Life with Four

Graham is now five months old and as cute and cuddly as they come.  

Before he was born, veteran parents insisted that the transition to having 3 kids was the hardest, "if you can handle 3 kids," they assured me, "you can handle 10!"

But for me, the transition to 3 was pretty easy, despite Thane being my most demanding baby.  The transition to 4, however, was rough, despite Graham being (by far) my easiest babe.  

I think that's because when Aubree and Thane (my easiest transitions) came along, our lives were very stable - we'd been living in the same place for a long time, had good friends and support systems, and were ready to take on the major changes that a new baby brings.  Bryce and Graham were my more easy-going babies, but our lives were more tumultuous when they came along, so I think that's why I struggled more to adjust.

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For the first three months after having a baby, I generally set very low expectations for myself.  This time around I wasn't sure we'd survive 3 months of low expectations!  I clearly recall the first night I went to bed thinking that the day hadn't been a total failure; Graham was seven weeks old.

One day a friend from church invited us over to her home to can applesauce.  I would have loved to join her, but the idea of bringing my kids, in their hooligan state, to someone else's home was terrifying.  We opted to stay home.

I frequently caught myself thinking, "it was so easy when I just had three." or, "I know I'll be gone this evening, but Mark will only have the three big kids."  And then I would laugh at myself, because when I "just" had three, it wasn't easy at all!  I called my mom and asked, "When your 8th child was born, did you ever find yourself thinking, 'wow, it was so easy when I ONLY had 7?'" Her answer was classic: "I don't remember."

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One busy day the kids and I got home at 2pm, after leaving the house at 8:30.  As I pulled into the garage, I mentally ran through the list of things I needed to do:

*Unload the kids from the car

*Unload the groceries from the car

*Put the groceries away (at bare minimum, the frozen/refridgerated foods)

*Make sure Bryce goes to the bathroom

*Go the the bathroom myself

*Change Graham's poopy diaper

*Change Thane's poopy diaper

*Feed the 3 older kids (who had only had snacks, not lunch)

*Nurse Graham

*Start Aubree on her school work

*Start a load of diapers (because all the cloth diapers were dirty)

*Clean up the house that looked like a tornado hit it (a predictable consequence of the Herculean effort involved in leaving the house by 8:30 am)

Almost all of these things were high-priority tasks (except for the cleaning, that can always wait - which is a whole other problem), and needed to be done seemingly simultaneously, and the common denominator is that they all involved me.

I know this is pretty standard for moms everywhere, and I'm not complaining.  I signed up for this.  I spent years on my knees begging for this.  But the fact remains, having a new baby is hard.

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As Graham gets older and more predictable, things are getting better.  In the last month or so, I feel like we've started to hit our stride and adjust to being a family of six.  We still have a long, long way to go, but at least we're making progress.

All the kids love Graham.  In fact, Bryce refuses to call him Graham, only "Cute." As in, "Can I hold Cute," or "Why is Cute crying?"

When we go out we still get the ever-predictable and cliché, "Wow, you've really got your hands full," but we've also progressed to the next level, "are they all yours?"  

But then there was that one crazy experience where I left Bryce and Thane home with Mark and went to Costco with just Graham and Aubree.  The lady in front of me in the check-out line turned and commented, "Wow, you've really got your hands full!"  I stared at her, completely dumb-founded.  "Huh?!"