Special time with Natalia

This Saturday morning, I had special time with Natalia. We had a wonderful time. We played the ukulele. Some of her favorite songs now are Under the Sea and The Banana Boat Song. She loves helping me strum the Uku!

We also fed the worms. This was Natalia's first time feeding the worms. She even held one of them, which she thought was very exciting. She wants me to let you know that she didn't eat it. She also wants you to know that she fed the worms bananas.

Some other things she would like me to write are that she put on her sweater all by herself.

Here are some other pictures from the last few days. Mateo and Natalia love to hold baby Rosa. They both spent quite a while holding her in their arms yesterday morning. Mateo would hold her for a minute, while Natalia would ask for a turn. Then Natalia would hold Rosa and Mateo would want a turn. They couldn't get enough cuddle time with their little sister!

Here is a picture from last night. Alayna and I spent a good hour de-cluttering the basement . . . just in case we end up moving! (More about that in a few weeks . . . maybe . . . if we are lucky!) Then we watched Drop Dead Diva while I nursed Rosa. For the fourth night in a row, she only woke up one time! Wow. This is amazing.

Questions

We had our annual meeting with our financial planner today and we brought the baby, because she comes almost everywhere with us.  After the oohing and aahing had commenced, the financial planner asked us how old the baby was, and then said "So, did you get her from day one, then?"  We were like, what?, and then realized she thought we had adopted her.  The funny thing was that she asked as Sacha was breastfeeding Rosa, and, while I know lactation can be induced, it is usually a clear sign that the woman breastfeeding has given birth to the baby!  It turned out that she thought we had adopted all three kids and was quite surprised to find out otherwise.

It made me think about the questions we get and how many millions of times we've explained our family to random people.  I know Apa gets this all the time, too, because we've talked about it.   People are endlessly fascinated and most want to know every detail they can get.  Most assume we had intensive fertility interventions (we didn't) and a lot assume that one or both of us had, well, biblical relations with Apa (which we most certainly did not).  At this point, it just strikes me funny and I always laugh at Apa's catch phrase, which he should really copyright:  The Miracle of the Mason Jar! 

In other words, the kids were conceived using the good, old fashioned turkey baster method, except that the turkey baster was really a syringe.  I'm sure this is going to mortify them when they're teenagers, so I don't know why I'm writing about it now.  I just think of the extremes that people go to - either that we must have adopted (although we really did have to adopt each time, at great cost, but not in the way they think) or that we must have been doing IVF - when the reality was more of a do-it-yourself experience than anything else.  I mean, we're lesbians, so it was practically a requirement that having kids be a do-it-yourself project!

Outing

Well, I got my wish.  Armed with enough bottle supplies to feed a multitude of babies, I took all three kids out on an adventure this afternoon.  We went to a cool indoor play park in a nearby town.  Rosa obligingly slept through the whole thing in the moby wrap while I chased her brother and sister around the place.  It was pretty fun to watch them jumping in the bounce house with our tiny third baby snuggled up to me.  The kids had a great time, which was fun to be a part of.  They've both been a little touchy lately, so it was good for them to go and just play and get out some energy. 

Of course, Rosa woke up right in time for our half-hour drive back to the city.  Both kids have really taken ownership of her and when she started crying, they chimed in right away with shushing noises, commenting to each other each time she stopped crying.  It was so cute.  I'm sure they'll all have moments of fighting, but it's great to see them starting to form a bond with her. 

This blog has been all Rosa, all the time, lately, so I'll just say one more thing about her:  she smiled while awake for the first time today!  She did it once for me out of nowhere, while I was on the phone. So so cute.  She's been giving us lots of sleeping smiles, so hopefully the awake ones will start coming out more now, too!

Meanwhile, our bigger kids have been doing pretty well over all.  They're both having some adjusting behaviors, like Mateo hitting and yelling when he doesn't get his way and Natalia being even more clingy than usual (which is saying something), but generally I'd say that they're doing well with all the change.  Mateo's been working on jumping on one foot, which he is VERY proud of being able to do.  He's also still very interested in books and reading and would go to the library every afternoon if we would let him. 

Tali is becoming a bigger girl every day.  She can get herself dressed all by herself and is determined to be independent in a lot of ways, although not socially!  We were looking at a house the other day and talking about how much we liked the bedrooms, and Mateo said something about how one of the rooms could be theirs, and she said, very seriously, "but we didn't bring our beds!"  She doesn't miss much!

Anyway, that's the update from today.  One of these days, it will be warm and sunny and I can stop talking endlessly about indoor play parks and instead write gloriously about all the sun and farmer's markets and park trips we've been having.  I am really looking forward to those days, although I'm trying to enjoy these ones, too.  It's just hard not to look forward when it feels like summer should be just around the corner!

One month

Happy one month birthday to our little Rosa Jane!   I can't believe it's been a month already, and yet I also can't believe it's only been a month.  She is such a sweet little presence in our lives and we are all totally smitten with her.  Mateo loves to take care of her like the big brother he is, Talia is excited to hold her as much as possible, and we're excited to be her parents as best we can be. 

Of course, we've had our share of long nights, but last night she slept from...wait for it...10:30 pm to 5:30 am.  We know she probably won't do it again for months, but it was very nice to have for one night anyway.

Here are some things she's doing at one month old:

Nursing a LOT.  Last night, she nursed for two hours straight and then had a bit of a bottle after that.  She is a world champion nurser!

Building up her core strength and learning to hold up her head when she's on her tummy.

Getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of milk Mommy makes and screaming at the boob when it doesn't do what she wants.

Getting one bottle a day from Mama, usually at night.  This is one of Mama's favorite times of the day/night.

Teasing us with what her eye color might be.  In the middle her eyes seem to be trending toward brown, but they have a definite dark blue edge to them.  Which will it be?  Only time will tell?

Growing like a weed and shedding her newborn clothes almost as fast as she got into them.  

Sleeping a lot but having more and more wakeful time, which she uses to open her eyes realllly wide and gape at the world around her.

Charming us all.

She's a great baby.  We love her to pieces.  Happy one month, kiddo!

Photo of the day

PS:  Someone's outgrowing her newborn clothes....

Photos from the last two days

Biiiig hug!

Thanks to Mego and Galen for taking all three kids for us so we could get out for a bit.  Also, thanks to Erin and Apa for watching them at other times.  We've been so lucky to have helpful friends offering breaks, which we have gladly taken.

Can you tell that Uncle Galen is magic?

Snuggling with Poppa

Looking cute with Bubby

Helping Poppa wash his car out in the warm, sunshiney weather.  We all had a great day!

Spring is here . . . for today!

My parents are down to celebrate my mom's birthday. We just had a wonderful brisket and kugel for dinner! Kugel is one of my favorite meals, but one that I don't have very often. The kids have been having a terrific time with Bubby and Papa. (Pictures to follow at some point.) Mateo, Papa and Apa went on a boys outing this morning, and all hiked together for most of the morning.

Alayna, my mom and I stayed home and installed a new screen door for the front of our house. It was quite the sight. Alayna had Rosa in the moby, Natalia was playing on the sidewalk and we installed the screen door. Rosa slept through the electric drill and everything! This is a project that 6 years ago, as a brand new home owner, we would have had a very difficult time with! And here we were installing a screen door while watching our infant less than 1 month old and our daughter less than 3 years old.

Our home improvement skills have improved greatly over the last 6 years! Also, what is a new baby without a screen door? Right before Natalia was born we installed the one for the back door.

Also, we set up a worm bin (for the tenth time . . . ). I keep on killing our worm bins. I'm not quite sure why. Anyway, I realized a few things I did wrong with the last worm bin. I had it in the sun - I guess worms don't like the direct sunlight. I didn't have ventilation holes in the top of the bin, I only had half of the number of drainage holes needed in the bottom of the bin. And . . . I didn't have cardboard on top of the food. Hopefully this worm bin will be more successful.

Mateo had a great time meeting his pet worms yesterday. (We also enjoyed playing baseball in the backyard.) He even held one of the worms for a while! In a bit, instead of saying, "Don't forget to feed the cat," I suppose we will be saying, "Don't forget to feed the worms!" That is, if I don't manage the off the worms yet again.

Life with three has been good so far. Yesterday we had a first. Mateo, Natalia and I all went on a bike ride together. It wouldn't have been possible had Papa not been walking with Natalia. None the less, it was marvelous to all go on a bike ride together.

So, we are out trying new things, even with three. I would say that moving from two to three has been easier than moving from 1 to 2. I know that this is just the beginning, but so far, it's been great. I try to just stay in the moment and not worry about what it will be like when I go back to work. I really don't know how I could do this if it were not for Alayna. She makes life with three go so smoothly. I feel guilty that she does so much.

It is wild, it seems like Rosa has always been with us, even though it has just been 4 weeks. It is crazy to think that there was a time before she was part of our lives. I love her so much. Happy 4 week birthday, one day early.

Photos

I did a little photo shoot with Rosa this morning and had a lot of fun.  She was totally sound asleep, so it was easy to get her into a couple of different positions. Here are some of our favorites.

Three

When I dreamed of three kids (which I did often in the several years that Sacha and I debated and occasionally fought over whether to have three), I imagined three little booster seats at the table, a pack of buddies playing together and then being friends together as they got older.  I kind of forgot, although I didn't really forget, about the newborn stage! 

Since Mateo and Natalia's infancies are such a blur in my mind, I think I assumed Rosa's would flash by in a blur as well....neglecting to remember that the gaps in my memory from the first two kids were caused by sleep deprivation, not by time passing extremely fast!  Instead, as I now remember from the other two, we are in the trenches of looooooooooooooong days and loooooooooong nights.  It's like that saying about how the days are long but the years are short.  I imagine I'll look back on this time as a blur, too, but it definitely doesn't feel like that now. 

Having three is wonderful and I certainly wouldn't take it back.  Rosa is about the easiest baby we can imagine, which I say while keeping in mind that wow, that kid can scream when she wants to!, and Mateo and Natalia seem to be adjusting pretty well.  However, along with normal newborn ups and downs, we also have a four-year-old who feels overwhelmed and sometimes unattended to and is lashing out over nothing - ie, hitting his friend with a toy yesterday for no real reason. 

And, we have Tali, who loves the baby so much that she wants to smother her with love, toys, hugs, pats, pokes, and on and on, and who is also displaying flashes of temper and clinginess and all that stuff.  I know people go and have six kids or ten kids, so I know we can adjust to three.  I think I just spent so much time reassuring Sacha that we could do it that I forgot about the undetermined but probably longish period of time until the baby sleeps through the night and the kids get used to her and things start feeling normal again. 

For quite awhile before Rosa was born, we had gotten to a point where we had our routines and our life with the kids was rolling along quite smoothly for the most part.  I know we'll get back to that, but wow, this is definitely a shock to the system and I think we're going to be finding our footing for awhile yet.  Luckily, we have the cutest and funniest kids in the world to make it all worthwhile!  Stay tuned for our many baby steps in learning how to be parents of three...

Three weeks!

Guess who turns three weeks old today?  We think the sun came out especially to celebrate.  It already seems like she's been with us forever.  Happy three week birthday, Rosie J!

Sisters having tummy time...

PS:  This is what Northwest kids do when the sun comes out!

Proximity

I took the kids to an indoor pool party today, in honor of one of our little buddies' fourth birthday. (His name is also Mateo, so it's hilarious when the two of them hang out together. You say "Mateo!" and two little heads swivel around.) It was a really fun party and we had a great time. The water was like a bathtub, which made even a perpetually cold person like me happy to sit and play for quite awhile.

While we were there, I was struck again by how cautious both kids are when confronted with new situations. They tend to take a long time to warm up to things, so we were in the pool for at least half an hour, with them either hovering around me or clutching onto my shoulders, before they started to get into things. Even then, when they wanted to go down the little kids' slide, they wanted me with them. There's nothing good or bad about it, it's just the way they are, but I think it's interesting that they are both so much that way.

Tali can be very independent in some ways, as can her brother, but for the most part I think they'd be happy if one of us were with them 24 hours a day. It's okay - it gives me hope that they might live near us when they grow up :) Seriously, though, I know these years are limited and that school will bring them all sorts of independence, so I'm trying to appreciate their close proximity instead of wishing they'd do a little more on their own.

Anyway, the pool party was super duper fun and we ALL had a good time, which was great. Because of all the sugar and getting home after naptime has usually started, we decided to just skip Tali's nap, so both kids were up all afternoon. We ended up seeing Apa, taking a balance bike ride (with Rosa along in the moby) around the neighborhood with Galen and Megan, and watching some of the movie Babies, which they were fascinated by. And, I gave the older two a bath with Rosa still in the moby wrap, which I was pretty proud of myself for. Sacha came and took her off my hands for the very end, but I did manage to wash their hair and all that stuff with her on board.

Tomorrow, we have another birthday party, this time at an art place, and then Sacha and Mateo are going to take Mateo's saved up "share" money to the humane society to donate it. Meanwhile, I'll get some time with just Rosa and Talia, and then we'll have dinner with Apa, who has made us a bench for our front entry and is going to bring it over. So exciting! Busy weekend. Glad to be getting into the swing of things. Although I know this is only the beginning of figuring all this out, I'm relieved that it's gone smoothly thus far. Having our family complete and everyone in close proximity is pretty awesome.

Out and about

Having been through the whole non-bio-mom thing before, I didn't think there were going to be many surprises the second time around.  For the most part, during Sacha's pregnancy, that was true.  I knew more what to expect, and we also knew more about how to make the non-pregnant partner feel included in social situations, which can get 100% focused on the pregnant mommy.  I felt much better and less easily slighted than I did when she was pregnant with Natalia, which was a very good thing.  I think I also had more confidence in myself as a mom to both our kids, whether I had given birth to them or not, so I didn't worry how it would go once the baby was born.

So far, I think I was right about there not being too many surprises this time around (at least, so far), and I'm certainly not writing this to complain.  (I do have a lingering fear that the teenage years will bring some mean comments like 'you're not my real mom' out of our kids' mouths towards one or the other of us, but I'm choosing not to worry about that for now!  We should have a decade before teenagerdom kicks in...) 

Anyway, the one thing that has really surprised me is that it's hard to show off being a new mom (albeit for the third time) when you don't have the baby in tow.  We've certainly spent plenty of family time together, but our older kiddos have a lot of energy and so I've been taking them out to a lot of our usual places to play and explore and all that good stuff.  Meanwhile, Sacha and the baby have mostly stayed home, to recover and nurse on demand and all that good stuff. 

When we're out, we seem to run into either (#1) families with three kids or (#2) pregnant women with at least one child in tow almost everywhere we go.  It's usually easy enough to strike up a conversation with another mom, but hard to bring up having just had another baby when the situation is a bit complicated, and when said baby is not there!  I don't know, I guess I just want to brag about my kids, all of them, without having to explain the whole thing or worry that the person won't be friendly to the gay thing. 

I will say, though, that with old and new friends and in places where people know us, like preschool or our music class, people have been incredibly supportive and treated me just the same as Sacha in terms of asking about the new baby, which means a lot to both of us.  I'm so grateful for that, and I'm also looking forward to the time when nursing is well-established and Rosa's a little older, so that she can join us on our adventures. 

Don't get me wrong - she is our last child and I am soaking in every bit of her newborn self.  It will, however, be nice to be able to just grab a bottle and take the three of them out and do our thing together.  And, if I can say 'and' again, things will be extra special that way until the fall, because once Sacha is back to her normal strength, we can have some awesome adventures as a family for several months before she goes back to work. 

It's funny:  I started this out in the mindset of wishing for time to pass a little more quickly and am now realizing I just want to be in the moment as much as possible.  The time for family adventuring and Rosa getting bigger will come soon enough.  Must make a mental note to remember this! 

The day

Today, we took Rosa for her two-week check-up.  She weighed in at 7 pounds, 5 ounces, which was exactly three ounces over her birth weight, so she's right on track.  I noticed that I also had to loosen the straps on her carseat just the tiniest bit to get her in, whereas when we took her home from the hospital, even the very smallest setting was too big for her. 

So, our girl is growing!  She's been drinking lots and lots of Mommy's milk, which seems to be going well for both her and Sacha.  She also seems to be waking up from her newborn sleepiness a little bit more, at least at night.  She's been up, up, up to nurse, and has had some quality couch time with me in the night when she has a hard time getting back to sleep. Luckily, I'm working on curbing my middle-of-the-night random online purchasing!

In other news, Sacha got to take Mateo to preschool this morning, which is probably only the second time she's ever done that.  It was a nice way for them to have some special time together and I think Mateo really enjoyed it.  Then, after a playdate this morning with Talia and some friends, I managed to pick Mateo up from preschool with both Tali and Rosa in tow!  I was very proud of myself and glad to get the first time of doing that out of the way, so it won't seem so intimidating in the future.

In the land of the bigger kids, Mateo and Natalia are both doing some new things.   Mateo's been pretty excited about math lately, so we've switched our pre-rest-time learning time from reading to math.  He's at a very basic level, but it's fun to do something new, especially because he reads all the time anyway, so he doesn't need too much explicit reinforcement that way.  I mean, we do read to him all the time, but you know what I mean.

For Tali, her new big thing is that she has mastered the balance bike!  She got it for her birthday a year ago and refused to even touch it at the time, but somehow she changed her mind a month or two ago.  Since then, she's been all excited about the bike and has been practicing on it quite a bit.  Now she can go out and balance on it and nearly keep up with her brother!  It's very exciting and I think it's freeing for her, which she loves, because she is a very independent girl.  She has also learned how to put on all her clothes in the morning, which continues to amaze me.  She has got some awesome fine motor skills.

Both kids seem to love their new sister and are very interested in her and what she's up to, so that's a good thing.  I think they will continue to adjust and have their ups and downs, but that's to be expected.

We're saying goodbye to my mom tomorrow, so we'll be on our own as a family of five!  We're so, so grateful to both our moms and all of our families for their support.  We're also excited to learn how to stand on our own feet in this new world of having three kids!  As someone said on my facebook page earlier, let the games begin!

Adjusting

Having gotten into the rhythm of blogging every day or two, I am finding that I still want to blog, but my brain is slowly turning to mush.  I'm not much of a napper, unfortunately, but I would be happy to just sit here and stare at the wall for an hour if I could :)  Right now, Sacha and the baby and Tali are sleeping and Mateo is questioning me endlessly on why our house is so old and how it got to be that way.  He's fascinated by old things and why they are old, and apparently I haven't come up with a sufficient answer yet, because the questions just keep coming.

Anyway, I thought I'd post quickly about how we're all adjusting.  Overall, the process seems to be going more smoothly than when we went from one to two kids, so that's a good thing.  Instead of being completely shellshocked, we're more just tired but able to roll with it.  It helps to have such a very cooperative baby, although she is waking up more and that leads to more nighttime wakefulness.  Last night, she pretty much nursed all night except for when she was awake and wanting to party. 

That led to me being up with her in the living room for an hour twice, during which time I gave her some tummy time, played on the internet and prayed she wouldn't wake up either of the other kids.  I also got this idea in my mind that we needed a small soccer goal for our backyard, so that we could all play soccer this summer, so I ordered an inexpensive one and two soccer balls online at like 5 in the morning.  It all made perfect sense at the time, but now just seems bizarre!

We've had a lot of visitors in the past few days, so we're planning a quiet afternoon for today (or, at least, as quiet as our afternoons ever are).  We just finally got the Polar Express movie from the library, after waiting for our turn for months, so we might watch a bit of that, and generally hang around the house.  Luckily, we have a fabulous baby and two energetic kids to keep us awake entertained!

Ok, just one more!

 If you can stand it, we just downloaded all the photos from my mom's camera of Rosa's homecoming, so there may be even more photos coming soon :)  This one is from her first moment at home!

More pictures

Here are some pictures from my mom's visit with us. She was amazingly helpful in the first week and somehow we didn't post many pictures of her that week. Also, some photos of three other amazing people in our lives - Poppa, Apa, and Grandmommy! So . . . here they are!

Two weeks!

Happy two weeks to our little Rosie J, and to all of us as a family of five!

Family

I can't say enough how lucky we are to have the family we do.  We've been lucky again to be showered by their generosity surrounding Rosa's birth, and we had more visits today.  My sister flew in from DC yesterday, my dad flew up from California today, and Galen and Megan came by this evening before all the grown-ups went out to dinner...well, except us, but we're a little bit occupied right now :)

Anyway, forgive the many, many photos, but since this blog doubles as the kids' baby book, there might be more photos of Rosa being held by people in the next few weeks!  We're lucky also that the people who've come to see the baby have also made it a point to play with Mateo and Tali, so that everyone has had a good time.  I still have to pinch myself that we have three kids.  Talk about lucky!

Without further ado, the photos:

With Grammy...

Playing hide and seek with toy cars among our planter garden...

With Cathy....

....and Katie!

Chilling with my Dad

Meeting people makes me soooo sleepy....

Celebrating Auntie Edlyn's birthday

She spent most of the afternoon snoozing on my sister, which was way too cute.

Meeting Uncle Galen for the first time!

Uncle Galen with an armload of kiddos

Now, our house is quiet and Sacha and I are going to try for a little down time before we go to bed.  The baby's just nursing now, so we should have time to watch an episode of something on the computer before we hit the sack.  Our life is all about the basics these days, but in a good way, although we're both slightly zombie-ish.  

This morning, I got up with Rosie at 5 am and made the mistake of turning on the heater, which woke up Mateo an hour early, and he was up all day after that.  Big thanks to my mom for getting up with him and letting me go back to bed!  I have a feeling things are going to get a little crazy after she leaves and we're really on our own!

A picture is worth a thousand....zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Yep, still here, still exhausted but elated. I was just going through photos from the last couple of days and I just have to post them, because if I don't do it now, then I never will! So, here are some of my favorites: