2nd & 3rd Pregnancy Guilt

When you're pregnant with your first baby, you are blissfully unaware of the gift of free time to use during your more exhausting phases of pregnancy. You may be working, or staying home...but when you are home, you decide as to just how you want to spend it.

Napping....

Long peruses down the baby aisles as you dream about your nursery coming together....

Catching up with friends on the phone....

Crafting....

Experimental cooking....

Then, you decide to have another baby and reality sets in.

You now find yourself trying to balance the unpleasant side effects of pregnancy with chasing around a toddler in your time at home. The toddler desperately wants your attention all.the.time....and all you can think of is how much longer until you can realistically convince them it is nap/bed time.

Thoughts of your children's future success in school crosses your mind as you put on yet another popular Jake and the Neverland Pirates marathon off Netflix. You have no grandparents or other relatives who live near by to help out and you are not trying to thrive, but survive!

Graham cracker crumbs speckle your family room rug....

The laundry pile is coming close enough in size to challenging the right to vote...

The layer upon layers from the last week of meals on and around the dining table is becoming worthy of the worlds largest petri dish.

....and don't even get me started on the kitchen.

Living in small quarters with a growing family makes trying to do maintenance cleaning a real joke.

Some days we go from pajamas to pajamas, since there is no point in growing more dirty laundry when there are no plans to step foot outside the house.

I have to tell myself each day, "This is only temporary."

But guilt is a tricky thing, when you think about how your baby of the family will become the stigmatized middle child. How you should be making more of your time with just the two kids with crafts and creative play. I would be lying if I said I didn't have any pregnancy regrete. I was so certain that Nolan was to be my last baby as I layed in the hospital bed, recovering from a very hard birth experience.

The expression, "Be careful what you wish for", holds some real truth to it. Yet, God knows what's best and doesn't have second guesses, unlike our imperfect selves.