Target checkout lady, looking at my cart full of baby food and smiling cheerfully: “Must be Feed the Baby Day!”
Me, with just my daughter (one of four kids) in tow: “No, I have twins. She’s just one of them.”
Target lady: “I had twins. Twice.”
Target lady carefully looks me over and sees my exhaustion after six weeks of sick kids, plus another trip to the pediatrician that morning because my daughter’s ear infection was so bad she would not stop screaming.
Target lady: “Honey, you WILL survive. You might need to color your hair, but you will.”
Me: *bursts into tears*
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At 8:30 p.m., my husband and I look at each other over our dinner of peanut butter and cereal, look at the TV, and he turns it off. Time for bed. All our kids had gotten up at 4 a.m. for the third day in a row, on top of teething twin toddlers and a 4-year-old who always creeps in our room around 1 a.m. and a 9-year-old who was having a hard time with life generally.
My husband stands up and says with an exhausted sign, “We’ll get through it. We don’t think so now, but we’ll get through it.”
I feel like we’d been saying a lot of things like that to each other since the twins were born: “In a year, things will be better.” “In a year, things will be easier.” “When they can both hold a bottle/sit up/walk/talk/are potty trained/we’re done paying for daycare/they go to college/they get a job… it will get easier.” I keep waiting for the next stage for things to get “easier.” I keep waiting for whatever challenge we’re facing to be fixed, so we can move on. And then, right around the corner, before we even have time to catch our breath, there’s another “it will get easier!”
But here’s a truth: It doesn’t get easier, Mama. Babies demand so much physical care, but older children need so much more emotional care. They all need to be loved, fed and cleaned, but as they grow, they need more love and support than they need help brushing their teeth or hair. They need advice on navigating school friendships and playground drama, the existence of Santa, why the lady in the parking lot asked us for money and why the world is unfair and unkind to so many.
“Getting through it” has many solutions, though — maybe its tag teaming on naps so you aren’t both exhausted for seven days straight. Maybe a babysitter or a grandparent can help for a few hours. Maybe it’s sneaking a run in between work and daycare pickup. It’s a date night, a girls’ night out, a MOPS group, taking turns to steal away and read a book with a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning. It’s letting the laundry pile up and spending quality time with the bigs while the littles nap. It’s even getting out of town for a day for a change of scenery and adventure. And, honestly, sometimes it’s just sitting tight and holding on and waiting for enough time to pass that the problem eventually works itself out and your children move on to the next thing.
I always want the small, mundane parts of caring for children that seem to be so much work to eventually give way to self-sufficient humans that bring more joy. And then, turning the corner doesn’t bring that relief. Holding onto the big picture and reminding myself what a gift my children are — sometimes I feel like that is all I have going for me. Some days are better than others. Will it get easier? Most probably not. Will you get through this? Yes, you will. I promise.
And while you’re at it, grab some hair color on your next Target run.
