fear

I hope that writing about this will be therapeutic. It's worth a shot.

So it's probably no secret based on my previous posts, but I am sort of an anxiety-driven person. When I am "handling" it, I can sort of ratchet it down to a livable level. The older I get, the more I can reign it in. I have developed some cognitive and physical ways of tempering it as well. In some ways it has been responsible for many of the good things in my life. It rarely lets me drop the ball. It has helped me be someone that can be counted on, both professional and personally. But during life changing events, happy or sad, it can grow and be a bit debilitating. Having a baby falls into that category, for sure. I am surprised, I guess, because I expected it to be better this time around. We knew what to expect, so I thought it would be easy. Well, it hasn't been. But it's getting better. This is about the same time it got better when we had Ainsley, as well. Around three to four months postpartum I start to get my wits about me. I think it has a lot to do with getting more sleep, getting the baby on a schedule and getting some organization and systems in place. So there are very good days, and some so-so days, mixed in with way fewer rough ones.

So that's good.

But there's this whole other dark side to my anxiety that I'm having troubles kicking lately. I think it has to do with nursing, indirectly. I spend a lot of time on my iPhone when I nurse. And I'm somewhat of a news junky. And the news lately has just felt, well, bad. There was the abduction and murder of Jessica Ridgeway in Colorado. And the nanny murder in New York. And countless others, both recent and long since passed, that get dredged up to fill the news cycle. And I just get wound up and sick about it all.

And I am not delusional. It's not that I think there is a rampant epidemic of random violence or child abductions. I think we just hear about it all more. But it is just so terrifying.

I think Ainsley's age is part of it, too. She is getting more and more independent, and we will increasingly have to entrust other adults with her safety. I do trust her daycare completely, I really do. And she's never with anyone else besides her parents or grandparents (maybe an auntie occasionally, but they don't live close), and I trust these people implicitly. But it won't be long before she starts grade school, and then we move into the territory of sleepovers and coaches and bus rides. And I know I can be diligent, but I can't keep her in a bubble. And then there's Tuck - just three months old. I am even uneasy leaving him at daycare, and it's not that I don't trust our facility. It's just that he's so helpless. And there's nothing I can do that will 100% protect either of these kids from the evils of the world. And that's just impossible to process at the moment. So the result is anxiety. Stay-awake-at-night anxiety. So the day-to-day stuff feels better, and calmer, but the intangible is still sort of a mess.

So I suppose I will take it a day at a time. That's all you can really do. I need to realize I can only control my actions, but I cannot control the outside world, as scare as that is. I need to take solace in the fact that there is overwhelming probability that we'll all be just fine. And I need to get the hell off my phone.

3 months, 1 day

Yesterday was Tucker's three month birthday, if there is such a thing. Me-oh-my these months have flown by. I had no idea how little free time you had with two kids, although it is getting a little better now that nursing is calming down a bit (like every three hours, instead of every 90 minutes). Plus Tuck is getting to the point where he can just sit and watch what's going on around him, instead of needing to be held every minute. And he loves it. I think he's our little hoot owl--just taking it all in with those big blues (Yes, blue!).

I also just starting him to daycare two days a week so I can get things going for tax season. It was nice bonding time bringing him to the office with me, but no so productive. So it's crazy fitting it into two days a week, but it's nice feeling like I'm not doing both things--hanging with baby and working--halfway. That was more of a source of stress than I realized, I think.

Other than the crazy amount of chores that come with my two rascals, life is really good. We are settling into kind of a routine on days home. I am doing my best to keep up with Ainsley and plan activities now that the weather is turning colder. She is a ball of energy, that one. And so sassy! It's like her creativity and compassion and curiosity are huge, and her sass has kept pace. I suppose it's a way of feeling out her independence (of which there appears to be no shortage). But she is just such a cool kid. And she loves her brother. We moved his carseat into the middle of the backseat so my mother-in-law could fit in our car, and Ainsley just tickles and talks to him the whole time we go anywhere. And wipes his drool (of which there appears to be no shortage).

And Tucker. He's just a sweetie pie, and so mellow. He's started sleeping from about 11:00 to 6:00 most nights, sometimes longer. And I lean over to get him out of bed and it's just never ending smiles. Sometimes I'm afraid he's not eating enough because I'm not sure he'd even complain about it (Mike thinks I'm crazy to think that, as both the chub on this kid, and the mustard poops, are abundant).

The whole family-of-four thing overall - it really is a great feeling. I mean, I have my spaz attack moments. The twenty minutes before we have to leave the house for anything are never my finest. But really I feel so blessed. It's funny - I take so long to adjust to these things. I obviously loved Tucker when he was born, and would have gone feral on any threat in the blink of an eye, but I can't say I was enjoying every moment. Mostly I was just trying to get through the days. I remember being like that with Ainsley, too. It just takes me awhile to settle in. I need to start getting a little bit of sleep. I need a little bit of a routine. I need to get to know this little person so I'm not always guessing at what the problem is. But after those chips fall into place, the daily joys start coming fast, and eventually most of the initial anxiety falls away.