Baby Doll

And so it begins.

When I was cleaning up Athena and Zoe's room, Athena watched over John Patrick by tucking him in her bed with her blankets and animals, singing and reading to him - just like she does to her baby dolls.

John Patrick will soon be wearing baby doll dresses.

Happy Easter

Hope everyone's Easter was more cheery than ours which included two sick little girls, a trip to urgent care and Chris driving out of town to visit Aunt Mavi in the hospital.

The day began well with Easter baskets, an egg hunt and brunch with friends but ended with the girls sick and feverish cuddled under a blanket and watching the Sound of Music through watery eyes. Athena was complaining that her ear hurt, so I took her to urgent care to check it out but it was only a 102.5 fever and non-distinct virus. Zoe has also been sniffley and miserable all weekend.

And, she sneezed on John Patrick this morning so it's only a matter of time before he gets it too, I fear.

Little Pitchers

So we were totally caught yesterday.

Since I started breast feeding Athena, Chris and I have casually tossed around our own humor and called everything related to the breast as "boob" - like milk is "boob juice" and I'm the "boob lady" and if the baby is crying we'll say "he just wants some boob" or sigh and say "it's all about the boob." Well, the last time we had a breast feeding baby, Athena was quite wee, now she's a sassy preschooler and our crappy language is coming back at us.

Yesterday, we had a couple of Moms from our art class over for a play date. We were chat chat chatting away about something and Athena inserted herself into the conversation with a

"My Mommy feeds the baby. She had boobs!"

What followed was nervous laughter and I swear one Mom darted her eyes around the room and looked like she wanted to cover her sons ears.

Oh dear.

Almost Victory

we call this John Patrick's "mad baby" face

What does one do when one's newborn is sleepless, fussy and uncomfortable? Well you can:

• change your diet to restrict dairy
• try lactose-free formula (after soy formula makes it worse)
  
• burp baby at 10 minute intervals during nursing
• learn baby massage
• give gripe water 4x per day
• and gas drops after each feeding
• try all sorts of different sleeping positions
  
• wait it out until baby turns a corner
  

I have no idea which one of these things is working, but I am happy to report that we have a contented baby today. No fussiness and sleeping peacefully. AND last night he slept for over four hours at the start of the night, then woke up for 15 minutes and went right back to sleep for two and a half hours, then woke up for 15 minutes and went to sleep again for an hour. Which means I got almost seven hours of actual sleeping time! Although it wasn't an uninterrupted seven hours, it still feels like a vacation!!!

I am not hanging a "mission accomplished" banner just yet, but I see a light...

Baby Daze

Yesterday, Athena was pretending to be a Mommy talking and she said "I nursed the baby and put him down in his bed, he cried so I gave him a bottle, he cried so I rocked him...he didn't sleep." That pretty much sums up the bulk of my days and nights (from a surprisingly perceptive source).

I've tried to write this post several times and it all just sounds like complaining, and I don't mean to complain because thanks to the help from Yiayia and Mimi, we're handling it just fine, but little John Patrick is kind of consuming my every waking moment...and there are too many waking moments.

He wants to eat almost every hour and sleeps no more than an hour and a half at a time. He rarely takes naps during the day with any regularity, he is mostly wide awake. He doesn't like his crib, bassinet or swing for very long, rather prefers to sleep in my arms or next to me in bed. So, yea, I'm rarely without him, he's my constant sidekick. Annnd, he has indigestion and gas and like the photo, often looses his lunch immediately after eating. His doctor, however, is not worried because he is putting on weight like a football player (check out that double chin). It's all just normal newborn stuff, his digestive system needs to grow and develop, he'll soon get used to sleeping on his own and his sleep patterns will naturally settle into a predictable pattern. Right? Right!!?

Luckily, Mimi and Yiayia are here to distract the girls and give me time to take naps - I live on sleep snacks - without their help I surely would have lost it by now. And little John Patrick is a funny, sweet little guy so I don't mind so much.

Enough of the lack of sleep rambling...here are some photos:

A very, very tired Mommy.

Yiayia takes a turn holding our little dude.

Trying to be artistic.

I took one excursion to the grocery store, just me with all three little ones. Athena was a big help looking after John Patrick on the drive. (p.s. we were stopped at a stoplight).

Athena truly and tenderly loves her little brother.

He seems to be confused as to where he is and who all these people are.

John Patrick's first restaurant experience.
Asleep in my arms.

life with three

I know it's only been a few weeks, but so far life with three is daunting and the glimpse of our future with three children will mean that we'll have more children than we have hands, arms, eyes and sides; the kids outnumber the parents; there will be mess, chaos and a general zooishness to our home; no longer will there be time for work, phone calls, emails or anything that doesn't involve the feeding, dressing, changing, bathing and general caretaking of children.

But, instead of on the computer, say writing a grant or blogging, I am probably cuddling with all three babies at once or gently petting John Patrick's soft head while I cuddle with him or playing with the girls outside in the sunshine in the precious moments that John Patrick naps. So, it's not all bad, but it's not easy.

And reality hasn't even set in yet.

Amazing baby

It may be just a mother's endearing ears, but I swear to you John Patrick said his first word today - and I got it on film!!! He often grunts and chatters and makes weird sounds, but if you listen really closely you can almost make out him saying "excellent."

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Picnic in the Park

We took advantage of the lovely weather on the first day of Spring and got the girls dressed (15 min), Mimi and I showered and dressed (25 min), John Patrick fed, changed and dressed (45 min), lunch packed (20 min), equipment gathered (5 min), diaper bag packed (5 min), children wrangled (7 min), walk to the park (12 min) and enjoyed a truly lovely peaceful picnic lunch with the girls and little dude. The warm sun, dappled shade and cool breeze was sooo worth the effort.

Peas Porridge

Peas porridge

in the pot
Nine days old

Happy John Patrick's Day

"Happy John Patrick's Day" is what Athena and Zoe thought we were saying when we said "St. Patrick's Day" today. So, John Patrick's Day it is.

We celebrated with Baba and Nana who came up for the day from their vacation in Palm Springs. Hopefully the corned beef and cabbage and onslaught of grandchildren was worth the four hour traffic riddled drive.

I remember about six or seven years ago, my Dad went to his college reunion and all his friends were passing around pictures of their grandchildren. He had nothing to share with them he told me with a sniffle.

Well, there you go, Dad, now you are covered in grandchildren!