The ups and downs

It’s easy to see that every baby and child are different. That I expected. What I didn’t expect was my mental or emotional reaction to be different. I think I handled the transition from zero babies to one. It was a little difficult in the summer knowing that my friends were out doing fun things while I was home. Going from a toddler to a toddler + newborn wasn’t as difficult as I feared. I knew the baby would be “easy” to manage in the beginning. I didn’t know how the toddler would be. I’m always honest when people ask, it was rough those first few weeks. Maximus was a mess. At this point it’s not entirely clear, I just remember a lot of tears those first few weeks. (Zero from me!) I also remember being utterly exhausted. Some days when Maximus was home, I wasn’t sure how I was going to stay awake. (I think I should have become a coffee drinker through all these late nights.) Eventually we all figured out our new places. Most importantly, Maximus figured out our new groove and was ok with it.

Now we’ve reached a new level. I knew it would happen and I tried not to be too cocky about the two children thing being too ok. Whether we were ready or not, Quinten is completely mobile. He follows people (and dogs) and he leaves rooms if he wants to. He crawls to door stoppers and bangs on them. (I loved that when Maximus learned to do that. It’s still just as funny!) But mostly he crawls to things he’s not supposed to. And then he laughs at us when we tell him no. I remember that part too. With Maximus, there was zero recognition of the word and then all of a sudden he heard it at daycare enough times that it was a mean word. He would sit on the floor and sob when you told him no. He was also nine months old so he was a little older. Quinten turned eight months old today. And he laughs. He turns and looks at you, smiles at you, then laughs when you say, “no-no Quinten.” Then, of course, he turns back to what he isn’t supposed to be doing. I had a feeling he was going to be a troublemaker…

I’ve noticed that my ups and downs are more drastic this time around. I don’t think I’d classify it as depression, but I don’t know much about depression. It’s more that I lose my motivation and focus. I lack energy and drive. It’s a physical exhaustion that wipes me out. Looking at my varying sleep schedules, it makes sense. Add in hormonal imbalances due to increased nursing if Quinten is getting up a lot or whatever else is going on in my body during any given day. It makes sense that some times there isn’t much left to keep me going. Luckily it doesn’t last more than a day or two. I push myself through. I take it in hour increments and find something to help me refocus. Before I know it, I forgot I was exhausted. Or depressed. Whatever it is. And sometimes when I’m feeling down, Bryan tells me to sit on the couch and he hands me my phone so I can zone out and not be present. That helps, too. 🙂