From One to Two

I often think about what was harder, going from no kids to one or one kid to two.  After giving the matter some thought I concluded that the responsibility that comes along with having a child is by far the scariest and toughest part of parenthood.  Once you have a kid, having a second one is a hell of a lot more work but at least it's no longer scary.  Sure it becomes nearly impossible to go out to a restaurant and leaving the house takes at least an hour (more in the winter), but the chaos that comes along with two kids is still better than those first few months of insecurity that comes with having your first.  Did I feed her the right thing? Why is she crying?  Is it a cold? Or the flu?  Maybe she's teething?   Or is it a growth spurt?  Once you get all those questions out of the way with your first, life becomes a lot less complicated, albeit a lot more hectic. Of course this is just my opinion and isn't necessarily shared by everyone. Here's one mother's opinion on the matter...

So the other day we’re at a restaurant and this pregnant lady with her toddler leans over from the next table and asks, “How is it having two kids?” The way I see it, I can answer her in one of three ways:

1.     Thank God for Roe v. Wade, lady, because you still have a choice.

2.     Here take one of mine for the day and you can see. And I get to choose which one.

3.     It’s nice.

Being the lazy person that I am, I go with number three, when really in my head I’m thinking, “You really want to know how it is going from one kid to two?” Read’m and weep:

1. Going anywhere sucks ass. Remember all the crap you had to carry when you had your first baby? Now multiply that times two and add another poop machine to the mix. This is when you’re gonna wish you were one of those third world country chicks who can balance baskets on her head. Yeah, you’d look like a total whack job, but who gives a shit.

2. Feeding two kids is a bitch. Just when you’re all stoked because your firstborn can finally feed herself and you can go back to eating with two hands, an adorable little piranha comes along to chomp his way up your once again bleeding nips. And then when he can finally eat solids, he’s like, “I don’t give a rat’s ass if that’s what my sister liked. I’m going to pick totally different shit and make you figure it out all over again.” The only good news is you know how you used to cut blueberries in 16ths so your baby wouldn’t choke to death? When it comes to number 2, you’ll slap a whole rib-eye in front of him and let him go to town.

3. Awwww, remember how nice and quiet bedtime was when you just had one child? Lying on the floor together as a family reading bedtime stories? Say adios to that shit. Because now #1 (#1 my ass) is there to help you put #2 (who #2s like a thousand times a day) to bed. Which is like putting a baby to sleep in a room full of strobe lights with a Megadeth album playing at the highest volume.

4. Okay, you thought keeping one kid’s hands out of the frigging tampon trashcan in the public restroom sucked when it was just her. Now you’ve got two little a-holes to deal with. And I mean a-holes literally. One of them’s still in dipes, so you have to go back to using some nasty ass changing table that poop’s touched like a thousand times, while the other kid is on the loose sucking the toilet handle (one of those broken ones that squirts water when you flush it) and there’s nothing you can f’ing do about it because if you let go of the baby he’ll roll off and crack his head open. Are we having fun yet?

5. We have a new rule in our house. Only one kid can cry at a time. Does it work? Hell no. If it did, I’d buy a baby on the black market and stick it with pins all the time so it’d cry and my kids wouldn’t be allowed to.

6. You know how you saved all of those awesome baby toys to pass down to #2? Think again. Because as soon as #1 sees Sophie the mother-f’ing $22 giraffe that’s really just a dog toy packaged in a fancy box, she and the stupid chew toy are like two goddamned lost lovers running towards each other in a field, and your second child is more like a third wheel. Nope, from now on buy two of everything. And if you can’t afford two, buy cheaper shit and buy two.

7. When baby’s sleeping Mommy should too. Remember that shit they told you in the hospital? Well WTF does Mommy do if they never sleep at the same time? And speaking of napping… just as your arm feels like it’s going to literally fall off like you’re in a Monty Python skit because your friggin’ infant car seat weighs like a thousand pounds, your baby grows out of it and you’re like how the F is he supposed to sleep on the go if I don’t have the infant car seat anymore? So you have two choices. Stay home all day long like you’re Paris F’ing Hilton on house arrest because one of your kids is always napping, or go out and about your day as one of your kids is constantly exhausted and losing his shit in public.

8. I’ll bet you always thought it’d be awesome having two kiddos because they’d play with each other. Ehhh, wrong. They’ll play with each other, in likefive years. For the first few years, your oldest will play with your youngest like a crazy ass killer whale plays with a seal in the surf. “Here little baby who stole Mommy and Daddy’s attention from me. You know how mama and dada keep bragging about your neck muscles being so strong, why don’t you come over here so I can pick you up by your head and see if they’re right.”

Anyways, there you go weird lady who asks loaded questions to random strangers at restaurants. I could go on and on about all the ways going from one to two is just awesome (insert sarcastic looking emoticon face here), but my #1 has my #2 in a princess dress and a chokehold. Double shit, someone’s knocking at my front door right now. "Who izzz it? Oh hello, DSS!"