Parenting the Third Child: Yeah, it's definitely different but don't beat yourself up

Two nights ago Jamis suggested that I read Ethan a book before bed. Ethan is one. I can recall only 5 nights that my husband or I have read to him at bedtime.

Flashback to 2002. Jamis is four months old and Dan and I have fallen into a routine of dinner, bath, books, bottle, bed. We alternate nights. We glide in the rocker, happy baby tucked into our laps. We read 1o books, sing 3 songs and crush him with kisses. He smiles. He drifts off to sleep. We walk through a clean and orderly house. Fall on the couch and enjoy our time together. Talk about the small accomplishments that day - Jamis's small accomplishments. We look through the daily photo reel. We listen to music. We read books. We have sex.

Wait, we had sex? I'm not sure I can even remember that. But, oh yeah, right, we did have two more kids so somewhere in there we definitely had sex. But before there were more kids than parents we really enjoyed the intimate moments. It had yet to become just a part of survival. The truth is that now, although my mind can really imagine... No, that's not true, my mind can't even imagine how great it would be if I just got my butt of the couch and jumped on top of him. What I mean to say is that I intellectually know that it's something that will, more than anything, help the mood of the house. But finding the energy is often impossible.

And so it is with reading books to infants whose sole interest is what they'll taste like and how easily they can eat them up. Poor Ethan. For books I just don't have the energy. Directly after he's finished shoveling down three times the amount of food as his 2 year old brother, he's at the bottom gate of the stairs whining for his bath. Then he's writhing and screaming as you put on his jammies. And then he's yawning, and sleep is the only answer. And I swear, if he weren't writhing or screaming or yawning, I would be, if not for the other two children I'm holding constant conversation with while performing said tasks for Ethan.

There's this running joke in my family that as the third of three siblings, I have one photo album of my entire childhood, compared to fifteen for my sister. While Jen had to go to bed promptly at 7 pm when she was young, I didn't even know that a bed time could exist. She should tell you the story of how my mother wouldn't allow her to stay up for the season finale of Little House on the Prarie because it was past her bedtime. She was devestated. Remembers it clearly to this day.

Maybe it's because I was also a third child that I am sensitive to all that Ethan misses of his parents. It boils down to one word, I suppose: time. I just don't have enough time, enough me, to give him all that I could give Jamis. And I look at Jamis now. He's at the end of first grade and so smart, so charismatic, so confident. I can see all the time that I had with him has molded his view of the world, and of himself. It's as difficult as it is joyful for me to think about the fact that Ethan will always have older brothers around. I will never know him without four hands and feet surrounding us. He will have very little time, if ever, with me alone. I will not be able to nourish him the way I did Jamis. His eyes will always be watching his siblings and learning and morphing his behaviors to fit in with them.

"Yeah. Maybe tomorrow night, honey. I have a lot of work to do tonight."

I lied. I had no work. I had no headache. No kinky sex plans. No cleaning, no laundry, no dishes. It's my policy that whatever doesn't get finished before bedtime can just as easily be done tomorrow. Bedtime is for me, not for them. It's the commencement of my time. It is very rare that I push back the start time I've been reaching toward like the finish line of my first marathon.

And for a moment I felt such guilt. I could have read to him. I could have squeezed in a board book or two. If I don't start now, when do I start? And then I realized that Jamis's impact on Ethan will, in many ways, be far greater than my own. He is the oldest. And they are all boys. The little guys already look to him for cues and characteristics. So instead of feeling guilt I guess I should give myself some love. Jamis is amazing. Really, truly, something quite amazing. And if it has anything to do with all the time we had together - before work, and brothers - then I'm expecting him to pass that on to his brothers and make me proud. When they see him curled up with a book in the comfy surroundings of mom's big bed, I hope they'll follow suit and jump on in.

Oh Brother, How Art Thou? and other philosophical ramblings

It seems time to mention that we have a brother. Oh, and, yeah, he has three kids, too. What is this? you're asking yourself. Three siblings each with three children now. Weird. Is it, though? Seems like nice symmetry to me. And we really didn't plan on it. No sirree. 

Our brother is the middle child. I suspect he felt and/or tried to be invisible for much of his childhood. Sarah and I, well, we tended to have the attention. Me being the perfect, overachieving oldest, and Sarah being the rule-breaking, boundary-ignoring, creative genius youngest. There was our brother, smack dab in the middle, quiet, understated and probably embarrassed by one or both of us on any given day. The poor, poor kid. But he sure grew up to be one exceptional dude. I only wish he didn't live so damned FAR AWAY. But I digress. 

So once, about, oh, say three-and-a-half years ago (when I was the only one of the three of us with more than one child), he said, "Anyone who has more than two children is crazy." I remember laughing. Because this is just the sort of seemingly-judgmental, absolute thing that our brother says. He's a bit of a math genius. And I can see that the numbers of two parents and three kids do not add up neatly. But I swear, the moment those words left his mouth, he was just asking for those twins of his to start their lives in utero. Yup. The planner of the family had three kids in 20 months. Sarah and I each have two kids who are less than 18 months apart in age, so we know it's HARD. But this time, it's our brother who got himself right into the spotlight. Just where he never wanted to be. 

But here's the thing: Man oh man, is he a great dad. And the three kids have not really changed him that much. I mean, besides the obvious facts of being a dad, he, more than anyone else I know, has maintained his pre-parent lifestyle. And I don't know how in the WORLD he does it. (Well, I know it has a lot to do with his amazing wife.) He exercises regularly, often training for a crazy-ass bike riding competition through the desert, on which he subsequently medals or achieves some ridiculous feat (our sister-in-law runs marathons; people, she ran one WHILE PREGNANT WITH TWINS. Ooh, this will probably make some of you concerned. She didn't know she was pregnant at the time); goes away on weekends with his friends (and so does said wife); is finishing the basement of his house (for the kids); is always taking a class or studying for some career-enhancing test of some sort; and, when I talk to him (which is never often enough) he always sounds just like my little brother. Reasonable. Relaxed. Happy. 

Me, in comparison? OK. Exercise. Um, I used to be an athlete. Even worse, I used to be a COACH of a very competitive sport. Ugh. Remember the bread-dough middle? Well, I haven't gotten into the damn pool yet. I do go to a book group once a month, which I look forward to for approximately 27 days and 22 hours. These women have become intellectual companions, emotional sounding boards, good friends. But a weekend away? Uh, no. Not with the girls. J and I have gotten away from the kids a few times. Ooh, that sounds bad, "Gotten away from..." And forget about home improvement, I can't even keep on top of the daily maintenance. I have PILES upon piles of stuff--laundry, endless children's "art" projects; seasonal clothes to put away in the closet or finally organize in dressers; bills; broken toys that I keep saying I'll fix ... Every day I tell myself, often out loud (!), that I will confront one of these piles. Just one room, one area of one room. But it doesn't happen often enough. The piles multiply faster than I can conquer them. 

Now even this post feels like it's becoming like one of those piles--lost amongst the midst. Well, that's what life with three kids is. Even if you are more high-functioning than I am. I know that it's not fair to really compare my life with three with our brother's life with three. There's the twin aspect, of course. But, also, he's not the mother. And, Sarah, really, isn't that what we spend all of our mobile minutes talking about? Mothering three. MOTHERING.