeks with Addie she followed the same pattern as our older two.  Woke up every two hours to eat and wanted to be held 24/7.  Then suddenly, she was sleeping 4 hrs in a row around the 2 month mark.  She barely cried except to let us know she needed to be fed, changed or swaddled for bed.  Then one night she slept from 11:30pm-6:30am.  Then around three months she started sleeping 8 freaking hours in a row.  GAME CHANGER my friends.  We have a baby who actually sleeps!  I feel more rested than I did pregnant!  I'd love to say that she sleeps because I have a special trick and am an amazing parent, but we haven't done anything different this time around so I'm chalking it up to her being an angel baby.

The hardest part has been dealing with Bee and Jude.  Trying to keep them from killing each other while trying to not laugh at how ridiculous they are.  They are constantly fighting and trying to get each other in trouble.  Jude knows that if he takes Bee's special drawing of the day she's going to flip her lid, and Bee knows that if she taunts, "Hey! I put away ALLLLL your caarrrahhhhsss!" (cars) Jude is going to go all frantic franny on her and not know how to deal with his emotions.  Or Bee will be super bossy and force Jude to play princesses with her, but then refuse to play cowboys with him.  His disappointment gets me every time, until he retaliates by screaming at the top of his lungs and then the hitting and pushing starts.  Our house gets really loud, really fast.  

So far I've been able to kick them outside when things start to get hairy, but I haven't figured out how to make them nicer to each other without completely distracting them or just ignoring them and making them figure it out themselves.  The other day I was nursing a fussy Addie when a sibling beat down began and I ended up walking across the house to their room, refereeing them with Addie still fully attached.  It was then that I realized I was standing in front of the open window, wearing stained yoga pants paired with one of Josh's ratty old t-shirts with my going-on-three-days-without-a-shower hair pulled up in a greasy bun, in full view of anyone who might have walked by.  That was the moment I realized there was no turning back for me, I was fully entrenched in motherhood.  It was also the moment I wished it was acceptable to drink at 10 in the morning.  Please tell me I'm not the only one!