Anxiety in My Mommy Head and Mommy Heart

I have mini heart attacks every day.  I find the more time I spend with my kids the more coronaries I have.  As so many things in life are uncontrollable, children being highest on the list, you might imagine how often I feel like crawling out of my skin.  It really got started at birth (probably mine), but I was referring to Zoey and Hunter’s births.  For several months after they were born I religiously listened for their breathing, watching their chests rising and falling to make sure they were still alive.  This is something I still do today.  I look in on them before I go to bed and sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and rush in to gently place my hand on their backs to feel that they are breathing.

I’m not exactly sure where my need to control things and the resulting anxiety began.  Did it come from my childhood or is it just in my DNA?  It goes hand in hand with my perfectionist tendencies.  These inclinations aren’t all encompassing.  My house is not immaculate to say the least, but I can’t stand to be wrong and will never make the same mistake twice.  My grandmother had obsessive compulsive tendencies (her house was always perfectly decorated and clean) and so do other members of the family.  In my case, the need to control my surroundings stems from not being able to control my internal feelings or emotions.  

anx·i·e·ty 

Noun:

A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Desire to do something, typically accompanied by unease.

Hunter in the "noodles"

I don’t have much control (ha!) when this uneasy breathing monster chooses to gurgle up inside me.  The other day Joe, the kids and I went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).  Hunter went running about in the “noodles” with Zoey.  There were a handful of other kids rushing around in there too.  While I stuck close behind my toddling Hunter, I didn’t feel anxious about him getting hurt.  The next day when we were at the park with no crazy kids nearby, I was on high alert.  Hunter was playing on the slide and my anxiety was chomping away inside me.  I was constantly bracing for the fall that I felt would inevitably come.  When he did fall face first off the slide, I felt slightly vindicated, yet angry at myself for allowing it.  My overbearing feelings hadn’t been for naught!  He stood up crying through a mouthful of sand, and while he was only slightly annoyed at the crunchiness in his mouth and recovered quickly, he had still been hurt, if only a little.

Joe tolerates my madness for a while, before he inevitably gets upset with me.  As I become more on edge, I react angrily to everything and everyone around me.  On my rampage this morning, I was short with both Joe and Zoey and while I was aware it wasn’t appropriate I couldn’t help myself.  Who was I mad at?  I was mad at myself for not having been more organized.  All logic disappears when these crazed moments occur.  Joe simply picked up the phone, called the doctor and asked if we could get copies.  Of course, they could replace them, but that wasn’t really the point.  They shouldn’t have been misplaced!  Of course about two minutes after he picked up the copies, I found the originals.  They were in the most obvious place, the kitchen table.  They had been folded up and looked like they were something else, so I had never even picked them up to look at them.      

Shortly before the fall

My mood is easily affected by my anxiety and this creates tension in my relationships.  Joe is a saint to deal with me when I’m taken over with anxiousness.  While it’s something I’m trying to get a handle on and be more aware of, I still struggle with it.  My anxiety involving Zoey has changed as she has grown up.  I’m no longer so worried about her getting physically hurt, as I now am with Hunter.  I worry more about how her emotional hurts about how her extreme height or her left handedness will affect her.  I’m anxious for her before I even need to be.  I want to make things easier on her before I even know if these things will be difficult for her.  I get all twisted up inside thinking about the future and my desire to control what I can’t.  

Maybe this type of irrational anxiety is something I can try to talk myself out of. Maybe it will fade as the kids get older.  Maybe in time I will be able to truly grasp that my struggle to be the perfect mom is an impossible feat.  I will have to get it through my mommy head and my mommy heart that I just can‘t control every aspect of my kids’ lives.  They will stumble, they will fall, they will get up, brush themselves off and be okay, and maybe, just maybe, so will I.   

Thirty-Five, I'm Alive

Making a wish at 2 years old

If I was living in the 1600s, when the life expectancy for a woman was about thirty-five, I’d probably be dead by now.  Thank God that’s not the case!  My birthday is tomorrow, August 12th.  Birthdays are no longer a big deal to me.  I don’t look forward to getting another year older.  If birthdays could come and go without making me older then I’d be in Heaven.  Don’t get me wrong, while I don’t want to add any more candles to my birthday cake, I still want the cake, the ice cream and the presents.   

I wonder how my parents feel about me getting older.  Of course, as I age, they age.   How does it feel to tell someone that your oldest daughter is thirty-five?  How quickly has this time passed for them?  I feel old as Zoey and Hunter get older.  I marvel at how I will feel when Zoey is thirty-five and Hunter is thirty-two.  I will have just turned sixty-six when this happens.  It’s difficult to wrap my mind around this.    

That old popular phrase “age is just a number” never used to apply to me.  I used to say it to people that were feeling bad about their age.  As I get older and the numbers creep higher, I’m beginning to understand the phrase.  I’m going to be forty years old in five years!  How the hell did that happen?  I don’t feel like I’m thirty-five years old.  There’s no book on how this is supposed to feel, so who knows? I still feel young and (knock on wood) my body hasn’t started to betray me yet.  In my head I feel eighteen.  Obviously, I’ve matured emotionally in many ways since then, but I’m still that young woman who feels like she’s just on the cusp of becoming something.  

One of my most memorable birthdays with my sixteenth when I received my license to drive.  My mom gave me permission to drive my five friends around in her big old blue Astro van.  I drove us to Video Shack to rent a VHS movie.  If I hadn’t already dated myself by revealing my age and driving an Astro van, then renting a VHS tape would have done it.  After picking a movie, (I have no recollection of the movie we rented) we piled back into the van.  We were having a good time laughing about something and instead of turning the wheel as I pulled out of the parking spot I backed up straight, bump, right into a parked truck.  I paused, unsure of what to do next.  One of my friends yelled “Go!”  I peeled out of the parking lot and drove a few miles before pulling over on a side street.  My friends jumped out first and rushed to the back of the van.  Their reactions told me what I already knew, I was in trouble.  I just had my first accident, while on my first solo driving trip, on my freaking birthday!  One of the back doors had a dent almost as large as the back door itself.  With the logic of a sixteen year old, I decided to stick with the plan of going to dinner with my friends, instead of returning home to face my mom.  I knew if I went home I wouldn’t be going back out again.  After dinner was over, I had to go home and tell my mom what happened.  I cried crouched in a corner by the front door, while my friends listened from the other room as my mom spoke sternly to me.  Many tears, on my part, and words on her part later, she drove to the video store.  She discovered the truck that I hit was owned by one of the employees.  Amazingly the other vehicle had no damage.  My mom told me I would paying to fix the dent, but let my friends stay over for the rest of my birthday sleepover.  

My twenty-seventh birthday was memorable in a much more romantic way.   Joe proposed to me.  I knew it was coming.  I had essentially told him I wanted to get engaged for my birthday.  It was nearing sunset and he asked if I wanted to take a walk to the beach.  I had a feeling he was going to pop that famous question.  I was nervous and I felt a bulge in his pocket that occasionally bumped against my leg as we walked.  I knew it had to be the ring box and not a “pencil” in his pocket because he was happy to see me.  Once we arrived at the beach Joe got down on his knee.  I too got down on my knees because I felt embarrassed as there were people around.  Of course, I said yes.  Later that evening we got drinks with friends to celebrate my birthday. I held up my left hand and showed them the ring on my pinky finger.  Yes, you read that right, my pinky finger.  The ring Joe bought me didn’t fit.  I wore it on my pinky until we got it sized.

Making a wish today (in the exact same place as when I was 2!)

In a moment I can flash back to myself at different points in my life.   For example, I can remember my first true heartbreak when I was almost eighteen.  In some ways I feel like my heart just cracked yesterday.  This was seventeen years ago and this break healed long ago, but time is so fluidic, it doesn’t feel that distant.  So many great and terrible things have happened since.  While I have matured, I’m still intrinsically the same.  I wouldn’t change any of the stepping stones I walked upon to get to where I stand today.  I still have things I want to accomplish, as I previously wrote about in my post Eighty Years Old/Death Bed.  I’m in a good place moving into my thirty-fifth year on this earth.  I’m a wife, with an awesome husband and a mother, with two amazingly adorable kids. I’m more confident and happier than I’ve ever been. So, Birthday, this year I challenge you to keep the candles coming, but don’t take it personally if I ignore their numbers as I blow them out.

  

Trust Me, This is an Experience You Won't Remember

Hunter's first Dodger game

Zoey has been to Disneyland twice, Sea World once, to several Zoos, and two Dodger games.  We have also had a couple big birthday parties for her.  She even tagged along on a trip to Europe in my tummy.  Hunter went to Sea World in my tummy (poor boy won’t be able to say he was in Europe, but will surely have a better chance of making it there again over a trip to Europe).  He has also been to Disneyland, Zoos, a Dodger game and had a big first birthday party.  Zoey and Hunter won’t retain any substantial memories of these events into adulthood.  I know I’m not the only one to spend small fortunes to take their kids places and give them experiences they won’t remember.  No matter what the price, I wouldn’t take back any of these moments.  I still think they’ve been worthwhile endeavors.  They won’t have the memories, but I will.  I’ll have the pictures of the good times and/or the bad times (often these big days occurred without naps or they were overstimulated, which can make for some cranky times) and the thrill of watching their excitement.    

San Diego Zoo

Zoey can talk and remember places we have been now, but I know she won’t remember them very much longer.  As she learns new things, like letters, numbers and how to write and read she will have less space in her brain to store these memories.  Five months ago we went to Disneyland.  I asked her if she remembered going.  She said she didn’t.  I was surprised by this.  I asked her if she remembered meeting the Princesses and then she remembered.  Now, I was curious to delve into her pockets of memory.  We went to Sea World a year ago.  I asked if she remembered going.  She said she didn’t.  I asked if she remembered seeing the penguins, she said she didn’t remember that, but did recall the fishes she saw there.  I asked if she remembered when Hunter was born and going to see him in the hospital.  She said she didn’t remember holding him while he was sleeping.  This response intrigued me.  I asked her why she said that, if she didn’t remember doing it, she didn’t have much to add, of course.  I wonder if she remembers because she has seen pictures of her holding him or if she really remembers.  She then asked why daddy came home late at night while I was in the hospital, so I know she does have some memories of this time, which is over a year ago now.   

Pictures are like a mnemonic device for memory.  I can look at pictures and recover memories that are just below the surface.  The brain is such an amazing thing in that memories are like books on a shelf, they can be set aside but rediscovered and looked at again.  I don’t remember a great deal from my early childhood.  I have little pieces of memory of things that happened.  One summer when I was about three we were on vacation in San Diego.  It was an overcast summer day, we were at the park and I fell asleep on a blanket.  I ended up with a sunburn that was so bad that my cheek sort of bubbled up.  They had to take me to the hospital and the doctors had to pop the bubble.  My mom always said they did a great job because I am scar free.  I have sort of concocted a memory from the story my mom told me.  The only true memory of this event, which is really the earliest memory I have, is of being in an unfamiliar white room in a bed with white sheets.  It’s interesting what the brain holds onto and what it lets go.     

A day at the park

I wonder what Zoey and Hunter’s earliest memories will be.  While they may not remember specifics of day to day happenings or special excursions, that we spent good money for, it’s okay.  They won’t remember the thousands of hugs and kisses I have given them or the hundreds of times I will hold them when they cry.  I’m hoping they won’t remember the times when I wasn’t at my best with them, when I was cranky and short.  They won’t remember the frustration they felt from me when I was teaching them what was right (from simply sitting correctly at the table to saying sorry when you hurt someone).  It’s not realistic for me to think their childhoods will be 100% perfect, but I can only hope the percentage of good feelings will by far outweigh the bad ones.  These memories or feelings won’t be in their minds, but in their hearts and their souls.  They will affect their future relationship with me and Joe, who they are and who they will become.  No matter what they do or don’t remember of these early years, above all I hope they remember how much they are loved.

This 1 is for Hunter

For some reason I never thought I would have a boy.  I just always had a feeling that we would have two girls.  So much so that we already had a very lovely girl name (Sophia Renee) picked out.  Once the shock of seeing a penis on the ultrasound wore off I was both excited and a little afraid.  I haven’t had much experience with boys (you know what I mean!).  I was one of four girls, raised virtually by my mom.  We had only one male cousin but he was older and we weren’t close.  I didn’t know what to do with boys.  Boys are loud and rowdy.  I have a nephew, Brody, who I wouldn’t consider to be excessively wild but he still throws things against walls when he plays and wants to wrestle and play forcefully with Zoey.  This is normal for boys but not for most girls and Zoey isn’t usual a fan of boy play.  I had gotten used to my customarily soft and gentle Zoey who was largely different in this respect from her cousin.  I didn’t feel prepared for the unnecessary roughness that was to come.

Yet here I am raising a boy and loving it.  There are definite distinctions between young boys and girls.  This was clear to me early on.  Hunter is more forceful, more violent with things.  You can see his mind working when he‘s doing something, thinking about the mechanics of it.  He enjoys things like sticking his hand in the toilet, something Zoey never did. Anything and everything is treated like a car with wheels that should be pushed along the floor.  He also loves balls (the kind you throw--not his own, but I’m sure he digs those too).  He’s already throwing all round objects and trying to bounce them.  It took Zoey longer to take an interest in playing this way.  Zoey also didn’t have another kid around to watch and learn from and I think this makes a difference too.  Really I guess these could just be differences in personality and interest but I think at the core there is a definite difference between boy and girl.  I’m just learning as I go, waiting for the moment when his toys start ricocheting off the walls.     

My little boy baby is going to be one year old on July 26.  I absolutely cannot believe it.  This year in so many ways feels like it has rushed by me.  It feels like both yesterday and like a million years ago that we brought our ten pound, not so little bundle of boy, home from the hospital.  The second time around I knew what to expect with a baby.  I knew about the milestones and when they should be happening.  I have been getting so much joy out of Hunter’s firsts, his accomplishments.  From his first smile, to rolling over, to sitting up, to crawling (time to start paying attention to where he is), to holding his own bottle (yay less work for us), to walking, to falling, to getting back up, to talking (waiting for the moment when he starts saying momma).  

The other morning we went into Zoey’s room.  I plucked Hunter’s much adored binky out of his mouth and said, “Say Hi Zoey.”  And in this clear, deep voice, without thinking he proceeded to say, “Hi Zoey.”  I was blown away, I sucked in my breath and he looked over a me, unsure of what he had done that caused this reaction.  I laughed for five minutes in disbelief.  I hadn’t imagined it, both Joe and Zoey also heard Hunter’s utterance.  I couldn’t believe he had spoken like that and he hasn’t done it since. Each new thing he does makes me happy, proud, amazed and oh so grateful for him.     

Hunter is my little boy, my little guy, he’s on my lap, and holding onto my legs and gripping my shirt while I carry him.   He’s at the stage where he wants to be with me, seeing me or touching me as much as he can and crying when I leave the room.  It makes it difficult to get things done but it’s a stage that will end as quickly as it began.  I’m going to enjoy raising this boy and am working on making him a momma’s boy, not a wimpy one that can’t live without me, just one that adores his mommy always.

Happy birthday dear Hunter, happy birthday to you...and many more...       

Princess Butterfly: A Poem for Grandma

I had a whole blog posting written about a butterfly that Zoey found and how I used the experience to teach her about death and dying.  I began writing it before my Grandma passed away.  After she died I wrote a poem on the same topic.  I read it at her Funeral (through teary eyes and in a shaky voice by the end).  I decided the poem should be my posting for this week instead.  It's a more succinct and concise portrait of what I had been trying to get across anyway.  

Princess Butterfly:  A Poem for Grandma

One day Joe and Zoey brought home

a beautiful Monarch butterfly. 

When I saw the butterfly was still alive,

I felt we needed to be outside in nature,

where it belonged.  We named her Princess

Butterfly and put her on our balcony.

I thought she would fly away but she couldn’t.

We watched as she tried to flap her wings

and cheered her on, but a broken wing 

can’t carry you very far.  

The next morning Princess Butterfly

was still, her wings flat.  We brought her downstairs,

dug a hole in the ground, placed her softly  

in the dirt and covered her.  We each said something

we liked about her and blew a kiss up to the sky.

I often use our experience with the butterfly

to help explain dying and death to Zoey.

It’s a difficult idea to grasp at such a young

age that something is gone forever.  

That while you might see another butterfly

that looks exactly the same, 

the one you loved can’t be replaced.   

I thought of Princess Butterfly 

as I squeezed your hand, Grandma,

kissed your forehead, told you to rest and that

I loved you, it was difficult for me to grasp

and believe it would be the last time I would see you.

When Zoey asked me if you were going 

to get better, I told her you weren’t.  

I explained that you were like Princess Butterfly.  

I said that maybe you and Princess 

Butterfly would meet up in Heaven. 

I said maybe you two would fly together.

Zoey giggled and said, “But Great Grandma

can’t fly!”  I replied “Maybe up in Heaven she can.”

  

  

Zoey with her Great Grandma

Hunter with his Great Grandma

 I hope you are at peace now Grandma.  

Eighty Years Old: Death Bed

For years now I’ve had this vision, that someday I’m going to regret pieces of my life. Perhaps this is inevitable but there’s one thing that I can foresee so clearly.  I see myself as an old woman with white hair sitting in bed with a pale blue blanket pulled up to my waist.  The bed is next to a window, the curtains are open, the room is bright with sunlight.  I’m at a point at which it’s far too late for me to make any significant changes.  I sit alone, wallowing in my disappointment. 

This older version of myself is always sort of lingering in the back of my mind.  Coming to warn me and urge me to write, to not let my passion or my talent go to waste. She stays with me for a while and I tell myself I’m going to heed her warning.  Then time gets away from me, as it often does, and I don’t do much writing.  She isn’t giving up on me though, she returns to my consciousness to remind me again.  She’s here now.  I can feel her sorrow at the lost time, the lost dream.  Since I began writing this blog I feel creative again.  Writing makes my soul happier.   My characters and their stories that always float about in my imagination are getting louder, begging me to do something with them.  But still she’s here, I’m not doing enough.  I need to write more, do what I’ve always felt I’m supposed to be doing.  

I caught the writing bug in fifth grade.  This was the first time I felt the thrill of my words having an affect on people.  I don’t remember exactly what the assigned essay topic was but I wrote about my cat, Lovey and about how she died.  My essay was picked as one of the best by my classmates and I had to read it aloud in front of the class.  It felt amazing to be recognized in this way. One day when I was in sixth grade I came home from school and just started writing poems.  I think I wrote over twenty short little poems that afternoon.  I haven’t stopped writing, or at least, stopped thinking about it ever since.  I wrote anything and everything.  I wrote novellas in which I imagined meeting the New Kids on the Block.  I filled journals with poetry and hand wrote novels that I called “teen books,” which are all the rage now. 

Boxes of my writings that sit in my closet

When it came time to decide what I wanted to do or be when I grew up all I could think of was writing.  There wasn’t any career or thing that I could see myself doing, that was it.  I was going to go for it.  I got my Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing.  After that I didn’t have a job to step right into, so why not keep going to school?  I got my Master’s in Creative Writing.  Once I finished that, what was next?  Other than write I still had no career aspirations.  Realistically, I knew I was always going to have to do something other than write to make a living.  I would have to make time to write on the side and hope that one day I’d make something happen with it.

I watched other people go to school and get the jobs that they had studied to do.  Two of my sisters did this, one of whom is a teacher and the other a social worker.  I’ve always been jealous of people that get paid to do what they love.  People asked me why I didn’t get a job as a writer in a company somewhere.  But that wasn’t the kind of writing I wanted to do.  I didn’t want to just write for writings sake.  I wanted to be a creative writer and write what I wanted.  In reality, I guess I’ve always known what I wanted.  Because I have had always had other jobs, I’ve always felt like I’ve been searching for what I really want.  I’ve been very lucky to work for great companies and to excel in my positions, but all the while I long to make writing my full time job.

In forty plus years I don’t want to regret not doing what I wanted to do.  That I didn’t work hard enough at it, or accomplish anything with it.  As I write this I’m sitting in my car before work.  As I walk inside and sit down at my desk I’ll feel an ache, a twinge of sadness because I’d rather be working on my novel or writing a blog post.  Other writers can find time to work and write, raise kids and write, live and write--why can’t I?  I need to make it a priority.  I need to be disciplined enough to work at and follow this dream.  I often think of the saying, “Do what you love and the rest will follow.”  I hope I can make this true for me.  

This posting has been more about me than being a mother, but is still about how time can just get away from you.  Though, in many ways I think this is about my kids too.  I want both Zoey and Hunter to feel free enough to follow their passions.  I don’t remember my mom trying to steer me away from pursuing writing, to choose something else.  I want to do the same for my kids.  I want them to find something they love and be able to go out and do it.  If they choose a creative path I want them to run on that path with more fervor than I have up to this point.  

Coincidentally, this week, in the midst of writing this, one of my grandmothers has been on her death bed.  As she slips away, I wonder if she ever looked back on her life with regret.  I imagine she must have as this has to be a natural part of life and death.  In a way I hope she did to an extent, as none of us can live a perfect life.  

But I’m not eighty or on my death bed yet.  I’m not that sad woman looking back on her life.  I’m not even halfway to being her.  I still have time to follow my heart, fulfill my dreams.  One of the best ways for me to show Zoey and Hunter that they can follow their dreams is to do it myself.  Whenever I falter I’m sure my future self will return and get me back on the track that I should’ve been on all along. 

The early Birthday present I gave myself to help me get writing.
I love this thing!

Splitting Time / Mommy Time

When I found out I was pregnant with Hunter I wondered if I would be able to love two kids as much as I loved one.  My heart was already bursting with everything I felt for Zoey.  When Hunter arrived I quickly found it wasn’t a problem.  Naturally I loved them both and had more than enough room in my heart for each of them.  The problem then wasn’t having enough love but how and when I could show and share it with them.  This little thing called work gets in the way of my time with my kids.  As time with both of them is so limited I often feel torn between giving them both the attention they need.    

I don’t get much alone time with Hunter.  I had tons of quality time with Zoey.  I think Zoey notices our lack of time together and/or lack of mommy time.  I make a point to put in some Mommy and Zoey time when she seems in need of it.  We’ll go shopping, get our nails done or go out to eat.  As Hunter gets older I’ve realized I haven’t made alone time with him a priority.  I’m feeling little guilty about this.  Of course he’s still a baby and doesn’t know differently yet.  Zoey was a lucky ducky with almost three years of undivided Mommy time.  Poor Hunter rarely gets this much of me but does get a great deal of my attention.  In a way, though, it might be harder on Zoey, which is why I go out of my way to make her feel special too.

On our way to get our nails done

Hunter will be one year old in less than a month.  I’d love to get in some alone time with him on a consistent basis too. The fact that I hadn’t been doing this hadn’t really crossed my mind before now.  I think it’s because he’s getting older and more aware.   A couple weekends ago Joe took Zoey swimming and I took Hunter to get his first hair cut.  Hunter and I came home to an empty house and we were both thrown off.  He was looking around for Zoey.  I felt her absence too and the place just felt so quiet.  It also happened to be nap time and he got cranky.  So much for Mommy and Hunter time I thought as I put him down for a nap.  I need to do things like this more often and not at nap time! 

Bedtime for Hunter is one piece of the day that is just ours.  Each night we give Zoey and Daddy hugs and kisses, say “Night, night. bye, bye” and Hunter usually waves to them.  I brush his teeth and take him into the room that he and Zoey share.  I give him a bottle and read him a book.  Then I pick him up and we look at the pictures hanging on the walls of their room.  A few nights in a row I pointed them out to him and it has become part of our routine.  He points to the pictures and I tell him who’s in them.  There’s a caricature of him and one of Zoey, a picture of me (very pregnant with Zoey) and Joe on Zoey’s side of the room and another picture of Joe, Zoey and me (very pregnant with Hunter) on his side of the room.   I’ve started asking “Where’s mommy or where’s Zoey?” and he has gotten good at looking around and pointing at the right picture. 

Hunter and his Sleepy Guy

I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to him every night. I sing the extended version that I didn’t know existed until I heard it on a nursery rhyme album.  The second part begins with “And the traveler in the dark, thanks you for your tiny spark...”  He usually rests his head on my shoulder and I sway to the song as I sing.  Then I give him many, many kisses and tell him mommy loves him. I lay him down in his crib and put his Sleepy Guy on his tummy.  He usually wraps one of this hands around it and looks up at me. I tell him to go to sleep and then I leave the room.  Ninety-nine percent of the time he goes to sleep without crying.  I also get some more alone time with him on weekend mornings.  He usually wakes up around 6 and 6:30 which is about an hour before Zoey gets up.  He and I get that little pocket of the morning together. Most days during the week he’s up before I leave for work.  He follows me or I carry him around as I eat breakfast, make my coffee and brush my teeth.  Then I have to say (with a frog in my throat some days) “bye, bye”, hand him to daddy and leave him for the day.

Early one Sunday Morning with Hunter

I think I do a good job of making both of them feel special.  Though I do think I can make more of an effort to give Hunter some more Mommy time while I continue to do this with Zoey as well.  Sometimes one will need more of me than the other.   I can tell when Zoey does.  Hunter is getting more attention for his accomplishments: learning to crawl, stand, walk and talk.  Zoey has started to feel and act jealous.  Often she will start “copying” Hunter in an attempt to get the same attention.  Sometimes she will act like a baby and ask me to hold her like one.  She has also started to do things that will attract negative attention.  I try to be cognizant of when this is happening.  I try to include her in my excitement of Hunter’s new skills.  

Hunter can also act jealous at times.  Like most babies with their mothers, Hunter likes to be close to me.  He wants to be near me and gets upset when he can’t be. If I’m on the floor with Zoey he will push by her and crawl into my lap.   I can’t imagine having to split myself more than two ways.  There are so many people out there with more than two kids.  I’m sure there’s a fine art to spreading your time, love and attention evenly amongst your children.  I’m sure there can’t always be a balance.  I’ll have to be the pendulum that swings back and forth.  I’m sure I’ll get better with practice.