Life, unsettled

For those people who's children adjusted to a new sibling within a week, consider yourselves incredibly lucky. For those that told me it took their own child a solid couple of month, I thank you. It would've made this much harder to expect it to be all better in a week, then still be facing the wrath of a jealous older child.

She labeled it as jealous last night. Actually, I did, but she agreed wholeheartedly because she recognized it from a movie she's been watching in which one of the characters is jealous of a newcomer.

Most of the time, she's OK. Then there are moments that are undeniably not. It's hard to know how to handle them- she wants me to move over 3 inches on the couch just as soon as I get nested in to nurse Corryn (still no easy task I might add), then spends the next 15 minutes or so in a sobbing mess because I won't move. Sometimes suggesting to read a book- or even pre-emptively asking if she needs food, to pee, something out of reach, the stars re-aligned in the universe, etc. helps, but not always. Sometimes it's just simply not acceptable to her that I'm occupied.

Breathe is, breathe out is what I tell myself in these moments when it seems to her that we've ruined her life by having another child. I know we haven't and a large number of us survive having siblings- and even come to like it. It's really hard in the moment though when you are fighting feelings of frustration toward them for behaviors you've never seen from them and feeling guilty at the same time for being the cause of their angst.

Breathe in, breathe out and take care of this very moment. As exhausted as they are making me right now, I love these children more than anything in the world. That's what I keep running through my head. At risk of wishing life away, I also dream a little of the day when things really are easier as I know they will be.