This morning I was moved by a Real Simple email quote of the day to start blogging again. "If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, you'll probably never do much of anything." Win Borden said that, and I'm impressed by the thought though I have no idea who that person is. I'm hoping that keeping this in mind will allow me to move beyond perfectionism that leads to no posts being finished into mediocre but consistent record keeping. We'll see. I'm intending to eventually change the blog name and address to reflect our growing family, but before doing that I think I'll make sure I can actually manage updates.
Most important things first. It doesn't seem like it's been nearly that long, but almost two months ago Graham Joseph Angelette made his first appearance. He was born at 11 a.m. on Saturday, April 17, just four days after Jack turned three and five days before Ben turned 30. At birth, Graham was 7 lbs., 1 oz., which is exactly what Jack weighed, and at 20 inches, he was just slightly longer/taller than Jack.
Labor with Graham was longer than with Jack by a few hours (2 p.m. until 11 a.m. as opposed to 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.), but it was only really difficult or painful for an hour or two, while for Jack's birth I was in significant (though epidural-managed) pain for at least 6 hours. Much easier second time around. In fact I very nearly made it without an epidural, despite having several artificial labor-inducing practices thrown at me, including heavy pitocin use and rupturing of the amniotic sac. I also recovered a lot faster, which I've heard from other second-time moms is common. Fifteen to twenty pounds of extra weight's still hanging around, but not bad for having gained about 40-45, and it's coming off pretty steadily without any effort. Graham, on the other hand, has been gaining weight like a champ. At his two week checkup he weighed 8 lbs., 6 oz.! That's almost 2 ounces of weight gain a day, and our pediatrician said he'd be happy with a weight gain of an ounce a day.
He is thus far a very happy and easy baby. He's just starting to smile a lot and his coos and gurgles are adorable, especially when he's talking to the baby in the mirror above his swing. He rarely cries, though he absurdly cried through his entire baptism, punctuating the screaming with a very loud burp and massive spit-up all over the front of my shirt and skirt at the end of the ceremony. It was so out of character and over-the-top that Ben and I just had to laugh. Adding to the absurdity, Graham quieted as soon as we stepped down from the altar and sleep-smiled at us during prayer after communion.
He's also a pretty good sleeper. Daytime naps usually require a sling or swing to start, but the past few days I've been able to transfer him to the Moses basket without waking him. A few times (like now) I've even managed to get the boys to take partially overlapping afternoon naps, so that each one gets individual time and I still get a little time to myself. And though he's certainly not sleeping through the night, Graham fairly consistently sleeps for a 4 1/2 to 5 hour stretch and for 2 1/2 to 3 hours two more times at night, so he's only waking about twice at night. One night, around 6 weeks, he even made it from 11 p.m. until 4:30 a.m., and I was able to sleep that entire time, too! In comparison, Jack was 7 months old before I was able to sleep that long in one chunk. The best part of his sleeping habits is that his night wakes are brief--a 30 minute feed, a diaper change, and he's instantly back to sleep with no rocking or soothing fussiness required.
Ben had six weeks of paternity leave, which was a blessed, blessed reprieve from the real world for all of us. My mom was then here last week, so this week has been my first at home alone with the boys. And it's gone better than I expected. We've had more good days than bad, despite a few yelling incidents (several by Jack, one from me) and the persistent feeling that all I do all day is feed little boys and clean their bottoms.
Jack is a terrific big brother. We had a few weeks of fairly regular tantrums (including one 45 minute one that culminated in Jack screaming at Ben, "I want you to go away and not come back EVER AGAIN!" repeatedly for 20 minutes), his sleeping still isn't back to normal (though he's not waking us at night, thank goodness), and he's picked up a few odd bad habits (right now he's constantly sucking on his hands), but all in all he's taking it in stride. His preschool teachers said that of the 5 kids in the class who had new siblings this semester, Jack seemed the least fazed by it--aside from carrying around a doll all day at school for a few weeks, his behavior was completely consistent.
The best part is that Jack has never been anything but incredibly gentle and loving with Graham. Jack's had a few things to learn, like not running or jumping near Graham's head when Graham's laying on the floor and not throwing things to Ben or me when we're holding Graham. But Jack's never done anything even remotely malicious and has stopped all potentially hurtful behavior with just a few warnings.
It's really sweet to see, because Jack must kiss Graham on the head at least 30 times a day and speaks in parentese to him all the time. The other day I heard Jack prompting Graham, "Do you have a smile in there? Do you? Oh, yes you do, don't you? How about a smile for me?" in the best mimic of me that I've heard in a long time. The funniest, though, was a week or so ago when Jack found a miniature Boppy pillow intended to be used for babies' tummy time. Jack decided it was a "Jack-sized breastfeeding pillow" and immediately put it around his waist, which it did, in fact, fit perfectly. He then grinned and said, "Momma, now I can feed Graham, too. I put him on here and then lift up my shirt. But, oops, sorry, I don't have any breasts." I'm pretty sure that's verbatim.
P.S. - A Jack activity update: This morning Jack "drove" the Lexus while I was getting Graham into his carseat and loading the stroller into the trunk. He does this fairly often, so 1) we keep our cars locked even while they're in the garage in case Jack gets the urge to run away, and 2) it's not uncommon to start the car and have the radio blaring and/or the windshield wipers on full tilt. But this morning he explored new buttons; as I backed out of the driveway, I realized that my GPS was set to speak French.
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