Joseph Beausoleil. He was born Monday, November 17, 2008, exactly one day before his “due” date. My entire labor took less than 4 hours - fast and furious - we barely made it to the birth center in time! I’m happy to report that we are all healthy and doing well.

However, sorry for the late announcement, but this whole two-kids-thing is really kicking my butt! I thought I had this parenting thing down but I’ve been thrown a curve ball. Don’t get me wrong: my panic is still, for the most part, interspersed with moments of total bliss.

Baby Joseph (or, as we like to call him, “Joe-Beau”) is an absolute dream. He’s super easy-going and just as sweet as can be. His big brother, John, is just as sweet as can be too, always wanting to hold, kiss, and hug the baby. When the baby cries (which is rare), he rushes to comfort him. John doesn’t seem resentful or jealous towards the baby at all, which is such a relief.

John does get mad at me, however, and has been on a major emotional roller coaster: one minute, he’s his usual, laughing, clowning around self, the next in a puddle of gut-wrenching sobs of despair. Confused by these new feelings of sadness, he would come up to me and ask “what is happening to me, Mommy?” which, given my own plummeting hormones from having just given birth, would leave me bawling too, and wondering, what did I do to my beautifully happy child??

I’ve also had to revise my adamant philosophy to never let a baby/child cry it out, as I’ve only got two hands and it’s inevitable that both boys are sometimes going to need me at the same time. My boyfriend has been absolutely wonderful, stepping up 110%, but he’s still got to work during the day, and some hurts just require a mama’s touch. This has been a hard adjustment, trying to strike a balance between getting everyone’s needs met.

Sleeping has been another issue. I know this is almost universal, but we never had problems with my first baby (when it was just one, that is), but this time around, the sleeping arrangement is having a hard time working itself out. First, that whole sleep-when-the-baby-sleeps thing just doesn’t work when you’ve got a toddler to take care of. Then, Joe-Beau has been having some alert time in the middle of the night where he makes these adorable little cooing sounds. However, this was waking my older one up who would then cry and demand for “boob”, which would then set the baby off and, well, the whole tandem nursing thing has been awkward at best…. This has made for some pretty crazy-making nights.

So, I’ve been putting John to bed in another room (which he has, surprisingly, taken to quite well), and my boyfriend’s been sleeping on the couch since he knows that’s the only way he’ll get any sleep these days! So, for much of the night, it’s just me and the baby and one great, big, gigantic, king-sized bed. Sigh.

Things are getting easier by the day, however; the first two weeks were the hardest, but I do see us all slowly adjusting and am confident that we will soon hit our stride.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 5:08 pm by admin and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.