Saved!

Overall, I'd say the transition from two to three kids has been going pretty smoothly. The girls have been champs, and Briggs has been a welcome addition. Our normal routine has been altered and my motherly standards of quality in more than one category (nutrition, acceptable amounts of television watching, etc) have momentarily slackened, but we've all made it through the last couple of months alive and happy.

But we've had our days. More specifically, I've had my "what-the-heck-happened-to-my-nice-little-life" days.

Babies are wonderful. They are sweet and innocent and endearingly helpless. Their cheeks squish when you kiss them, and the soles of their feet are gloriously un-calloused.

But the thing about babies is that they come when pregnancy has brought you to the very brink of your emotional, physical, and mental abilities. And if labor doesn't give you the final kick you need to push you over the edge, you just might plunge happily head-first in the following weeks of sleep-, downtime-, and general sanity-deprivation.

It wasn't that things were going horribly. In fact, I felt things had been going pretty well. But I'd just been treading water for too long. The endless cycle of feeding, diapering, and soothing was wearing me down. While we did manage to miss the colic train this time around, Briggs can be the Fuss Master 3000, requiring a constant song and dance to keep him happy... or semi-happy or "not screaming" or screaming for only moderate amounts of time. (Which, don't get me wrong, is much, much better than 24/7 screaming no matter what you do, but can still be frustrating and tiresome, nonetheless.) My lack of attention towards the girls was wearing on their nerves, resulting in a mixture of naughty behavior and a constant flow of "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY!! MommyMommyMommyMommyMommy! MOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMY....!" which, of course, was wearing on my nerves. The house was a constant mess of toy clutter, though I hesitate to even list this among the casualties of life because I was happy my kids were playing with the toys in an effort to entertain themselves. Brian was probably the most neglected, because of all the members of our family, he's obviously the most capable of carrying on by himself. And to top it off, I hadn't really had a decent night of sleep for nearly a year, when figuring in the discomforts of pregnancy (first-trimester midnight barfing... second- and third-trimester discomforts.) And I caught a cold. And I hadn't been able to get outside much, and the ugly doom of winter has been cruelly looming over my head.

And no matter what I did, it didn't seem like enough. Even giving the majority of my time and sanity to Briggs, it will never equal the time and attention a mother can give to her first baby. If I gave attention to the girls, not only did I feel guilty for ignoring Briggs, but also the girls didn't even want the attention because they were more annoyed by his crying than my lack of attention towards them. If there was a minute of peace, I felt I should spend it with the girls, but I do have to take a shower at some point, and I admittedly wanted to hoard the minute to try to recoup a little sanity where I could. I was treading water, but going to bed with a feeling of, "Holy crap, I have to do that ALL OVER AGAIN tomorrow!" I was sinking fast.

So my mom came to save me. Hallelujah! And hallelujah AMEN! She stayed for a little over a week and played with the girls, held Briggs to let me have my hands free for a bit, and held down the fort while I took a few naps. Basically threw me a life preserver to pull my head back up above water. And it is now. Things are still crazy and hectic and unsettled and imperfect, but now they're not only getting better, but also I'm feeling better equipped to deal with them. There is color in the world and hope in the future again. Hooray! Thank heavens for mothers. Thank heavens for my mother.