Stefanie over at Baby On Bored dealt with something over the weekend that I think about often. This fall, how am I going to help Garcon understand how much we love him, even while we adapt to a second baby? Even while I can't give him the attention he deserves? I thought she handled it beautifully...
My little Elby was a disastrous pill all weekend. I simply couldn't understand why she whined so constantly and could not make a request for something as simple as juice without going straight to tears as if, unless she cried, we'd say, "Juice? Have you gone completely insane? What gives you the impression that your dad or I would want to get off this couch to help you quench your thirst? You want us to actually parent you and get you something to drink?" I found myself getting more and more frustrated. Why so much crying? What happened to my sparkly little spitfire who used to be full of funny and smiles?
So last night, it came to a head when, while getting her hair washed, Elby screamed as if rather than lathering a little Suave Watermelon Kids No Tears shampoo in her hair, we were washing her mouth out with turpentine. I was done. Seriously done. So when tears came at which nightgown she was going to wear, she got a time-out. I made her sit on her bed for three minutes and she wasn't allowed to cry for the last minute or it had to start again. We counted to sixty together after she'd stopped crying and when she came out of her room she was like a new woman. It finally hit me what was going on all weekend.
This morning we had a talk. I carried her around the house like a baby and asked her if she missed being "mommy's little baby?" She nodded her head emphatically no. But we sat on her bed together and I asked her again. Her eyes started to tear and she actually tried NOT TO CRY. I held her. "It's okay to feel sad that there are two babies in the house all the time and you don't get enough attention. It's okay to wish you were still the baby." She threw her arms around me and put her head into my chest -which felt tighter than a fist from the lethal combination of guilt, love, anxiety and the knowledge that I will never be able to give her as much as I want now that I have two more children. I hugged her so hard and tried not to cry myself. I promised to try harder to spend a little extra time with her and promised her it would get easier as the babies grow. Was I lying? I hope I wasn't. I miss my baby girl. And then, on the way to school, she laughed and sang along with the soundtrack to "Once" and I felt like at least for this brief moment, it was just the two of us, and I had her back.
It's an approach that I'll model, based on other advice - helping him know that it's okay to feel sad, and that it's hard when Mommy can't spend as much time as she used to. (Stefanie, your response of feeling acknowledgement was practically child dev textbook - nice work). Hopefully I'll remember this strategy when I'm in the throes of sleep deprivation and the juggle, and all of it.
