Dawn Dais - The Sh!t No One Tells You About Baby #2: A Guide To Surviving Your Growing Family

Copyright 2016 Dawn Dais

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

ISBN 978-1-58005-632-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Published by

SEAL PRESS

An imprint of Perseus Books

A Hachette Book Group company

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California

Sealpress.com

Cover Design: Kimberly Glyder

Interior Design: Megan Jones Design

Interior Illustrations: Dawn Dais

Printed in the United States of America

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

E3-20170909-JV-PC

To Daniel, for completing our little family

Credit: JILLIAN GOULDING PHOTOGRAPHY

Table of Contents

Contents

W ELCOME, DEAR READERS! Im so happy to be writing another Sh!t book full of entertainment and information. Although it seems that none of us are big on actually retaining information because this book is about adding another baby to the family. Please see my first Sh!t book, The Sh!t No One Tells You: A Guide to Surviving Your Babys First Year, for about two hundred pages of reasons why we probably should have thought this through a little more. Babies are not for the faint of heart.

It happens to the best of us, this thought that we are ready for another child. Our firstborn gets a little bigger, and maybe a little easier. Last week, Child #1 might have actually let you have two full nights of sleep (not two nights in a row; thats crazy talk). He or she might be walking and talking and generally becoming an actual little person.

That is so exciting! You know what would be even more exciting? If there were more little people!

And so here we are. You are either thinking about acquiring more little people, are in the process of acquiring one, or maybe you already have a new baby and are seeking comfort after realizing that this has all gotten out of hand. Any way you look at it, there will be shit hitting a fan in your near future.

And wherever there is parenting shit, I am there to help. Because Im looking out for you, dear readers. We all have our callings in life; mine just involves grown women being mentally unraveled by tiny people.

By the time your second child comes along, you may feel that you have a handle on this parenting gig. Or at least a hell of a better grasp than you had the first go-round. Granted, thats not saying much because there is a good possibility that your baby knowledge before you had your first kid consisted entirely of what youd gleaned from Johnson & Johnson commercials, those Look Whos Talking movies, and that one time you held that one baby. So there was more than a little room for growth.

This time around, you are a wealth of parenting knowledge (although you still find those Look Whos Talking movies to be quite informative), and you are more than ready for a new baby. At least thats what you think.

Although I believe a healthy dose of delusion is a necessary part of parenting, its also important for you to realize that my shit-hitting-fan metaphor above is a much more accurate representation of parenting multiple children than anything youve posted to your Baby #2! Pinterest board.

As we head off on this new adventure together, I want to prepare you for the reality that you can pin to your Ive Lost Control of the Situation board. This reality has a lot of ups and downs, good news and bad news.

GOOD NEWS: You now have a lot of experience taking care of a baby.

BAD NEWS: You have a lot of experience taking care of one baby. This new baby wont do anything the same way as your first baby because that would be too easy. And babies arent in the business of making anything easy, ever.

GOOD NEWS: Your heart will never be more full than when both of your children are laughing at the same time.

BAD NEWS: You will never question your entire existence more than when both of your children are crying at the same time.

GOOD NEWS: Your kids may be best friends someday.

BAD NEWS: That day will most likely be years after they move out of your house.

So, as you can see, there are so many good times ahead!

This book has a screaming baby on the front, but I have exciting news! The screaming actually extends well beyond babyhood and will continue for the majority of the childhood years. (Youll be so excited when they finally start giving you the silent treatment as teenagers.)

We are going to cover welcoming a new baby into your home in this book, but we are also going to expand into the joy that is having two mobile/talking children in your home. Let this book be a constant reminder to never let your guard down as your kids grow from babies to toddlers to preschoolers and beyond. Because the bigger they grow, the better they will get at working together to break you. Considering you havent slept in years and you have the corresponding mental acuity, this is not a difficult undertaking for your energized children. Alsoand this is more bad newstheir brains are getting stronger each day, while yours is at the point at which you spent three minutes last night trying to remember the word strawberry.

The only real hope you have against your growing child army and their expanding brains is to make sure you are constantly building up your own defenses. We all know you cant do this alone (and now that you have multiple children, you dont actually get to do anything alone ever again). Thats where mom friends come in.

Mom friends are always there to offer a supportive sounding board, tips on how to tame your feral animals, and complete understanding as to why you cant remember the word strawberry (although dont count on them to actually help you remember anything; their brains are just as fried as yours).

Once again Ive enlisted my own mom friends to provide their opinions and insights into the cluster-f that is parenting multiple children. They are my Moms on the Front Lines, and they are here to tell their tales of terror from the battlefields. Their stories and advice (and general I feel you, girl) can be found throughout the book. You can never have too many good mom friends (good being light on judgment and perfection and heavy on wine and humor), and Im glad to have mine along for another peek into our collective parenting pain.

So lets head out together on our next adventure: Baby, Take Two.

There will be struggles and tears, freak-outs and fruit snacks, advanced acrobatics and juggling. And thats just your effort to get out the damn door on time.

Youre gonna need some protective gear. That fan is about to turn on.

T HERE IS A shorthand that exists between moms. You can get three words into describing a harrowing parenting moment, and they are already nodding their heads, knowing where this story is going. They know why you are wearing the same pants you had on the last time they saw you. They understand why your child might not be wearing anything at all when they come over to your house. They agree that a trip to the grocery store alone sounds like a solid way to spend a Friday night.