blogger mom

warning--this may be the longest post in the history of blogger.com. It's quiet at our house for the first time in a very long time, so I'm going to process some thoughts from the last few weeks.

Kushies--They came in the mail today. The Stetler's are now using a cloth diaper system. James and Kelly introduced us to Kushies. The use them with Halle and love them. There are a lot of reasons we've decided on this, it just seems to be the best choice for our family. Sometimes we spend a lot of time talking about what we believe, but don't put any action behind it. This is one way we've decided we can do something healthy for our baby and the environment. It took me a long time to decide on this, to be honest I really enjoy convience products. But, when they came today I was really excited to give it a try. So, here we go...thanks James and Kelly for the great advice.

There's a saying the women in our family use. Sometimes it's time to just "give yourself a talkin' to." What we mean by this is that there is power in positive thinking, glass half full kind of stuff. But, the southern Indiana in us prefers to say "give yourself a talkin' to." I've been talking to myself quite a bit over the last three weeks. It works pretty well through the morning. I get my shake, take a shower, get the kids dressed--talking to myself the whole time. The morning falls into a nice routine for us. I'm able to remind myself that in the grand scheme of things this newborn phase is short. I can tell myself that the boys will eventually adjust to having a new baby in the house and mommy nursing. I remind myself to cherish time with them now, to live in the present because some day they'll grow up and move out. Then 4:00 hits and it seems as though all the plates I've been spinning all day begin to fall down one at a time. This has been especially true since Eric went back to work. Then it feels like we'll never adjust and I begin to think that all this talking to myself is just a sign that I'm losing my mind.

Today has been a good day. I took the three of them to the park this morning. Riley loves riding his bike there and I've convinced Trey that it is his special job to help me push the stroller. They were all incredibly well behaved this morning, and so far the afternoon is going well too. Ellen was at the park. It was so good to see her and talk for a few minutes. There were also a couple of mom's from preschool there. It was good to be out of the house and in the sunshine. It made me feel like we were experiencing a little bit of summer. That's one thing I've really been struggling with, I feel like Riley and Trey are missing out on so much of summer because I'm not the kind of mom who likes to run a lot with a newborn. I don't enjoy nursing in public, especially at places like the pool. I've been trying to get them out of the house between feedings in the morning. It'll be nice when Eric's back in town and he can take them to the pool or something in the evenings when he gets home from work.

Speaking of Eric being out of town--it really sucks. Not only do I miss his help, but I miss him. We've been able to spend a ton of time together lately and I miss him being here to talk to during the day. Jen was here from 3-6:30 last night, which was a huge help! Other than that, I was on my own. I do feel like I've accomplished something making it over night by myself with the three of them. My mom will be here in a few hours and she's spending the night with me. I'm glad I'll have her company and help for awhile.

Evan is beautiful. I can tell he's already growing. He loves to snuggle and is so alert, much more than his brothers were at this age. He's eating well and sleeping well most nights. I've been putting him to bed around 8pm with Riley and Trey. He's up around 12 and 4 to eat and then usually sleeps again until I get him up for the around 8am. A lot of nights I have to wake him up at the midnight feeding. It's hard to wake a sleeping baby, but my doctor wants him up at least every four hours at night until he's a month old. He's eating every three hours during the day.

Riley and Trey are a handful right now. Bringing the third one home has been much more difficult than bringing home the first or the second. But, we'll get there.

At the breakfast table on Monday:

Riley: I think I want to play a computer game instead of having my video time this morning.

Kerri: That's fine, but you can't play Tony Hawk because daddy needs his computer.

Riley: Crap. I almost said shit, but I stopped myself. I said crap instead.

Eric: That's good Riley.

Trey: Yeah, because shit is a baaaaaaaad word.

So--sometimes, actually most of the time, it looks a little like a three ring circus around here. But, my boys are beautiful and I love them each more than I can explain.