One quick story from our first week. The state nurse practitioner conference was the same day as my due date. I really wanted to go. I also needed to go since I was short 5 credits for my re-certification. The keynote speaker was THE guru in the NP world- like if you were to say to any nurse practitioner "Margaret" is coming to town they would know you were referring to Margaret Fitzgerald. She's been a NP about as long as I've been alive. She's a celebrity in our field. Well, she was coming to town and I wanted to hear her speak at our conference. Since the baby and I were doing well, I got up super early and headed to the conference when he was just a week old. I was concerned some folks, even her, would not want a baby at a professional conference but I went anyway with the backup plan of leaving if needed. While waiting for her to start her talk she walked to the back of the hall right to me. She stopped and asked if she could admire my baby. She asked about him and said he was the youngest attendee she has ever had at one of her talks and she was honored he was there. I beamed and we enjoyed the two day conference together. He was a great companion! Most enjoyable conference ever!
Okay, back to the update.
We're all doing pretty good. The kids adore their new brother. BB (the youngest of the older kids) has not bonded with him as quickly. She actually prefers to take care of me rather than help with him. Sometimes when I'm up in the night feeding him she will get out of bed and come find me to offer me a blanket or bring my water. Sometimes she just snuggles me and strokes my arm. She's such a loving child. She has her moments but she's pretty great. She, by the way, just turned 3! Amazing how time flies!
BB had a fun Monster Mash theme birthday party with her closest family friends. She had a grand time but totally freaked out when we put candles on her cake and lit them. She started screaming and hid under the table. Otherwise, a pretty good time.
We had the kids' parent teacher conferences in October. Because I had not bottle trained our baby yet we ended up showing up at the end of T's allot time because I could not get our baby to hurry up and finish eating. However, his teacher is wonderful and is a relatively new mom herself (twin 9 month old boys) so she could understand. T's doing great - all As (this is the first year they get letter grades). His areas needing the most focus is math and listening attentively, as well as participation in group work. (I feel his pain with group work - in college I just wanted to do the entire project myself - so much easier than trying to work with others but he needs to learn and perhaps so should I). S's teacher handed us her packet of info and simply said, "She's perfect - you can go." She was joking but S is pretty darn near perfect at school. My question to the teacher is how can we get that kind of behavior and work ethic at home? Her teachers really don't believe me when I say that kid can really push my buttons and give me a run for my money. WOW!
Little W is awesome. He's such a perfect addition to our family. He not the super easy baby S was but a little easier than BB - definitely easier than T. He has his evening fussy time when nothing makes him happy except if we walk with him. He's a great eater, continues to be a decent sleeper. He LOVES his bath time. He LOVES my mom. He loves his vibo bassinet.
I'm missing work. I'm grateful for my time at home but I miss my co-workers and patients and the routine of being at work. I'm sad that is approaching winter. It gets so dark and dreary here in the winter with short days and significantly less sunshine. This time having a baby has been so much easier than the last time. With all the families at our school becoming good family friends I've had an endless stream of meals and flowers and goodies. I gained a total of 22 lbs this pregnancy and I'm down over half of that. I think it's slowing down from all the goodies and Halloween candy we have around here!
Halloween - delightful. The kids had a great time going out with their dad. I stayed home with W and my in-laws and handed out candy. We didn't have as many kids as we have traditionally had. Little BB totally got into it. There was a scary house decorated with people in the windows pretending to be zombies and she kept going on and on about "monkeys coming out of the windows." She doesn't know what zombies are. After they were done and my in-laws left, we went to visit our favorite kindergarten teacher. Costumes - T was Indiana Jones, S was a cat coming out of a pumpkin (that girl can never do anything simple), and BB was a pink princess. All costumes homemade. T's was put together from a variety of things we already had. S - I made her pumpkin out of left over fleece from the Monsters I made for BB's party, BB's dress was S's old princess costume that I made 5 years ago.
We did manage to sneak in a fun outing to our local pumpkin patch with some close friends. That was super fun. We went on the last day they were open and got to see the 700 lb pumpkin be dropped from 4 stories high. Lot of water in that! Becca LOVED riding the cattle train. W just snuggled with me in the pack.
Thanksgiving was delightful. My sister had just flown in from Japan a day prior but with my mom's help she threw together an amazing feast. I just showed up with my army of kids, my husband, and my long time friend whom we had just picked up at the airport (Ms. M). She stayed a few days with us and we crammed as much into our short time as possible. Plus, celebrated T's 9th birthday a couple times.
Lastly and most recently, we celebrated my husband's birthday. It's birthday season around here. Combine that with the holidays and the kids think it's endless celebration time. T is all about Dr. Who this year. He has never seen the new ones but rather the old 1970s ones. My daughter gets a kick out of the go go boots the women wear and T thinks the big hair every one fashions is crazy funny. Still. the enjoy the show immensely.
So before I have to change this blog posting - again - because it's been 4 weeks since I wrote it - I'm going to add some photos and call it good.
While having 4 kids is amazing and wonderful and all sorts of adjectives of awesomeness, it's also a ton of work with little free times. So, there's where we are at...
1. My date at the NP conference.
2-4. BBs Monster Mash party (S and I made the monsters and I made the pinata - little BB found the correct string first try!)
5. One week old snuggles
6. BB on the eve of her 3rd birthday
7-8. Halloween
9-11. Snuggles with Baby W (it took BB a while to want to hold him so he's quite a bit older and bigger when she finally took her turn)
12. My boys
13. Kissing my cutie
14. Nan was able to get one of his first smiles
15. More snuggles with my little guy
16-18. Ms. M's visit
19. Our birthday boy aka The Doctor
20. Toothless kids (both lost teeth within 24 hours of each other)
21. Eight weeks - we work hard for those cute cheeks!
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