A Valentine's Brag

While I certainly could fill the blog with how the retreat went (not relaxing) and other things that are stressing me out right now, I wanted to have a happy entry to Valentine's Day. Although I do need to get those other things off my chest, so I will blog about them later. But I have two beautiful boys and I'd like to show them off a little!

Nathan is one month old today. It's hard to believe that he's been a part of our family for that long, but at the same time, it feels like he's always been here. I guess that just means we're how we're supposed to be. He's gotten so big (probably nearing 10 lbs now) and he's so aware. He'll stare at me while I change him and then give me huge smiles (yup, smiling already!) and little baby coos as I talk to him. He's beginning to grow out of some clothes already, mainly due to length. That makes me a little sad. This baby time is going by a little fast for my liking. We just need to take plenty of pictures to remind us.

Pardon the blur of this photo. I had to take this picture one-handed while he slept on me. It was too precious to pass up!
For some reason, he likes his face to be snuggled while he sleeps. He did this to the blanket himself.

I don't write about Aiden too much, except when he's being naughty, but I guess that IS a fairly large part of a 2 year old's life. Actually, he's very well-behaved for his age (compared to other 2 year olds I've seen). He's also pretty darn smart, if I do say so myself. It's still a little difficult for people to understand what he's saying a lot of the time, but he's picking up many new words every day and it's fun to hear him create more and more new sentences all the time. He even made up a little song yesterday! We're so proud of him. He knows his entire alphabet and can read all of the letters. I decided to check a few educational sources and apparently, that's not supposed to happen for most children until age 5. He can also count to 15 and can read the numbers up to 10. We'd like to get him into a preschool-prep class. There was preschool-like childcare at the church retreat and he just ate it up. He never complained about being left and he got so into the arts and crafts they had for the kids. I think he'll love school.
A very big smile from our big boy!

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Procrastinating

But I don't like to call it procrastinating. It's just....taking a break. :^)

Today is ending up being a little busier than I wanted it to be. We leave this evening for our church retreat at Twin Rocks and there are many things that need to be done before we go. And it's already 2pm. We ended up sleeping in a lot later than normal this morning because Nathan had a bit of a hard night. It was only his 2nd hard night since being born, so I guess I can't complain too much. What I need to get done is taking longer today because Aiden is getting into everything. I think he knows I'm preoccupied with the baby and other things, so he has to get attention somehow. Oddly enough, just as I was writing that sentence, he got into some recycling that I didn't think he could reach and dumped an entire box of packing peanuts all over the floor and into the baby's diaper bag. Fantastic.

On a fun note (fun for a housewife, at least), I finally bought a slow cooker. I was quite pleased with myself for finding a nearly $30 slow cooker on sale at Target for $17.99. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but am really looking forward to trying it out. So if anyone has any good slow cooker recipes, send them my way!! Evenings tend to be when Nathan wants constant attention, so making dinner is getting to be a bit of a problem. I figured if I could spend his downtime in the morning/early afternoon putting a meal together, that would open up my evening and reduce my stress.

Well, I'd better get back to laundry and everything else on my long list. I really hope this weekend will be relaxing and fulfilling. I've been wanting to attend the annual retreat for the past 2 years and this is the first year we've been able to. Sadly, I'm not more excited about it, but I think that's just due to being overly tired from the new baby. Hopefully I'll have some great things to write about when we get back.

More pictures

I've finally gotten around to doing this, so enjoy! You can see the full album by clicking on the title of this post.
We're getting ready to go home from the hospital.
All dressed and ready to face the world!

Checking out his "womb bear".

Finally catching up

I think I'm finally catching up on things. But I wouldn't have been able to do the majority of what I've gotten done if I didn't have such a great extended family. Last week felt very long and like everything was crashing down around me. Then, Saturday we got some much needed help from Brady and Carrie. They were kind enough to watch Aiden for us while we went grocery shopping (we had virtually nothing in the fridge) and they even cleaned the apartment and bathed Aiden! Awesome!
Sunday ended up being an odd mix of a terrible morning (lots of fighting and crying spells) and a really fun afternoon (I finally enjoyed the outcome of the Superbowl after 4 years of disappointment). Monday morning I got my first experience of hauling the kids of bed and taking John to work so I could go to an appointment with my midwife. Luckily, I was able to get babysitting for Aiden at basically the last minute Sunday night. It was very unexpected to have John's grandparents offer to watch him, but I'm so glad they did. I had to sit in the office for nearly an hour past my appointment time. It would have been extremely difficult to keep a 2 year old occupied for that long around lunchtime. And then Tuesday I received a phone call from John's other grandmother (dad's side), asking if she could come over and help! I got so much housework done! She held the baby for a few hours (he had a great time sleeping on her) and then she played with Aiden while I nursed Nathan.
All in all, because of this much appreciated help, I finally feel like our lives are coming together again. And strangely enough, I'm beginning to not feel quite as tired now that things are getting done. It's odd how massive amounts of clutter can bring down your energy level. I'm so thankful for the help I've received. I'm so appreciative of John's family, especially since I don't have any of my family readily available in the area.

I'm glad I've finally been able to post something at least somewhat happy. I know my posts have been a little down lately. John keeps asking if I'm feeling like I'm struggling with depression after the birth. I really don't think so. I'm definitely still all over the place with my emotions sometimes, but I realize that we're still in the adjustment period of bringing another person into the family. And having a toddler makes it harder because we need to help with HIS adjustment to it as well. Recovering is taking longer this time (but in speaking with friends, I'm glad longer recovery isn't unusual for the 2nd child) and I'm very tired much of the time. Everything I've read has said that it takes a minimum of 6 weeks for a family to begin to fully adjust to a new baby (when they have children already). Anything before that is just going to feel crazy and all over the place. I think we are gradually beginning to get into some sort of groove and Aiden is slowly getting used to the idea of his brother. I know it will get there. It just may take a while yet.