I Wish I knew

On October 16th, of 2015 after 26 hours, a C-Section, some next level constipation and a peanut ball, if you know you know, my first son was born. The hardest part was over!

If you are a Mother, you know this is total bullshit and you laughed when you read that.

Yes my delivery was long, drawn out, and exhausting but we were far from the peak. I brought home the greatest and most terrifying gift, and had absolutely no clue how to keep him alive. I didn’t know how to change him, let alone breastfeed him? Sleep? What the hell is a swaddle?

About a week in with no sleep, cracked nips, still unable to shit, and a sobering realization that this was not changing anytime soon, I sought help.

If you know me well, you know that if I don’t know, I read. I research. I am too anxious of a person to sit uncomfortably. I fix. So, I did what so many first time Mom’s do. I read sleep training books. Yes. Desperate to sleep again and to find any sort of predictability in my day and hell bent to have time to shower and not smell like Shrek, I (attempted) to sleep train this loin gremlin.

Schedules were drawn up, tears were shed. I threatened to move my husband into the garage if he dared to pick up Eli while he “self-soothed” in his crib. Our home life was as comfortable as holding in a fart during turbulence but I was not ready to back down. I all but kept my sanity trying to get this colic ridden, restless baby to sleep. Just sleep please.

After reading multiple books, joining all the Mommy facebook sleep training groups, and even seeing a sleep consultant, he refused to sleep through the night on his own until he was 14 months old. Just in time for me to pop out boy #2. As you likely predicted, my second son was a phenomenal sleeper right from the get go. Ok, also bullshit. Yes, the Keith home had not one, but two nocturnal womb dictators and all sanity was left in the wake.

I spent countless hours frustrated to tears with these kids. We had them sleep in separate rooms with no “aid”, and refused to budge from getting them to learn to sleep independently. I wish I knew.

If it wasn’t predictable already, I regret not holding my babies. I regret having them rest without me. That the small amount of time I had with them in the evening wasn’t taken full advantage of.

The young Mom that I was needed that separation, and needed some predictability with two under two and working 50 hours a week. I needed it. What I did not anticipate however, was that it wouldn’t last forever, and neither would the late night rocks in our glider. The days that their entire hand could only wrap around my index finger, would end.

We made the choice after our second son was born, that biologically, we were finished having babies. With that reality, came clarity. Everything that Zander did for the first time, would be the last, first. With every new year came an older youngest son. With every passing milestone came new levels of independence and “No, Mommy I can do it by myself.” There became less and less they needed me for. They didn’t need me to lay with them, tuck them in, help them get dressed or open their snacks. I missed it. I missed the purpose of these early years. I let the carnal need for predictability and convenience take precedence over one of the most precious things I could have had, the ability to comfort them and hold them while they still wanted me to. I wish I knew.

Nearly two years of sleep training and self doubt later, we put the boys in toddler beds, in the same room, with an extra mattress between it. Yes, the last two years Shane and I take turns every other night laying with our sons, rubbing their backs, and telling them stories, until they fall asleep.

It is unconventional. It sucks. Shane and I hardly get time together. Sometimes I dread when it is my night to put them down, and I would take it any day over the ladder. The first two years feel like an eternity with teething, introducing food, the constant stench coming from them. Not to mention, our bodies are still seeping. It is an eternity.

But, it isn’t at all. They are one year olds, for five years, two year olds for eight and then you blink and you're registering them for Kindergarten and they are turning six.

If you are a Mama in the first two years, or the toddler stage in general, please hear me. It sucks. It is so fucking hard. The best advice I can give you, is to embrace the suck. Embrace how truly chaotic and zoolike your home is. You will sleep again someday. Try to settle into your season. The comparison or dissonance of what you hoped it would be, only robbs your children of a happy home and you of contentment and joy. Embrace how excited they get to have you smell their feet, or when they bring in a dead lizard carcass to show you. Or when they cover themselves in mud and track it through the whole damn house. When they constantly try to strangle each other, and you are a referee more than a Mama. Embrace it. Easier said than done, but true. Pro Tip- Wine helps.

Don’t wish it away. Don’t compare. Don’t make them grow up before they have to. Sink into the stench. Sleep when you can, and don’t blink Mama. The time flies and soon there won’t be constant meltdowns, or laughter. They won’t want you around. You will remind yourself of the days they loved you so much they would sit on the floor and watch you poop, just so they didn’t have to be apart from you. Soon, there won’t be adventures, or all out transformer battles in your living room. No more dump trucks and tractors being dumped into your bubble bath. Just quiet where there was chaos. Perfectly clean floors and calm relaxing solo bubble baths. Soon there won’t be any more time left to waste. Breathe it in, I wish I knew.