Experience Mom Joy, not Mom Guilt
You can never really understand the tug of time with multiple kids until you have multiple kids. Seems like a pretty obvious statement, but WOW is it true!
As a past preschool teacher with a classroom of 24 budding personalities, I felt that I handled those demands with great poise. Some kids have to wait. Sometimes not every child gets to do an art project that day. If not today, then tomorrow, and I made sure it happened that next day. Why would this be any different with your own kids?
I think the difference is that they are your own kids. Your time with them looks different. You cuddle and snuggle, give baths, run errands, and take them to open gyms and story times. It's not exactly a "classroom feel" at home, and that's a good thing.
Now with two kids and my youngest at 17 months, the busyness seems to be mounting. I'm chasing one, trying to teach and spend quality time with the other, while at the same time, get rid of some of the Mom guilt that comes with having 2 kids. I have to release myself from the expectations I had with one child, now that there are two in the picture.
Blogging on my own personal blog has been much more sparse now that there are 2 kids running around the house. The snuggle time is definitely there, but it looks different with two than with one (especially one who is a squirmy 17 month old), and we just don't have a 45 minute chunk of uninterrupted time to get lost in books right now. And the photo book that I had made for my daughter's first birthday JUST finally got completed on New Year's Eve for my 17 month old.
It's not exactly the same with your second, but it's wonderful all in its own way. Just different. Different doesn't have to always have a negative connotation to it. .We have to be realistic about the demands being placed upon us as parents of 1 kid, 2 kids, 4 kids or more. Every additional child changes the day to day experiences, and our task is to find joy in what those day-to-day experiences are.