Loving More Than One

Loving my daughter for the four years and three and a half months before my son was born was so naturally easy. I had every moment available to me to love her. Even while pregnant all my attention was tuned to her. The pregnancy took care of itself. Once baby was born, I got hit fast with the reality of new mothers to a second child: THE LOVE GETS DIVIDED UP.  Now you suddenly have a larger capacity to love more than one child at a time. But it's not easy. Your heart just doesn't divide into separate pieces, each child getting one piece. No. Your heart gets larger but you're still dealing with the same amount of time. You love more than one child but you don't get more time. Wouldn't it be nice to freeze time so that the child that has to be alone while you're giving love to the other doesn't have to feel that aloneness. I read a book about feelings to my daughter tonight, And we got to the page about loneliness, I asked her if she ever feels lonely. She said when the baby cries she feels lonely because I have to go tend to him. That's the hard part! I love every moment I spend with each of them. The time I am with one is time away I am with the other one, and vice versa. Only when my son is sleeping, that familiar ease of loving my daughter comes back.  When he is awake, I have the dual love machine on full blast.  Loving two children at once is fiercely satisfying and fully engaging. My heart is pounding with love, about to break at the seams.  Wow, it's powerful, that heart is. I can love my daughter so much and love my son so much, just like I thought I could only love my daughter. Now I am giving the tremendous love to two children., I am feeling the tremendous love towards my two children. What I felt for my daughter when she was my only child, I feel for both her and my son. Double love. Simultaneous love from one heart and one mom for two children. My heart has no limits with these two. It doubled in size and doubled in value. It's a phenomenon. How does that happen? How does that work? It was a spontaneous doubling of my heart the moment I heard my son's first cry from the womb. I hadn't even met him, yet it was instant love. How does that work? And to love my daughter and my son equally, unconditionally, and uncontrollably is the greatest pride and joy for me. As hard as it is to wrap that love around them without denying them anything or any love, it is so easy because the heart is the most capable thing we know.

The Patience Factor

They say you have loads of patience when you're an older mom. I don't completely buy that.  You don't just acquire an inherent personality characteristic merely because you've reached a ripened age. You are either a patient person or you're not. Period. It doesn't matter what your age is. O.K., this is totally my opinion. But I'm sticking to my opinion for two reasons: 1.) because I happen to agree with my opinion, and 2.) this is my blog so I get to write how I feel.  As it turns out, I do happen to be a somewhat patient person...for certain things, that is. I am patient to let things happen, such as grass growing and water boiling. I can stand in line and I can wait my turn. But it turns out that I am thin on patience when my baby is crying at the same time my daughter is singing at the top of her lungs when it's past her bedtime. Such are these trying moments lately that I find my patience being tested. One child's woes are easy enough to deal with. Two children's woes at the same time require the kind of patience that only nuns or pre-school teachers possess. Mothers on the verge of a nervous breakdown sounds all too familiar. And I wonder how women with more than two children do it. Especially when they are close together in age. What's my excuse? Mine are nearly four and a half months apart. These blogs are not intended to be complaint or gripe sessions. I am merely writing out my realization that all-on motherhood is all encompassing. It is a test of our integrity. It defines us, finds out who we really are and what we're really made of. The other night, I juggled a crying baby, then switched to nursing, helped my daughter with her homework, fixed dinner, straightened up, fed the cat, all around the same time. It was like taking multitasking to the next level. I felt I could do anything. Oh, these blogs aren't bragging sessions either. There is nothing to brag about. I am just writing about things that are new to me, then sharing it.  In conclusion, I put myself at about a 6 for patience on a scale from one to ten.  So far, two months and one week into being a mother to two in my later forties, I have found that patience is something I need to count on and turn to every mothering second. 

Welcome Back!

Hi anyone who is reading this. You might have seen last year's blog entitled, Having Babies in Your 40's. I decided to keep writing because now that the babies are actually born, a whole new dimension takes over that can't be ignored...being a new mommy in your forties.  O.K. I had practice with the birth of my daughter four and a half years ago when I was 42. Now, four and a half years later, I am once again a new mommy, having turned the ripe old age of 47, just six weeks after child numero dos came out. What, am I mad? What possessed me to do this again when it was already exhausting four years ago? Did I honestly think it was going to be easier, being four years older, with double the load of two children? I must be mad. I must love to make my life hard. It must have started that time in the woods when I thought going through the 10-foot wide pit of mud was easier than walking around it. I want to make things harder for myself and I am dumb. Oh great, what a revelation to realize when my life is already half way over (well, maybe not, if I inherited my grandfathers' genes...both lived well into their nineties).  Still making silly errors at my age? Why not? I have nothing better to do.

O.k., o.k., I better stop. My 2-month old babe is asleep nestled on my chest here as I write. He might hear my typed words. He is simply adorable. Of course, every mother says that about her baby, so it just has to be said, once or twice. Maybe a few times. But no more than that. Kick me if I keep saying it. But I count my lucky stars for conceiving, staying pregnant with no complications, having a healthy, full-term baby, all at the age of 46. I count my lucky stars for my son.  I still can't believe it and I am pinching myself everyday. In fact, I am walking around in a confused state of awe wondering how this could have happened to me, someone who never even won anything, except for a cake one time at the cake walk game at my elementary school's annual fund drive. I am utterly in love with this child, who made me a mom again at age 46 now 47, who made his daddy a daddy to a boy baby (he said he wanted another daughter, but I saw the look on his face in the delivery room when the doctor exclaimed, "It's a boy!"), and who made my funny daughter a big sister at age four and a half.