The Difference Between 2 and 3 Kids

I walked into Matt's office to let him know the news: We were expecting our third child. By "we," I mean Aimee. She had the baby inside her. I was expecting heart palpitations and gray hair.

Matt, my boss, had three grown kids, so this was a good time to ask him about the change. I told him I didn't know what to expect. We'd be outnumbered. Two seemed like plenty. "What's it going to be like?"

I'll never forget his response.

"Brian. The band is already playing. It's just going to be louder. It'll be fine. You'll see."

The band was playing. It was chaos. When Carter was born, Dylan was 2. Dylan was exploring the world and there was no stopping him. He wanted to go outside all the time. Sounds simple, but for me with an infant, it wasn't. 

They were pulling me in different directions. And I wanted to cry, or punch a wall. For the record, I am not violent, but punching a wall seemed like it would be a good stress release. 

I never tried it. 

If Carter needed to eat, he needed to eat. If he had to be changed, he had to be changed. Sometimes he had "poop emergencies" — that's what we called poops that escaped the diaper. We'd have to change the diaper and his clothes. Sometimes I would have to change too.

Some of the best advice we received was "ruffles out." Keep the ruffles of the diaper out. This helped prevent poop emergencies.

Back to the 2 boys...

I had to corral Dylan, so I could tend to Carter. This meant giving into extra TV, buying a time consuming toy, and longer and treat-filled meals. Cringe all you want at my parenting. I was drowning.

Adding another child? I couldn't imagine.

Matt, however, was spot on. The transition from 2 to 3 kids was seemless. Challenging, yes, but nothing like 1 to 2. Nothing.

When Grady came into the picture, Carter was almost 3 and Dylan was 6.

Dylan was rather self-sufficient. He was shaping up to be a good big brother. And he provided an extra set of eyeballs. No, we didn't rely on him to watch the kids, but when we had to turn our back, he would tell us if the something was wrong. He was our first responder for several poop emergencies.

Man-to-man versus zone? Ya, they outnumbered us, but we were also more experienced. We had a new layer of "just let it go." Meal times and nap times became flexible. We didn't sweat the small stuff.

The band was playing louder, that's for sure. But we had an extra band member — and he was cute as a button.

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