Thanks to Molly for the idea!

WE’VE RECENTLY STARTED HAVING A PROBLEM WITH SCREAMING IN OUR HOUSE.

Oh, sorry about that. I’m just used to having to SPEAK VERY LOUDLY TO BE HEARD.

I’ll try to use my inside voice with people who aren’t 21 months old.

Like I was shouting saying, some people (spoken: toddlers) are having trouble controlling the volume of their voice during daily activities. Drop your toy? SCREAM. Can’t reach something? SCREAM. Someone told you “no”? SCREAM. Time to get up! SCREAM. Time to play a super fun game! SCREAM. OK, dude, you can do anything you want if you’ll just shut up. SCREAM.

And then just when things are finally quiet and I get TWO SECONDS to check my email, this happens:

God Bless you Crayola for inventing washable markers

It’s exhausting. We have no real idea how to deal with the screaming or make it stop. We’ve set up a time-out spot (a pack-n-play in the dining room) but he doesn’t seem to understand the connection between the screaming and the punishment. I suppose it’s my own fault for not being as consistent with the TO’s as I should be but it can be hard to judge what infractions against the noise ban are worth punishing. I mean, he’s a kid, he makes a lot of noise. Some yelling is happy and fun. Sometimes the happy fun yelling just gets a little loud accidentally. And then sometimes what I think is just laughing and shouting turns into THE SCREAMING. Most difficult is the screaming while stuck under a nursing baby. Do I put down the baby to enforce a time-out and risk a screaming infant? Do I use some other kind of punishment? Do I have to learn to nurse in a Moby wrap and be ready to SPRING INTO ACTION at any given moment to deal with toddler angst? Because that sounds even more exhausting than just living with the screaming.

Hey, did you know parenting is HARD?

I know poor Little Evan is still adjusting to being a big brother. I know he’s having a hard time sharing his mama (evidenced by his constant requests of “down? down? down?” while patting Caroline’s bouncy seat anytime I’m holding her). I know he’s only two months away from turning 2 (sob sob sob) and this is normal behavior for that age. I know his language skills haven’t yet caught up to his emotions and that leads to a lot of frustration. But NONE OF THOSE THINGS help when your head is splitting open from the screaming. I would normally wrap up a post like this with a plea for advice but I suspect the best advice I’m going to get is “buy some earplugs and start counting down the days until he’s 3 5 16 30.”

It’s a good thing he’s so cute.

Go ahead, try to stay mad at me.

Apparently my friends think of me as some kind of Baby Expert, because now Sara has a question for me (and you) about how to help out when a friend has a second baby. Although since the closest Sara comes to babies is when she scowls at them in the street I guess I AM an expert by comparison. Ha ha, just kidding. Sara only scowls at babies in restaurants and elevators like all normal people.

Here’s the question:
So my cousin’s wife (We’ll call her M to make this easier) is having a baby next Tuesday. My cousin is the one who does my taxes, so I owe him, like, an enormous fruit basket or a kidney or something. They have an almost-four-year-old daughter. What can I offer to do to help? Make food? Take the older kid to the museum for a few hours? If you or your hordes of minions have suggestions for how to help out the second-time parents, I’d appreciate it.

Here’s my advice:
Take the older kid. Taker her far far far away. Take her to a museum and to lunch and to a big space where she can run around and burn off energy. An almost-four-year-old should be a fun date for half a day or so and M will definitely appreciate being able to rest – a newborn is CAKE compared to a toddler. Food is good too, but I would suggest a pizza gift card or a delivery of something like brownies or, well, a fruit basket instead of a frozen meal. Big casserole trays take up a lot of space and if M has done any pre-baby cooking herself her fridge and freezer might be full. You could, of course, call ahead and say “Don’t make dinner Tuesday, I’m bringing something over” and deliver a fresh made meal (or maybe have a nice local Chinese restaurant deliver a fresh made meal) because that saves on both the trouble of making dinner AND the sink full of making-dinner dishes – for some reason, dishes are the absolute hardest thing for me to stay on top of as a mother of 2. Even worse than laundry.

Here’s the important part: when you DO go over to deliver food/pick up their child/offer a kidney, DON’T STAY. Keep it to 2 minutes tops. Don’t sit on their couch, don’t use their bathroom, don’t stay for a meal, don’t so anything that would require M to feel the need to apologize for her unwashed dishes and dirty floors and sweatpants. As much as I loved having people stop by to visit I died a little inside every time the doorbell rang because of the state of my kitchen counters. They were SHAMEFUL. I was even more ashamed of my dirty kitchen than I was of wearing pajamas at 3 pm and no makeup and greasy hair – because what was I doing with my time if it wasn’t making myself presentable OR loading the dishwasher? I AM A LAZY FAILURE.

So. In short: help with the older kid. Drop off fruit basket. When you see M, say “You look so great! Your baby is adorable! Your toddler was SO well behaved at the museum! She clearly has awesome parents!”

Personally, I would find that even better than a kidney. And that’s coming from someone who could actually use one.

How about you, friends? What was the MOST HELPFUL thing someone did for you after having a baby?

I feel like I’ve been involved in a lot of conversations recently about choosing – or not choosing – to have a second child. On the one hand, first babies are a big deal and nothing changes your life more than having one. Going from childless to being parent may be the biggest adjustment a person can make. I mean, it’s not like you get to try dating a bunch of babies to find the right one or do a trial run by living together first before you decide to make it permanent. Even if you stole rented borrowed a baby from someone else it’s totally different when you know they’re yours to keep. You gotta make sure you don’t screw those suckers up because you’re the one who’s going to be dealing with the aftermath for the next 60+ years.

So in the grand scheme of things, adding another baby shouldn’t be such a big deal. You’ve already got the stuff. You’ve got a little hands-on experience. You’ve figured out what works for you and what doesn’t. And yet somehow adding 1 new baby to 1 toddler-sized baby = 5x as much laundry. 5x as much crying. 5x as many sleepless nights. 5x as many bad days. It takes 5x as much time to leave the house or take a shower or make dinner. Things you really enjoyed with one baby – like grocery shopping – are suddenly impossible. With a toddler in the seat, where does the baby go?! Do you take them out of the bucket and wear them? Even if they’re sleeping at it’s 4 degrees outside and it means standing next to the car shoving them into the Moby while the toddler screeches? Do you put the bucket in the cart and only buy as many groceries as you can fit around them and then face the wrath of the bagger at checkout? (So far, my solution is to only shop when I can take one kid – or no kids – but that’s not going to last forever.)

Of course, you also get 5x as much love, which totally makes up for that other stuff. Most days.

You get to see how big and smart and grown up your older baby is and you can’t believe it. All those milestones that you breezed by months ago are suddenly seem new again – the walking, the talking, the feeding himself. The presence of a brand new baby lump makes everything a toddler does so much MORE. More fun, more amazing, more exciting, more louder (I know it’s not a word, but it is MORE LOUDER).  He’s not a baby anymore and yet he is YOUR baby and you want him to stay small and grow up all at the same time because the growing is so much fun to watch and experience but how can you stand the thought that one day he won’t need you at all??

Then there’s the baby, the teeny tiny fresh baked baby to nurse and change and rock and nurse and change and rock again. There are no socks on the planet tiny and stretchy enough to stay on her feet. She doesn’t smile at you or laugh at you yet but she sleeps best tucked into your armpit and the warmth of her body is practically the same as hearing her say “I love you mama”. You get to look forward to all the milestones again and you can’t wait for them to get here but you also want her to stay a tiny lump forever because all the growing is just too much for your heart to handle and maybe too much for your body to handle too. What happens when they can BOTH run away?

Because now she’s crying from the bedroom and you have shampoo in your hair and the toddler just pulled off his diaper and the washing machine is buzzing and you forgot to buy milk and oh no does that mean you HAVE to take them both to the grocery store? Hurry hurry better get going no time to slow down grab some breakfast throw some peanut butter at the toddler and oh crap the baby needs to be fed.

So you sit down and relax and snuggle the little baby and start to enjoy the moment. Then the bigger baby wiggles up next to you and lays his head on your shoulder and sighs and your heart EXPLODES into a million zillion pieces you stop wondering how you’re going to handle two babies and wonder instead how you ever lived without them.