I have taken 32,437 photos since my first child was born in 2005.
I should be able to say I'm surprised, and I am ... honestly, I'm surprised it's not a lot more than that.
Digital has made me a fearless photographer. I can take hundreds of shots of a single event, and never have to worry about how much it's going to cost me to have all that film developed. I can waste shots with abandon. And because I fire off so many wasted shots, I get a lot more great shots than I would if I was just killing a roll of 36 during every event.
But when it comes to my photos, I'm a packrat. I don't delete anything, except for the very overexposed and the very underexposed, and the very blurry. This is how I know I've taken 32,437 photos. I still have every one of them.
I back them up on an external hard drive, and on DVDs stored in two places: one in a fire safe (in case there's a fire) and one on a bookshelf (in case someone breaks in and steals the fire safe).
Someone once told me you are supposed to go through and delete all but the very best of your photos. Ideally, you should only have one great shot per event.
Who made up that stupid rule? In just a few years, my kids will be grown. I don't want one great shot from every event that happened during their short childhoods. I want a shot of each one of the wonderful expressions they wore on their faces during those events. I want shots of what their hands and feet were doing. I want the smiles and the tears. I want pictures of them running, pictures of them standing, and pictures of them wondering what to do next. I want action shots and still shots. I want to know what the event looked like. When I view my pictures, I want to be transported back in time. How can I do that with just "one great shot?"
Childhood is over way, way too soon. I have a fierce need to document all of it, because you can't really go back, not really. Words and pictures can bring you close, though. And when the kids are grown with families of their own, that's all you have left. Words, pictures and memories.
Hang on to them.
Poor little Natalie. She's child number three of four (all born within five years of each other).
When you have that many kids that close together, child number three gets the short end of the stick. It's impossible to keep track of a five-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old who doesn't care how far away she runs or who might be following her--so the two year old gets strapped into the stroller, rides in the shopping cart or gets carried by Daddy.
This, of course, just makes her want to run more.
I feel bad about this almost every day. I know Natalie needs her freedom. She needs to be able to run and explore, and she needs to be able to do so while properly supervised, so she can stay safe while she is running and exploring (something a two-year-old can't, obviously, do on her own).
How can we manage this when we have a four-year-old and a five-year-old to look after? They don't have the same running away issues, but together they require at least one parent's undivided attention. Natalie alone requires one person's undivided attention, and now that we have five-month-old Henry there just aren't enough parents to go around.
We've even resorted to that one evil I said I would never bow to--the dreaded child leash. Sure it's a cute little backpack, but it's still a leash. I still feel like I'm walking my baby. She handles it OK; it's better than the stroller, still not as good as absolute freedom.
I try to justify restraining poor Natalie by telling myself that the trade off is that she will have two very close older siblings and one baby brother, all of whom will be her friends and playmates as she grows up. It's a pretty good justification, but it doesn't stop my heart from breaking every time my husband takes the two older children outside and Natalie has to stay inside with me and the baby because there are just too many two-year-old hazards in our backyard (a pond, horses, potential rattlesnake habitat, ticks, occasional mountain lions). I just don't think risking her life is worth avoiding a few tears.
If she were our only child it would be a different story. But she's not our only child.
That's a wonderful thing. For us, it's meant a lot of sacrifices--sacrifices that I was more than willing to make and would gladly make again if I had to do it all over again. What I didn't anticipate, though, was that Natalie would have to make sacrifices, too. And sometimes it just doesn't seem fair to ask a two-year-old to make sacrifices.
I just hope when she gets older, she'll understand.
It sure would be helpful to have an extra arm. Sure it would look kind of weird, but imagine how much easier it would be to manage two under two if you had an extra arm for things like closing doors, digging out your keys, or hanging on to one child while you put the other in his car seat ...
... and since we're talking extra appendages, I could also use a few extra brain cells. I must get my kids' names confused four or five times a day. Sometimes I even call the baby by his older sister's name, and vice-versa. I used to say that pregnancy was a form of dementia, now I think all of parenthood is.
An extra eye, I could use one of those too. In the back of my head. Yes, that's a cliche but think how handy that would be--when one child is walking ahead of you and the other is walking behind you and won't catch up no matter how wildly you gesture or how artful your combination of bribery and threats ("Hurry up so I can buy you a soda! Hurry up, or we won't get to ride the carousel!") you could still keep an eye on both of them.
How about four legs, in addition to my three arms. I could be a three-eyed, three-armed Centaur mom. Scary, but effective. Fast enough to chase down a speedy toddler (who would be running from me in abject terror anyway), nimble enough to carry two children and turn the key in the front door at the same time, sharp-eyed enough to watch one child on the swing set and the other at the opposite end of the playground, smart enough to help one kid with his flower project while calling the other one by her correct name. Yes, being a monster would be quite handy.
As a two-under-two parent, you do become pretty adept at using your foot as an arm. I am constantly hooking doors with my toe or shutting them with my heal as I lug the baby carrier with one arm and carry a screaming, kicking toddler under the other. But I still haven't figured out how to fish my keys out of my purse with my toes. I guess that's as close as I'm going to get.
Life with two under two (plus two) is fun and fulfilling, but sometimes I really miss those days in the hospital with my newborn. I miss the break from responsibility (how funny is it to have a newborn yet feel like you're getting a break from responsibility), I miss the 24/7 room service, I even miss the awful hospital food (I loved lifting the heavy plastic lid off of my tray and discovering what disgusting concoction I was expected to eat, for the sole reason that I wasn't the one who had to cook the disgusting concoction).
I think the thing I miss most about the hospital, though, is that feeling of total commitment. During those four days after my c-section, I was able to commit myself to my baby 100%. I had no other kids pulling me in several different directions, I never had to put my baby down and let him cry while I changed someone else's diaper or refilled a sippy cup, I never got distracted from the all-consuming task of loving my new baby.
I'll never regret two under two or even four under five, but that small gap between children does make those early days complicated. When Dylan was a baby, I never put him down. He didn't touch the floor at all until he was three months old, and then when I put him down on a blanket I was always down there with him. I had that luxury because I didn't have to worry that my toddler would throw something at him, I didn't have to get up and tend to a dispute between my four year old and my five year old, and I didn't have to think about what to make for anyone's lunch except my own. I had all the time in the world and I could devote every minute to my only child.
Some days I envy moms who spaced their children out. I know one mom who put 10 years between her kids, another one who waited 14 years and one who has 18 years between her two. They all had the luxuries of raising only children and the blessings of having multiple children. They had babysitters already on call in their homes. They had a little bit of the chaos of raising a child but none of the chaos that comes with two under two.
Of course, as a first time mom at 33 I never had the luxury of time, so putting even 10 years between my children would have been really out of the question. But if I'd started having kids in my early 20s would I have chosen any differently? My sister and I had 15 months between us, so the concept of two under two never seemed odd to me. In fact, when I had my first two 15 months apart and started hearing criticism about it, I was surprised that anyone would find it strange.
So yes, sometimes I wish I could go back to those hospital days. It was like the Ritz Carlton compared to my house, and Henry and I were first class guests. But then I remember how it felt when my husband and my other three kids walked out of our room after a visit, how much I missed them before the door had even closed behind them. Sure, life with two under two is tough, and it's even tougher with four under five. But even the Ritz Carlton isn't as good as home.
