11 days old ...

Well, my darling son is 11 days old. And so far, we've survived! LOL!
I had forgotten some of the fun an infant brings. We have created so many sweet memories all ready ... the girls just dote on their brother. They can't stand when he cries and they instantly run over to try to comfort him anyway that they can. If he's in his swing, they will puch him. If he's in the bassinette, they have figured out the buttons to make it vibrate, make music. Today my 6 year old sang him a lullabye when he started to cry. He stopped crying and fell asleep. She felt so proud of herself for helping her little brother out!
My 3 year old stands and watches him and announces his every movement to us ... "Mom, he opened his mouth. Mom he moved his hand. Mom he looked at me. Mom, he sneezed." It's actually pretty darn cute.
I forgot how special nursing a baby can be. And how peaceful a baby looks as he lays in my arms sleeping. How awesome it is to see big siblings trying to take care of the new baby. How much more wonderful my husband seems when he tries to calm the baby down. How everything can seem so sweet and rosey and perfect and wonderful and loving and how everything can just seem so right in the world.

I also forgot how tired you can feel after a night of waking every 2 hours to nurse a baby. I forgot how sad I feel when my child is crying and I can't figure out how to calm him down. I forgot how it is hard to juggle the needs of the other 2 kids when baby kept me awake for 4 hours straight in the middle of the night. I forgot how scared I felt when dh left that first morning to go to work and it dawned on me that I was going to be alone that day! I forgot how sometimes it feels like the baby has been attached to me nursing nonstop for the whole day. Or that sometimes it feels like the fastest way to wake a sleeping baby is to try to lay down yourself!

But the sweet moments out number (and outweigh) the rough ones. And I have to say we have had 11 very sweet days so far with our newest little addition.

We're all adjusting to the new rhythm for the family. I am adjusting to the sleep for a bit, nurse for a bit, sleep for a bit, change diaper, nurse schedule! And so far he mostly sleeps between feedings during the night, but not all the time! And we've already had thrush (but it seems to have cleared up with some help from gentian violet). Right now we are trying to take care of a raging diaper rash he has that nothing seems to be helping with :-( The girls just love him and dote on him and are quite understanding of mom wanting to take a nap during the day. So, we've hit a few rough spots, but so far they have been few and far between. And we are all just enthralled with this new person in our house. He pretty much has all of us wrapped around his little finger ;-)