Newness of twoness

My first day flying solo with the girls was last Friday. Liv slept and Ada played quietly in the morning while I took care of "couch errands" as I like to call them (phone calls, emails, online schtuff. . .). Then baths were in order. We had lunch. I read to Ada while nursing the baby. Everybody took a two hour nap.

Long story short, I felt like a rockstar. It was a constant, "I got this" feeling.

This is exactly how I felt this morning.

Fast forward to this morning—after getting 5 lousy hours of sleep strung together over nearly 9 hours— I'm whimpering in the kitchen before Mike leaves, "Don't leave me with the screaming toddler," as Ada wails beside me. I wanted to curl up and sleep until The Lou was potty trained and nursing The Liv didn't hurt so bad. Or at least for a few more hours. But I couldn't, and that was a tough pill to swallow.

Ada is going through an intense Must-be-Mom stage where she won't allow Mike to do anything (at least not without a ton of screaming and fit trowing and generally making people around her so miserable it isn't even worth having Mike offer the help). No filling up her milk, no opening a drawer of toys, no picking up her blanket off the floor and handing it to her. Heaven forbid it's a bigger task like changing her diaper or putting on her pj's. It has to be me. Always. Without exception.

I'm learning quickly I can't do it all. Why can't Ada learn that lesson too?

I rested a bit longer in my bed until Ada came in wanting to get out her paints. I got up, feeling really envious of the 10-day-old baby sleeping in my cozy bed, and helped Ada paint. While we ate breakfast together she regaled me with several rousing renditions of the ABC Song and Ada-Ada-bo-bada. My tiredness somehow fell away for a bit and I felt generally lucky to be here, working through the newness of twoness and trying to catch up on sleep as I go.