It's true.

One is easier is than two.

I never really doubted it, but today I really felt it. Lately, really, I have felt it. I expected to be hit with a ton of bricks after the second was born, but that didn't happen.  Instead, it was a slow realization that life was not going to spring back to normalcy but would, instead, only get harder.

I've never heard a good description of this phenomenon, because, truly, babies are really freaking hard.

So here's my theory.

Babies are physically hard.  When the physical hardships get really bad they bleed over into mental hardships.  Changing diapers?  Gross, much of the time, but then it's done.  Sleep deprivation?  Freaking terrible, but when they sleep there's nothing else to worry about.  

The older they get, it seems, the more mentally taxing they get, and the less physically taxing.  I can imagine that by the time they're teenagers, the mental exhaustion has bled over into physical exhaustion.  The exact opposite of infants, in which the physical exhaustion bleeds over into mental exhaustion.

Which is probably why middle childhood is described as the golden years.  I already long for grand-children, and fully understand why my mom (and most mothers) was crazy for grandchildren when I was most-certainly not ready to provide them.

Tonight, my darling 3-year-old is galavanting with her dad and friends.   So I'm playing solo parent to an infant.  It's so easy that I don't fully know what to do with myself.  I almost forget what it's like to have hobbies.  I remember that I have them, but forget what it's like to experience them.

There's no real point here.  Other than to say, two are harder than one.  I'm sure that it never really gets easier, and even if it's "easy" someone else always has it harder.  Enjoy what you've got, but that doesn't mean you can't complain about what you're going through.