Ah, the birth of my second child - the beautiful Alice. The chaos I had feared for the past nine months was about to begin. (Let me be honest here, I had been afraid of juggling two kids before I even got pregnant so it was with much trepidation that Alice was born.)
Luckily, before Alice would join her toddler brother, Jack, at home, we were both able to relish in our first vacation together (a.k.a., the obligatory hospital stay). Never again would she exist in such a quiet and controlled environment.
With round-the-clock care for both Alice and I and three solid meals a day that were only a phone call away, the nurses had to practically beg me to leave. I may have actually taken my self-proclaimed vacation a little far - you would have to ask the night nurse!
I had steeled myself for the inevitable guilt-trip that I knew was headed my way when I decided that Alice would be spending her nights in the nursery making friends with all the other babies born of selfish parents. The first night when the nurses brought her in to nurse, I happily obliged and spent an exorbitant amount of time burping and changing her before returning her to the nursery. Only on the second night did I realize that my vacation time was running short and I had to take full advantage. The poor nurse had barely walked through the door after Alice's 3am feeding before I had groggily handed my precious girl off to her mumbling how she still needed to be burped and changed. I'm pretty sure I had fallen back to sleep before she left the room. Oh how the nurses probably loved me! (To redeem myself the following morning, I did have my husband pick up a dozen bagels. Serendipitously I had a jonesing for Panera!)
I am now home with Alice and Jack. My husband, Kevin, has regrettably returned to work.
Reality is starting to sink in...
