frame.of.mind: New baby

, by Unknown

Sweet baby boy.

At long last, our son is here.

William Daniel entered our world on thursday, June 25th 2015 weighing 8.11 and 21" long. He looks a little bit like....everyone, really. I see Randy and Charlotte in his face when he's wearing a hat, and I see Jocelyn in his dark hair and furrowed little brow when he's worried, and I hear her voice in his soft, mewling cries. I see his uncle Shelby and his cousin Elissa and several other Maust relatives, and....a good healthy dose of his unique self. Of course he is perfectly perfect to us, as each child is to their parents and we are quite smitten with him.

I will eventually crank out the birth story, but for now I am just really soaking in these moments and holding them close to my heart. I feel as if the newborn stage was robbed just a tiny bit from me with Charlotte.....of no fault of her own of course, she was quite a good baby. But rather just because of my own state of mind. Everything started to blur together a little bit and I remember those days in a bit of a haze....even Jocelyn's newborn days seem clearer. I think it was a combination of things....having two close together and feeling like I very much had two babies to look after, the busy-ness of summer sweeping me up into activity and rushing me headlong into gardening and canning, and when she was a mere two months old, we became youth sponsors, which brought on a whole new set of activities.

And so this time around, I am determined to take things nice and slow and easy. Of course there will be the normal summer craziness, (as it is the same time of year that Charlotte was born) but we have made some deliberate choices to streamline our lives, like getting rid of our chickens (sad, I know) and not planting a garden (shocking, I know).

I will miss tomatoes like CRAZY and freshly grilled zucchini will haunt me in my dreams, but I will also be snuggling my newborn instead of weeding. And what am I going to be more thankful for in the years to come? Pretty sure there will always be fresh tomatoes around. That velvety fuzz on top of a newborn's head? That lasts for like, 15 minutes.

With the first baby, everything felt like such a steep learning curve and I remember really not wanting to be alone. That felt overwhelming. With the second, the needs of two littles ones felt so constant and draining, I felt the need to get out and socialize and do more things, because I needed the distraction. This time around, things are so different. First of all, being alone is like a day at the spa! I can just sit in the quiet, hear myself think, snuggle my baby and soak it all in. And when we are all together, I have children who help bring me things, hold the baby, or happily play together while I get the baby all to myself. And I don't feel the slightest pressure to run into town or load everyone up to go to the park for the sake of distraction. I just want to sit at home and be surrounded by my loved ones.

All those people who tell you the third is the easiest? They're not lying.

HOWEVER, lest you think it is all unicorns and rainbows, it's not. Nursing still hurts like crazy for a little bit, but thankfully, it's not as overwhelming. By the third time around, you have learned tricks of the trade that help and you know what works for you, and just like doing anything else for the first vs. the third time, you've learned and grown and it's all just a little bit easier.

And while my girls are at such a better place than Jocelyn was at 18 months when Charlotte was born, there is still some major acclimation that needs to happen. Jocelyn has firmly slipped into her role as "the Oldest" and mothers and nurtures and thinks William is "her baby", rather than her brother. This is all fine and wonderful except that she also thinks she is capable of quite a bit more than she is, and requires close supervision.

Charlotte, while loving him fiercely as well, as seemed to struggle a little more with the change in our routines and normal, daily life, and attentions given to littler ones. Everyone seems a little tender emotionally and meltdowns happen more frequently than ever, and so we are all just trying to learn and adjust. It's not going to be seamless, but it will all work out.

Well that's all for now, I have some Mexican food in the kitchen calling my name. Loudly.