Three Ways Having Two Kids is Different Than Having One Kid

As of today, my baby girl turns one month old and, in one month and five days, my firstborn will turn two.  We are in full blown parenting mode right now.

As soon as Little Miss was born, one question quickly shot to the forefront, "What is like having two kids?" Up until now, I haven't spent much time to thinking about it.  When you're in the moment of making the change from one to two kids, you're not usually also processing all the changes you're making.  So when people have asked, I've tended to give very broad answers.

Now that we've been the parents of two kids for a full month, I thought I'd give it greater thought.

For my wife's perspective on having two kids:  CLICK HERE

I'm a Better Parent to Little Man (my first born)

The thing which seems to jump out to me the most is how much additional and intentional time I'm giving Little Man now.  It's not like I ignored him before but, if there was a day when I came home and didn't spend immediate alone time with him, I didn't think about it.  Now, Jennifer's time is split between him and Little Miss all day long.  Little Man used to have a parent dedicated to taking care of him all the time.  That parent now has to give extensive time to his little sister.  It seems so important to be very intentional about making sure he gets solid dedicated time from a parent.

This has taken three primary forms: (1) Playing in the backyard, (2) Playing in the car, (3) Playing with his new train set.  He's usually very open to all of these options.  Unfortunately, bad weather has made option one rather tricky.  I'm excited for when the pool opens up in a couple of months.
**EDIT** I drove by the pool on my way home yesterday, and it's open NOW!!!!!

I Don't Feel Like I'm Any Better at Having a Newborn the 2nd Time Around

I feel like I've forgotten every trick I learned about having a newborn.  How do you get them to keep their pacifier in? How do you swaddle them in a way which holds? How do you burp them effectively?

I feel just as insecure and afraid as round one.

When Little Man was born, there was a never-ending series of new fears.  This time around, they aren't new fears; All of the old fears have returned, and I keep coming up with new things to be afraid of.

There's a Lot More Chaos

Double the kids = double the chance of trouble!

Prior to expanding our family, we'd found a nice groove with Little Man.  Even with Jennifer being pregnant, we had a good idea to handle the amount of insanity that comes with a single child.  However, things get a lot more complicated when you have two children.

• Twice the meltdowns
• Twice the fits
• Twice the danger
• Twice the unexplained crying
• Twice the dirty diapers
• Twice the frustration

Did I mention half the sleep?
The theory everyone has is that you can simply do a zone defense: each parent takes a child.  It doesn't work out that way in reality.  Even if we split up boys and girls, they can each still be quite a handful on their own.  Bottom line: It's nice to have two sets of hands.  So, it's not so simple as playing a zone defense.

Twice the Joy

The great thing about having two kids is that you get twice the special moments.  One of them is always doing something cute.  They're amazing creatures.  

Prior to Little Man's birth, people kept telling us how hard it is to raise kids, but how it's totally worth it. I really don't think you can understand what they mean until you have kids.  It really is something else.