Whoever Said...

Whoever said that having three kids was hard lied. It's a lot of fun. Having two kids- that was hard. I don't know why or how to really explain it but everyone that I have talked to said making the transition from one to two kids proved difficult and from two kids to three kids was natural. But then every single person that I know that has 4 kids says everything changes with that 4th kid. You need a bigger car, more bedrooms, blah, blah, blah. Don't get me wrong. We are not having 4 kids. Although if we had the space I wouldn't mind it.

So going back to why two kids is harder than three. I think my focus was different when I only had the girls. I felt more rushed. Oddly I should be more rushed carting around a baby but I don't. I have this weird sense of calm. Like this lingering thing has been removed from my brain but I don't know what the lingering thing was... chocolate pudding perhaps.

Now Dave on the other hand seems more stressed. He's always worried about money and sleep. I don't really worry about the money because I'm the one paying the bills and I always make sure they are paid first before anything else happens. I do this because we don't and won't rely on anyone else. Our parents don't help us financial or physically frankly because we don't ask, and none of our other family members live in this state so we don't have that occasional babysitter for a Friday night date or someone who can take one kid to karate while I cart the other one somewhere else. We do it all. All by ourselves and I'm proud of it. We are making it the best that we can. Now we don't have luxurious vacations or elaborate cars but what we do have is awesome. We have a spectacular marriage, three happy and healthy rugrats, two dogs that do drive me crazy, and a house that one day we will own outright. The other stuff will all come in due time. I keep telling Dave not to worry so much about the money- worry about the lack of sleep. Here again, I don't worry about this either. I go to sleep at 8PM. I have no idea when the girls actually fall asleep because we go to bed at the same time and I'm pretty sure I go to sleep first. Gavin sleeps all night except to feed but he's quick. He wakes up, eats, and goes right back to bed. My dream child. Dave seems like he just never gets enough sleep. His vacation should be to a hotel by himself for a week so he can come back refreshed. I don't know how he gets less sleep than me or maybe he doesn't but I think his constant BART traveling tires him out. Either way worrying gets you no where so at some point you have to just let it go. I think that's where I am at right now. A lot of things that bothered me before I have just let go. It's like I became my own Prozac.

So having the baby didn't seem to disrupt our daily routine like I though it would. He just sort of fell into place, another passenger in the car, another member on our voyage. If anything he made the girls feel so special because now Ava is a big/little sister as she puts it, and Olivia is the big sister of a brother and sister. They are so helpful with getting diapers and wipes, throwing away the old diapers, talking to the baby while I'm making dinner. I guess Gavin took the pressure off the girls and instead of focusing on competing with each other they now focus on playing with him and keeping him happy. They are both such great little helpers and awesome sisters. I feel blessed. My girls are so caring and sweet. I couldn't have asked for a better family. So whoever said having three kids is harder than two must not being doing it right.