my thoughts on 3

from the moment random strangers people discovered that my 36 week pregnant belly was full of child number 3, i would brace myself to hear one thing. 

three is hard. 

while i can appreciate their warnings, they were a little ill timed, seeing as how said third would most certainly be coming out at some point. 

atticus is just 3 months old, so certainly we have a log road to go to fairly assess the difficulty of having 3 children, but i can say, with absolution, that three is....different. 

timing. timing is everything. timing can make our days go flawlessly well or catastrophically bad. and every day is different. one day, i am a master juggler, getting both babies down for naps simultaneously, cooking dinner and cleaning the whole house before 5pm, and the next day, atticus will sleep only while being held at a 45 degree angle, with only one sock and a medium weight blanket. in that regard, we haven't quite hit our stride. 

i think babies are easy. they cry, you figure out what is wrong with them. there is very little mystery. five year olds are equally as easy-they cry, you don't even worry about what is wrong with them, because everything is wrong with them, so you send them to their room for a few minutes and they come out better (undoubtedly after flinging themselves dramatically upon their bed, disney princess style). 

two year olds......two year olds are like playing russian roulette with a nerf gun filled with poop and screaming mandrake. sometimes, she is my most delightful child. sometimes, i find her hiding in a closet eating an entire bag of baby bells and i fear the next 24 hours. what was a battle of the minds with bella is a battle of....the....everything with cora. but she is also much sweeter and more snuggly than bella was at 2. and she is funny. incredibly funny. 

i won't say 3 is "hard". three is 3. we have good days and weird days, but very few bad days. and when things start getting bad, we just sit on the floor and play, or sit in the chair and snuggle. i have very low expectations on things outside of that. the house is generally kept up, but we definitely look like a too small house with 3 kids in it. 

lots of outtakes. 

there are things i thought i would be able to do with 3 that are becoming harder, since atticus has finally come out of his "fourth trimester", but i still get a bit done and make a little time for a social life. we still travel, we still eat dinner that i make, most nights. joel definitely has more of a role at home-where before, i did all of the cooking, cleaning and caring, he will often come home and start cleaning or take the kids to their room to play so i can clean or go to the gym. 

i keep thinking things will settle into a routine in a few months, until i remember that we are moving in a few months, so my expectations have become...almost non existent. but i kind of like it that way. 

if you have 3 (or more) kids, when did you start to feel normal? when did a routine take hold? and if you have grown kids, lie to me......