Growing Pains

Bringing a new baby into the fold is, of course, an adjustment. Adjusting to nursing again. Adjusting to getting your sleep in 1-3 hour chunks. Adjusting to not getting nearly enough sleep. Adjusting to not getting to eat, shower, use the restroom or do anything else on your own schedule.

But when there is already a baby, well, that complicates things further. Jocelyn is going through the most profound adjustment of anybody. Sure, she's very advanced for her age, and she comprehends a whole lot. But, at not quite 20 months old, she is still very much a baby herself. This is frustrating for her - she went from center of the world to feeling like yesterday's news. Of course we try to tell her and show her that we still lover her just as much as we always have, but it's hard for a baby to understand it. And, as a result, Mike and I are having to venture into uncharted parenting territory (for us... obviously people have second kids all the time).

We may have done us all a disservice by having so much help right out of the gate with Donovan. We had my mother in law here - she flew in the day I went into the hospital - so Jocelyn had somebody to distract her for the first 3 weeks that Donovan was around. Then my sister in law was here for a long weekend in there, who was basically Jocelyn's BFF during that time. Then we had a few days before Grandpa came along for a weekend. So we have delayed the big swell of anger, or maybe just stretched it out. This past weekend was our first as a family. It was unpleasant, to put it mildly.

When we first introduced Jocelyn to Donovan we were at the hospital. So she noticed him, and paid enough attention to him that we knew that she 'got' that he was important. But since we were in a new place she had lots of other stuff to explore. Thus, she didn't really care much about him. He did give her an Elmo doll, so that made her happy, but I'm not sure that she really connects the two of them (which is too bad, because she LOVES Elmo).

Once Donovan came home, it was clear that Jocelyn was displeased. She clearly loved *him*. It was *me* who she blamed (and still blames). She ignored me for the first two weeks. She would eventually come around if, say, Donovan was with somebody else. Her tantrum frequency increased to probably 2-3 per day. But she was also sick, and her schedule was all wacky (some days at daycare, some days at home, and lots of movement at daycare on top of it), so who knows if it was all due to him or if there were other factors. She was on a course of oral antibiotics, which gave her tummy troubles, and as soon as they were over she was sick again. When that didn't go away we went back to the doctor to discover she had a double ear infection! So then she needed a round of anti-biotic shots. So it was a rough go for her even without her baby brother.

Eventually she warmed back up to me, but then Grandma left. I think that this goodbye to Grandma was worse than the last, because she is that much older and able to comprehend (last time she didn't ask about Grandma.. now she points to the chair, the bedroom, etc. and says "Manga?" It's heartbreaking). Adding injury to insult, that was the week of the antibiotic shots. I also had to droop her off two mornings that week as well due to Mike's schedule. So more off routine, more tummy woes from more antibiotics, and this time with needles!

The Wednesday of that week daycare called me to say that they were out of clothes - Jocelyn pooped through everything. So I brought more up to daycare, but I saw that Jocelyn was sad, so I brought her home. That was a BIG mistake. When we got home I needed to nurse Donovan. That launched a HUGE temper tantrum. She was kicking, punching, trying to steal the Boppy pillow, trying to climb up me and push Donovan away. She was screaming and crying, that made it hard for him to stay latched on and eat, but he was hungry so he started crying. Eventually I started crying. Luckily for me Mike was on his way home (he left work when I told him I'd be home with two babies). The position we settled on was Donovan nursing on my left side and Jocelyn cuddled up on my right. They both fell asleep - Donovan from nursing, Jocelyn from crying her head off. So Mike got home to find me underneath two sleepy babies. Sure, it was cute once they were asleep. But it was TOUGH until we got there!

The new thing is that she is SUPER clingy with Mike when they get home in the evening. He can't even go to the bathroom without hr falling into hysterics. And she wants nothing to do with me (forget Donovan). It doesn't matter if he is nursing or napping, I'm public enemy #1. Oh, and Mike is not allowed anywhere near Donovan. If he cries, Jocelyn yells "Mommy" and points to him. Yeah, it's my job to take care of Donovan. Daddy is her parent. We usually have 3-4 tantrums leading up to dinner (which is within 30 minutes of their arrival home). During that time she warms up to me some. After we eat Mike always tries to hold Donovan - partly because he wants to hold him, partly because I want to spend some time with Jocelyn, and partly because we need Jocelyn to learn that Mike needs to hold the baby sometimes. Last night it didn't go well at all, the tantrum was too much to bear.

Tonight, however, went better. I am starting to learn an effective 'ignore' technique. It's not enough to simply ignore the tantrum, she will follow you around and climb on you. But you ignore and engage in an activity she wants to do (start working a puzzle, start reading one of her books) and she gets distracted from the tantrum and engaged in the activity. I got her distracted and willing to play with me, and Mike got to hold Donovan. Eventually we were all on the couch and we were all cuddling together. Of course, at that point she realized that she didn't want to be wearing footie pajamas, but rather footless pajamas and socks (specifically the socks she had on all day, which she threw a tantrum about taking off at bath time, and which we promised she could wear when we got out of the bath but then we all forgot about... until she remembered). Good thing I was able to figure it out relatively quickly and fix it before she totally melted down.

Anyway, this has been rambly. Partly because I'm really sleep deprived, and partly because I have started and stopped writing it more times than I remember. But I did want to capture it. I want to remember the impact this had on Jocelyn. I want her to know that it was hard for her, and that we did our best to make it easy for her and knew how hard it was for her. It makes us sad when she has tantrums, we don't want to see her so angry. But also, we wanted to remember this for the dating years, as it can be spun into a pretty embarrassing set of stories :-).