There Are Two of Them

Well uh, it occurred to me that I never announced that we were having another baby. That whole period is now done, so... yeah, we have another baby now. Let's call this new one baby R. He's currently over two weeks old, and it brings back a lot of memories from the first time around with little G. Reading that post again, I'm finding a lot of similarities but also a lot of differences. All the while, G is also growing and changing. It's been five months since the last update, and there's definitely some stuff to talk about.

So many things are different this time around. As a scheduled c-section, the experience was very, very different this time. We knew exactly what day the baby was going to born on (barring any complications or early labor, which thankfully didn't happen). We went to the hospital, prepped for surgery, surgery happened, and then there was a baby! In the operating room itself, it was very familiar: the curtain between the sterile and contaminated parts of the room; the doctors lifting the baby out of my wife and pronouncing, "here's the baby!"; whisking the baby off to a table in the room to clean him off and get his birth measurements, then handing him to me to hold while they closed up my wife.

All told it was about an hour from the point when they hoisted up that boy to when we were back in the recovery room and my wife could start trying to nurse him. Which brings me to the biggest other difference: breastfeeding worked and is awesome. With G, he was never able to breastfeed properly because of his tongue-tie and maybe our inexperience. This time we had an awesome family friend with a bunch of experience helping the whole delivery day. With her and various nurses' help, by the end of the first day, baby R was feeding well enough to be satisfied.

Breastfeeding is awesome

No, seriously, it is. The first time around, with formula and only pumping breast milk, keeping the supply pipeline full was a constant tax. For me, it led to devising ridiculous time-saving shortcuts. For my wife, it required physically demanding pumping for hours a day, something nobody should have to do. When we went out with the baby anywhere, we always had to pack a cooler with breast milk, bottles and dry formula, feeding bibs and stuff. We'd mix dry formula with water in restaurant bathrooms and wash them after we were done. We had to juggle bottles and equipment on airplanes and other cramped places. It inserted itself into every aspect of our outings.

With breastfeeding, we only really need one thing: mommy. It's already made this newborn experience so much better, it's unbelievable. My wife can also choose to pump to have a bit of backup in case she has to go out somewhere without the baby, and we've already tested that little R is good with feeding from a bottle. He's a versatile little guy, apparently. The one downside is that mommy has to be involved with every feeding right now, so she doesn't really have a chance to get a break (by that I mean long stretch of sleep).

On the topic of taking care of the baby without mommy, the other day I dropped mommy at the dentist and took both kids to a park nearby during her appointment--my first solo outing with two kids! We made sure little R had gotten enough food before (following the schedule) and he just slept in the stroller the whole time. G and I played on the playground with the stroller nearby and had a nice time.

It went fine, of course, but I have always gotten nervous with a slew of "what ifs". The reality is I could probably handle basically any situation the kids throw at me, because in the end, I always have a safety net of just packing them in the car and going back. I often think about how lucky I am that I'm able-bodied and could physically just carry them both to the car at the same time if that's what it came down to (though I very rarely need to resort to something like that).

Starting over, kind of

Despite already having a nearly three-year-old child, having a new one feels a lot like starting over. Especially putting the two of them side-by-side I find myself remembering all the little things about how newborns are. I see the same little facial expressions, hand motions, and behaviors in R that I saw in G years ago. Like the way he purses his lips when he's had enough to eat. Or the way he arches his back and stretches his little face when we wake him up from a nap. And of course the way he hollers in our face and writhes around like a tiny angry man when he wants food.

I'm remembering a lot of the weird infant- and newborn-specific stuff we'd left behind years ago. Burping, sleep scheduling, sleeping on his back, skin-to-skin contact, gripe water, toot aerobics, baths in the sink, baby oil, swaddling, tiny sharp nails, breast milk poop, sleepers, onesies, swaddlers, snap-in-place carseats, baby carriers... the list goes on. Every one of these things had been put into cold storage because we hadn't needed to think about them in ages.

Just like last time, we started with sleep scheduling with the same schedules that worked before. So every three hours we wake up the baby, feed him, give him some "awake time" during the day, then put him back to sleep. Those two middle of the night feedings were real doozies. They effectively mean I didn't get more than two consecutive hours of sleep for about three weeks. It was definitely catching up with me, but he upgraded to a schedule with only one feeding at 2:30 AM. That three and a half hour block of sleep was a big improvement, let me tell you.

The first few days with the schedule were a bit rough as we figured out how to feed the baby enough to get him sleeping through to the next feeding. He would wake up a few times during the night, and we'd have to do some detective work to guess whether it was food or something else he needed. Now, with a few weeks of feeding under our belt, he pretty predictably sleeps when we put him down. We've also figured out the other aspects like how to layer him so he's warm enough, checking his diaper frequently enough, the amount of burping he needs, and when a pacifier will help take the edge off for him.

One thing I've done a lot more with R that I didn't do with G as a newborn is skin-to-skin naps. I'll just go take R into bed and have him sleep on my chest. Even if he's fussy he just snuggles right down and sleeps. It's incredibly sweet and recharges my baby energy after a tough night of waking up sleepy. With G, I did it a few times just relaxing out in the house, but this time the naps are a great idea.

"How is he taking to the new baby?"

I'd say the first or second question we get these days is "how is G handling the new baby?" The answer is not exactly straightforward, but it pretty much followed my expectations. To start with, he was very sweet when he came to visit in the hospital and see the baby for the first time. We planned and orchestrated it fairly carefully. Grandparents brought him to the hospital and then I came to bring him into the room, myself. We wanted only me, mommy, baby, and big brother for that first visit. We had the baby lying on the bed and not being held by mommy at first--we wanted the baby in a neutral place, not immediately something to compete with for attention.

We talked about baby brother coming out of mommy's belly and how mommy had to stay in the hospital a little bit longer and how baby brother would be coming home with us and living with us. G looked at him curiously and petted him and gave him a little kiss when we asked if he wanted to, but was overall not that interested. At this point I'm not even sure he'd internalized that the baby would be living with us permanently.

The first couple of weeks at home were also largely neutral. He still viewed his younger brother as a curiosity but not much more. He would still give little kisses on the head or pat him gently when prompted. He didn't want to hold him. During week 3, he finally held the baby for a few minutes, and now he often wants to get close and feel the baby's face and hands and stuff--often getting too physical at least partly because he doesn't know how gentle he needs to be and partly because he doesn't have the self control to maintain a calm demeanor for very long.

What I expected--and what eventually showed up--was unconscious acting-out, mainly for attention. It's happened a few times in a very obvious way when both mommy and I were tied up doing baby stuff at the same time. Also, the other day we wanted to put R on a blanket for tummy time. Despite not having any previous relationship with that blanket, G got very territorial about it and insisted on crowding onto the space while R was lying there. After clearly being unable to control his impulse, he had to wait outside the room and watch with one of us talking to him. A better solution we found was put down his own blanket right next to the baby's. He's happy to be wild on his own space and feels he's being treated as well as the baby.

Overall, G seems to be going through an especially challenging phase right now. He's pushing back on boundaries pretty much constantly, and his impulse control is very low. It could be a developmental thing since he's nearing three years old. Or it could be a side effect of feelings about the baby. Or it could be that for the last month, I--not mommy--have been his primary caretaker as she recovers. Any one of these things alone could be enough to disrupt him.

What it means for me is that the days are sometimes very tiring. I have to be constantly vigilant to make sure to enforce the boundaries in the right way and be empathetic at the same time, no matter what he's doing. It's like playing a game of chess with someone who flips the table every time you take one of their pieces, except you have to talk to them in an understanding way every time and re-set the board after every outburst. All we can do during this time is be a solid, steady, understanding presence for him. Just like every other phase of his life so far and to come, he'll pass through this.

I expect strong feelings about the baby to keep showing up in one way or another probably for the next several years. We've read some books and material about parenting siblings, so have some ideas of how to try to handle some of it. As little baby R grows and interacts with his older brother in more and different ways, I expect the ways they will both express their discomfort to show in just as many different ways.

For now, I have just a few simple guidelines I set for myself. Firstly, I make time with G one-on-one with the baby not around, including his bedtime routine. This shows him that he still gets our full attention sometimes. Secondly, when I'm doing that one-on-one time I myself never mention the baby. If he asks a question about the baby or brings him up, I'll talk about him, but I don't want him to feel like the baby has necessarily inserted itself into even his special time with us.

Preschool

One big thing that's happened since the last time I wrote is G started preschool, going three half-days a week. It's a fancy Montessori preschool. We just had our first parent-teacher conference, and he's doing very well! The first few weeks were a bit rough for him, since it was the first time in his life that we were dropping him off cold with a bunch of strangers. He cried when dropped off and didn't do as much work. A few weeks later he still sometimes says "I don't want to go to preschool", but the teachers report that as soon as he gets inside he goes to work and is focused for the whole time.

One of the joys of being on parental leave again is being able to pick him up from preschool. He spots me driving up and starts hollering "Daddy's here! He's here! He's here!" and runs around uncontrollably, while all the other kids largely ignore him. It's sweet and hilarious.

At school, they have a lot of different activities, but let the child lead the way on which to work on. They call it "work" because for the child, it's every bit as important as work that adults do. The teachers give lessons on how to do a particular activity, and then the child is left to work on it alone for as long as they want. When they're done, they clean it up and can move on to something else. Sometimes the child will come back to the same activity for weeks on end, and that's fine, too. They get a chance to explore it as fully as they need.

There's a full curriculum, but first year kids like our son typically spend most of their time in what are called "practical life" activities, like how to peel your own carrot and eat it, how to cut and eat a hard boiled egg, how to pour water, how to sweep and clean the floor, how to cut with scissors, and so on. Each of these activites, in addition to having a real-world application, builds various types of dexterity and exercises skills for doing multi-step tasks. I really like how it's put to use there.

He's also done some work with learning letters, the first steps towards reading. Consequently, he's been really interested at home in sounding out what words start with: "cat begins with c-c-cat" and so on. During his nap time I can hear him reciting different sounds by himself, too. It's really cool to see him have his own interest in stuff like this. I can't wait until he can read by himself a bit. He'll have so much fun.

I like that at school he gets time to really focus on one activity. Sometimes at home he does this, too. One of my favorite recent memories is after dinner one day he settled down to play with his magnets set. He spent a solid thirty minutes experimenting with building different formations with them while mommy and I watched without saying a word. He got frustrated at several points, but we didn't even say anything, and he tried different stuff and usually managed to figure out solutions. It's just really fun to watch him work. The teachers also send us little video clips of him hard at work the same way, the best proof that he's adjusted well to preschool.

"This is such a fun age!"

When I tell people how old G is, they often reply, "that's such a fun age!" I didn't really get it at first, but they're totally right. Despite how much we butt heads, he's really strongly attached to me, which is reassuring and very sweet. Plus, his personality is growing and he's found new ways to be deliberately silly. One of my favorites is doing different voices. I can ask him to say something in a robot voice, a tiny mouse voice, a surprised voice, a quiet whisper, and so on. It's hilarious hearing his interpretation of all kinds of things.

Another fun game we play is "let's talk about sounds." By which he means quizzing him on "what sound does XYZ make?" Except I'll ask him more than just animals. "What sound does our dog make when she's excited?" "What sound does a really slow train make?" "What sound does the kitchen timer make when it goes off?" "What sound do your shoes make when you run really fast?" Sometimes his answers are surprising, other times genuinely funny, other times highly accurate.

A funny and occasionally infuriating thing he does is call everything a hat. He'll put some random object on his head and say "A HAT." It's funny when it's a shoe or a robot toy or his little bike, but less so when it's his plate at dinner. Lately he's started copying us by saying "yup" and "nope" instead of "yes" and "no". And he does this thing where he relays information completely unnecessarily, when everyone involved can hear each other. A conversation might go like this:

G: Daddy, what's that thing over there?
Me: that's called a blender.
G: It's called a blender, mommy!

He started saying "need" instead of "want" in a lot of cases, which probably just reflects how much we say it ("I need you to stay still so I can change your diaper"). Instead of wanting anything, he now emphatically "needs" it. Another odd speech pattern he picked up is a sort of "optative" sentence, where he says a statement of fact that he wishes were true. "After I finish dinner, I can play with magnets." "No, I don't need my diaper changed!" "We aren't going home from the park now." We just consistently restate the sentence as something he wants to happen instead of something that will happen.

Side by side

It's a bit weird characterizing my bonding with R. When my first was born--going from having zero kids to having not-zero kids--it completely changed my life. I instantly became a dad, and it kind of inserted itself as the first bullet point in my identity. As such, I was intensely connected and attuned to my new son and felt a very close connection.

This time around, it's different. My entire lifestyle hasn't been rewritten, and in fact I already have one son who needs me, so pretty much by definition I can't devote as much attention to the younger one. I still love him and love taking care of him, but I feel like my connection to him will develop in a few months as his personality starts to emerge, rather than right now when he's basically an autonomous entity that transforms breast milk into pooping and crying. As such, this post didn't have a ton of content about the little one himself. That will come later, for sure.

It's fun and interesting witnessing the juxtaposition between the two. When I go to pick up G, he's a hefty 35-odd pounds; then I'll go pick up R and nearly launch him into space from my muscles overcorrecting. I'll go from doing an activity with G where he carefully stacks blocks or helps me change batteries in a toy with pretty good hand dexterity to R, who has such little control over his arms that they're basically two different beings glued to his sides.

That being said, the more the little one looks deeply into my eyes and seems to be memorizing every inch of my face, the more I feel that attachment grow. That spark of intelligence is already starting to emerge, and I can't wait to see what sort of little person he'll be.

I kind of felt that as a kid grows, parents trade one set of problems for another. An infant's unintelligible crying gives way to an older kid piercing your heart by saying, "daddy, it really hurts!" Worrying about whether an infant spat up so much that they didn't get enough food turns into an older kid being picky and rejecting half the things you prepare. An infant needing to be carried everywhere like a piece of luggage grows up into a kid sprinting away shockingly quickly, like wow-can-I-really-catch-him-in-time? fast.

All in all, I think the trade-up of difficulties is net-easier and certainly more rewarding and interesting. I relish my children growing up to the point I can have a conversation with them, reason with them, and do activities with them, even though it means they'll say things I wish they didn't or act out in baffling and frustrating ways at times. I've written almost three years' worth of blogs about one child, and this "starting over" means a minimum of three more years of them, doesn't it?