How they took over my life

We have a new baby in the house. She's another beautiful and feisty little girl with ginger hair and blonde eyebrows and a ginger personality to match. When she cries, she turns bright red and her eyebrows stand out like little white streaks on her forehead. She has the determined personality of a second child and doesn't take no for an answer. When I leave her to scream while I deal with some toddler related crisis that her older sister has created, she takes it in stride and belts it out even louder, even more hysterically, hardly pausing to take a breath lest I forget the injustice of her having to manage on her own for a few minutes.

With this new little person comes, again, my loss of self. Suddenly, everything I do is dictated by screams in the night and at all hours of the day from every corner of the house. As I type this, I am trying to ignore the calls of "Mommy! Mommy!" coming from the room where my older daughter is supposed to be taking a nap. The baby is strapped to me in a sling and I tiptoe around, hoping that she stays content and doesn't cry long enough for me to do the dishes. I haven't shaved since before she was born and have to wait until my husband is home from work to even take a shower. Eating has become strategic. I throw something together and then bolt it down as fast as I can, between tantrums and diaper changes and bottles and dinners and baths and books. At the end of the day, when they both are blissfully quiet (temporarily), I am exhausted...and even more exhausted thinking about the long night of waking up every three hours that I have ahead of me.

And still, I'm happy. Three weeks into being the mother of two and 3 days into being home with them on my own, sleep deprived, hairy, highly caffeinated, I've managed to get out and do things with both girls. Although, it takes 2 to 3 hours to get out of the house, we have been out three days in a row! Today at a music class, I watched my almost 2 year old thoroughly enjoying herself, dancing and singing and clapping and participating, for the first time since we started going. The baby slept in her sling, looking angelic, her eyebrows blending into her fair skin. There were no tantrums and no tears. When I told my toddler how proud of her I was, she beamed at me with her slightly bucked teeth and her big lips. And even though it all went to hell when we got back home, it was worth it. It is worth it. They have taken over and I love it.