Busy..

When you get busy, and fall behind, you face the debate of whether to go back and try to catch up, or whether to just skip writing about some precious memories and start over on today.

I wanted to blog about the older kids meeting Amelia, how Felicity was nervous, but the gift exchange, and then her brother's ease, eventually brought her around; how Felicity tried to look down my shirt to see my belly was no longer "full" of baby. Those are about all the details I remember now.

I thought I might have time to write about the first week home, and other random cute moments.

But guess what?  Life with three kids is busy. EVEN when I am on leave, even when DH is on part time leave. Its going to get a lot busier when DH is full time again this coming week, and then in two weeks when I go back to the office. Anyways, I have had my hands full of infant.

Amelia has proven to be a fairly easy baby THUS FAR. (Knock on wood, always knock on wood). She only gets up once or twice during the night, and even slept through the night once already (about a week ago.... no repeat performance). She doesn't get fussy very long or very often. She eats well, poops well, and naps well (better every day). She tolerates the vast majority of her siblings poking and prodding, and just is usually pretty chill. She smiles in her sleep, and has given me 2 "real" smiles... but nothing regular or persistent just yet at 6 weeks. She has big beautiful deep blue eyes, brown hair, and the same eye lashes that have gotten constant comments for all of my children.

Felicity is 2.5, and she likes Amelia, is very curious about taking care of her. She is SO verbal and has constant constant questions (that are mostly in the form of statements. "Amelia is hungry? Amelia is eating? Amelia is eating your milk? You are feeding Amelia? Amelia is awake? Amelia is going [makes sucking noises]?" ... I am not exaggerating, that could be two minutes of my life. Then Felicity might try to "boop" Amelia's nose while she is eating and then when I tell her not to do that she will start jumping on the bed (which she knows is not allowed when I am on the bed w Amelia), and then end up in time out (assuming DH is there to administer it). Felicity says "Me-wa" rather than Amelia. We also have tried to get to call Amelia "Amy" but it is unclear if it will take. Today I told my mom, Felicity has always loved books, water, and sleeping. My mom added cottage cheese to the list.

Ben is 5. He loves Amelia. He wants to kiss her head, kiss her cheeks, pet her hair, tickle her, and hug her, hold her.... to such an extreme it becomes a problem and we have to "ban" him from touching the baby for a time. He is learning more and more to be gentle, and what gentle means when baby is so small. He also is learning to be a bit  more independent now that I literally have my hands full so often. Today he successfully got himself a bowl of cereal without any physical help from me whatsoever, and minimal advice on how to go about it. He is pretty interested in wildlife shows and dinosaurs right now, still loves board games. He is very interested in military stuff, fighting, machines of war, etc, but we try to keep a cap on it somewhat. He recently also has taken more of an interest in sports and after YEARS of cheering against anyone we said was a "good" team (Minnesota, OSU, etc), he suddenly realized last week how fun it can be to cheer for the same team us, so that is nice.

I am happy. Life is pretty good. I am working a bit from home and there are some important decisions going on at work. I enjoy the infant phase, and all of the freedom maternity leave offers. I am catching up on errands and projects I have been putting off for literal years, spending time with friends and family, eating at some fun restaurants. Amelia is portable and adorable. Sometimes I worry I dont spend enough time starring lovingly into her eyes, but I certainly spend a lot of time feeling her breath as she sleeps on my chest.