My babies. My beautiful baby girls.
I knew I had always wanted to be a mother. And early in our marriage, I thought I had wanted four children. (It's okay. You can laugh at that last sentence.) But even deciding the time was right for ONE was hard enough. In those early years, it was easy to find an excuse NOT to start a family, but it soon became apparent that there would never be that “perfect” time and the excuses would always be there. One never knew how long it would take or what difficulties one might encounter when it came to conception, etc. That reality was beginning to set in.
So, we decided it was finally time. After a relatively uneventful and easy pregnancy, Kamryn arrived. She melted our hearts like you wouldn’t believe. She was perfect. That tiny little nugget. With a set of lungs. She’s quiet now, but she definitely started my path down the road to hearing loss.
She was “colicky”. Every night, sometime between 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm, she would scream at the top of her lungs for what seemed like an hour. Nothing really seemed to soothe her except a back and forth swinging motion that "mommy did best". At least the “baby weight” disappeared quickly. Fortunately, the screaming started to fade, too, around 6 months.
She also wasn’t the best sleeper either. Rarely making it more than 4 hours at a time until she was 9 months old. I was a zombie. A hard of hearing zombie. That walk…that zombie walk. (No wonder I ended up really liking The Walking Dead – I could relate!). I grew tired of that though after 9 months, and took Kamryn’s pacifier away...the pacifier - the reason she would wake up in the middle of the night. Three screamful nights later, she slept through the night. It was a miracle. From that point on, she slept from 8:00 pm until 6:00 am. I was starting to feel like a human being again.
And then she turned 1! Yay! We survived our first year as parents. One of the most challenging years of our marriage. But we survived it together!
So then the discussions started about Baby Number 2. I’m not sure when we decided that four kiddos were out of the question, but I think it was before we even discussed having Number 2. Anyway, we knew that we didn’t want an only child, and we didn’t want a LOT of years between them. So we decided to try again.
A year later, we laid our eyes on Kindrey Lynn for the first time. That curly haired chubby cheeked silly little girl. She looked innocent at first, but then it was clear that Kamryn had only been the appetizer to sleepless nights and bags under my eyes.
Kindrey was a whole new ballgame. Colic? Check. Eczema? Check. Sleep? No Check. This girl. She only wanted to sleep during the day, which was fine while I was on maternity leave. I found reprieve in the late night/early morning reruns of Will and Grace, Frasier, and The Nanny, but that was not going to fly once I returned to work.
Needless to say, Baby Number 2 confirmed that four kids were out of the question. And more than likely, three kids were out of the question. I couldn’t do it. Working full time, 45 minutes away from home with two small children. I couldn’t do Baby Number 3 like that. The only way that would ever be a possibility was if I didn’t have to work anymore.
Early retirement wasn’t an option then, and it’s not an option now. Jake and I have worked hard for everything we have. Our wonderful parents did what they could to help us (you know, things like letting us take the “school car” to college, a little help with our college textbooks, being on their cellphone plans until graduation, the occasional $20 for groceries or gas - God bless them for everything), but I would say very few things have been handed to us. We’ve pretty much been on our own since we were 18 years old…
We were married at 21. We were babies. I had just graduated from college, and Jake had a year and a half left, but we knew we were supposed to be together, and so we were. We figured things out together. We had already been taking care of the majority of our living expenses like rent, utilities, cable, internet, groceries, gas, vehicle repairs, etc. But once we got married, we had to get on our own car and health insurance plans. We got our own cellphone plan. We had to start paying off our Student Loans. And let me tell you, I did not land a dream job right out of college. Minimum wage with no benefits. We were paying for everything out of our own empty pockets. After Jake graduated and found a job, things were a little easier, but we were still broke youngins with no regrets.
We moved to Pender when I was pregnant with Kamryn. It seems to be a common theme in our lives. Do everything all at once. :) But we found a place to rent just outside of Pender, and we were happy. Tired, but happy. If we could have bought that little acreage, we probably would have, but we knew we wouldn’t be able to afford it, even if it had been for sale.
Honestly, I didn’t know if we would ever be able to afford to buy our own home. How were we going to get enough money saved for a down payment? Just when we would start to get ahead, a vehicle would break down. Or someone needed a tooth fixed. Or we had a baby to take care of. ;) It was always something.
But then, by what seemed to be fate, we found a house for sale down the street from Jake’s parents, and we put in a lowball offer, not sure how we were going to finance anything. But they accepted it, and working with our local bank, we were able to get a loan for the house and a little extra so we could begin turning that house into “ours”. I was pregnant with Kindrey at the time. See...everything all at once.
It was quite an adventure. Taking care of a toddler, growing another human, working full-time, and trying to fix-up a house. But we figured it out, like we did most things. But to give you an idea of how things always seemed to happen at the same time: Lowes called me, hours after I had given birth, to schedule our carpet installation. It was only a little awkward having to explain that I had just had a baby (like JUST), and we wouldn’t be home for a few days…”will next week work?” Lol. Business as usual.
If anyone wonders what it’s like to have two little ones, “Business as Usual,” pretty much sums it up. You’re so busy, you don’t have time to think about much else, just your next “To Do”.
When we brought Kindrey home, I was hopeful! I thought that she would sleep. That she would be easy. I swear people said that the second kid was always easier. Well those people lied. I realized the only way I was going to survive was ESPRESSO.
We found an inexpensive espresso machine, and I used it for the few weeks leading up to my return to work. It really was my saving grace. Lol. Something so silly. But it gave me the hope I needed.
After I returned to work, the espresso maker was used less frequently. I was just too busy. Maybe it was used on the occasional weekend, until it was finally tucked into a kitchen cabinet…only to be rediscovered years later while I was experiencing a rare “spring cleaning” moment.
When I saw it, I was filled with those sleepless memories. I remembered how tired and desperate I had been when we purchased it. The obvious solution to my slowly developing insanity. (I don't know where our daughters get their dramatic flare.)
I have to say, my husband was a life saver that second time around. He saw how exhausted I had been with our first child. He saw how I had slowly disappeared for awhile. How it had taken months for me to slowly return to “normal.” It wasn’t his fault – the first time around. I thought I could do it all. That it was “just easier” if I did it. I had been terribly wrong. Once I was back to work full-time after Kindrey, we took turns tending to the babies in the evenings. We shared the exhaustion. He definitely supported the espresso machine. The second time around, while harder in some ways, was easier for both of us. We were on the same groggy wavelength.
Parenting requires two. Single parents are incredible. How they do it is beyond me. I could barely get by, even with the amazing support and involvement of my husband. Even now, when our girls are 8 and 6, I don’t remember a week since they’ve been born that one of them hasn’t woken us up in the middle of the night. Standing there…next to the bed…waiting for us to wake up before she tells us she had a bad dream or her tummy hurts. It’s still really exhausting. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to do it all over again.
I’m thankful we survived those first few rough years. Our daughters are absolutely amazing. Still challenging for different reasons at different times, but they are incredible little people. Smart, funny, and kind. We are beyond blessed. I’m in awe of them. Who they are now, makes every single bit of exhaustion worth it. That doesn’t mean we’re planning on Baby Number 3. It just means there’s hope for those who might be wondering if they’ll ever get there…the light at the end of the tunnel. The answer is, “Yes. Eventually.”
So when I found the espresso maker in the cabinet, I got it out, cleaned it off, and sat it next to our coffee pot. Caffeine. Ahhhh. The mere sight of it gave me energy.
After I had cleaned it off, I decided to “froth” some milk for some already brewed coffee. I was rusty. How did this thing even work? So I added my lukewarm milk to my coffee anyway and enjoyed that afternoon cup of Joe, so thankful that it wasn’t as much of a necessity as it had been years ago. And then, after that reunion cup, the espresso maker sat on the counter unused for months.
Until today. My sweet little and oh so challenging Kindrey Lynn had needed her mommy – two nights in a row. A relentless headache the first night, and a stomachache the second night. The first night wasn’t AS bad for me. I at least got to sleep in Kindrey’s bed with her. The second night was not nearly as comfortable. The cold tile bathroom floor was less than cozy. Kindrey had her pillowbed to rest on, I had 2 square feet of cold hard flooring. LOL. The sacrifices you make for those munchkins.
I spent yesterday at home…attempting to work remotely, while checking on Kindrey, who was resting on the couch, watching episodes of “The Brady Bunch” and “Just Add Magic”. She seemed so much better by the end of the day. She ate constantly, and went to bed with few issues. I prayed for a good eight hours of rest.
So when she came downstairs at who knows what time last night and said her tummy hurt, I was bummed. She was so sad, too. She loves school, and she knew she was going to have to miss another day. So she slept on the bathroom floor, just in case she got sick. And I tried to split my evening between our bed, and the bathroom floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. Doing all of those things that parents do when their child is sick in the middle of the night.
When the morning finally rolled around, I knew there was no way Kindrey was going to go to school, and although Jake had offered to stay home with Kindrey, I knew there was no way I could drive an hour to work, and actually function. I needed to rest just as much as Kindrey. I was REALLY out of practice when it came to full-on middle of the night fatigue.
So I stayed home. Didn’t even open my work laptop. I was taking an actual Sick Day. Kindrey needed me more today than yesterday. She really didn’t feel well. So I took care of my babe.
But this afternoon, she fell asleep and took a much-needed nap. I should have, too. But while she napped, I made espresso instead. Just like the good ol’ days.
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