Two kids... still easy?

This is an extract from an article from Jacinta Tynan that appeared in Sunday Life magazine on the weekend:

“As someone who relished my foray into motherhood finding it easily the most joyful, meaningful, rewarding thing I have ever done, there was plenty of room for error. When I wrote about it at the time from my blissful baby bubble – sleeplessness, timelessness and all – I was told I wouldn’t know what hit me unless I dared to have another. “Get back to us when you have two”, other mothers cried.

Well, now I do. Two beautiful baby boys nineteen months apart. And they are right, those mums. It is a darn sight more challenging with one on each arm and tests what stuff you are made of. I have an exuberant toddler who can’t yet talk (apart from essential vocabulary like “more, more”) or feed himself but who can slip out the front gate and bolt for the hills if I don’t have my wits about me. Like when I am breastfeeding the baby which is the case five or six times a day (and night), a baby who prefers to be personally lulled to sleep. And so I am on call 24/7 – if not one then the other. And I marvel how we get through each day. How do you breastfeed one with the other in the bath? Anyone?

……And, yes, I have cried. The first day I was on my own with my two baby boys – their Dad back at work and my Mum’s precious week of assistance run its course, I dissolved into tears by early afternoon. Not because it was doing my head in but because I felt torn. There is no way I can be in two places at once, yet I am required to be. I cried for both their tiny sakes that from now on attention would be divided and I couldn’t always placate or feed or entertain on call as I had intended. Instead they would be hurried along in the bath, left alone with a bottle, even propped in front of The Night Garden if it buys me five minutes to change a nappy.

I write this because I have been asked. Many times since I wrote about my enjoyment of fledgling motherhood, and especially in the five months since our second baby was born. “Is it still easy?” mums ask, most out of genuine curiosity rather than a challenge.

Yes, it is. It is double the effort  and sometimes I don’t get time to eat but there is nothing I’d rather be doing. Yes, with two healthy babies, a supportive partner and no trace of post natal depression, I do think I have it easy…”

You can read the rest of the article at Sunday Life here.….

This post has been published with full permission. If you missed Jacinta’s original post, you can find it here.

Or catch the episode of Mamamia on Sky News where Jacinta talks motherhood the second time around. The chat starts at 3:50.

Jacinta has written two books, Good Man Hunting and Some Girls Do: My Life as a Teenager. She is also a news presenter and journalist, formerly with ABC TV and now Sky News Australia. She contributes to publications such as Madison, Sunday Life and Women’s Health and is currently working on her first fiction novel. You can find her website here.