Quiet Chaos

Things have been quiet around here.

The blog, I mean. Life has been decidedly NOT quiet. I mean, I sit around the house a lot—with a baby attached to me half the time, it seems—but somehow, the days still fly by. I start off each day with good intentions, with a mental list of things I intend to get done. But then, my new routine takes over and before I know it, the day is over again. Funny how that happens.

Breakfast, diaper, feeding, pumping, shower, laundry, diaper, feeding, lunch, errands, diaper, feeding… and then Nora’s home. I swear, that’s how it goes. That simple sequence somehow eats up nine hours of every day.

Nora’s still attending daycare full time. Part of me feels guilty about that because I’m home and I feel like I should be taking advantage of the extra time to spend with her, too, but Michael still has to work, obviously, and I honestly can’t imagine how I’d handle both of them at home all day, every day, by myself right now. Sounds pathetic, since you know, I am their mother and I kinda have to get used to dealing with two kids and all, but seriously, for all you stay-at-home-moms? I bow down at your feet. I don’t know how you do it. On the other hand, it’s been good for Nora to keep her routine—plus, we really can’t pull her out of daycare anyway since we still have to pay for it in order to “hold her spot.” So hey, it’s working for us right now. I think we’re all adjusting better because of it.

Weekends are nice because we’re all together. We’ve been pretty busy, actually, and will continue to be for the next several weekends. We went to a family baby shower one weekend, went to my in-laws’ for dinner. We run errands, we play outside. All of the usual weekend stuff didn’t cease with Vivienne’s arrival. Life still feels pretty normal, I’m just more tired these days and I have to go to bed earlier.

Vivienne is doing really well. She still sleeps a lot, but she’s giving us a couple of longer stretches of awake time each day. I love watching her all wide-eyed as she tries to make sense of her world. And given that she very well may be my last baby, I’m trying to soak up all of the newborn-ness and not worry so much about spoiling her, getting on schedules, and things of that nature. I’m too Type A to abandon that completely, but I recognize that it will all come in time. She’s not even three weeks old yet, so there’s no need to go there. And please, we all know you can’t put a newborn baby on any sort of real schedule anyway.

Our nights are usually good, thankfully. So far. We have a few tougher nights thrown into the mix here and there, but for the most part she gives us a good stretch between 10:30-11 p.m. and 3-4 a.m. We do a diaper change and she nurses, then HOPEFULLY goes back down easily until 6-7 a.m. again. So yeah, Vivi’s a good sleeper. Again, so far. On the rough nights, the second half of the night is what gives us trouble—she has a hard time settling back down again sometimes, or she won’t settle into a truly deep sleep and she’ll keep me awake with her newborn grunting for HOURS. One night earlier this week, I was almost ready to evict her to her nursery just so I could have some peace and quiet. :)

Nora continues to be awesome. With the baby, at least. She still has her challenging moments/days when she completely tests our patience and drives us to the brink of insanity, but that comes with the territory when you have a 3-year-old. Well, almost-3-year-old. Speaking of which, we are planning her birthday party now. Invitations are going out in the mail tomorrow, and her actual birthday is just three weeks from now, which is CRAZY.

I turned 31 last Friday. My celebrating was purposefully low key. I spent a quiet day at home snuggling my baby for the majority of it, then we went out to dinner with my family, kids in tow. I pigged out on cookie cake and went to bed early. It’s all good. :)

My recovery is going well. I am out and about, pretty much as normal. I get comments from people in stores nearly every time I’m out, so apparently it is a rare thing for a new mom and baby to be in public this soon? That’s what people imply, anyway. They first ask me how old my little one is, and when I tell them, I get a variety of responses, but all along the same lines—”Oh wow, you’re brave!” or “Wow! You’re doing really well” or “When I had my babies, I didn’t leave the house for two months!” Sometimes, it’s hard to tell whether they are actually in awe of me, or if they are judging me. *shrug* I don’t do well being trapped in the house, so I try to plan an errand for myself most days. Especially when the weather is nice, it’s good to get out for a bit. During this time, Vivienne sleeps quietly in her car seat for the most part, so I don’t see the harm.

I go back to work at the end of October. It seems far away, but I can’t believe that I’m already in my third week of leave, either. So I know it’ll fly by wayyy faster than I’d like. I try not to think about it, honestly, because it makes me too sad.

Having Michael working from home this time around has been nice. The house isn’t as quiet and lonely during the day, even though he spends most of the day working (like he is supposed to!), not hanging out with me or anything. Just having him here is nice, plus he is able to pitch in with Viv here and there if I need him to—you know, while I shower. Or even pee.

For the past (almost) three weeks, that’s pretty much our life in a nutshell. Things are different, but also the same. I think Vivienne has settled pretty well into our lives, filling a spot that we didn’t even realize was open. Hopefully it’s only going to get more fun from here!