He has arrived. Milo Robert Mayotte joined the world and we have officially become a family of five. Update: this actually happened three months ago but in true New Mom Shear Exhaustion form, this blog sat here waiting to be edited and published while I learned how to manage our new level of chaos. So bear with me as I walk through some of our trials and tribulations over the last three months.
For just over a month, we had three children under the age of three, and let me tell you… it is just as you would think: CHAOTIC AF. I can’t remember who gave me this advice, but before Milo was born, I was told “you have to realize that at least one kid will always be crying or needing you for something, and it just is what it is.” TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER SPOKEN. There is only one mommy and only one daddy, and tiny humans that are used to getting at least one of you to pay attention to them. The first week home with Milo, I think I cried every night. Mostly because the almost three year old, Zoe, was having a rough go, tantruming constantly, crying and whining constantly, having multiple accidents every single day, and I was lucky to get 60-90 minute spurts of sleep at a time. And the 1.5 year old, Layla, was still waking up every day (for. the. day.) at 4:30am, just as she has ever since I can remember, and randomly decided she no longer liked going to bed at night without a fuss, as she has always loved to do. Meaning she screamed. For like 30 minutes a night. For weeks.
I think the first week home was the week I officially turned into my mother. No BS, no more empty threats. You want to test me, kid? You’ll pay the price. Let me tell you, the girls understood that I meant business. One night, Zoe was being a pain finishing up her bedtime routine, refusing to sit on the potty. So she got a direct ticket to her room, complete *without* getting her nightly drink of water and her M&M for doing her business on the toilet, and *without* her hug and kiss and mommy fixing her blankets. As a matter of fact, the next morning she also got a direct ticket to her room to whine and cry about whatever she was tantruming about during breakfast in her room instead of in my face. And she learned that she would continue to get a direct ticket to her room whenever she fought me, tantrumed, or refused to stop whining. We had a few good weeks in a row, minus one horrible school pick-up where she actually asked me to turn the car around and go back to school, so she could apologize to her teacher… because she knew she was going straight to her room when we got home. Mom win! But… just as I was about to <initially> publish this post – back we were to the crazy “threenager” behavior. Because of Zoe’s heart condition, we are lucky to have access to a psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital to check on her behavior and development, so that is the first place I went for some reinforcement that this behavior is totally normal. Read that again. Crazy toddler behavior is NORMAL. So we just need to learn how to best manage it. The psychologist recommended we start instituting “Special Time” at the end of the day if she follows her evening routine with good listening. She gets to pick the special activity with either mommy or daddy (or both) with a timer set for 5-10 minutes and when that timer goes off she goes to bed without a fuss. After a couple of months, we are doing pretty well. I think the key is consistency. Consistency in routine, consistency in consequences, and consistency in rewards. Zoe thrives on her daily routine, and she has been loving getting to pick her “special time.” We have done everything from playing with her dolls and doll house, to playing a new board game, to FaceTime with her new cousin and even as much as an evening boat ride. Having her time taken away for poor behavior one day usually results in an extremely successful following day so I have to give props to whoever discovered this. She’s been a significantly easier person to deal with at bedtime with her structured routine and reward for accomplishing it.
Even with all the structure in the world, though, a family with three tiny humans can expect it will not always go as well as they’d like. Read: 1.5 year old still waking up at 4:30AM, for the day, every day. And 3 year old now waking at 5am to go potty and refusing to go back into her room until the wake up light says its time to wake up, which is the rule in this house. My mantra has been “embrace the tornado.” That is truly what this family is right now, and we have come to terms with it. I have learned to try to go with the flow a little more. Dinner takes 20 minutes longer because the girls have to wait for seconds because mommy is feeding the baby…we will survive. Late bedtime because both girls now have to get dressed with no help at all and it takes FOR.EVER… we will survive. Baby is screaming because he can’t stand a wet or poopy diaper for even one minute and I’m busy getting the girls out of the tub… we will survive! Layla gets to use a pacifier in the morning (even though we phased out the pacifier at 4 months old) in order to not wake up the entire house… WE WILL SURVIVE! This can feel brutal sometimes, but it certainly won’t last forever, and there are so many fun stages to watch with all three kids right now. We have the support system in place for little breaks when we need them, and I think at kid number three I’ve gotten a little better at requesting help from my hubby when I need it, and it makes a huge difference in my sanity.
Ask me again how sane I am in two weeks when I am back to working 40 hours a week at my day job and still needing to feed, bathe, clothe, and love on three tiny humans 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on top of wanting to take care of myself physically with my morning exercise routine. Did I mention the need to do at least 1-2 loads of laundry daily in order to keep up with the mountain we produce, or the constant clothes changeover from sizes and seasons, or the constant need to go grocery shopping?
EMBRACE. THE. TORNADO. (and the lack of sleep).
Oh, and a huge thanks to our awesome friends that still want to hang out with this cyclone.
