Me versus The Minions

A few of my close friends are just now having their second children and they’ve been sharing with me their multiple kid hardness worries.  In my opinion, the mother becomes a parent with the first kid and the father becomes a parent with the second (or not at all).  The mother then becomes a machine when the third comes along. 

 

Silas, about 6 weeks old.  Me, 6 weeks unrested.

As you know, I’ve been doing my kids without a present spouse for much of their lives.  It’s very rewarding and very demanding, but also extremely fulfilling and pretty much really fun.  I like having kids close in age and have posted a lot about the benefits, but would not advocate it for the faint of heart.  It’s hardcore assembly line parenting a lot of the time.  Most of what I know about parenting I’ve learned from my sisters or out of desperation and highly concentrated experience.  And now I impart my trial by fire “wisdom” to my dearest friends.

How I Manage Raising These Sweet and Somewhat Naughty Little Kids

1)  Rely on the Lord. I’m not really doing it alone.  Though I feel somewhat guilty for gyping them out of a long period of individual attention afforded to many spread out children, I know my kids were sent to me at the perfect times.  Nonetheless, it is difficult to give them each adequate attention when all three are clambering and needy.  And yet I have confidence the Lord will help them toward what they need if I’m doing the best that I can.  He makes up the difference where I fall short.  My day requires a lot of prayers.

All three on my legs.  People sometimes ask me why I have so many bruises.

2)  Accept offers of help.  People ask me what they can do to help me all the time.  I tell them.  A village is raising these kids and I appreciate each and every helper along the way.  My kids benefit from the diverse relationships they form with my babysitters, family, friends, and the strangers sitting behind me in church who offer to hold Silas. 

3)  Get over yourself.  You’re not going to be your prettiest when one kid is barfing on you and the other two are beating each other up and you’re just trying to look presentable before you leave the house.  Most days I get to chose:  shower or do my hair?  Makeup or spend time picking out something cute to wear?  This Sunday I got the kids and myself up, bathed, dressed, hair done, fed and out the door to Stake Conference in 55 minutes.  I left with wet hair, but we made it on time.  Yay!

Was it an outfit day or a hair/makeup day today?

4)  Celebrate small accomplishments.  The other day I rocked two carts all the way through Target with nobody crying and got all the kids buckled and the groceries in the car.  And then I shut the doors and did a Mary Catherine Gallagher “Tada!” Big finish. 

5) Separate the day into manageable portions.  If you wake up in the morning and think 11 hours until bedtime, you’re not going to have a good day.  We do three or four sections in our days.  Morning, noon naps, afternoon until 6, 6 to bedtime.  That way I don’t get worn out by afternoon and start checking the clock.  Assess yourself according to the smaller sections rather than the whole day, that way when some disaster happens it’s limited to that part of the day.  Morning good, naps bad, afternoon great, bedtime fair.

I love the gym.  2 hours of babysitting.

6)  Sequester yourself when frustrated.  Sometimes you need a Mama time out.  I take them with my iphone, headphones or hiding in the laundry room.  Whatever it takes to avoid knocking heads together.

Attempted Christmas card photo session yesterday.  Fail.

7)  Cave.  Sometimes your peace of mind is more important than good parenting.  Do whatever it takes to keep them happy in situations that have the potential to become nightmarish.  Fighting against the messy candy?  Eh, give up.  Sure it teaches them to argue and cajole, but it gets me out of the checkout line with less problems. 

 

8)  Know your kid’s limits.  Plan days around what they can do reasonably without having complete meltdowns.  Don’t overdo it.  Say we go to the Oakland zoo and the kids spot the rides.  Just do the top half of the zoo and the rides. 

 

9)  Make your kids your allies.  Nobody likes fussy kids, even other kids.  When one is crying the others know that they have to take turns crying.  If Jude is crying, Mimi will try to help solve his problem.  If Si is crying Jude and Mimi both are concerned and try to help.  Thankfully my babies aren’t horribly fussy so the other kids know that when someone is crying there’s really a problem to be solved.

Spot the three kids.  Want to sit by me in church? 

10) Have a daily sleep/eat schedule, even on the weekends.  it’s fine if you have to deviate but it’ll help you know why your kid is acting nasty when you’re off your regular schedule.  Kids like routines.

Rainy day cuddle fest.

11)  There is nothing better than the promise of a babysitter.  Life is better when you know next time you’re leaving, it doesn’t seem like you’ll be with the kids every minute of every day for the rest of their lives.  You will be nicer to your kids if you know that at 6 pm you’re off duty.  Kinda like how it feels to know that class is out at a certain time.  It only takes me about an hour to start to miss them and wonder about their well being.  So I try to stay out a LOT of hours.

12)  Score meals outside the house.  Three meals at home every day is too hard and too messy.  Hit your family up for food or eat out somewhere where the kids can be messy.  I also take them to nice restaurants if they have fast service.

13)  When it get's too hard, become highly amused not angry.  Sometimes I overstay our time at grocery stores or activities and everybody is starting to freak out.  I refuse to let my kids embarrass me so I turn it into a funny scream session with “Everybody Scream” or start dancing to the noise so I can address the problem and also make it more of an amusing spectacle than an annoyance.  Being a mother of three tiny kids (obviously completely my responsibility) is like belonging to a circus.  Make it a funny one.

Love these babies, My Echo, My Shadow and Mimi.

And my MOST USEFUL tip that I use nearly every single day:

14) Life could be MUCH HARDER or Paige Can Do This, So Can I. None of my kids are currently sick or have any special needs.  I like to think of somebody who has a harder life than mine and remind myself that if they can do it, so can I.  Mine’s usually Paige.  Or Jen G.  Or Marie Mad.  Or Mardee.  These women all have kids close in age and a few of them have multiples or kids with hard issues (serious allergies and whatnot).   They are doing a bang up job and if they can do it, dammit so can I.  I’d be flattered if you used me: “Nor has three tiny kids AND had an awesome awesome marriage and she seems to manage well enough.  Kind of.  When I see her, anyway.”