I'm So Not Ready

This week I learned that I am not ready to parent two children. And maybe not even qualified to parent the one I have.

We had a visit this week from the Caskey family. They were in town for a couple of days so they stayed one night with us, which was super exciting mostly because I hadn't met their new daughter Sienna yet. I mean, yay for seeing college friends and everything but really -- bring on the cute babies (whom I get to hand back to the parents for fussiness and dirty diapers).

So anyway while Kelley and Jonathan were in meetings on Friday, they left their 2-year old, Kiran, with Nathan and me for the afternoon. (They took Sienna with them.) Now let me preface this by saying that Kiran is the most agreeable, sweet, gentle, obedient, easy 2-year old on the planet. (At least when you only have her for one afternoon, Kelley might tell a different story.) And even as easy as she was, I don't think I am ready to have two toddlers around.

They actually played relatively well together (fortunately for Kiran, Nathan -- or eefin as she called him -- was happy to play with whatever toys she told him to... and she definitely told him what to play with). They napped at the same time. And they ate at the same time. And they talked to each other (these are two chatterbox toddlers!) constantly. I could take them on a walk together, since Kiran was happy to actually walk next to the stroller (well, run) and she was very good about staying on the grass instead of in the street when I told her to. They both enjoyed seeing our neighbors' (Jim and Renee) new baby, Nick. Nathan called him baby and Kiran corrected him -- baby Jesus. Ummm, not so much. But it was cute.

They did fight over who got the armrest in the car (Kiran won). They argued about the dogs (when Nathan would ask "puppy?" - Kiran would say "stay outside"). Nathan spent the bulk of our time at BJ's (had to go stock up on mandarin oranges and allergy meds, don't you know) pulling Kiran's hair, while sweet agreeable Kiran (who has obviously been taught to be gentle with babies, apparently to the point of martyrdom) just cringed and asked me peez if I could get him to stop.

As you can see in the pictures (I promise I wasn't letting him pull her hair just for the sake of pictures; really I wanted them both to smile at me), Nathan has not yet learned the concept of empathy. He thought Kiran's displeasure was great fun. So, he got to ride in the back of the cart.... You know, the place that all the diagrams on the seat tell you not to put your baby. Yeah, I'm That Mom. (Notice I didn't take a picture of that scenario for posterity... haha, escaped you once again, DSS!)

I had some logistical issues getting them down for naps, before I figured out I needed to do the crib baby first, since he was used to his nap place (and being in the crib, he wasn't going anywhere anyway) and then Kiran in the big-girl bed. I was worried about her falling out (this is a stage I'm not used to yet, give me a break) so I stayed outside her door until she was good and asleep... she had some sad little whimpers for mommy and daddy and even eefin (yes, even after the hair pulling) before she settled down. But then when we went to wake her up, I apparently didn't manage two babies well at the same time, and Nathan fell off the bed (see? I told you I'm not good at the big-kid bed thing) and got another goose-egg, the second one courtesy of mommy.

And all this was on far less sleep than I am used to. Which is what happens when old friends come to town and you stay up late gabbing. But I shouldn't complain, since Kelley has a 4-month old and she got even less sleep than I did.

Anyway, all this is just to say that as enjoyable as Nathan and Kiran both are, and as much as I laughed hanging out with them all day, I just don't think I'm ready to handle more than one. They both survived, as did I, but not with flying colors (I gave them each a nutri-grain bar for their lunch appetizers since I didn't have anything ready by the time they were desperately hungry since I also forgot the morning snack... and Kiran had to remind me to put shoes on Nathan when we went for our walk... which I still didn't but whatever it wasn't that cold). And honestly, I felt torn between them all day. I don't think they minded as much as I did, and I know it's a valuable lesson to learn anyway, but still I felt bad when one of them had to wait while I took care of the other one. And holy cow I'm glad I didn't even try to work... if I hadn't taken the afternoon off I think I would have been one big ball of stress. Seeing as I'm not ready to give up on my job (especially since they let me work only part-time, and from home), this was a good thing for me to learn today.

So no one (that's mostly you, grandparents) ask me about a sibling for Nathan for at least three more years... then he'll be old enough to be in kindergarten once the gestation period/adoption process is over!