{GUEST POST} Mama + BABIES

Ah ... baby snuggles :) Thanks to Jeni, I'm getting in some extras today! When it comes to mothering two - I'll take all the advice I can get and Jeni's has some great thoughts to share on boosting the sibling love and managing the 2 kids versus 1 mama ratio :)

Plus, I'm hoping we'll get to meet soon since she is PNW Blogger too!

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Hello to all you That Mama Gretchen readers and a big thanks to Gretchen herself for having me as she welcomes her newest little love. My name is Jeni and I am the wife to one (Andy) and mother to two wonderful, wild little boys (Skyler and Mason). I live on the internet over at A Little Piece of Perfect, you can also find me on Pinterest. Sorry, no Facebook or Twitter. I am social media-ly stunted like that.

Gretchen asked me to share a little bit about my experience going from one kiddo to two. Honestly, for me, it wasn't such a great change. At least not at first. You have already been broken in as a mother, so you aren't losing anything new that you didn't already say goodbye to when number one came around. You are used to the lack of sleep, lack of personal space, lack of certainty at just what exactly is going on with this small new human. Just like the first time you will be amazed at how you find space in what you already thought was a full life and heart.

Does this mean that it was easy adjusting to being in charge of two small people instead of one? Not necessarily, but it definitely was easier than adjusting to the first one. I didn't really feel the strain until my second son reached the age of about six months and decided it was time to work on being mobile. Then the panic did start to set in that this was real. That I have two little bodies capable of going in two different directions. Knowing before that at least one of my kiddos would stay where I put them and hadn't yet learned the desire for disobedience was very comforting.

The one other area outside of my own feelings on our new addition was how our first little guy would adjust to sharing the spotlight. Skyler, my first son, was born into a family with no other grandchildren. So not only was he the center of our little world, but the main focus of a gaggle of grandparents. I also had visions of less than stellar sibling acceptance. There is a story my MIL recounted of when, shortly after my husband was born, she went to answer the door and came back to find that his two older siblings had dragged wee little Andy into a closet to hide him. I believe there was also a time where one of them hit him over the head with a wooden spoon? So yes, I wondered how Skyler would feel about sharing all of our attention and I worried about how that might affect the new brother's budding relationship. Fortunately all of the worry was for naught, because even though there have been bumps along the road ultimately I am so glad that we were able to bring life to these two little people that they might share it side by side. Good and bad.

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