I like it so much’

Image: Cynthia’s photography

We are now well underway in the pregnancy, thirty-eight and a half weeks. At the time of writing, everything is still quiet. I sleep well and am still quite mobile, have no complaints and enjoy the baby in my tummy to the fullest. She is very present and I love it.

Nils and I can’t wait to meet her, but I also know that it will be a busy period with little sleep. So enjoy these last days (weeks?) extra before it presents itself. Of rest during the day and sleep at night. And that is the big difference with the birth of Miles, eight years ago.

Living with an enterprising toddler

My sons Lewis and Miles are eleven and eight years old. When Miles was born, Lewis was two years and nine months old and a very busy toddler. Nothing wrong with that, but I do remember that I started to get quite tired in those last weeks of pregnancy. Life with a toddler is tough, especially when it’s an enterprising toddler with little need for sleep. That enterprising toddler is now a pre-adolescent (which also brings with it the necessary challenges), but he is now sleeping just fine. So the leave at Miles was very different from that at Lewis. That real peace that you have with a first, was not there.

When Miles was born, Lewis found his “baby burp” rather interesting. He came with grandparents to the maternity hospital (on Curaçao) with a racing car in his hands and immediately used his newborn brother as a race track. In the weeks that followed, things remained busy, as with every cry from Miles Lewis came running. He stuffed his own pacifier in Miles’ mouth and also stood next to our bed at night to ‘help’. Super handy. Especially when you are sleeping drunk and feeding and have to hear whole stories about Thomas the train.

You are constantly on

Going out is a hassle with a toddler and a baby, especially if you – like me at the time – often have to do it on your own. Lewis shot in all directions, was not afraid and always went his own way. When I flew alone from Curaçao to the Netherlands, I literally had Lewis on a leash. He was carrying a monkey backpack with a strap on it and I had strapped it to Miles’ stroller. Not a hair on my head to let that kid run loose in an airport. As a mother of young children, you are just constantly busy and constantly on. During pregnancy, this is extra intense.

How different is that now. The boys are at school during the day, which already gives a lot of rest. If I’ve had a bad night, then in the morning – when the boys are gone – I just go back to bed. When they come home, they entertain themselves or meet up with friends. They dress and undress themselves, take a shower themselves, brush their teeth themselves, if they are hungry they take something out of the cupboard or make a sandwich and if we ask them to clean up something they do. The house is not a Lego/Playmobil/Thomas the train-strewn mess and when they have to go to sleep they go to sleep. Yes, they have to play football and I like to be there. They occasionally have puberty spots and we have to deal with that. But otherwise they are two treasures of boys to have around and I now experience so much more peace than during pregnancy with a toddler next to it.

Also read: ‘If I notice that my sons are bullying someone, they have a big problem’

Hundred questions

Actually, this is much more fun and I think it’s so special that I can experience another pregnancy with older children. They have a hundred questions and really enjoy hearing how everything went for themselves. He now finds it hilarious that Lewis pooped on me – one second after he was born – immediately and Miles thinks it’s very stupid that the midwife wrapped him in a pink blanket after he was born. In addition, the conversations at the table are also fantastic every now and then. Because: what are condoms for and can you still have a baby if you use them? (Whereas Lewis takes a genuine interest in the story and Miles almost freaks out because he thinks the idea alone is ‘super rancid’). We also recently had to explain that a baby boy really doesn’t get a peg on his penis, but on the umbilical cord. That a baby doesn’t come out of your ‘ass’ and that I don’t already lie in the hospital waiting for the delivery. They find it exciting and a little scary at the same time. What will happen and what will change? But where Lewis had a lot of trouble with the whole thing in the beginning, we have seen for a while that it has moved to curiosity. That feels much better.

Being pregnant with two big kids next to it… I love it so much. It remains to be seen when the little girl shows up, but I hope Lewis and Miles continue to feel as involved as they are now.

To be continued!

Ellen is a counselor in secondary special education, author at De Fontein publishers, mother of two boys aged ten and eight, recently divorced and expecting a daughter with her new boyfriend. Read her previous columns here.

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