Yep, We Did This On Purpose
And I need more wine.
LOTS more wine.
Believe it or not, Nathan and I very intentionally chose to have our babies as close in age as possible. He and I have a goal in mind to move the four of us onto a sailboat once our high schooler graduates from his early college high school and gets established, and we thought that having Orson and Nova close in age would make them super close…built-in best friends. We knew it would be hard.
It didn’t hurt that Orson was a super easy baby. He lulled us into a false sense of security of what capable parents we were. Of course we can give him a baby sibling! We’re good at this, Orson deserves the best! Enter Nova. We. Knew. Nothing.
She gave us 5 months of colic, while managing a teenager and a toddler. She’s never been a good sleeper, even at 15 months old. But, Lord, being her mama is one of the greatest privileges of my entire life. She’s a spitfire and full of joy and emotion and passion. She feels everything deeply, and I know I will learn so much from her.
The Threshold
That being said…UGHHHH. Orson has full-on crossed the 2 year old threshold. My sweet, easy baby boy has transformed into an irrational bear:
“I want that”
“Okay, here”
“Noooo! *screaming, crying, rage*”
“Okay, I’ll take it away”
“WHAT?! That’s even worse!!!”
They hit each other daily and try to out-shriek one another. Like, set off all of the neighborhood dogs, make your soul bleed out of your ears, unparalleled lung-capacity, banshee war cries that make my skin want to peel itself off of my body.
Admittedly, misophonia is a pretty significant trigger for me as a parent who is trying to be self-aware and gentle…and those screams send me to a dark, dark place. Just use your freaking inside voice, kids, before Mama has to justify an extra bottle of wine this week.
A Solution (for now)
While writing this, Nathan is having Orson “help” cook dinner. Orson recently hit a wall with food; super-selective, picky, refusals of dinner, even of meals he’s eaten and LIKED countless times. Magic bullet with him (at least for right now)? He cooks with Papa, and it has gotten him eating dinner with us again, thank God.
He has a toddler-safe ladder that he mounts to take on his sous chef role with gusto…only problem now? Nova is trying to learn how to climb, and she’s getting very interested in helping as well. Orson, I guess, is feeling territorial about his assisting duties and is frequently lashing out tonight, pushing and slapping and shrieking…
And just generally making us feel like we want to pull our hair out…
We’re Going to Need More Wine
I guess we are all learning, stretching, growing. As parents, we’re really no exception. I strive to parent with humility and to apologize to my children when I’ve acted out of dysregulation, like after raising my voice at Orson to “Just stop hitting!” instead of taking the time to redirect and remind and discipline through instruction and patience. I will tomorrow. After I’ve had more wine.