Dealing With More Than One Kid

I have two kids. Little Bird is 2 1/2 and Little Man is 11 months. They are my little angels, the bane of my existence and everything in between.

Our playgroup was at the lake today. There were only four moms there. Two of us have two, the other two moms only have one. One of the mom's asked in laughing exasperation, "How do you do it with two?" to the other mom with two.

"YOU DON'T," was her reply. And went on to litanize everything that had gone wrong that morning because her nanny was late meeting us.

Well, I "do it" every damned day. As nice as I think at times it would be to have a nanny, I think my friend has completely convinced herself that she cannot function without her. This mom is very hands on with her kids, but only one at a time. And I think I would feel the same if I were in her situation.

That was EXACTLY the reason when Little Bird was born that I did not want anyone coming to my house for the first week of her life. I knew that I had to get through the learning curve on my own. And in private. Once I got my shit together, then I was comfortable having people come over and "help". I can definitely see how having someone else do things for you would enable one into thinking that they could not function on their own.

Either way. As much sympathy as I felt for my friend, I really wanted to blurt out something rude. As in, "I do it every day." I did not want to appear judgmental of my friend, so I walked away and chased after my daughter who was headed straight for the water. As much as I would have loved to have sat down with these moms and debated the philosophical issues of "handling" more than one child, I was busy doing it. There is a time for talk and a time for action. With my toddler headed for the lake, there was no time for talk.