I think there is a small chance it is possible this is possible

Holy shit, people. There is so much I could tell you, so much to say...I wish I had the time to blog more. This summer officially will not have happened, should you ever ask me about it in the future...time is flying by so fast, I am wildly sleep deprived, and I know that I'm going to wake up next summer, see that Circus is running around in the yard and Phook can finally speak clearly and in sentences, and realize that an entire year passed in a nanosecond.

In short, we are surviving. Circus is somewhat tricky. His doctor thinks he has reflux, and based on the stains on my shirt and the howling in my ear, I'm going to have to concur. She typically does not put refluxers on meds until they are two months old. I don't know why. He howls a lot. He is generally consolable with bouncing, being worn, or being walked about in the stroller, but moments of still contentment are very few and far between with him. It feels very labor intensive and difficult to get other things done, but I think Phook may have been the same way...it was just easier to attend to those needs with only one person to consider. I have been wearing him a lot in my sling lately, and I broke down and ordered the infant insert for my posh Ergo carrier, so I suspect he will be spending the next couple months strapped to me a lot. I am, in general, cool with that, and trying not to think about the fact that he is already growing like a weed and will likely require me to find an acupuncturist, a chiropractor, a masseuse, and an affordably priced liquor store (not necessarily in that order) within the near future.

I think we've convinced Circus that he should sleep in his bassinet at night, which is a skill Phook didn't have until 5 months of age, which is when we moved her out of our bed. This took a lot of persistence, a lot of howling by all parties, one scene during which I maligned my husband outlandishly in the dead of the night, and a lot of drool while I was actually technically awake. The past few days he has been averse to napping in the bassinet, but I am not going to panic. He sleeps between 3-6 hours at a stretch at night (usually 3), and I'm considering us on a decent trajectory for sleeping. I am trying not to go wild about a daytime routine because I just don't have the strength right now. It will happen eventually, and likely we'll get it down sooner rather than later.

I am madly in love with Circus. Spending 9 months fretting about that matter of business was something of a waste of emotional energy...but I think it was unavoidable...I had to have him and hold him to know I could love another baby...no one else's reassurance would do. He is so sniffable. He is such a little old man. My mom calls him "grandpa" and it is apt. He just looks like a salty old man. And then there are these little moments where he is just content and quiet and oddly attentive, checking out this business he was born into. He isn't walking yet, like Phook could at 3 weeks (I jest, of course, but she was a physical specimen straight from birth), and actually requires head support like a normal newborn. But he is already showing some early fleeting smiley faces (Phook did not really smile until 2 months) and already cooing a bit (Phook didn't coo until like last week). So I think this is my cerebral child, whereas Phook is my toddler decathlete.

Speaking of Phook, as I mentioned casually in an earlier post or two, Phook had a very, very rough time the first couple days Circus was home. This manifested itself almost entirely as howling about every single request, event, or casual breeze. There was much throwing of herself to the floor, much throwing of objects large and small, much hitting, much crying. And also, clinging to me, particularly at inopportune times. I felt like utter shit and like this was an undoable thing we had embarked upon. I felt terrible for her because I knew wholly why she was behaving the way she was behaving, and that it was an appropriate inappropriate response for the situation. My heart wanted to cut her some slack and just let her scream and hit, because Lord knows I wanted to, but my head knew to enforce the rules. So Big K and I put our sad, angry little child in time out on multiple occasions and tried our best to give her love and toddler-friendly explanations. We are by no means out of the woods, but she has settled down about 850% in the last week or so. The most persistent behavior is the clinging, particularly when people come to visit or we are out in public and people are admiring the baby. But I can handle the clinging in those circumstances. I could not handle her grabbing my leg and howling to be picked up every time I attempted to, say, do the dishes. I found that crouching down to her eye level, asking her to be patient, and telling her I'd snuggle her in a few minutes went a long way on this front. It's weird...I am basically re-learning how to parent her in the context of a new world of priorities.

She has, from the outset, been a great helper, as I expected. She fetches diapers, wipes, blankets, my water cup, etc. I'm pretty sure I could ask her to go make a stir fry at this point and she'd do it. And there have been these incredible little moments between her and Circus that have blown my mind. One night, she had been sitting in the chair with Circus and I, and we were all snuggling. Big K told her it was time for bed, so she hopped off the chair after giving me a goodnight kiss. She started across the room, and then seemed to remember Circus. She came back, pointed to him, crawled back up and gave him a kiss on the head. I died and went to heaven in that moment...it was so spontaneous and perfect. And then there was the time she was giving high fives to everyone in the room, and came over while I was nursing him and pointed to his little hand with an "Eh?" and I told her she could give him a gentle high five, and she took her chubby little paw and ever so gingerly gave his tiny hand five. How rad is that?

And the other thing (man, each of these paragraphs could be a whole post, I'm telling you), is that all of a sudden she is a kid. The night we brought Circus home, we crept into Phook's room as is our custom, and all of a sudden there was a kid lying in the crib instead of a baby. It was like someone put her in the copy machine and blew her up to like 200% size. I felt smacked by the "duh" stick...up until that moment I truly hadn't realized she was not a baby. Hey, she was the smallest person living in my house. No wonder the youngest family member stays the "baby" forever...the parents never realize the littlest one has gotten big. She has matured so much so fast too, and is picking up multiple new words per day, which is major, major progress for this reluctant talker. She apparently got the memo that she is a big girl. I, however, was a little slow on the uptake there.

I'm not going to lie to you people, this is a hard gig. Caring for both of them and attempting to occasionally attend to things like my own toileting is one hell of a workout. And there are moments where they have both been howling and I've had to close my eyes and say over and over in my head, "The days are long...the years are short...the days are long...the years are short..." I am telling you that those words pull me through the crazy like nothing else. There was definitely some newborn phase amnesia at work for me prior to Circus' birth, because I kept thinking, "All babies do is sleep and eat." I forgot that often, they aren't sleeping when they should be, they are hungry when you just fed them, they blow poop across the room at really inopportune times, and their every single need is your responsibility. Obviously there are different challenges with a toddler, but I had come to take for granted how helpful it actually is to be able to say, "Can you get your shoes? Can you get my shoes?" and have a little person dart off and help a sister out. Phook's milk, although disturbingly pricey these days, pours real easylike from the gallon, which she gets out of the fridge herself. Circus' milk requires me cementing my ass somewhere for an extended period of time, unhooking an assortment of undergarments, juggling a toddler who views nursing time as a great opportunity to use me as a trampoline, and generally ends with Circus barfing on me. So, yeah, the whole "just sleep and eat" thing turns out to be a bit of a crock of shit when you're in the thick of it. Newborn babies are a lot of work, unless your roll of the dice turned you up an exceptionally easy one.

So, yes, this gig is mighty hard. But I think it's possible that it is possible. I've showered every day since Circus was born. That's huge right there. We've had dinner every night. The house is still standing and is not totally bogged down by dust bunnies. And that being said, I know enough to know that even those things don't matter right now. Phook was the baby that taught me I can do anything and everything. I think Circus is the baby who will teach me I don't have to.