Everything changes when you have a kid. This is not news - everyone we knew with children told us this before Jamie was born, and it doesn't take a quantum physicist to understand why. New priorities, new hours, new sacrifices, all the stereotypical stuff.
However, as we charge into the final weeks before Baby #2's supposed due date, I am struck by how, much like before Jamie was born, everything in our lives seems at peace, in equilibrium. We have our routines -- we know who is doing what and when, and there is comfort in knowing that everything is taken care of.
Right now there is normalcy, which puts my frame of mind right back where we were P.J. (pre-Jamie) -- clinging desperately to the present and wondering how in the world we'll survive the coming changes.
One was hard? Fuck you - two looks hard. All the effort required by a newborn, with the added bonus of a two-year old who is going to lose his shit for 15 minutes if you don't play Cat Stevens' "Moonshadow" on the Apple TV IMMEDIATELY.
Plus, there's no mystery anymore. We know what's coming, and I'm convinced it's worse knowing our fate than not knowing before Jamie arrived.
In no particular order, the things I'm least looking forward to:
1 - Irregular sleep. No one likes the lack of sleep early parenthood requires, but it's not so much the tiredness or irritability that bothers me. It's that very, very specific sensation of closing your eyes, blinking, and being told that 2-3 hours have passed and it's time to feed the baby again. There is nothing quite like it, like the world is playing a practical joke on you.
My dad has often told the story of the time early in my parents' marriage when my mom came home from school in the afternoon and laid down to take a nap. While she slept, my dad proceeded to change the times on all the clocks, then woke her up to say it was time for her to get up and make dinner, which she proceeded to do, even though it was like 2:30 in the afternoon. Pretty solid prank to be honest, and one I imagine would be way more difficult to pull off today. Yet that's what I think back to every time this happened with Jamie -- that only a minute or two had passed, and my dad was somewhere in the house controlling blackout shades and with some app that allows him to remotely control all the digital clocks on the premises.
I kid of course about this scenario. I know it's not the reality, plus my father is roughly as handy with his phone as the fetus in Hilary's womb. He's one of America's leaders in Jewish culture, education, and pocket dials.
2 - Cleaning bottles. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck cleaning bottles. It's not just that they have to be cleaned every night (though again - fuuuuuuuuuuuuck), it's that my definition of clean is diametrically opposite Hilary's. Palestinians and Israelis are closer to defining the terms of a viable two-state solution than Hilary and I are to agreeing at which point a used bottle becomes clean.
My definition: Rinse with soap and water. Finis.
Her definition: Purchase all-new cleaning supplies. Sterilize entire kitchen. Purify self in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. Put on full-body hazmat suit. Shrink self Innerspace-style to fit within interior of bottles. Rigorously cover every square millimeter with NASA-grade disinfectant. Repeat process thricely.
Oh, do I exaggerate? Whose side are you on anyway?
I do not look forward to cleaning bottles.
3 - Jamie. As if to prove how myopic every parent is in regards to their family, I'm quite certain that no set of parents has ever so lavishly heaped attention on a child as we have Jamie. He already hates it when I wake him up in the morning instead of Hilary, so he is in for a rude awakening when his brother gets here.
I am hopeful he will adjust well to a new sibling, and in truth our friends' eldest children all seem to be adjusting pretty well. But, as I say, surely they all did a better job avoiding spoiling them.
We spend a lot of time talking about whether or not Jamie understands what is happening. He's super verbal (like his old man), so he talks about baby brother, but as far as I know, baby brother makes as much sense to him as a concept as a sensible 401K plan.
Yes, change is in store for us, and no matter how often we've dealt with change in the past and survived, it still feels like this time will be different. I guess we'll find out one way or the other soon enough.
