What are the best three words I could use to describe how my maternity leave has gone this time around?
Busy. Busy. Busy.
I remember feeling like I was constantly bored during my maternity leave with the Mouse. Like, I had to think of things to do every day, to keep myself occupied … and that’s even with me buying a new home, packing our town home, and then unpacking into said new home during my maternity leave. I remember telling myself during the Froggy’s pregnancy, that I was NOT going to hibernate in my house this time around … that I was going to get out and so stuff! I was going to work on projects around the house, darnit. I was going to be productive.
This time around? I feel like I never stop moving. From the day we left the hospital until now … I feel like I have had very few days in the past five and a half weeks to just chill with my new baby. Between family coming to visit, relatives and friends stopping by to meet the Froggy, running the Mouse back and forth to daycare, doctor appointments, birthdays … I mean, really, I’m exhausted. Not that we haven’t had a blast … it’s been great getting to see family, and spend the extra time with my kiddos, but I feel like very little of it has been just ‘being’ with them … it’s been more ‘today we’re going here’ and ‘tomorrow we have to go do this’. And the sad thing is, I have SO many more things that I wanted to do with them that we haven’t gotten to do, and probably won’t … playdates, trips to the park, Legoland … the list goes on and on.
That being said, we’ve had lot’s of nice moments.
The Mouse and the Froggy with one of their cousins 
The Froggy (5 weeks) and another cousin (8 weeks)!
Things change a LOT with the second kiddo. You suddenly realize how you only THOUGHT you didn’t have any free time when you had one baby. Now that you have two, you REALLY don’t. I get the mommy-guilt twinge when my first born is sitting on the floor of the living room and says, ‘play with me mom?…’ and I have to say that I can’t right now, I’m feeding baby brother … or, mommy can’t right now, she’s trying to catch a 10 minute nap before the baby wakes up, do you want to watch Dora?
On the flip side, I always heard that when you have to pick between the two, always tend to the toddler, because he’ll remember … the infant won’t. Because of this, I feel like the Froggy gets the shaft all.the.time. The Mouse never had to cry more than a few seconds before we tended to him … fixing whatever slight thing might be annoying him in that moment. Not so much with the Froggy … and the worse part is, for the most part, it doesn’t even bother me. I can remember feeling like I wanted to rip my hair out when I had to listen to my baby (the Mouse) cry in the car seat and I couldn’t comfort him. The Froggy crying in the car seat? It doesn’t bother me in the least. Mother of the year, right here folks.
It’s okay though. If I had wanted my life to stay simple I wouldn’t have had a second child. My friend Jill over at Baby Rabies said it best the other day in a recent blog of hers:
I may remember life before (him), but I can’t imagine it without (him).
Mothers of more than one, is that not the best quote ever?? And continuing:
And though I may not be able to devote 100% of my time to her, like I did with (the first), I give her 100% of my heart… all the while simultaneously giving (the first) 100% of my heart. The heart is fucking awesome like that.
And just to reiterate my point, I’ll leave you with some ‘one month photos’ of the Froggy taken at 5 weeks, lol. Looking back at them years from now, I won’t remember that it took me a week to get up off my butt and take them, right?
And one more of the Mouse … because the twinge kicked in again 
