I'm all alone. I'm sitting on the couch with the laptop and a Tivoed episode of Lost (for noise mostly as I hardly pay attention to TV anymore and Lost lost me ages ago and I might have seen this episode before, actually) and I'm alone in the room. Both kids are asleep in our bed with a pillow between them to protect Linnea from Matilda's tossing and rolling. Niclas is working in the room next to them so he can keep an ear out.
I'm alone in the room. I'm eating the easter bunny I bought Matilda weeks ago thinking I could convince myself to forget it was in the house. I'd forgotten until now, alone in the room with my arms free and my shirt on and the house in relative order for tomorrow.
The dishes are washed, the toys are picked up and my coffee is ready to go, but there's laundry to be folded. There's always laundry to be folded, however, and I'm putting this batch off to sit on the couch alone. The folding of this load doesn't matter as much as the washing did. This load contains this dress
which Matilda hardly takes off long enough to be washed. (She didn't wear it today but started asking for it before bedtime. I told her we had to wash it but she could wear it all day tomorrow. She helped me put it in the washing machine. It was important to get it into the dryer. She will be asking for it as soon as we get downstairs tomorrow morning.)
I haven't been alone on the couch with the TV and the internet and things wrapped up at the end of the day since Linnea was born.
I saw the OB I used for my pregnancy with Matilda this weekend. She told me the new girl working at her front desk has six kids and that's why she hired her. Figured anyone who could manage six childred would be on top of whatever her job could throw at her. I'm not ready for six kids. I've got two and I think we're doing ok but I spend all my time organizing and cleaning and planning weekly menus (oh yes, yes I am) and mapping out how to get to the bank or the post office and making sure Matilda's snack tray is stocked and ready to go the night before
so I can pull it out in the morning and put a stop to the "eat eat eat eat" chant and have a cup of coffee in the relative peace of a nursing infant. (The trays are working and the joy is spreading.) I'm busy distracting one kid while the other eats and then distracting that kid while the first one eats. I'm pulling out playdoh and starting dinner at 2 so it's ready when Matilda starts asking for it at 5.
I'm busy trying to catch all the things Linnea is doing. The grabbing and grunting and kicking and smiles.
I'm making faces at her and rubbing her soft round head. I'm talking to her when she's nursing to see her raise an eyebrow, kick a leg straight out and pop her seal on my nipple. I'm trying to include Matilda in all this. Reminding her to be gentle with the baby. Sitting with her so she can hold her sister. Not get headbutted in the process.
I asked the OB, who has four kids herself, if it gets easier. She walked me through her mornings. By 6:30, she's done two loads of laundry, served three cups of tea at two different temperatures, one cup of coffee and four breakfasts in three shifts. So no. It doesn't get easier. Being alone in a room becomes slightly less novel but I gather the laundry never lets up.
