Today’s guest blogger, Moomser, is sharing her experience on the transition from having one kid, to two kids. I have to say, in the little time that I’ve had two kids, she’s right on.

I have always wanted children, ever since I was a little girl. When I got pregnant with my first, the Boy, I went through all the phases: starry-eyed delight at the news, judgmental scrutiny of others, righteous indignation at what I deemed bad parenting, breathless expectation of childbirth, total blood curdling fear of labor, completely unadulterated joy when I first saw him and on and on. When I had my first baby, I went into supermom mode. I had to be perfect, he was perfect, the husband was totally hopeless, the world could not survive if I didn’t hold it all together. It’s a miracle any of us survived. When the boy turned one, I accidentally got pregnant again. And that’s when my perfect world, or rather my perfectly optimistic control freak vision of the world, ended. Cause having one child is hard, having two children is on a whole other level, I don’t even want to contemplate those people that have three or more.

Of course, the minute I got pregnant with the girl, I knew, unequivocally, that things were never going to be the same again. First off, my first pregnancy was textbook, I was totally fine, happy, giddy as a clam, occasionally a little hormonal but generally loved, cosseted and taken care of; I never so much as carried a grocery bag, after all, that was the husband’s job, I was carrying around his legacy. My second pregnancy was spent largely facing the toilet, and running after a toddler. In hindsight, I probably should have enjoyed pregnancy number one more, because no matter how many children one births the completely magical, everyone loves me and takes care of me feeling when it’s all about me and my baby, only happens that first time around. With pregnancy number two you are most likely to be found carrying a toddler and the weeks shopping all at once, your husband blithely walking ahead of you, blackberry in hand, not a care in the world

So, to recap, when your first child is born it rocks your world. You have no clue what you’re doing, you’re bombarded by the hormones and by unsolicited and let’s be honest here, often unwanted, advice, you’re learning, constantly second guessing yourself, often crying or laughing in glee or both at the same time, but in any case your whole attention is focused almost exclusively on your little bundle of joy. When you get home from the hospital more than likely both parents spend a fair few moments staring in wonderment at the miracle they’ve wrought. So rapt are you at what you’ve done that you’d gladly have another. Or maybe that’s just me.

So when I knew I was having a second child the things that shocked me the most were the guilt and the fear. I managed to concurrently feel protective towards my first child, in view of this stranger I was bringing into our perfectly functioning family unit of three, and guilty towards the baby in my belly because I was afraid I wasn’t going to love her as much as her brother. I know that sounds completely insane. But, I knew my firstborn and I didn’t know this second baby on its way. I constantly wondered how I could possibly love another human being as much as my son because I loved him so much, there was no room left in my heart.

But then the girl was born, and evidently my heart got bigger cause there was room there for her too.

I then managed to reach whole new levels of guilt, you see, I may not be catholic but I stem from a long-line of catholics so I’m genetically predisposed to Olympic levels of guilt. I managed to concurrently feel guilty towards my first child for taking attention away from him and guilty towards the baby who never got a moment of undivided attention to herself. Though the husband managed to put it all into perspective for me, he said, sure the Boy had all of our love and attention to himself for a while, and the Girl doesn’t and never will, but she’s got him and he’s got her now, that’s a whole lot of extra love for each of them. That’s a nice thought isn’t it?

Another thing, and this is certainly not earth shattering news, but it came as a complete surprise to me, the two kids were completely different. I mean, when you have one child you assume that’s how your children are, I distinctly remember saying to the husband, “we make such easy babies”… yeah, not so much. Baby number two was so completely different from baby number one you’d think it was the universe’s way of having a nice laugh at my expense. Not that she was hard, she was just different, she was herself

So to end this long and rambling post, if I can presume to leave you with a piece of advice, I’d say that a healthy dose of adaptability, an open mind and a well developed sense of irony are probably the best weapons to survive having more than one child with a modicum of sanity. And I heartily suggest to anyone who has zero to one children at the moment to take up running, because I can guarantee that at some point in your future, if you decide to have a second child you will find yourself somewhere, the street, the grocery store, a crowded airport, and one of your kids will run in one direction while the other runs in exactly the opposite direction and you’ll have to catch them both.

Having one baby is hard because it’s all new and you’re constantly learning, having two babies is harder tenfold because you think you’ve got it all down and then you realize that you actually don’t really know a thing. But that’s ok, none of us do.

Moomser is an Italian-Brazilian raised in Texas who somehow ended up living in rural Italy. She writes about her life as an expat or possibly an “inpat”, she gets confused sometimes, she’s married, has two kids, and loves the written word, bad puns and good grammar. She’ll bore or captivate you with all manner of inanities about love, life, cooking and babies and whatever else she happens to be thinking at any given moment. 

You can go visit her blog here, tweet with her here, or befriend her on facebook here and here  (you can also find her wasting time on stumbleupon and pinterest).

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Tagged as: guest blogging, moomser, parenting two kids, raising two kids