…sorta all over the place

Man. You go have a baby, write up & post a two page birth story and then people give you grief for going a day without posting!

We’ve had a busy couple of days – the visiting nurse was out on Monday to check on me & the baby and then we had Carson’s first doctor’s appointment yesterday. It is crazy how having just one real item on my “to do” list can take up the whole day. Today, my one real item was to get a post up and finally share pictures from last Thursday. We’ll see if I can bang this out before Carson wakes up or blows out yet another diaper.

Carson’s appointment went well. He’s back up to 10lbs, 6ozs (had dropped to 10lbs, 3ozs when we left the hospital). The doctor was pleased with everything but we have to go back on Friday to have her check to make sure his jaundice is going away. He also has two large bumps on his head (one is from the vacuum during delivery, the other is probably from how he was sitting upside down for a while in my belly) but everyone has assured us that those will resolve themselves and go away within a month.

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We are figuring it out. Mallory has gotten way better the past couple of days – I’m sure the routine of daycare has helped tremendously. She only slept for 40 minutes at school on Monday but yesterday she slept for over two hours. That makes me happy. She still comes up to our room ~5a in the morning so if you had a camera on our bed at that time every morning, you’d see me cuddling the baby, and Mallory sprawled out between Rick & me. Funny how she takes up more room than either of the two adults.

Cooper is still Cooper. He wants to get in the way when I’m trying to change a diaper on the floor and is in desperate need of a walk. But with the snow we got on Monday, our road is a disaster right now so we aren’t walking anywhere for a while. We are dogsitting my dad’s dog for a week starting Saturday so he’ll have some fun playing with Buddy.

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We’ve gotten tons of “how is Mallory handling the new baby?” questions. The answer is that she is doing GREAT with him but not so great with us. She always comes and reports to me his little squeaks and grunts (“baby do dis ‘squeak!’”) and she gets VERY distressed when he is crying, or about to cry. Her lower lip starts to wobble and she tells me “baby FRYING, mommy!” and she expects me to fix it immediately. Usually I can but if we are in the car when he starts to “fry”, there isn’t much I can do. Luckily Carson likes the car and he usually sleeps during our commute. She also always needs to know where he is at all times: “where is baby? I can’t see him.”

She is very gentle with him and is so excited to be a big sister and likes to show him off to her friends at school when I go pick her up. I think she thinks she is pretty cool that she is the only kid in her class who is allowed to actually touch him. She always wants to make sure each of her friends gets to see her baby brudder.

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Mallory has taken a passing interest in how baby Carson eats (I am breastfeeding). She says “he is eating your bood”. My milk came in the other day and that causes big boobs for a few days…Mallory saw my boobs and said “THEY ARE BIG!!!!”. Then she pointed to my tummy and said “it is SMALL!”. Gotta love her.

And with regard to my small tummy…Mallory is pretty fired up that I have a lap again, and even let her brother share my lap with her last night for bedtime stories. I offered to put Carson down so she & I could cuddle and read, just the two of us, but she insisted on him sitting on that lap (my right leg) and she would sit on this lap (left leg). But when she saw how Carson was curled up on my shoulder she turned around and wanted to cuddle too. I was pretty upset Rick wasn’t home to get a picture of that because I was pretty comfy with my two kids curled up on my lap. But then the moment was over, and Mallory turned around and was ready to read books again.

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I think the biggest adjustment in our house is me getting used to Mallory not being my baby. More than once a day, I will totally lose it because I get so sad because I’m afraid she is going to hate me and because I miss our fairly easy routine. I think maybe I’m also worried that I know how hard it can be sometimes with Rick’s work schedule and I’m afraid of how much harder it will be with two kids. But Carson has proven to be a pretty easy baby (knock on wood) so hopefully we’ll all continue to adjust well.

Oh – here is an example of what makes me so sad about Mallory. She always wants to give me a hug & a kiss good night or good bye or whatever. But ever since the baby was born, she only wants to blow me kisses & hugs. *sniff*.

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I’ll end this post with a funny story (I heard Carson start to stir so I should hurry & post this and maybe come back later today if I find time).

Mallory wanted more of my leftover birthday cake – I told her she ate it all gone. She said “YOU GUYS ate it all gone TOO”.

How the hell did she know I ate the last piece after she went to bed the night before?