When three becomes four

I'm about to have a baby. My second child is due any day now and our family of three is about to become four. GASP!  From the moment I brought Noah home two years ago I knew I wanted to give him a sibling, a companion, a lifelong pal and childhood playmate.  And woo-hoo!  I'm about to deliver, literally! I'm happy to be giving my children the gift of each other, someone to play with, talk with, and of course, battle restraints against me and my parenting tsk-tsks. 

Waiting for this second child to arrive is drastically different than waiting for the first.  For starters, if my water breaks first, I won't be all clueless wondering, huh, what's that feeling?  But more seriously, I have to plan for childcare for my current child so I, his only ever daytime and constant caregiver can leave for several days.  I think am losing sleep and shedding tears over how worried I am about leaving Noah, much more so than the impending physical toll of my planned un-medicated natural labor. 

So here I sit, two weeks from my due date, intermittent contractions and a fraction of a centimeter dilated and I'm still making plans for tomorrow, this weekend, maybe even the end of the month. This is really awkward for me because I like to plan and know when things will be happening.  This up-in-the-air could be tonight, maybe tomorrow, more likely next week but possibly even longer, nature of waiting for labor to begin is not easy for someone who tends toward the obsessive need to plan.

I am looking forward, albeit with slight apprehension, to increasing the number of adorable and tax-deductible germ-factories in our small little house.  I'm excited to be giving Noah a lifelong sibling and friend and hopefully in about a year, a playmate other than myself on which to climb and kiss. This is all a very good situation, except for own anxieties and worries.

For now I am still stutteringly confused about how to take care of two kids at once.  One who will need to be held and fed from the appendages of my body, and another one who prefers to climb on me, sit on me, hang around my shoulders and kiss me sideways while giggling.  How do I put one child down for a nap if the other one isn't sleeping first, and can I leave one of them in a different room and just ... disappear for a few minutes? Will I be able to produce chicken nuggets with ketchup on a Dora plate and breastmilk at the same time?

I'm sure these are all things I'll figure out soon enough and in just a few short weeks it won't seem so daunting, or, maybe it will, but I will get the knack of it sooner or later, I'm confident of that.  In keeping with my obsessive tendencies, now that I have a brief, fleeting moment of confidence about this mothering-two-children thing, if I could just start NOW that would be great!

This is an original post to DC Metro Moms.

Stacy Kravitz blogs about life and motherhood as The Fabulous Miss S.