What Does One is Like None, Two is Like Twenty Mean?

I remember bringing my first son home from the hospital and thinking, "What the hell have I done?"  It was amazing how much one teeny, tiny, human could turn my life upside down.  Going to the store to get a gallon of milk was suddenly a two hour trip from start to finish instead of the ten minute trip it used to be.  I had to pack a small suitcase anytime I wanted to venture out of the house.  It was hard and some days it seemed nearly impossible.

Then I had baby number 2.  Oh my goodness!  Two babies seemed like a lot more babies than one baby.  On paper two babies was only one more baby, but in reality it was like having twenty babies. There was no napping when the new baby slept.  Nope, when the new baby slept, my other kid wanted my undivided attention.  He didn't care that I hadn't slept in days. 

Leaving the house was a complete nightmare.  We ate a lot of takeout because it was so much easier to hit a drive through at the end of the day than attempt to take two small children to the grocery store!

The good thing about having a new baby is that sometimes people take pity on you and offer to take your oldest child for a little while.  I remember the first time someone took Colin somewhere after I had Tyler.  I remember thinking how easy it was to just take one baby somewhere. Why had I thought one baby was so hard?  One baby was nothing!

I had just managed to get the hang of two kids when my husband cornered me one afternoon while the boys were outside playing.  "Trust me," he said with a wink.  Two weeks later, I ended up staring at six positive pregnancy tests wondering how in the heck that had happened.  Fate is really a total smart ass because I'd sold all my baby stuff in a consignment sale a few weeks prior to the "trust me" wink, and the check came in the mail the same day I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant.  

On paper, three kids is really only one more kid than two.  In reality, welcoming a third child into your home is like deciding you want to turn your house into a three ring circus.  Only your circus acts won't care that you're the ringmaster, your tigers will bite if you're stupid enough to stick something in their mouths, and that balancing act everyone expects at the circus won't be done on a high wire; it will come at the end of the month when you are deciding if you should pay the electric bill or the water bill with the last $75 in your checking account.

When I was looking for a name for my blog, "One is like none, two is like twenty," seemed to be the only title that truly expressed the chaos that is my life.