One Month

I’ve tried to start writing what the first month of being a family of 6 has been like and all I could do was stare blankly at the blinking curser on my screen.

How do you describe what having four kids three years and younger looks like? How does one go about finding words for the thousand of emotions you feel in a day as you live the life of a stay-at-home mom? Every day feels the same and yet somehow each day can seem crazier than the day before. The days at times have felt like they crawled as I wait for 5pm and the reinforcements to storm through the door (aka Dad come home), and yet the month as a whole feels like it has gone as fast as my one-year-old eats four pieces of pizza.

This was why I started this blog. I wanted to remember all of this. Even if it does seem mundane, it isn’t.

There have been eight tandem feedings a day. Yup, that means six feedings a day with a baby on each boob and two feedings a day with fortified bottles in each mouth.

Sixteen diaper changes a day for the twins (not including blowouts) and then five to six diaper changes for my one year old. So my best estimate is that we have gone through approximately 630 diapers in a month! I kept punching the numbers on my calculator because I couldn’t believe that many diapers had been changed!

Thankfully, no completely sleepless nights - but let’s just say I very much look forward to my cup (or three) of coffee in the morning.

I’ve had an amazing church family who has provided meals every other night. Honestly, I don’t know when there would be time to cook.

My husband has been a rockstar of a helper even through the night feedings, if anything it makes me feel like I’m not alone in caring for these two infants.

There have been plenty of shortcomings in this first month

It’s exhaustingly hard. Not for the faint of heart. One minute I think, we’ve got this! And in an instant, it all seems to be crumbling around me. Often I think - if it were just the twins, it wouldn’t be that bad. It’s having a three and one year old on top of it that makes it crazy.

In all honesty, the first two weeks of being home seemed like a dream. It was more restful than balancing home life and the NICU. Brock and I were truly so thankful to all be together. Something else that helped was that Ayden and Elle were still premies. Even their “cry” was more of a muffled whimper and they basically slept all the time unless they were eating. This meant I was able to still do what was ‘normal’ for me in a day with Casen and Trey.

But this reality soon ended. The week before they would have been considered full term they definitely came alive! That’s when the sweetness of it all seemed to wear off a bit, and the glazed look began to wash over my face by the end of the day.

Someone is always crying at me.

Always.

I remember the Monday of that week. It was truly a day when they all seemed to wake up as if they had all conversed in the night to test my limits. Finally at 4:30pm I called Brock and said, “I need you to come home.” In an instant, without question his response of, “I’m on my way” was the best thing I’d heard all day. He was home for an hour before we loaded the four kids up to go to small group. After a few minutes the quietness of the van almost seemed to hug me and I just stared out the window enjoying it.

Brock broke the silence with, “That was rough, and I was home an hour, I can’t imagine what your day was like.”

No, no you cannot my love.

But you know what? I can’t imagine what his days are like. I’m learning to fight the urge to want him to understand. To want him to have to stay home for a week - heck, even a full day with all of them. I’m learning I need to do a better job of building him up when he comes home; because for the last two weeks he can visibly see the depletion of energy on my face. Sure, it takes time to get a handle on things and we all need “come to Jesus moments” daily, but it’s also not okay to stay there.

So let’s fight together mama’s.

To embrace the spit up stains running down your shirt. (shoot fire, at this point I feel like my skin has soaked it in so much it’s practically my perfume!) To have confidence in your all-natural beauty when there just isn’t time to shower, let alone get ready. And although it is so hard for me, give your body the time it needs to lose the flabby belly pooch hanging over every pair of pants you own. To pray for patience before reacting when your toddler does the same thing you’ve disciplined him the last nine times for. To give yourself grace when you can see the disappointment on your one-year-old’s face when you can’t hold him, read to him, play with him because you’re feeding or holding the screaming baby (or two). To learn to be okay with the smeared mac n cheese on the floor, the spit up circles on your couch, the unfolded baskets of laundry on your bed and the half loaded dishwasher.

Let’s fight together mama’s,

To make intentional time to be with the Lord - this is the cornerstone of our day. We will still fail, but it gives us the tools to succeed. We will still be tired, but it gives us the strength to get through the day. His fruit of the Spirit are what we need to be modeling for our little ones, and I just don’t know how one could even try to make it through a day without filling up with Him first.

And do something for yourself, even if that means waking up before the kids or staying up after bedtime. For me, that’s been staying up after their 5/6am feeding and working out for 30 minutes before my God time. Be intentional with your day. Even if you’re not a naturally structured person, make at least one goal for yourself and complete it. Otherwise the day truly does fly by and you think to yourself what did I get done? (And some days, keeping your child alive, fed and in bed for the night is more than an accomplishment.)

Let’s fight together mama’s.

To encourage one another. To be honest with one another. To share our failures and struggles, but at the same time, to build one another up in who God says we are in Him.

It’s hard and we need one another. We need one another to remind us of the good. Because even in the most chaotic of days- I bet your toddler did something to make you laugh. Your baby did something to make your heart feel like it could burst with your love for them. And I bet you stared in amazement at the fact that you just gave birth to a full functioning human.

These are blessings from the Lord, which means we are blessed!