Many transitions seemed to have been taking place this year. The transitions are not only on a personal level, but also experienced as an ʻohana. I remember before giving birth, I would always think “what is it like to go from one child to two?” I’m still new to this new gig, but here’s how I would fill-in-the-blank to the following sentence.
Going from one child to two is _________.
- Amazing – it’s hard to imagine how you can love your one child so much, and then love another child just as much. I’m not sure how it all happens, but it’s magical.
- Constant – when one is on the toilet, the other will want to nurse. When they are sleeping, the urge to do things that you’ve been meaning to get to is even stronger than it was when you just had one baby (or at least in my experience). After getting lunch ready, it will be time to nurse again, and after nursing it’ll be time to put them down for their nap.
- At times, chaotic – sometimes you’ll just want a break. Breaks are good!
- Somewhat the same – the laundry will still be there, the dishes will still be there. Some days are easier than others. There are still only 24 hours in a day.
- Like becoming an octopus – at times, I’ll think that I won’t be able to carry everything on top of having to carry our two babies. Then, as if I’ve grown six additional arms/legs, it all ends up working out.
- Like nothing else – with the intensity and continuity of having two babies, there seems to be double the amount of craziness and magic. When I need it most, my eldest daughter will tell me, “it’s ok, Māmā” and be so loving. People have said how siblings start to really enjoy each other’s company when the younger sibling is around 6 months old. In our experience, it seems that since birth, our girls really took to each other and we notice how loving our eldest daughter is to our younger daughter, and how our younger daughter reacts to our eldest daughter. All-of-a-sudden, after our youngest daughter was born, it’s as if our older daughter grew up really quickly!
Typically, our day starts off with breakfast, then when baby is taking a quick nap, I’ll work on some haʻawina (lesson) with my older daughter. 
Some mornings I’ve been taking the girls to go walking so we can get out of the house for a little bit and get some exercise. Before we know it, it’s time to start getting lunch ready. My older daughter usually eats lunch, and I may eat a little something to hold me over ’til I eat lunch. But, I’m usually tending to both girls around lunch time. While my older daughter is eating, I’m usually helping her eat, or telling her to sit down and eat, and breastfeeding the baby. Girls will take a nap around 1pm, then I will usually do some cleaning up and rest as well. Girls are usually up by 4pm, and before we know it, Pāpā is home.
Some of our weekly craft activities.
With that said, I like that we have a loose schedule. I’m happy now that baby is old enough to go outside of the house, and have found that works well for all of us to have a balance of spending our mornings outside of the house and days where we stay home. We are quite busy bees with our weekly activities, much busier than I anticipated! So much so that I started to write a short notation on a calendar to keep track or what we do everyday.
Transitioning to Being a Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM)
Transitioning to being a SAHM is a totally different, but sometimes overlapping, transition. Initially, I remember thinking that maybe this SAHM gig wasn’t for me. About three weeks after baby #2 was born, I had a chance to jump on my computer one day. It was then that I realized that I missed having some time to surf the internet, hear myself think, or respond to emails.
As a SAHM, while I had these kuleana before transitioning to a SAHM, these kuleana have become more of my focus. In my role as a SAHM, I am mainly focusing on the household things – preparing meals, cleaning – becoming (once again) the primary care provider for our girls, getting my older daughter ready for preschool, and what a job would call, “other related tasks.” Within the “other related tasks” category are our ʻohana’s long-term goals, and project(s) that Elwen and I have been working on (more details to come soon!).
In preparing to transition to be a SAHM, I used to think that I was a pretty productive person that could multi-task. Since becoming a SAHM, often times there are things that I want to do, but it will take about 5x longer to do that one task than anticipated. There are times when I’m able to do things around the house while the girls are awake, but when they are napping, I usually want to nap (or at least rest) too.
Interestingly, I never expected to be so busy. Sure, I expected to be busy with watching my girls, but I didn’t expect to be busy with our other endeavors. But it is a welcomed busy, and I am honestly enjoying every aspect of being a SAHM – being able to watch my girls, provide for my family, and help to work towards our long-term goals. It is a welcomed busy because we are able to control how busy we want to be and it also helps carve out space where I maintain my sense of self.
I feel myself growing and continuing to transition into this new role everyday. By no means do I have this all figured out. And as you can imagine, my girls are teaching ME! At times I feel as if I’ve been benched while the rest of the team is playing for the game, but I KNOW that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing right now. Ultimately, I’ll definitely cherish this time (especially with the sacrifices made to make this happen because it is well known how high the cost of living is in Hawaiʻi), and am soaking it all in!
I’d LOVE to hear how other mamas or papas have transitioned and their experiences! Maybe transitioning to being a first time mom, or transitioning from one child to how ever many you have!