The last few weeks have been pretty amazing. Well...as amazing as 4 hours of sleep a night can be. 3 children is absolutely nuts. Although I think I just keep telling myself it's 3 kids; I'm thinking that just having a newborn is nuts. I'm not sure. I am still living in a fog, and I'm surprised that I manage to make coherent sentences most of the time and sometimes complete thought processes.
The reason I say things have been amazing is because I am finally starting to feel normal again, and we're all back to being in a routine. Or mostly a routine I should say. I'm still trying to fit in my business somewhere in there. I keep telling myself that I am going to refuse appointments Mon-Thurs but it just never happens. Before Alistair we didn't have the pocketbook for me to say no...but seriously I don't have the time these days. My poor husband has to figure things out on the weekends (which is pretty darn similar to what I do everyday) with the kids and homework while I work, but we don't have the luxury of him being around during the week to help me out. The last few times I was working, Ben was busy helping out but he only has so many hands. I had one of my clients snuggling alistair for me while I finished styling her hair. Talk about feeling unprofessional...I've been in total denial of it too. Something's gotta change.
As far as home life goes, I wake up way earlier than I want to. It's always a pleasure too though because I love how much Penelope depends on me. I really do look forward to spending the morning eating breakfast with the girls and snuggling on the couch. We had to get locks for our cupboard doors because Samantha doesn't depend on me to get her food anymore. In fact, for months she's been getting her own cereal. She recently discovered that the other cupboards have far yummier things in them, like halloween candy. Alistair usually sleeps all morning, which I'm grateful for. When he wasn't sleeping much (or like...at all) during the day, I couldn't even find the time to eat food. It was a bite here and there as I was frantically assembling sandwhiches one handed or trying to open a bag of crackers so I could have 5 seconds of peace. I promise I don't normally use food as a babysitter ;)
I really thought I was going to go crazy there for a while. It made me appreciate all those evenings that I used to have by myself, even if it was only 30 minutes. The last week or two Alistair has fallen into a bedtime routine. He naps very lightly on and off between 5pm and 10 pm. That 10 pm feeding he fills himself up really well and then is so far into dreamland I don't even have to rock him or pat him to sleep. It's so wonderful. Sometimes I feel like crying because it's just a beautiful moment to have all three kids sleeping at once. That moment never lasts long because I have homework to do. Although I suppose I should be grateful that I finally have time to do homework that isn't at unreasonable hours of the morning.
With this routine, I feel like I can completely bond with my new little baby. Bonding within those first 6 or 7 weeks was always really hard for me with all of my kids. It's not like I ever blamed my kids for being stressful, but it's like the stress of keeping an 8 pound human being alive and waking up every 2 hours to feed starts wearing a person thin. There were a few nights when he was up every hour. I almost gave into going straight to formula because it was so difficult! This time around was especially hard because I couldn't get him to gain weight for a long time.
I'm enjoying my beautiful baby snuggles. He has an amazing smile. It's especially cute that when I laugh, he laughs. And newborn laughs are the best for sure. Samantha enjoys it too. She was so sweet with him today, she was talking to him trying to get him to smile at her. It's obvious that Alistair totally adores her too because he will watch her and smile at her. He enjoys their interactions together, and Samantha is just full of kisses for him!
