3 kids in 4 years - Reflections from a 3rd time working mom

One of the luckiest things in my life is that I am in several group chats with different sets of mom friends with kids ranging from 0 - 5, where we have the opportunity to ask each other questions or vent about the random situations our kids get themselves into. A perfect example of this was on Veteran's Day when my daughter and nanny interrupted one of my meetings to inform me that my daughter had cut her hair completely off on one side of her head ("but I wanted long hair!" she exclaimed, making her decision to saw off her hair completely more confusing).

In reflecting on those group chats, and in conversations with many first time parents on my team, I often have this thought: first time parents are so hard on themselves (third time parents can be too!, just less). 

I've been thinking about some reflections that I wish I could share with myself pre- or early-parenthood self.... more below: 

• Prioritizing your kids over work is usually easy - this was my big worry when I was pregnant. I got into a major spiral - how could I EVER leave work before 6 to pick my kids up at daycare? What would I do about those 6, 6:30, 7, or whatever calls that popped up on my calendar all the time. The thing that I think you don't realize before having kids is that not only do you WANT to prioritize them, you (generally) have no other choice but to prioritize them both from a logistics perspective (as it turns out, kids don't feed themselves) but also their noisiness and neediness makes it fairly unpleasant to be participating in calls (for you and others). I've actually found that prioritizing my kids has made setting boundaries for me way, way, way easier than it was before having kids. Before having kids, my boundary was around doing something for myself, which was an easy thing to forego. My kids? That's something I will fight for.
• Don't sweat the illnesses - Every parent can remember a time their kid was super sick - or the feeling of helplessness the first time their kid had a fever (or a rash, or one of the weird kid diseases that no one can explain). Charlie is a kid who gets major fevers. With her, every fever is 104-105. As a baby this was nerve wracking. At this point, we somewhat have it down to a science - tylenol, advil, (repeat), cold compresses, pedialyte and popsicles. Charlie also had a series of weird rashes when she was about 18-24 months old that were totally unexplained. The thing is kids get weird illnesses, and I think one thing I've learned over time is to give myself a little leeway - and them - as they happen.
• One sub-bullet here is that, in our house, at least, illnesses always start at night, and usually start with our kids being needy / whiny in the middle of the night. I'm very bad at this. I usually get irritated and yell at them. Then Johnny realizes that they are sick and I end up feeling bad that I've been mad at them (see: the time Charlie was telling me her teeth hurt repeatedly and I snapped "I'm NOT A DENTIST!" - she had a sinus infection). One thing I'm working on is connecting the middle of the night weird behavior to sickness - point of development for me!
• Development is not a race - With Charlie, I would check the development stuff often - when should she be crawling, when are the teeth coming in, look she's an early walker! One thing that has been very funny with Teddy is that we call him our lazy baby - he was way (months) later on crawling. A big part of this I think is that Charlie and Jack are very attentive in bringing him things and so he hasn't "needed" to crawl. We also would set Charlie up and help her practice crawling where Teddy.... is kind of along for the rest of our ride. But here's the thing: he's crawling (and basically walking too); and here's the other thing: crawling and walking are basically overrated skills that make containing your kids harder as a parent! All of this is true in other areas too - our nanny speaks Spanish with our kids and when Jack was learning to speak, words tumbled out in Spanglish; whereas Charlie was nervous about speaking Spanish when she understood everything. I worried about this - will she ever speak it? Will Jack be bilingual and Charlie won't (our nanny started when Charlie was 2.5 and Jack 10 months). As it turns out I am learning that this is probably a normal developmental experience - Charlie is now chatty with Maggie and Jack is now shy about speaking in Spanish. They will get there and repetition is everything
• Date night (or lunch, or whatever) isn't stupid - So we are spoiled because Charlie was (and usually still is the easiest baby). But at one point I was like why would you need a date night? Charlie is a delight! She can just come with and we will have joyful wonderful dinners and have a blissful little family. And then Jack came along. And Jack is a force of nature and a wonderful little boy but he has is stubborn and does not share his sister's "pleaser" tendencies, which will be wonderful as he gets older, but also tried both of our patience. 18 months - 30 months was a hard period for Jack and I feel like we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel; so maybe it is Jack, maybe it is having 2 and then 3 kids, but I've really started to see, and appreciate, and value date night. We don't have a regimen with it as some other couples do and quite frankly our work schedules don't really allow it. But in trying to be better parents to Jack, we realized that we needed to be taking time for ourselves individually (this is very much still a work in progress) and also for each other. This has worked out to being 2-3 times per month, sometimes more, where we do things together or with other couples. Honestly, it's been awesome, and great for us, and great for our mental health. 
• Kids are different and require different things from you - this is and maybe should be a given but I think is the hardest transition from 1-2 kids or 2-3 kids (and I'm sure more). You think that what worked with your current kid(s) will work just as well for your next kid. With Charlie, you tell her "no" and she more or less listens. A sharp word with Charlie and she deeply, deeply internalizes it. She then repeats the rules you've given her to us, our friends, her friends, her siblings, etc. She is a pleaser and wants to do with you - helping you with whatever you need. She has a tendency towards whining, so we are working on that. She also does NOT like time outs, and they make her ANGRY. She is such a pleaser, she almost can't handle being removed from a situation. Jack on the other hand does not like sharp words. He does NOT like to be yelled at. But, when he is doing something bad, he becomes laser focused on it and you have to remove him from the situation and distract - he will not listen to no. This has been a hard transition for us and has required a lot of work to stay calm with him when he is doing something bad. With Jack, time outs are for the best and setting clear expectations and boundaries is very important for his behavior. 
  
  I think we rationally KNEW kids are different and require different things from you but emotionally it's a learning experience with each kid. As a side note, Dr. Becky is a god send and has been very helpful to me in reframing discipline with Jack (and Charlie - and soon to be Teddy).
• Childcare decisions may evolve; focus on loving, kind caregivers - I will write more on this but I was very worried pre-kids about what the best childcare decision was and hemmed and hawed between theoretical options. What I've learned is that daycare was a great decision for us with one kid and was generally okay with two, but with COVID and expecting a third switching to a nanny made total sense. You don't have to have a perfect solution, and I think being open to letting things evolve as your life evolves makes perfect sense. The big thing at the end of the day is having someone (or someones in the daycare situation) who will create a loving environment for your children. That matters more than anything.
• Minimize the multitask - I've found that it makes a HUGE difference if I focus on my kids when I finish work vs continuing to wrap things up right when my nanny is leaving. This requires focus - but figuring out how to FOCUS on them in the hours we have together is a huge work in progress for me. This usually means putting my phone face side down on a counter and trying to do something with them. In nicer weather, this is often walking to the park; this time of year, it might be a game of hide and go seek. Same goes for bath time, etc. So much of bad behavior in our house is tied to wanting attention, so the less I multitask, the happier my kids are.
• Say yes as much as you can - Another friend suggested this to me and this is a hard one for me. I am a particular / type A person and I like my kids to wear what I want them to wear, to have what I want them to have for meals, etc. etc. etc. As it turns out, I have particular / type A kids who want to wear what they want to wear and have OPINIONS (no surprise!). I am in a constant effort to try to embrace saying yes to them. So often as parents, you have to say no, that embracing the "easy give" can be a life changer in parenting. They want to wear red pants and a purple shirt? Okay - probably okay most of the time. They want to have apple sauce with dinner, sure (as long as there are other things on their plate too).