Coping with Trouble

It's been a while since Harried Mum has checked in.  I have been learning to cope with Trouble and Lunatic Child.  I am tired.  My house is covered in jam and sand.  But the children are fed and mostly clothed and in varying states of cleanliness.  I am doing the best I can. 

To be honest, it's mostly been fairly manageable, except for when it totally isn't. 

One example.  When Trouble was quite tiny and new, he was still horking up phlegm from his lungs.  It was disgusting, and he wasn't doing it very well.  He would choke and gasp and arch his back and it was quite alarming.  So one afternoon, Trouble has one of those explosive baby poos that goes everywhere.  I take Lunatic Child and Trouble upstairs so I can change Trouble.  As I lie him down on the changing mat, he vomits copiously and starts horking up phlegm.  I have to pick him up, covered in poo and vomit and try to comfort him while he's choking and gasping and wailing.  I am covered in poo and vomit.  My youngest child is in major distress.  Meanwhile, Lunatic Child has wandered back downstairs (rookie error - Always Close the Stair Gate) and I can hear him thundering around downstairs shrieking and yelling "kitteh"!! at the top of his lungs.  This almost always means he is doing unspeakable things to the cat, who is too stupid to get herself out of the way.  For all I knew, he could have been lighting her on fire, or stabbing her with knives.

So that wasn't my greatest moment in parenting.

But most of the time, we muddle along through the day until Fun Daddy gets home, whereupon we each demur to the other, "No, really.  You can bathe Lunatic Child tonight", because as everybody knows, babies are cake compared to a toddler.  You don't realise this until you've been through a baby stage and have a toddler on hand to compare. 

Or perhaps it's that Lunatic Child and Trouble appear to have very different personalities.  Frankly, Trouble has been anything but, aside from the odd Exorcist Vomit and Exploda-poo.  He's a very sweet tempered baby and is ridiculously easy to read.  He cries because he's hungry, has done an Exploda-poo, has a bit of gas or is tired.  He's giving me up to 6 hours a stretch at night.  6 hours!!!  Lunatic Child didn't do that until 7 months as I recall.  I am wishing that Trouble would go down earlier at night (he's still hanging out til around 11 before I can really get him down for the night) but, when you're sleeping from 11 til 5 with a newborn, you'll take it...

My biggest complaint about Trouble is that he does NOT like to be put down to sleep.  I will rock him to sleep and wait and wait and wait, until I am sure that he is completely passed out.  I will set him down as gently as a feather and INSTANTLY his eyes pop open and he gives me this reproachful look, like "how could you even THINK about doing that to me", and then starts fussing.  Argh.  As a consequence, he's spent a lot of time in the baby bjorn.  I have been forced into attachment parenting with this one.  Lunatic Child was never particularly snuggly and wanted to be put down to sleep almost from the beginning.  Trouble is happiest sleeping on your chest.

Anyway, speaking of sleep.  Lunatic Child is conspicuously not napping.  We get that a lot these days.  My track record on getting both children down for a nap at the same time is approximately 1 for 1000.  I'd better go check him, as it's likely he's done his own enormous poo.  He specialises in what we like to call the "Crap Nap", per my neighbour.  You put him down. He goes quiet.  You think all is well.  Then he starts up again, singing and talking to himself. You go upstairs to check and are nearly gassed to death when you open his bedroom door.  Result.  No nap.

So toodles, noodles.  Until next time.