another newborn chapter

sibling stare-down

newborn sleepy smiles

life with a newborn is amazing and wonderful and exhausting and maddening all at once. throw in an almost-two-year-old and it gets really crazy. truthfully, i'm sitting in the middle of my first day as just me with both kids. i'm beyond grateful that up until this point i've had help every day. and going into today, i was legitimately scared - especially since i'm not really supposed to do a whole lot of lifting keane. plus the fact that both of our kiddos are still pretty little, and have lots of much more urgent needs than my own, and often need someone at the same time, added to the "what the heck am i going to do if 'x' happens tomorrow?"

of course adele had slept decently the two nights prior, and keane has been a pretty good sleeper for his whole life. but last night. oh, good heavens. last night little miss forgot that she was supposed to go back to sleep after she woke up to eat and took her own sweet time falling asleep. like over an hour to fall asleep both times. during the "i'm going to fall asleep trying to get you to sleep" period that went on from her 5:30 feeding until she fell asleep around 7:15/7:30 i actually downloaded a white noise app to try to push her to dreamland. i think it worked, though i can't be sure that was the part that made a difference.

and keane. keane is getting his two year molars, and woke up crying at least 3 different times. and those were just the times that i heard him.

and peter had to be on a job site today which means he left even earlier than he normally does.

suffice it to say i made fully caffeinated coffee today.

thus far today the day part - as in the part after the sunrise - hasn't been too rough or too bad, but that also may have something to do with the fact that adele has decided that daytime is a more appropriate time to fall dead asleep right after eating and she has slept for more of the day than i anticipated. i'm not sure what that means for tonight, but for now, it is what it is. and it's probably a better transition for keane than her having long periods of awake time.

i also cheated this morning and let keane watch "cars" again. he loves it and asks to watch it daily. he doesn't get to watch it daily, nor does he sit still and watch the whole thing, but considering my mental capacity this morning i needed him to have a bit of a distraction while i waited for the coffee to kick in.

having a newborn is rough you guys. i know that anyone who has experienced newborn-dom knows this. and anyone who hasn't probably has an intellectual understanding of that fact as well. i really don't understand how single moms do it. and i have a much better understanding of why it really does take a village to raise a child.

the kids are not the only ones who need a village. parents need it too. and i've decided that the part of our culture that tells us we should be able to take everything on by ourselves, be completely independent - not needing other people at all, yada, yada, yada... that part is crap. pure unadulterated crap. because then we think there's something wrong with us when we do ask for help. like it speaks negatively about our person, or our character that we couldn't do it alone. but again: pure crap.

we were built for community. the fact that we shirk community more often may have something to do with the fact that we're more connected and lonelier than ever. but that's a whole different post - or maybe multiple posts, actually.

i digress.

i'm trying to enjoy this newborn time despite how hard it is. we may not do the newborn thing again - i don't know. we always talked about three kids, but planned to adopt the third. depending on which adoption route we take we may not do this part again. and while newborn-dom is both magical and horrible at different times and all at once; it is really hard to think that this may be our last go-round.

it's also crazy for me to think about where we were three years ago, compared to where we are now.

the sleeper that adele has on in the second photo above - the one with the ducks - i bought that when we were in the midst of "i don't know if we'll ever have a biological child." at that point it was my way of trusting that we would have a child to put into that newborn-sized garment one day. and now our second little newborn is wearing it. and while certain parts of newborn-dom really are very crappy and hard, at the end of the day i am still thankful that we get to experience them at all.

the hard things are what force us to grow and build character in us. peter reminded me of that last night when i was sitting there scared out of my wits thinking about what to expect from today. both of our children needing to learn patience, and that they are not the only individual who gets attention, or has needs; those are not bad things for them to learn.

they are hard things to learn - for all of us, but they are not bad things to learn.

and honestly, i hate it sometimes that i have to watch them learn the tough things. i hate watching keane hurt because his teeth are coming in, or because one of us put him to bed and left the room, but if he never hurts he will never learn that he can get through it, and become stronger for it, and that it will be okay.

i hate that he is in pain, even if it's momentary. but i would hate it more if he grew up without understanding that sometimes pain is necessary to get you to a better place. pain is necessary to growth.

and yes, i'm really just putting these things down as reminders to myself since keane is flipping out not wanting to go back to sleep right now. but 45 minutes is not enough of a nap for a not-yet-two-year-old, even if he is getting his 2 year molars. of course going in and putting orajel on his teeth may not have been the best decision since he started flipping out the moment i left.

ugh. parenting is tough. sometimes there's no right decision, and there's nothing you can do to make it better. especially since the baby needs to eat in 10 minutes, and getting him up will only result in a horribly crabby afternoon.
no right decision.

and i hate hearing him cry.


so, any prayers you want to say for us would be appreciated. prayers for sleep especially. sleep for all of us. and two year molars coming through soon. dear God, please.

xoxo