Parenting 201

Women my age don't get knocked up easily. Or so I thought. It takes a lot longer to get pregnant again. Or so I was told. So we made love unprotected. And surprise, surprise! It only took less than two months to miss a period. While the news was one of the best we received, it honestly got us a little bit alarmed than excited.

Oh shit, are we ready for this? 

Obviously, we're not. But anytime from 4 to 7 weeks now, we will have two handful kids with a 19-month age gap, and a twelve-year old who will probably start to disagree with me in everything sooner or later. 

I haven't really been writing regularly on this blog like I used to. But if I turn this into a parenting blog, I'm pretty sure there will be so much to write and share. A lot of things happen every day when you try NOT to get a toddler killed as he expresses his free will and goes all feral; imposes his preference to play electrical plugs and sockets over his actual toys; exhibits his speed faster than lightning to get him to places he shouldn't be like the bathroom, kitchen, or outside; or shows his determination to become the next Spiderman as he climbs on surfaces impossible for our 36-year-old bodies with 63-year-old back pains to reach. 

But then, I'm already far too busy fussing about this pregnancy and the hundreds of unidentified emotions that come with it to write about anything.

Also, Jan and I are exhausted. We barely have time to do all things we used to do pre-parenting days. We do not have a household help or a nanny (because trust issues + pandemic). While we get some help from both our moms (mostly during weekends), we do everything ourselves. 

Picture this:

• Jan works full-time. Since he works remotely with people coming from different time zones, his working hours are flexible and spread out. He can work as early as 6am and end with a 2-hour meeting at midnight. In between, he does ALL the household chores because I am not allowed to lift objects heavier than our fat cat or do anything that is physically draining (even breathing has become a workout for me).

• I do not have a job right now but I accept web development and blogging projects from time to time (because the world can stop, but not our bills). I also help our 7th-grader with his school modules the whole day all the while keeping a toddler fed, bathed, and entertained. 

• Jan and I take turns with the toddler who can turn the house upside down like a tornado in a matter of seconds and just after we tidied up. 

• We both do not get enough rest. Our little boy wakes up in the middle of the night (at least twice) so Jan puts him back to sleep. And our little girl loves throwing a fetal rage at 2 in the morning. Those tiny jabs and squirming limbs coming from all directions do not exactly feel delightful especially when she hits my kidneys, bladder, liver, or ribs. But of course, I am not complaining because I expect to have that every day. 

Before anybody thinks we've been doing a great job for staying sane despite all these, let me tell you that we have also prepared ourselves to embrace judgment from others because we have not subscribed to the super mom/dad ideals. We acknowledge our limits, and so, we gave in to screen time and fast food deliveries (and we've been doing it so often) to lighten our daily load because, well...

Exhaustion is an understatement and burnout is real.

And that's only having two. It gets trickier when there will be three (I wonder how parents with five children with one-year age gap did it). 

Pero ginusto namin 'to eh.

Moments like this though. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

This is going to be my third time as a parent and I'm still trying to figure things out. If only parenting comes with an instruction manual, this would have been a lot easier. But we all know it doesn't. And even if it did, it still wouldn't work that way because every child is different. 

But heck, we're already here. There is no getting out of this and the best we can do is just wing it.