{ Julia, me + Avery and Andy }

My sweet and supes funny childhood bestie//bridesmaid//Mom Of The Century Julia Bohn is back in the latest installment of Coffee With Friends with a special guest piece on the harsh (and hilarious) reality of life with two babies. You probably remember her from her first post, 10 Truths Of (My) Pregnancy, which went viral – and I’ve been harassing her to write a follow-up ever since. Even though she has a baby and a toddler, and the amount of free time that goes along with that stage of motherhood. I’m just that kind of friend. THANK YOU FOR INDULGING ME, JULIA! And YOU’RE WELCOME to everyone else, because she is the best and so is this guest blog…

I had my second baby when my first was 20 months old.  My favorite quote about parenting two kids under two came from my husband – about a week into having them both at home – when he looked at me with bags under his eyes, on his third cup of coffee, and said “WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL US NOT TO DO THIS?!”  (Like we ever would have listened.) I mean, look at these two angel babies!

No seriously. I mean, LOOK!

Adjusting to life with two kids has been CRAY. And while I am only nine months in, here is what I have learned so far…

They wake each other up. My toddler’s favorite pastime is to go up to her sleeping brother and yell “BABY AWAKE, MAMA!”….no the baby wasn’t awake, but he is now.  Please excuse me while I sneak into the kitchen, shovel my secret stash of chocolate into my mouth and cry a little.  The other night my baby woke up every. single. hour. except 2 am and you know what? That’s the one hour that my toddler came into our bed and wanted me to snuggle her for half an hour, while she petted my face like I was a dog.  On the off chance that Avery might sleep in (till 6:30 am), her brother will be sure to scream loud enough to wake her up and the minute she is up she yells to everyone that “IT IS MORNING! NOT SLEEPING TIME. TIME TO OPEN YOUR EYES.”  I may be a stay–at-home mom, but she is my tiny, demanding boss.

One of them is always sick.  I remember being SO worried when my daughter got sick for the first time. Within three days of bringing our second baby home, he had been thrown up on, licked directly on the mouth and tasted peanut butter off of his big sister’s finger. I’m pretty sure one of my kids has been sick each week for the last nine months.  I’m considering just leaving a bag of clothes and toothbrushes at the doctor’s office since we basically live there. The good news is that two sick kids is still better than one sick husband.  I really, really love my husband, but he is the WIMPIEST when he gets a cold. Seriously, why do husbands have to tell you every single symptom of their sickness as though they are dying? I do not care about your post nasal drip.

I’m so tired…and less clean. When you have one kid, you can potentially lay down when they take a nap. Or maybe even take a shower. Now I have a toddler to chase around while my baby sleeps. Not only do I have to be awake while he gets to take a glorious nap, but I’m also expected to actively play! Lately Avery’s favorite game is called “mama doggie,” in which she forces me to crawl around barking, pretending to eat dog food, and she begs me to lick her face.  My Fitbit hasn’t even been counting my crawling as steps. It’s the worst.

This week I had one of those days where I could smell baby poop somewhere on me all day, but I never found it. Its possible it was in my hair- not sure if dry shampoo works on baby poop, but I had to take that chance. When I do get an opportunity to take the occasional, glorious shower it feels like a full-blown vacay.

Nursing is no longer relaxing.  I remember sidling up to the remote on the couch to nurse my sweet baby girl.  I would snuggle with her and feed her and look at her little face, (and also at the TV obviously.) It was just me and hours with my besties, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.  It was glorious. Now nursing looks like this most days:

There is so much poop. So much poop, guys. I’m stoked that my toddler is out of diapers, but I swear she holds her poop until the moment I start feeding her little brother. Half the time I end up nursing him on the bathroom floor while simultaneously cheering on my girl for pooping in the potty and trying to use my one free hand to help her wipe.  Sometimes I use my one free hand to take a selfie to send to my husband.

It takes us forever to leave the house. Literally. Forever. Basically, I start getting ready to leave the house an hour before I have to be anywhere and I am still usually late. My baby almost always saves his poop explosion for 2 minutes before we are about to leave, when he has his cutest outfit on. The thought of putting on shoes sends my toddler down a deep dark tunnel.  A tunnel that usually ends with tears and bribery. So much so that I recently spent an obscene amount of money on SCENTED toddler shoes, guys. I will pay for sanity.

The other day we got ready to go in record time. We were just walking out the door when my toddler decided she couldn’t leave the house without her prized snow globe. She ran to get it and on the way out dropped it and shattered it all over my kitchen floor. I wish I could say that was the first time a snow globe has broken in my house this year. I opted to leave the mess of glitter, tears and whatever that sticky water stuff is and get somewhere on time.  I came back to floors that glittered like the streets at Disneyland, but they were even stickier.   I considered leaving it for the week and telling my husband it was a new trend in interior design.

I’m no longer a good friend. I pretty much only want to hang out with other sleep deprived moms, because they really get me. I can only hang with people who know that I’m wearing leggings not because I’m planning to exercise today, but because I never get actually dressed and most of my jeans still don’t fit. My husband came home the other night and saw dirty hair and workout attire and complimented me on working out that day, to which I replied “Thank you!” But really I didn’t work out, I just look like a hot mess at the end of each day, from trying to keep two kids alive! I can only hang with people who understand if a month goes by without me contacting them, I still love them – days just turn into nights over here and I am in a fog of baby/toddlerhood. People who I don’t have to clean my house for. Because if by some small miracle my kids decide to overlap naps one day and both be asleep for the same 45 minutes, I am obviously going to keep up with the Kardashians instead of doing my dishes.

We no longer have any judgments toward any parents EVER. Before I had my first baby, I had all these plans about avoiding screen time and sugar. Do you want to know what my two year old had for lunch today? A lollipop, and I don’t even feel guilty about it. My second baby ate his first french fry off the floor at 5 months old and my first thought was “Thanks for cleaning up.” Your kid is having a crazy meltdown in the grocery store, so you had to open the nearest bottle of wine? No judgment. Your kid is shoeless in the snow? That happened to me last month. Your baby is the snotty nose baby at the library story time? No prob. Really, the less put together you and your kiddos look, the more likely we are to be friends.

Our priorities have changed. The good news about having a second baby is that everything is WAY less scary. I worried about sleep and germs and milestones with my daughter, and now I just know that it’s all really going to be ok. They go through phases and nothing lasts forever. It’s a calming feeling knowing that you’ve done this before and everyone survived – hey, some days we even thrived! At the end of the day if both of our kids are alive, clean-ish and mostly happy, we call it a win! My husband and I high five, kiss our sweet babies and go to bed with hopes of maybe getting three or four hours of glorious sleep in a row.