Once upon a time, I only had one child. An easy child, at that. I had all the energy and time in the world to devote to this child. I was the best mom. (Or at least I thought I was!) I put my foot down when needed, I disciplined with care and with love. I never yelled. I never even raised my voice.
But then, one day, a sweet tiny baby girl came along, and my life was flipped upside down.
Transitioning from one kid to two rocked my world. My sweet, easy first child turned into a defiant, willful, difficult 2-year-old, and my adorable new baby hated sleeping. Like, hated it.
Fast forward to a year later. My first child was still testing me every minute of every day. My second child still didn’t like to sleep, and was starting to test her own limits. I was worn out, worn down, and scarcely alive. Each morning I pried my eyes open, willed my heavy body out of bed, and dived face first into mothering, treading along all day, without a break, feeling like I was just barely keeping my head above the water.
One morning, when Graham was 3 and Maddie was 1, I was rushing around, trying to get us all ready to leave the house. I frantically searched for clean socks, slapped together some pb&js , made sure we were all wearing shoes, and shoveled some breakfast into my kids’ mouths.
