Just when you think that everything is over, that you have become accustomed to moving from one phase to another, when you have lost many fears, when you are very clear that there are more complicated phases than others, but that in the end they all pass, they all end to Give way to another new adventure, just when you thought you were the queen or the king of the mambo, when motherhood or fatherhood had no secrets for you, your second child arrives and again starts from scratch. Welcome to bi-parenthood.
I recognize it, one of the things that I was very lazy to have another child was go through certain stages again, the nights waking up every bit, the cries without knowing what was happening to him, the diaper changes, so, like many mothers and fathers in this country we decided to have the second one as soon as possible, we knew they were going to be a few years of work but in the long run it would be less years changing diapers, waking up at night, leaving home full of barges even to go to the corner park, etc.
Another point to keep in mind was our age and our jobs (especially my wife's), so in the end we were lucky and we didn't have to wait long for the new family member, so we still had a lot of things fresh and especially We still knew what it was like to have a baby at home, so nothing was going to catch us off guard, but despite everything, nothing, absolutely nothing, prepares you for the arrival of a child.
Newbie on board again
Well, maybe I am exaggerating a bit and one is not as nervous and undecided with the first as with the second child, but it is true that the moments of ** "but how was this" ** and the "What's wrong now?" No one is going to take them from you. But despite everything, parts with an advantage: that you are very clear that whatever the situation, you get out of it.
It is curious how little you notice some changes when your child grows. They are there, almost imperceptible and one day you realize that you no longer have a baby, that your child has grown up, that he is capable of doing a lot of things that he did not do yesterday, - yes, because it was yesterday when he still you walked in his chair and when he crawled down the hall- and you wonder But who has sent you to grow up? Well, that feeling increases when the second child comes home.
But now there is not one but two
One of the biggest differences I found in bi-parenthood is that planning in general is complicated. Logic you will say, if with one it is difficult with two it is double. And so it is in many cases, but in some things the problems triple.
And is that when you only have one and for example you get him to sleep, that part of the day begins that every father and mother believes that he will give to build the Escorial and that in the end he gives you to have a hot tea or pick up a little without anyone being behind you removing everything. Well, with two the thing is complicated and is that when one is sleeping, to continue with the previous example, the other wants to set up the great pajama party and we already know how little a child needs to set up a party at two o'cloc after midnight. And again it's your turn to reinvent yourself, undo the routines to adapt them to two ... to two that are growing at very different rates.
The same happens with meals. And is that when you had everything under control, when you know what he likes and what he doesn't and how he likes you to prepare things, warm milk, diced fruit, etc. When family meals begin to resemble adult meals (saving distances, of course) comes the second and back to start with everything, to see what he likes and what he doesn't, how he wants you to prepare it, to give to eat, to break everything into tiny pieces.
Living in a kind of continuous Déjà vu
It is something that comes to mind very often, the feeling of having been through this before, but it does not end up being completely the same. You see scraps, shadows of the elder in what the little one does, it is a game of your mind that tries to look for known points in something that does not have to look anything like each other.
And if something we have clear parents of more than one child is that each is completely different and although there are things that resemble each one carries his own personality, something that must be so that parents do not get bored in This world of parenting.
Learning from the mistakes of the past
The good thing about having two or more is that one is learning from the mistakes he made in the past and although he does not always remember how he screwed up and does not always work, it is true that with the second we do not repeat many of those situations or actions that many bad times brought us with the greatest. It's like a second chance that gives you day to day to improve.
But not everything is old situations lived again or things that used to work and not now, sometimes the differences come together to form something incredible, something completely different and that makes me firmly affirm that The best gift we could give to my oldest son is his little brother.
For me, educating a second child is like when you have learned to add and suddenly you enter another course where they teach you again, only this time two plus two are not necessarily four. And even so you learn again and to know that what is worth to one another does not like, that each of its peculiarities are what makes them unique and that little by little you are getting the rhythm of the matter and that when you have already become an expert or expert in two, zas! The third came ... but we do not anticipate events.
