And then there were two

How often have I sat down to start this piece? No, how often have I thought about writing it? God knows. I’ve written the opening line in my head so many times it should probably win a Booker at this point. It won’t though, because I didn’t even get to write it. Everything suddenly sounded so blasé (the Booker sentence still rubbing off here I see), so uninspired, cheesy or downright clichéd that I gave up on it. If there’s one thing being a mother of two has reinforced in me is that you do not waste time on anything that will not add value. That sentence definitely wasn’t.

Hold on… baby just woke up.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Value. And motherhood/parenthood. Of two.

When I had Benji, I thought the world had cleaved in two. There was now, and there was then, and there was suddenly no bridge across. I mourned my old self but loved my new baby but sometimes wished I could go back but very often found I could not imagine a life without him. The waters I was threading were murky to say the least. I felt inadaquate as a mum, a colleague, a friend and a wife. Only writing gave me a sense of my own self back. I used it, and therapy, as a tool to reach out to me. Roberta. Songs of Motherhood was born then, a passion project that was not only timely, but wholesome and encouraging in so many ways. I felt I was back. With all its hardships, motherhood inspired me to be better, to do more, not only for my baby but also for myself. Maybe mostly for myself. Is that selfish? Perhaps. But I was content, in a way that I hadn’t been for most of the past year, slowly falling in love with this new version of me. So much so, that I felt ready to become a mother again. Enter scene, Lauren.

“With all its hardships, motherhood inspired me to be better, to do more, not only for my baby but also for myself. Maybe mostly for myself. Is that selfish? Perhaps.”

Lauren, or Rory (and yes I may have been inspired by the beautiful relationship of The Gilmore Girls <3) is proof that love can only ever be multiplied. It’s funny, how you think your heart can’t bear to love more after your first, but then goes ahead and does. It swells and grows so naturally that you’ll think this immeasurable love is all you’ve ever known. I bet it’s the very same if you have 3 or 4 or more. A mother’s love is indeed infinite, though I never took that meaning to be literal. I think it truly is.

Rory has so far been the sweetest most co-operative baby I’ve met. You must understand, after Hurricane Benji my bar was set very low and you know what they say about second borns being the wild ones. But no, Rory defied the odds stacked against her. Even now I’m typing this with her on my lap, contentedly cooing. No, we were lucky, at least where it comes to demanding babies. When it comes to mothering two, the tune is a bit different.

Don’t get me wrong, I was a lot more confident this time round, helped by the fact that birth was smooth, leaving no scars of any kind. I knew what to do with a crying baby in my arms. The muscle memory kicked in straight away, the manouvres as familiar as if I had cared for a new born last month. What really pulled me under this time round was the vastly underestimated (by me) difference in suddenly caring for two. The eldest who was going through potty training (bad timing, I know) and a newborn both needing different things at the same time was, to put it mildly, a shock. The house, that was already hard to keep up with with a curious toddler became impossible, a trigger for my anxiety. The laundry - let’s not even go there. I remember stopping mid-stride in the kitchen one Saturday afternoon in the first weeks, my mind going aboslutely blank. In the background, my 3 year-old has just dismantled the sofa again and piled the seats in a makeshift tower for him to climb. The washing machine is beeping angrily. Lauren is whining. What was I going to do first? Take out the garbage? Do the beds? Load the tumble dryer? Scold Benji and try to steer him to another safer game? What time had I given Lauren her last bottle? I haven’t had breakfast or a coffee, and I was lucky if I chugged down a glass of water. I’ve slept at midnight, was up at 3am then at 5am when Benji decided to join us in bed, waking up Rory again. My husband’s working overtime at our new hosue so we could you know, maybe one day move out of an apartment that’s starting to feel really cramped, so I’m alone most days. Yes, the physical demands, especially those first 8 - 10 weeks were big.

The inadaquacy comes back in waves. I breastfed Benji for 8 months. I only breastfed Rory for 2. I feel guilty for not giving them both an equal start. The pain from the very first day was toe-curling and unbearable, my supply extremely low but should I have tried harder? Expressed more? I admit it was easier with Benji when you don’t have another baby hovering nearby ready to pull you in another game the moment you sit down with the pump. I get cross with Benji much quicker, my patience evaporating fast. He should know better, I say to myself. But should he? Really? He’s just turned three. Three - he’s learning new things every single day and now, not only does he need to cope with big feelings, but he also has a less understanding mother to guide him through them and the sudden change he’s been thrown in. The guilt is real. I say things I immediately regret, I tiptoe carefully around sentences - don’t compare, don’t use the baby as an excuse - and situations - pay more attention to him, you’re giving him less of your time when he needs you more than ever, he’s not eating healthy, he’s not sleeping well anymore and and and. I know it gets better with time, but then Lauren will start having more and more demands and honestly, how does anyone manage to meet them all? And someone tell me how on Earth I’ll be back at my full time job come January? I worry incessantly. I know it’s part of the job description and that things don’t get easier. You just get better. I saw it with Benji - maybe I’ll see it now too?

“I get cross with Benji much quicker, my patience evaporating fast. He should know better, I say to myself. But should he? Really? He’s just turned three. Three”

And then. And then.

I see them together. I see Benji, adoration stamped across his face, asking her questions, calling her “cute” and “princess”, telling her he loves her. Demanding he holds her because it’s his baby, ok? I see them on the sofa, his arms wrapped around her and she, who has just started smiling, beaming. And then I see it and I know, they were always meant to be two. So doesn’t that mean that I was meant to mother two as well?

I don’t have answers to many of the questions, I realise that. Which brings me back to my writing, the need to express the doubts and faint reassurances in words because then they might start making sense. And maybe they might start making some sense to you too. We will look back in a few years’ time and think of all the gaps we would have filled, unknowns made known, and this should make us hopeful. Life is a lesson best learned slowly, even when it doesn’t feel like it, even when things rush past us and we’re left breathless. So when we’re stuck mid-stride in the kitchen, the cacophany of life blaring around us, let’s choose to slow down, close our eyes and take a deep breath. We’ve got this.