#Life With Three - February (Family Update)

So I realise it is now March but I forgot I had this post sitting in my draft folder so I whipped it out a few weeks late! Sorry. Ha.

I thought I would write a bit of a post up on how life is going with three kids now that we are three months into the fray. My last post about kids was introducing Little Miss A back in November. I don't write much personal stuff on the blog, but I thought it might be helpful to other mum's and myself to share the high's and low's of motherhood and wrangling three kids. Maybe someone is in the same boat as me, and we can commiserate.  I didn't want my blog to turn into a parenting blog and have fought fitting into that mould so I haven't written much about the family here. However my family is my life, and what I juggle every day so instead of fighting the mould I thought I would introduce the topic of more personal related posts on the blog in the format I felt comfortable with. It will probably be a monthly post on what is happening in life with three cute ratbags and what motherhood is looking like in this season.  I hope to keep this dialogue going throughout the year, and I would love for you to join in on the conversation and raise your wine glass in a "here, here" because us mum's need to stick together.

So what has happened in the last four months since our sweet Little Miss A was born? A heck of a lot. I always seem to have my kids in the lead up to the busiest and craziest time of year... Christmas. J.D was born in August, and Miss H was born in November, so I seem to be always juggling a young baby in the lead up to Christmas. This time round was made even more challenging with me falling ill in mid-November with what I now know is to be Gastritis. Gastritis is the inflammation of the stomach lining and can be caused by a number of things, but in my case it was stress. If you have had it your will know how incredibly painful it is and just the act of eating food is awful. It can take months to heal, so I am in the throes of trying to get over it now. I only got diagnosed with this in the last week (early February), so I have been battling this unknown illness for three months while trying to raise three young kids and can I just say life has been hard. Almost even brutal. So many people said to me that going from two to three kids is easy. Like really? How can being outnumbered by little people be easy? Even when hubby is around, we are still outnumbered. Can I tell you five things that happen when you have more than one kid...

1. Someone will always be crying... or whining. Whether it will be the baby, the toddler or the big kid. Someone will always be unhappy at some stage. You know what is really fun. When they are all crying together.... in the car.... on a long trip... or just to the grocery store. Does wonderful things to the ears.... and the stomach lining! Ha.

2. Someone is always hungry. Again could be the baby ready to be fed or the toddler who has just finished breakfast a half hour ago and decides they want seconds or the big boy that seems to be never full these days. They are like feeding machines. You will always be in the kitchen making breakfast, lunch, dinner and all the snacks in between.

3. It will take just as long to get the kids in and out of the car as it takes to run the actual errand you are trying to do. There is no such thing as quickly ducking into the shops or leisurely browsing in Kmart or doing anything relaxing really. Take relaxing off your list for the next 18 years or so.

4. Half your grocery bill will be spent on nappies and wipes. Unless you are super organised, and toilet trained the toddler before the third one appeared. If you did, you are just showing off. Joking... kinda.... maybe.

5. The sweet moments will be sickly sweet and gooey and heart-meltingly gorgeous. Not being sarcastic with that one because when the older kids adore their younger sibling to the point of obsession, it's adorable... until you find them trying to give cuddles by lying completely on top of them all the time.

Little Miss A has been a great baby, and I can't really complain about her at all. She has a great temperament, is fairly laid back unless she is left alone in the room because she loves the kids around. She slept through the night from about 10 weeks and sleeps really well throughout the day. Until one of the big kids has a hissy fit or starts fighting with each other. We breastfed together up until about three and a half months, and then I had to sadly give it up because I physically couldn't maintain breastfeeding with being ill. I wasn't producing enough milk, and as much as I tried all the usual routes of increasing my supply, it came down to me not being able to eat enough to produce supply. Thanks, Gastritis. Plus Little Miss A was getting to the point of being impatient with my let-down so to save us all the stress I switched to a bottle using the breast milk I had frozen and then switched to formula. She made the transition fairly well, and we are better off for the change. I am less stressed, she is getting fed and is happy, and I can concentrate on getting well. I won't lie how emotional it was for me to make the call to stop breastfeeding her. I think I cried for the entire week of weaning her off me and onto the bottle. Even now it brings tears to my eyes because I never got the chance to have one last go at it since she is my last baby. Everyone says that I gave her a good head start and all that, but it's hard knowing I'll never breastfeed again and I feel like I never got a good chance at it with her. Ah, the joys of being a mum.

The big boy - J.D started Kindy this year, and gosh it has been a hard transition to make for him. He was going to daycare two days a week before this year, but it was in a small family daycare. I think he only had about 4 other kids in his group and the lady who looked after him was a gem. So to transition from a small group of kids to a large class of 18 or so kids with two new teachers has been a bit overwhelming for him. He has cried every day since starting in late January. It's heart-wrenching to see every time I drop him off. Not to mention the kid broke his arm on the third day of kindy by falling off a large rock retaining wall all of ten minutes before I was meant to pick him up. The dramas. He ended up having to go under General Anaesthetic to get the bone manipulated back into place and the cast put on. Here's to hoping that things will start to improve before the end of the 

term.

Miss H has started one day a week at the family daycare J.D use to go to. She adores her carer Bronny and has thrived attending the daycare. I thought she would struggle being left there by herself as she is my sooky one. However, she bounces through the door ready to have her time at Bronny's house. It's adorable, and I am glad to see she loves to go. It makes life easier when at least one child enjoys leaving mum for a day.

I intended to go back to work when both J.D and Miss H were away for the day while Little Miss A slept. My plans haven't turned out that way and instead, I am slowly recuperating from this horrible stomach issue and trying to just get through the day. Part of me needs the creative outlet but at the moment I know it's probably not possible with the way I have been feeling. Patience is not my strongest point and I have been learning a lot about that these past few months. I realise this is a season I am in at the moment juggling looking after these three ratbags and having to put my desire for other things on hold. It is hard to trudge through the mud that is motherhood and get stuck in the pit of daily struggles that you forget that life should be fun, joyful and happy. Instead, you go through the motions of refereeing the same fight for the sixth time that day, briefly glance at the mountain of laundry overflowing from the laundry basket, scrunch up the toes at the weet bix crumbs underfoot and run your hand through the greasy hair that you never seem to get time to wash or properly style.

People constantly say to me don't wish these years away while they are still young and at home but by golly gosh while I'm stuck in the trenches of motherhood it's damn hard not too!

You feel me?