It's the end of my first week home with 2 children. I honestly can not complain. I have had it EASY. Not only do I have a doting husband, but my doting brother-in-law Joel and his wonderful girlfriend Catherine were here for the first few days I was home, and my beautiful, loving mother has been here all week. I think I've had a total of 2 hours where it was just me and my children. Tomorrow morning may be a rude awakening!
Both kids are doing so well. Dean, while indifferent most of the time, seems to like his baby sister. He even has bouts of affection coupled with tackling motions and pacis thrust in faces. All in all, a great start for us. A few things seem to baffle the Deanster though: he does not seem to understand why she cries when she's hungry and has taken to imitating her when she does; and he is completely confused as to why she doesn't have a penis and is worried that she's lost it every time she gets a diaper change. Just for good measure he reaches into his diaper to make sure his is still there. He then proceeds to go through the list of people he knows asking if they have a penis. One interesting thing that Josh and I have noticed (and I've heard from others with multiple kids) is that Dean, while perfectly fine around Riley, has been having random tantrums in other areas. None of these tantrums seem directly linked to his sister, but instead seem to be his attempts to grasp at some form of control. For example, he has had outbursts about diaper changes or taking off his diaper that he's never had before, and has been very particular about how things are done while you are with you. The latter we think may be linked to his desire to have your full attention. You can't half-ass it when you have a 2 year old determining every second of play and changing it up when he thinks you aren't paying attention to him. We're both interested to see how the next several weeks go as Dean gets more used to a new routine in the house, and hope to keep a good deal of focus still on Dean so that he continues to feel love and attention from us.
Mommy and Daddy are doing really well. We're getting in the swing of nighttime feedings, a million diapers a day, and the smell of spit up. We are so thankful for such a good first week of sleep. Riley had 2 nights where she wanted to be up most of the night - one of which we dealt with, the other my fantastic mother took care of (a bonus to bottle-feeding, THANK YOU ZIBAH). Other than that it has been a dream of only 2 feedings/night followed fairly quickly with more sleep each time. Yahoo! I'm going to sing praises even though it makes me nervous to think that this could all change tomorrow (or tonight - ah!). Hopefully she'll take after her brother and be down to one feeding a night within a month.
We have had a slew of visitors from near and far: Gigi (Josh's mom), Zibah (my mom), Deeda (my dad), Uncle Joel and Catherine, Aunt EB, Uncle Mark, Aunt V (Veronica), Uncle Jim, a party of extended relatives, neighbors, and more. Riley has performed well and slept through just about all of it. While Aunt V was here she dubbed Riley "Winky" after her somewhat slow eye. Unless Riley really feels that you are worth viewing she tends to prefer to just open her right eye at first, leaving the left eye to follow suite once properly awake. The left eye is getting stronger every day, but until then Winky she will be!
