"I haven't had a full night's sleep in over three and a half months!!!" I screamed as the Dragon whined about our lack of quality time alone together.
One might think that the transition from being to a childless couple to becoming parents the first time around would be the biggest adjustment you would ever experience as a couple. Before BoBo arrived, one of my girlfriends warned me repeatedly about the ways in which both our family dynamic and our relationship as a couple were going to change when our second child arrived. Having weathered the arrival of our first child rather smoothly, especially in light of the fact that we hardly knew each other before I got knocked up, I dismissed my friend's warnings figuring that if we could handle the transition of having one kid, aside from the sleepless nights, having a second baby would be a breeze.
I. Was. Wrong.
Capital "W" Wrong.
Prior to the arrival of B2, it made me cry to think that it would no longer be just the three of us. Our time as a little family of three was, without a doubt, the best time of my life. A strong believer in the value of siblings, we both felt that we were doing Baby Chicken a favour by having another child. I was very cognizant of the fact that I would miss my time alone with her once the baby arrived. (Indeed, such thoughts still bring tears to my eyes.) I almost lost it when my girlfriend suggested that, prior to the baby's arrival, we should take Chicken out for a memorable dinner to mark the occasion of our last days as a trio. I cried for weeks every time we sat down for a meal after hearing that!
Chicken is an incredibly intelligent, intuitive, insightful little girl and we devoted a lot of time and effort to explaining what was about to happen to her, what was about to happen to us all. From the time we knew that BoBo was a boy, we knew what his name would be and we constantly referred to him by his name while he was in utero. We read books to Chicken about the arrival of babies and about being a big sister. We talked about what it would be like when he arrived and the things that we would do to take care of him and the things that we would do together as a family. We attempted to assuage our guilt about having another child by buying Chicken her first tricycle, telling her that she could ride the tricycle with Daddy pushing her while Mommy pushed BoBo in his stroller. She seemed to understand what was going on, right up until the day that I went to the hospital to deliver. The video footage of her meeting her brother for the first time is beyond priceless as she walked into the house asking, "Is my brother home?"
I'm almost ashamed to admit this but it wasn't Baby Chicken who experienced difficulty adapting to the arrival of her brother. That transition was seamless. The problems have been with the Dragon and with our relationship as a couple.
When Chicken was born, the Dragon took to fatherhood like a fish to water. You would never have known that up until a year or so before to her birth, he had been a lifelong confirmed bachelor who had no interest in procreating. The immediate and intense bond he shared with his daughter is evident in the first picture I ever took of the two of them together shortly after she was born. In that photo, he is looking at her with such wonder and amazement. She was less than an hour old and already had him wrapped around her little finger! So you can imagine my surprise when, upon BoBo's arrival, he did not appear to bond with his son. At all. As in, he rarely picked the baby up, he did little to nothing to assist in his care, he did not once get up with him in the middle of the night - all things which he had readily, happily and eagerly done when our daughter was born! While part of this was accounted for by the fact that we had his mom with us to help, I had spent nine long months growing this baby and could not help but take this completely unforeseen lack of involvement more than a little bit personally! "I would not have had a second child had I known it was going to be like this!" I screamed.
As uninvolved as he was with the baby, he over-compensated with his obsession with Chicken - ensuring that she was not somehow neglected, lavishing her with attention and praise. Each positive comment I made about the new baby was met with a completely unresponsive remark about what an amazing, wonderful, perfect being Chicken was. It was as if his male brain he could not simultaneously love and appreciate both children.
The lack of bonding with the baby was met with what in my view were increased demands on me as his partner. I don't know about you, but after weeks of sleepless nights and having a baby affixed semi-permanently to my sore breasts, sex just was not on my list of priorities. Mentally, I had prepared myself for the fact that, as parents of two young children, we were not going to have a lot of "couple" time, especially not during the chaotic first few weeks and months following a baby's arrival. Someone recently told me that upon having children many men feel like they "lose" their wives to motherhood. I can certainly understand that sentiment. Especially with two little beings to take care of, it often feels like after their wants and needs and demands are met, there just is not anything left of *me* to go around and I'm certainly not going to foresake my children and their needs for their father.
I know I am not the only one to experience such a seismic change in my relationship with my partner upon the birth of our second child. One friend found her husband not to be anywhere near as helpful with their second child as he was with their first. (Hey, at least he still helped!) Another friend, who gave birth to her second child a couple of weeks after I gave birth to BoBo tells me that her husband has literally and figuratively disappeared from their home since the child's birth. One very wise friend described the dynamic as follows: "Our bottom line is, I take you for granted, you resent me". That pretty much sums it up.
The arrival of a second child represents the growth of your family and that can't be but a beautiful thing. Even if it's rocky in the beginning, the dividends will pay off a million fold in the future. There are often times when you feel stretched to your limits and as if you are not paying enough quality attention to either of your children. But my relationship with Chicken is stronger for having had BoBo. I cherish and appreciate her more as a result of having had him. I marvel in my children's similarities and, moreover, their differences. How could two entirely different people come from the same parents? There are almost no words for the sheer, unadulterated joy and happiness I feel as I observe my children interacting with each other. From the moment he arrived, BoBo has done nothing but want for his sister to cast just the slightest bit of attention upon him. As my younger sister has said, I know now how she has felt about me my entire life.
I thrive on the chaos which accompanies two children. The day we brought BoBo home from the hospital, I relished the moment when I would have both of my children in my arms. As I held BoBo in my left arm and with Chicken perched on my lap, the baby started to cry. This startled Chicken who had never heard an infant cry before, certainly not a baby who was only a day old. Chicken started to cry too. As perverse as it sounds, I had never felt as alive or as fulfilled as I did in that moment as I sat there with both of my children wailing away in my arms.
I see Dragon's bond with BoBo is developing with time. As the baby gets older, more expressive and more interactive, I am witnessing the same type of love and wonderment in the Dragon's eyes as he interacts with his son. His compliments towards the baby are free-flowing now. He clearly loves and is loved by both of his children. As for my relationship with the Dragon, I still feel like I just don't have it in me to give at times. I've been told that the more I give to him, the more he will give to our children so I'm trying. As trying as it is at times, I'm trying...
