This second child business is really testing out my edges of comfort. Starting out with the context of exhaustion as the foundation to every day, add a splash of 4 year old messes everywhere, a total lack of routine and the rest of life continues to happen. For us that has meant stomach bugs (just the hills of laundry are enough to make me sweat the day), launching a new business, integrating into a new community and living in a house that is not quite ours.

The first antidote to this  – let’s call it craziness – is to never, ever compare. Scarcity Weapon primo numero. “Will not compare to first baby.” This baby will get all the love and attention, just in a slightly different format. Forget dim lights and quiet mornings. Enter said 4 year old at 5:45am. Can I hug the baby? Can I kiss the baby? Squeeze baby and love baby, to death. The second is to remember, to chant, to say it out loud: This is temporary, or This too shall pass, or It won’t always be this way. The Buddhists remind us that this is all an illusion. I don’t even go to This will get better. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. It’s a marathon.

In April 2011’s Psychology Today, an article featured a podiatrist, married dad of four, who took up running and found himself competing in “ultra”-marathons. That would be 100 mile races. That’s running for a whole day. In a row. Sounds like labor to me. Having a newborn is a bit like that, stretched out over some number of months. (If you are lucky.) When we at Seven Stones walk into a Leadership Academy we offer participants an article called “The Corporate Athlete.” Make no mistake, to succeed at anything, it’s a great idea to be in shape – on all levels. Sufficiency got me in shape for this adventure. It’s also a great idea to laugh, and not to resist reality. (That running doctor dad hallucinates during those long runs – spends those footsteps reminding himself that the trees are not falling in on him…)

So when my older child is running her mouth, long, long narratives at bedtime that I can hardly follow, and we have yet another book to get through and I can hear the baby squawking for her evening milk, I first remind myself I have a choice how to respond. I know better than to resist, because resisting begets persisting, but I myself cannot always resist the seemingly obvious power-over move of saying, “Stop it!” However, I am learning, that laughing, as hard as I can muster, is the best response. What’s so funny mom? Oh, everything. What everything? Well, you know, it’s just good to laugh, right? Yeah, ha ha hahahah.

So I remember humor too and pausing to consider options rather than racing to resist. How can I join and collaborate, what other moves are there to surrender to the moment and act powerfully? While I pass my minutes remembering that this is all an illusion, temporary, I’d like to be smiling, present, grateful, not wish it all away. Whatever the work, may there be joy.