When we brought home our Fitz from the hospital, our firstborn son had turned 3 earlier that week. My mom had boys two years apart, and several people I know had aimed for that two-year age gap. So I thought we would have it made in the shade with a three year age gap.
As with most stuff in my parenting journey, I thought wrong.
Managing schedules for a toddler and a newborn is just not easy. I can almost hear the audible laugh of those reading this who have done it before. It just is not easy. And if it was easy for you, you probably shouldn’t tell anyone about it.
When Fitz was about 2 months old at Christmas time, someone asked us how it was going — you know how has the two kid thing been?
Me to anyone and everyone: “We are surviving, not thriving.”
And I meant that. We were all alive and fed and relatively happy. And by “we,” I mean my husband and me, too. We were making it — we were surviving.
As some of my friends have added to their families, several of them have given me my own words right back to me.
“Yeah, you weren’t kidding when you said you were surviving but not thriving.”
I am probably not the first to tell you that there is so much pressure on mamas to do everything right. We are supposed to breastfeed and work and keep a clean house and wear natural deodorant and cook with organic produce and be more laid back and keep our kids free from germs.
We suffocate under some pretty unrealistic expectations.
I suffocate under some really unrealistic expectations.
So, even now, when my kiddos are a little sturdier and even sometimes slightly self-sufficient at ages 4 and 1 — we are often still surviving and not thriving.
At the end of the day, we cannot create the perfect lives for them no matter how hard we try. So if we can keep these little humans alive and fed and as healthy and happy as we possibly can, we are doing our jobs.
One day our babies will maybe even cure cancer, solve world peace, and save the world. As they look over their shoulders, they will maybe even say,
