Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

One of my favorite activities over the past two weeks has been writing replies to the many, many emails, cards, and letters of congratulation that arrived after Nathaniel was born.  I love corresponding with friends and family, and I’ve had a great time slowly working my way through my inbox.  I am not particularly succinct in my replies (surprise, surprise), so I’m far from done, but I enjoy it far more than trying to get decent photos of the kids or any of the other activities that mothers take up in hopes of cementing for posterity these early fleeting newborn weeks.  It’s given me a chance to check in with friends I don’t hear from very often; I’ve even managed to elicit detailed updates from a number of my male college friends, who were probably too abashed by the sheer volume of my reply to feel that a simple “Life’s good.  Thnx” would suffice.

Thank you for giving me a chance to reconnect with far-flung aspects of my life while we try to get to know this new little one.

Erin

Can you tell what kinds of words we’ve been working on?  Katherine can’t say her own name, but she does know:

– “caw-caw” (birds of all kinds)

– “goo” (goose)

– “quack quack” (duck)

– “waaaaan” (swan)

– “guuuuuw” (gull)

She practices happily on our walks in the parks.

Erin

Sydney looked back through our blog posts to remind me that, yes, Katherine woke this frequently, too, when she was new.  And, as he pointed out, I couldn’t do any cooking (or, for that matter, walking) for a good three weeks after she was born.  I distinctly remember buying the backpack at exactly one month postpartum, putting Katherine in it, walking carefully up the hill a little ways, and making banana bread (Katherine still in the backpack) upon returning home, marveling at this wonderful contraption that would keep the baby so happy and give me my arms back.

So, having returned from a two-mile walk with Katherine around the Christ Church Meadow (part of it with her in that same backpack, and part with her walking on her own), and planning on making a squash-blue-cheese-pecan-leek pizza for dinner tonight, I should be grateful for all the activity I am capable of right now.  I will try to work on that.  Just not sure what to do when you find yourself staring into newborn-blue eyes at three o’clock in the morning (the fourth awakening in five hours) and seeing not a shred of sleepiness in them . . .

In Sydney’s digging through the archives he said, “You also mention something in here about growth spurts?”  Ack!  I forgot about those!  Nathaniel should be due for one . . . about now.  And another in about another week.  Good to be prepared, I suppose.

Erin

We’re only a week in and we’re already having trouble fighting off the zombie state.  We’re trying to do things differently this time, making sleep a priority so that we don’t walk around in a haze for months . . . or years . . . but we’re starting out with a pretty significant deficit.  Nathaniel, like Katherine, decided to be born in the middle of the night, so we missed one night right off the bat, and we haven’t exactly had a chance to make it up.  His first week of sleeping hasn’t been stellar; although he’ll often do nice long stretches during the day (a couple of hours at a time), he rarely goes more than an hour-and-a-half between the start of one feeding and the next at night.  We’re hoping to change that, and soon!

Erin

“If you’re looking for substantive conversation, you turn to blogs.”

According to a recent NYTimes article, people are leaving blogs and turning to Twitter and Facebook instead. But I guess if you’re one of those really serious types who wants to go on and on about stuff, then you can still use blogs. I hope there are some monastic communities left to preserve civilization again.

Sydney

The midwife just paid us a visit and weighed Nathaniel in at just over 9 pounds.  In the week since he was born he’s regained everything he lost early on and added another three ounces.  As my dad said, speaking from experience, “You’re going to see it in your grocery bills with these two.”

Erin

We’re just getting an inkling of what life holds when the kids equal or outnumber the adults.  I was changing Katherine this afternoon when Sydney came up the stairs, holding Nathaniel and standing in line until the changing table was free.  By the time I finished bathing one kid the other one needed it.  And when I was cooking I could hear Sydney trying to help Nathaniel burp while he helped Katherine read a book–and kept her from jumping on top of her brother.  We’re going to be busy with these two!  But so far we’ve been cooking and eating well, getting outside, and have kept up with laundry and other household errands.  The only things we’re short are quiet work time and sleep.  We’ll see what we can do about those.

Erin

We’ve been keeping an eye on Katherine as she adjusts to the new arrival.  She was excited to discover he has feet when I uncovered them the other day, since that gave her another thing to name about him.  And she’s rapidly moved from point-and-name to trying to mother him.  When I was sitting on the couch the other day she brought in a small blue towel, spread it on the floor, and walked up to me with arms outstretched, rapidly opening and closing her hands.  The message was clear: give me the baby.  When I demurred and gave her a doll she proceeded to wrap the doll in the towel (when did she learn this?) and carry the doll around.  Upside down.  And flip it out on its head whenever she wanted to re-wrap it.  There was a reason why she had to make do with the doll!  She continues to bring him blankets (only once or twice has she tried putting them over his head), give him love pats, and want to watch when I change him.  We’re certainly keeping an eye on these displays of affection, but it’s nice that she has them!

Erin

Mom and Dad left for the airport in the wee hours of the morning today (somewhere around Nathaniel’s fourth nighttime meal), beginning what will be a long, long, long day’s journey back to Iowa.  I am really going to miss them, and not just for their help!  Katherine seems to be doing pretty well with just us, but probably only because of the new “toy” in the house.  I also let her play with her new shoes, so she was somewhat helpfully distracted for a bit.

Our first day as a family of four is going well.  Nathaniel is doing fantastic sleeping during Katherine’s nap, leaving us free to eat a leisurely lunch.  This morning the boys stayed home while I backpacked Katherine to the natural foods store, loaded up on staples, and then tried getting her to walk back home with me.  She can definitely do the distance, and she is also a pretty fast walker (particularly since she bursts into running here and there).  But she won’t hold my hand, and she often has different ideas about the direction we should take.  So we began our walking journey in the middle of the mall, where she could throw a tantrum (or ten) and not be flailing right on the outdoor sidewalk, and where her sounds would be drowned out by everyone else.  Eventually, with a bit of carrying, some having her ride on my shoulders, some holding by the hood, and some really nice walking beside me, we made it home.  We’ve got a ways to go, but we know that we need to have her a bit more obedient so that we won’t be out with stroller, walking toddler, and backpacked baby.  We don’t have enough adults for all that, and Katherine is more and more keen on doing her own motoring–as are we.

So far the everyday things are going well, though this time around we’re hoping to take turns sleeping so that sleep deprivation doesn’t catch up on us and keep us captive for the next couple of years.  We learned from Katherine that just because a baby sleeps well at the beginning, it doesn’t mean he or she will do so a few months down the road!  We also have to add back into our lives that stuff called work, but for now we’re taking it a day at a time.

Erin