I have a few friends that are all sorts of knocked up right now, both on the intarwebs and in real life. These ladies are adding a second child to their family, and this weekend there was a virtual baby shower to celebrate their joy.

My, my, my. I missed the deadline to win any cool prizes, but the idea intrigued me. I remember when Funk was born, I thought to myself, “why on earth didn’t someone warn me?” But the truth is, they probably did. And I just flat didn’t listen.

I struggled with PPD with my second, and I don’t think i really saw her for a few weeks. I held her and rocked her, nursed her and burped her (once I remembered this was necessary,) but I didn’t really feel connected. And then there we were, in the emergency room. She was gasping for breath. She was hospitalized with RSV for three days. And we had plenty of alone time. We bonded, but I sank into a deep funk for months. (Get it, a Funk?!? heh heh.) When I emerged, I was then sad that I had missed so much.

What would I tell me, 2+ years ago? Two kids under 2?

“Dude. Relax.“

I was so worried about everyone’s feelings (except my own,) everyone’s needs (except my own,) and everyone’s access to me (except my own) that I lost myself and the moment entirely. Having two kids is really hard. It is, and I won’t sugar coat it. Those first months are a blur. But as baby gas turned to true smiles, and babbling turned to “mamamamamama,” it all came together exactly as I hoped. My children are inseparable, if sometimes atrocious to each other. The chaos is manageable most of the time. And I have more than enough love to share.

When my son was a baby learning to walk, he never hit the floor. He never fell down. Someone was always there to catch him. We were always “on point.” As such, he was an incredibly clumsy little thing until we built in some falling-down time for him (tumbling class.) With Two, you can’t catch everyone all the time, and Funk has really benefited from that. She’s independent and much more physically capable. Her language skills are awesome, partially because she has a live-in peer tutor, and partially because speaking up was necessary for her in a way it never was for Noise.

I don’t have enough time or hands to be there waiting to catch them. Luckily, this means they will learn to catch themselves, or at the very least take a lump and move on. I can’t spend the time trying to read their minds or predict their needs. This means that they need to communicate their needs and feelings. These are excellent skills for the adults they will become.

All the things I fretted about in the night, as my belly grew, have mostly faded away. Back then, I worried about my job, and how it would work with my expanding family. It didn’t work. I moved on to a different job. I don’t regret this, but I didn’t see it as an option until #2 came along. I worried about my marriage. It was really hard that first year, and our relationship changed. But it’s even stronger now. I worried about my body. Yeah, number 2 didn’t help, but #1 had already done the damage. I worried about the labor. Thanks to the damage from aforementioned number 1, number 2 shot out like a sneeze.

I didn’t worry about myself. And it’s the one thing I really should have paid closer attention to, because I was a hot mess for a while there.

Number two? He/she’s going to be just fine. Once I was fretting about how I wouldn’t really get to focus on #2 like I did with #1, a good friend once told me, “your first child lives in an adult’s world. But your second child is so lucky– she gets to live in a child’s world.” You can’t give #2 that attention. But you gave her something even better– a sibling.