Transitions

It's hard for the boy.

Not just the new baby but having a mummy who is pretty much immobile. I had wanted to avoid another section because of the recovery and whilst the actual birth was great it has been really hard working on healing my body and parenting two.

It was always going to be difficult as newborn babies demand a lot of hands on mama time and do not much else but sleep and eat but added to that I can't lift the boy or have him climbing over me and the resulting stream of instructions to 'be careful', 'mind mummy's tummy', 'climb down', etc etc is wearing for all of us. Not least because toddlers don't respond well to verbal commands. Small children are not controllable at a distance. As Carrie says, 'You cannot parent a toddler from the couch. Get up!'

There have been tears from him and me - it's hard to see my happy, secure boy having to find his feet on shifting sands. I know it will get easier as I can physically do more but we're still very much in that transition stage. All I can do is take each day at a time, each hour really. And to remember that every moment is one moment more of working it out either to how I want to be able to parent two or how I don't.

I'm in the middle of reading Siblings Without Rivalry. It's perfect timing. It's helping give me tools to ease the boy into the new way of being. It's so unfair for him, he's always the one who has to wait. He's always the one who has to stop. It's never Isabel. But being able to give voice to that unfairness helps. And it's good to remember that it's normal.