a peek inside the fishbowl

It’s GUEST POST WEEK here at the Fishbowl! I am busy undergoing a media detox of sorts and will be back in a bit. But just because I’m unplugging doesn’t mean you have to! I’ve lined up a variety of bloggers to keep you entertained. If you’re reading along I do encourage you to say hello and howdy-do so everyone feels welcome. Thank you!

It seems fitting that our only U.S. guest blogger’s post is being published on the fourth of July. I’m happy to introduce Alecia Hoobing of Hoobing Family Adventures. Thank you Alecia, over to you!

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Two months ago, I gave birth to daughter number two just two years, two days and a few hours after my two-year-old daughter was born. Did you get all of that? So we have a two-year-old daughter, Belén, and a two-month-old daughter, Eloise. Of course I find them both to be beautiful, intelligent and charming and I am madly in love with them, but that is a story for another day.

I found it interesting the range of responses I received when I answered the sibling age spacing question with the fact they were due to be almost exactly two years apart. Everything from “Ah, that’s what my kids are and it’s perfect.” to “Oh wow! That is CLOSE together” while winking as if to imply it was an accident and then of course, the most common, “You are going to have a baby AND a two-year-old! TWO KIDS IN DIAPERS! Have fun with that.”

That last response always got me thinking. We wanted our children to be close in age so they could play together and even perhaps share similar interests. In addition, not being a huge fan of the pregnancy and baby phases and wanting to minimize their duration in our household, we had planned for our children to be two years apart and by plan, we didn’t think they would actually be almost exactly two years apart. But alas, fertility is fortunately our friend and I found myself stressing about going into labor during Belén’s second birthday party. So when people were aghast at the closeness in age, I inevitably found myself questioning our seemingly sound logic.

Do we really know what we were getting into?
Have we signed ourselves up for some sort of parenting hell someone should have warned us about?
Surely it will all be worth it once they are a little bit older, right?

My mom called this week from the quilt store where she is employed part-time eager to share a story about a mother and two little girls who had come into the store that day. The girls were three and five-years old and played together splendidly creating a make believe world inside of the plastic castle sitting idly in the rear of the store. She shared this story with me because she knows I have questioned whether the age gap between our girls, though a bit difficult now will pay off once they are a little older. Especially after seeing those girls, she felt we had chosen ideal spacing between our daughters.

Two months in, I have to say it has been challenging as we expected, but all in all has gone relatively smoothly. Belén is interested in being a big sister and has not become too bent out of shape about losing her only child status. She loves announcing the state changes of Baby Eloise by proclaiming, “Eloise a-sleep.” Eloise a-wake.” The biggest challenge is toning down her desire to love on Eloise and squeeze her since her unabashed emotions and physical power are most generally way too strong to be received by an infant. It is not always possible reasoning with a two-year-old so occasionally our instructions to be gentle with her sister are met with an immediate u-turn towards the corner of Melt and Down, but she gets over it.

With the speed of time’s flight, in the blink of an eye, the two-year-old we will be reasoning with will be Eloise and we will be witnessing our two and four-year-old daughters playing together. As challenging as this current stage is, I don’t wish for it to go any faster than it is already moving. We will appreciate what the two year age gap has to offer at every age.