How is it having two?

“How is it having two?” This is probably the question that I get the most.  Well, it’s the most asked question after the “Are you getting any sleep?” question that everyone asks when you have a newborn.

Any time I’m asked this question, my immediate response is that it’s great.  And it really is great.  We are extremely lucky that Jack adapted amazingly well to having a little brother.  More than six months in, I can’t recall a single moment of jealousy.  And already my boys are great friends.  Jack loves to talk to his brother and Xander takes in every thing Jack does and hangs onto his every word.

I’m fortunate that I’m often able to give the boys the individual attention that they need.  Sometimes it’s during the other’s nap or I take one out for errands and leave the other one with my husband.  But every once in a while, there are those moments where I’m stretched a little too thin and one of my boys needs my undivided attention and I just can’t give it to him.

Take today as an example.  Today the boys and I met some friends at Phipps to take in the Spring flowers.  Jack didn’t nap before we left.  I was hoping he would nap in the car on the way there but just as he was starting to fall asleep, we hit traffic and he was magically wide awake.  We had a great time with our friends and when it was time to leave, I was certain that Jack would fall asleep instantly.  Boy was I wrong.  Not two minutes into our drive, Jack started crying.  Then he started screaming.  Poor kid was  so over-tired that he couldn’t fall asleep.  Well, not until we were 4 minutes from home.

Once we arrived home, I woke him and the crying began again.  I knew that he just needed to sit and cuddle with me for 15 minutes or so.  The problem was that his crying had woken Xander (who was now crying), the dog needed to be let out, both boys needed diaper changes and Xander needed to eat.  I rushed through the necessary tasks all the while trying to stop and comfort my little tired man.  The whole time I was just wishing that I could drop everything and make Jack feel better.  Finally, I was able to convince him to sit on my lap while I fed Xander some green beans.  After just a few minutes on my lap Jack was back to his normal cheerful self.  He was asking Xander why he was hungry and Xander was smiling and spitting out his green beans.  And then it hit me, it wasn’t ME that finally calmed Jack down, I’m pretty sure that it was sitting watching his brother enjoy himself that calmed him down.

So how is it having two?  My new answer: Better than I had ever imagined.

A terribly fuzzy picture of the boys, but it's one of my favorites.

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.