Calm before the storm

Yesterday, DH turned to me and asked, "So is this the calm before the storm?"  Absolutely, I agreed.  These are the glorious days when The Baby sleeps 22 hours a day and DH are both at home together, leisurely spending the days with all four (FOUR!!!) of our boys.  I figured I should blog about it now, before DH heads back to work next Tuesday and The Baby realizes that he's not getting nearly enough attention by quietly snoozing the days away.  The storm is a-comin', but in the meantime, life is pretty beautiful in Casa de Sunny.

As far as the immediate transition of accepting another sibling into the fold, Bean and Nix and Gax absolutely adore their baby brother.  Bean asks to hold him constantly, always wants to be near him, and shows patience and concern when The Baby is upset.  He asked me yesterday when I was going to grow another baby.  He was devastated when I told him that I was all done!  Nix loves to pet The Baby, points out his various facial features (we get daily confirmation that he has a nose, ears, eyes, and a mouth), and brings him toys and stuffed animals.  Gax enjoys checking on The Baby as well, but he is so busy testing the limits of our baby-proofing efforts that he spends the least amount of time with him of all the brothers.  The Baby has easily taken his place as one of the family, like he was always meant to be with us.  I think he was.

So far, The Baby has been eating and sleeping better than any of our previous newborns.  Which is largely in part, I think, to the fact that I am far less inept now than I was four years ago when we brought Bean home from the hospital.  This time I was ready with my Fenugreek and Lecithin supplements to aid in breastfeeding, both of which are an invaluable help to me, and although The Baby's latch leaves something to be desired, I have a better understanding of working through such issues.  We won't find out his weight again until Thursday, but he appears to be thriving.  Thank goodness!

I think our (relative) success getting any sleep at all is related to how smoothly the nursing is going.  I'm able to fill him up a little bit better than I have with newborns in the past, so he's only waking up two times at night.  That's about two to three hours of sleep at a time!  (With the twins it was more like one to two hours at a time, which is again why I remember virtually nothing about their first year.)  The Baby is still in that initial phase where he sleeps allllllllll the time, waking only briefly to eat and poop, so I'm doing my best not to get used to the quiet nights.

The hardest part of the past week and a half has been recovering from the C-section.  The nurses told me afterward that getting your tubes tied during the surgery makes recovery more difficult, because the doc was messing around with more of my insides, so those need to heal as well.  Didn't really occur to me beforehand, although it wouldn't have changed my decision.  Anyway, I am getting around okay, but I still have plenty of aches and pains, and I am so tired of not feeling good.  I just want to feel like myself again... which unfortunately seems like quite a ways off at this point.

So that's where we are now... doing pretty well for the moment.  I am extremely nervous about what's going to happen with DH heads back to work next week, the proverbial shite is going to hit the fan.  When I think about it too much, I want to hide in the corner, curl up into the fetal position, and cry.  But in the meantime, despite the cold and rain outside our house this week, it's happy and warm inside.

DH helped the boys decorate pots and plant flowers for me for Mother's Day.
They also made me some soap (a "beauty bar").  It was adorable!

M&Ms are the big thing in our house these days.  The twins ask for them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.  Here, Nix shows off his matching car.

Gax likes to test out our baby items to make sure they are safe.

He also gave his review of DH's swaddling skills.

This is where The Baby spends many hours of his day.

Nix brought his beloved Froggy Frog to The Baby when he was crying.

Fireman Bean takes a break from his hero duties.