Noting some thoughts.

My heart is now outside my body existing in two separate beings.

It's much more intense than I had ever imagined it would be.

The distress when they both need me at once. That's hard. I knew it would be, and it is. How do I choose one? My patient, understanding Rosie who just wants love and attention, or my helpless infant for whom I'm the center of the universe? Sometimes the baby has to cry while I do essential tasks like wipe a bum or prepare food, and that makes me sad. It's her lot in life, I suppose, being the second child and therefore unable to get my constant full attention.

The intensity of the joy though--this is also off the charts. I could never have dreamed of so much happiness. Sometimes it's easy to get side tracked on the small things--how much the baby (doesn't) sleep, cleanliness of the home, mundane life tasks. Having the two of them staring up at me with their big blue eyes is a shocking reminder to quit wasting time stressing over these things and instead to just seek joy.

Wouldn't that be a great life goal, to be a seeker of joy?

It's not so difficult to seek joy, especially since with the two of them I now have twice as much joy. Well, more than twice as much. I have joy spurting out of my ears. It's hard, but it's joyful as long as I take the time to seek that joy and then wallow in it.

I feel somewhat like I was suddenly thrown to the wolves since Tyler went back to work during the day. Everything was going so perfectly before, with him working at night, and now suddenly it's hard and not always happy.

That's why I need to seek the joy, right?

I saw this quote today:

"All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on."

-Havelock Ellis

How true it is.

It's not easy to let go of some things, as I transition to being a mother of two.

Rosie is no longer my baby. She will always be my baby, but she's not the baby now. I feel like I've neglected her quite a bit recently--emotionally and physically. Thinking of it makes me tear up. She used to be my sole focus, and now she's sort of pushed off to the side while I do my best to deal with everything else.

What makes it even harder, when I stop to think over it, is that she has accepted everything with such grace. She tells me multiple times a day how much she loves "having a baby" and then she asks what she can do to help me. When I have some kind of freaky hormonal mood swing she quietly asks if she made me angry, and when I say no she asks what she can do to help. She brings me clean diapers and wipes all the time. She snuggles me and tells me she loves me, even when I haven't taken extra time to snuggle her.

She keeps telling me, "That's ok, Mommy."

What have I done to deserve such a sweet child?

She's so grown up now, even though she's only 3. She isn't a baby anymore. Letting go of that is sad, and hard.

At the same time I have to hold on tight. Hold on to my relationship with Rosie because she is still important even though she's much more independent now.

I have to hold on to my relationship with my husband also, which is more complicated now that my energies and emotions are divided up so thinly among two children.

I have to hold on to joy, because if I don't seek it and hang on then it will quickly disappear into the swirl of everyday life.

And there is so much joy to be found. I really don't want to miss a second of it.

"Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment."

-J. Donald Walters