40 Lessons from Being a Mom of 2 under 2 at 40

I had every excuse not to blog this year, and I very nearly didn’t.

My heart is tender and my words have been missing lately. But oh what a year it has been.

3 years of marriage and 2 little boys and 1 doggo.

I didn’t have time to over-edit this post like I usually do. Also didn’t have time to add many pictures so no visual break for your eyes. Please forgive.

So…

Lessons from being a mom of 2 under 2 at age 40

1. Yes, I’ve only technically been a mom of 2 under 2 for a few weeks but it sounded like a good title for a blog.
   • This is not a NICU experience blog and therefore contains much more of the toddler momming than the mom of 2 momming. Right now, I feel I have a home life and a hospital life and rarely the twain do meet. I sometimes feel like the hospital is Baby A’s mom. And all of that is too present and too raw and too emotional and too traumatic for me to address. But I am in awe of my Baby A as well and hope I can someday share more.
2. “Read it” is a common request around here. We’re working on “read it, please.”
   • Some of you know I moonlight as a children’s picture book writer. I’ve been actively working for 5 years to get an agent and still haven’t quite made it yet. The children’s picture book industry is extremely hard to break into. AND YET. And yet. We read a lot in this house and some of the picture books we read…how? And why? And who? Have you endured the forced rhymes and rhythm?
   • Ok, so most of the horrible ones are the work-for-hire or in-house books that AI is probably writing now.
   • But the real works of art are still brilliant and brilliant writers warm my soul.
   • And the serial authors…if only I had come up with Little Blue Truck or Llama Llama, or if I wrote AND illustrated like Sandra Boynton or Mo Willems, I’d have it made.
3. Having a toddler means we’ve renamed lots of things. Our robot vacuums used to be named Dobby (yes, like the elf) and Sharky (um, because it was made by Shark). But NOW, our robot vacuums are named, “Bobot.” Also our air purifiers and anything that’s a robot—Bobot. Bobots are our friends. Unless they go off unexpectedly or chase you around the room. Then we cry.
4. Fire trucks are “wee-oo wee-oo,” hot air balloons are “hot balloons,” milk is “malk,” binky is “beebee”, “toot” means he has a dirty diaper, “cuddle mama” means that he wants to aggressively hug and smother me.
5. Comfort stuffies can get out of control. J has pretty much only been comforted by us and his binky for a long time. We had tried to introduce a lovey and were just barely starting to get him interested when….
   • Enter staying with the grandparents while we were in the hospital. Suddenly, he needed his “ammals” (animals) and now we have a growing entourage of animals and blankies that he hauls around the entire house and must fall asleep with.
   • Add to this a life-size baby doll he’s named after his brother that ALSO needs to be held to fall asleep and we wish we had never introduced comfort “ammals.”
6. It is terrifying to have a child with no fear. Up and down stairs, up and down the slide, up and down the ladder to the slide, standing on the edge of the couch or bed with a twinkle in his eye watching to see if we’ll stop him, running running running everywhere anywhere all the wheres. We pretty much only put him in pants because shorts mean constantly scraped knees.
7. Animal sounds are life. Mooing, meowing, quacking, and bawking are as much a part of our conversation as anything else.
8. Previously, all drawers in our home were used to store whatever we wanted. Now, we have dedicated bottom drawers to “things that children can safely play with and that they also want to play with so that they will not attempt to get into other drawers.”
   • Spatulas, pastry brushes, silicone tart molds, pasta spoons (what are those things called?) and other such items are now stored in said bottom drawer.
9. I’ll just say it—baby toots are funny.
   • Yea, verily, funny enough to make up a little jingle, “Toot, toot, toot from your booty boot boot.”
   • Even funnier when the toddler repeats the jingle
   • Less funny when the toddler uses said phrase to indicate a dirty diaper
10. The other night I was cuddling J to sleep when I smelled a foul smell. Aw man! What to do when he just fell asleep. Never fear. I sniffed some more and realized the smell was…me. ‘Twas only NICU baby vomit, pumping spills, and hospital scent.
11. I love efficiency. But sometimes it’s more fun to do things slowly. Unloading the dishwasher together or taking the clothes out of the dryer are fun chores. J loves to turn the vacuum on and help dad mow the lawn. He’s so helpful and excited to share in the work.
12. Bribing is absolutely not an acceptable way to get children to do things except when it works.
13. Rocks rock. Sticks rock. Leaves rock. Pinecones apparently give J hives. But they also rock.
14. Sharing is caring. I knew this before but also why does food taste better if it’s from dada’s plate? Or why is dada’s water bottle so much more desirable?
15. Water bottles—we have a problem. There must be at least 5-6 filled and placed all over the house at all times.
16. Speaking of fetishes, my hair. Why my hair? Pull, twist, hold, cling. I am also J’s comfort “ammal” and the overstimulation at times is, well, enough to pull your hair out.
17. I am not as bugged by diapers as I thought I would be. Stay with me, now. Before being a mom, I wondered how on earth you could change so many diapers day in and day out and not lose your ever lovin’ mind.
    • I’m NOT saying it’s enjoyable AND I have a husband who helps AND we’ve had a nanny. BUT I am saying it’s not as bad as I thought it would be as it’s just kind of life now.
    • And I feel especially grateful right now to change Baby A’s diapers because at the beginning there was so little we could actually do to feel like normal parents.
18. Pitter patter pitter patter. The pitter patter of tiny feet running through the house is one of the most beautiful sounds in the entire world.
19. Another beautiful sound? Laughter. Even the maniacal laugh with the twinkle in the eye that means J is about to do something wild.
20. Preemie clothes are teeny tiny. I just bought some as the babe is now allowed to wear clothes and I for sure thought they would be too small on him. They have room to spare.
21. “Tails are not for pulling. They are for wagging.”—said on repeat 40 times a day. We are so, so sorry Ginny.
22. Ginny is also sorry, especially since the dropped food has significantly dwindled as J has figured out how to eat. Baby A will make up for it in a few months, though, we hope.
23. I am a hand-me-down, use-it-up weirdo. I’m not too proud to ask people if the stuff they’ve put on the curb (such as a toddler slide) is really garbage or if I can have it. It’s not dumpster diving if you ask permission from the owner. I consider it an answer to prayer.  
24. Trucks and Diggers—I know lots of names of construction equipment now and how to differentiate them (we obliterated the library book “Trucks and Diggers” with overuse and now have our own new copy we can destroy).
    • A backhoe loader has been on our street for the past few weeks and we are so grateful for the entertainment.
25. Garbage truck love. Our house is stationed in a way that the garbage truck passes by 3 times and on recycling weeks, we see a truck 6 times! Optimal location. The schedule used to be our daily walk time and we’d follow the path to watch the truck, which brought constant requests of “More! More!”
    • Garbage truck drivers are the best—honks and waves make it even more fun. One day we were following behind the recycling truck and there were 3 houses in a row that forgot to put out their recycling. I started jogging to try and catch up to the truck but the driver suddenly decided to drive VERY slowly and when he finally got to the next house with a can, he conveniently needed to stop and wipe down his side view mirror until we got close. And then magically he was ready to start picking up cans again. The very best.
26. New-fangled parenting suggests that giving children choices prevents power struggles. I like the concept and sometimes it even works. Except for, “Do you want the red shirt or turtle shirt?” “No.”
    • J won’t even say the word, “Yes.” He only says “K.” “Do you want muffins or bagels for breakfast?” “No.” “Do you want oatmeal, then?” “K.”
27. If you buy an extra freezer because you think you’ll need it for storing breastmilk, you are wrong and right. Little J never really took a bottle. I nursed for 18 months and he took a full bottle maybe 3 times. It was tricky and I don’t want to talk about it. But about the freezer. Now that I have a NICU baby, we might need to start selling off freezer food to fit my pumped milk. I’ve already signed up to be a donor when the situation gets dire.
28. Sandboxes mean that there is a lot of sand in the home. I understand why some people don’t want sandboxes. But as for me and my house, we decided ours needed to be bigger this year. One of those house projects that was never on the list until it was… and suddenly we were picking up a half ton of sand in our trailer.
29. House rules are meant to be broken. No shoes on the bed means of course I’ll allow it if you need snuggles. No popsicles except with a bib on and only then in the kitchen or outside but of course you can also have a popsicle on the bed if you need snuggles.
30. Wonder and awe are everyday treasures. Prior to NICU baby, every evening after J went to bed, Steve would set up the toys in the front room in a fun new way for J to discover. We loved the mornings he’d come out and say, “Wow wow!” It will return; I know it will.
31. Also, the front room is now a toy room. As is the basement. And J’s actual room. And our room. The house is a toy room.
32. Towers are for knocking over. All of us should know this by now.
33. Not every child likes “Twinkle, twinkle little star.” A solid “No” whenever we try to sing it. That’s OK because it’s also the jingle that plays when the milk warmer is done at the NICU so I think I’ll have a trauma response hearing it in the future anyway. Steve contests that it is NOT actually the jingle and I would like any NICU moms to chime in with their thoughts. Not actual chiming—there’s enough of that in the NICU.
34. But other songs? Pretty much anything is a hit. Current favorites are “Popcorn Popping”, “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam”, “You are my Sunshine,” and “Baby Mine” (although this one is only allowed sometimes and only if mom or dad sing it. Apparently, grandparents are not allowed as we discovered in J’s unexpected week at the grandparentals’ house). Baby Shark is also a fave…no no no.
35. Bags. So many bags. How do we have so many diaper bags and bags of everything and bags inside of bags?
36. Hospital bag. The social medias will try and tell moms they need to have all the cutest, coolest, most organizedest stuff to put in their hospital bags and have it ready at 30 weeks. OK, so the 30 weeks might have been nice in this case. I had a feeling to start getting one ready the week before A was born, but…I had a lot of other things I needed to do, too.
    • I am one of those stories of going in for a routine ultrasound (well, routine for me because I had 3 high risk factors) and not coming home. We were immediately sent to another hospital (doctor: we’re not going to get you an ambulance to save you the cost, but please drive quickly, do not pass go, do not collect $200) and I was admitted for 2 days before delivery and then with c-section recovery I didn’t come home for a week.
    • Mostly you just need a long USB cord to charge your phone.
    • Nice-to-haves are house dresses if you want to cross the U’s sky bridge to get to the children’s hospital NICU but that does seem like more of a niche situation
    • Reasonably good to have—your work computer so in between the 30-50 (or who knows how many) people who come in and out of your room while you are learning about what’s going on with you and your baby and while you are also in labor (because yes, I went into labor the day we went in for the ultrasound)—yes, in between all of that, you can try and send off files and instructions and all sorts of information for being gone unexpectedly early and it still didn’t matter because you know it wasn’t helpful enough.
    • Not even necessary—a book to read. You won’t have time and if the book you packed to read at the ultrasound is “Oh crap! Potty training” that book gonna get shelved for a while.
    • So yeah, just those things. Also a white noise machine to dull the beeps.
37. Traveling with a mobile child is such a different pace. Our trips are more filled with watching the wonder in his eyes and the things he enjoys. Also slower and require so many more bags (bags again!) and so many more treats and vastly adjusted timelines. And it’s also been fun…traveling with one. Two seems like something we might not have the energy to do. I am 40 after all.
38. You can’t ever catch up. Not on sleep, not on organizing stuff (especially photos—does anyone have a way???), not on chasing a kid who takes off down the street (how are toddlers faster than I am?), not on washing pump parts, not on keeping berries stocked in the house, not on keeping tabs on all your friends and their lives and their kids, and not on writing thank you notes to your village who helps raise and love your sweeties. Blanket thank you.
39. Discovery is a beautiful thing. I want my babies just the way they are exactly right now, and I also want to see the cool things they’ll do tomorrow. I want them to sleep through the night, but I also don’t hate (as much) the 5 am cuddles we’re getting when our time at home is more limited these days.
    • I love hearing every new word J learns. I love watching him build and memorize words in books and sing (he actually gets intonation pretty well). I love watching him play the “panno” and splash the water table and take stairs on his own and ride his trike. And I also want to just go back and watch his baby steps again or cheer him on with learning to roll. But I also love watching his somersaults and hearing him ask for “daddysaults” (Steve doing somersaults). It’s a confusing and beautiful emotional mess.
40.  And…I’m still doing it all wrong.

Motherhood just gets harder and harder and harder and harder. (I know this because my mom still has to mother me).

And sweeter and harder and more full of laughter and more full of tears.

Sometimes I think way into the future about these babies leaving home and I just…cannot. I won’t let them. I can’t let them. But I probably will.

I think about how much I love them and realize, “Wow, I guess that’s how my parents feel about me.” And it’s a lot and a powerful feeling and yet, I still can’t quite fathom it. I can feel it forward for my babies and find it hard to believe it backwards. But it is strong. Overwhelming. Overpowering.

I have no idea how to raise kids in this wild and strange world. Everything is so much scarier. So much noise, confusion, and uncertainty.

And yet… everything is also so much more beautiful with them in it.