16 May 2012

Harder in easier ways

I have moved from the "You've got your hands full!" years to the "I don't know how you do it" years. Weird since I still have my hands full, but whatever. The point is that the chatty public indicates to me a general impression that my life is impossibly hard. It is not. I just have a lot of things to do. In many ways, it is easier than the years when all I had to do was wait for something bad to almost happen and maybe try to get something made for supper while I waited (lesson learned: as soon as you start trying to get something made for supper, something bad will happen).

I often say that it gets easier, but that is shorthand. It is more accurate to say that it gets harder, but in easier ways. For me, there has been nothing harder than a first baby. The hardness has become broader but shallower as babies are added. I have never been more desperately exhausted, more horrified and hobbled by physical pain, more lonely and close to despair than I was that first time around. The new and growing demands are more quantitative than qualitative. Although packing for a trip or bagging the groceries or just getting everybody through breakfast is far more time-consuming and personally taxing than it used to be, I would take those jobs any day over a trip back to the Baby 1 era. (Yes, I find bagging groceries for eight people personally taxing. I am a wimp.)

Maybe this is just me and my androidish inclination to tasks over people. I love the people, but they wear me out terribly and I am relieved that there is now an "each other" for them to have rather than only a me. The tunnel years of running a little-kid-only house are real, although no one in a two-kid society is able to recognize them as such. It is hard work of getting to the big family stage, and although it doesn't strictly get easier, it does change, and that helps.

5 comments:

pekoponian said...

I wish this had a "like" button!

Anonymous said...

Well said, Rebekah! As we grow into a 4th child in the next few weeks, I find myself less nervous than adding a first, second, and third. And ditto what you said about going from zero to one. OH MY. I've told others before that it's not exactly boring with only one at home, but I was constantly clamoring for ideas to get us through the day. Once you add another to the mix, there is never an inkling of boredom=) --Marie MacPherson

Rhonda said...

When the kids were still coming, it was harder. Once we were done with diapers, it was much easier. The problems were different, but each child could take more responsibility. Also, they had eachother to play with. This was all good until I missed the baby stage and we got into foster care. I loved it again and so much we actually adopted child number 6 and started over when our youngest was 16. Best thing we ever did. Now Auntie Alair has 7 nieces and nephews with two more on the way. She is 6.

Cathy said...

This is so true. You perfectly described the agony of my first-baby experience. But then, like you wrote, the hardness becomes broader but shallower as babies are added. What a great way to say it.

Leah said...

Although, now I feel that the primarily physical need oriented stage when the children were all little (which of course seemed like a huge deal to me at that time, but now not half so much, because I've learned over the years how to deal with it more naturally and efficiently, and so have they) is nowhere near as daunting a task as making sure I'm proactive in dealing with their spiritual, emotional, and relational states as they grow up into young men and women. Listening, discerning, and talking are a far more demanding job than diapering, monitoring, and feeding (although I'm still doing all those now too) ever were.