Big Brudders, Little Brudders

Jamie and Baby Eliah 

August 2013

Diego and Baby Truen

January 2008

How can I resist comparing these two sets of brothers?  Situations crop up all the time that remind me of times past.  In this case, 2 year old Diego and 2 year old Jamie have both just awakened.  Diego from his afternoon nap, Jamie on a weekend morning.  Baby Eliah and Baby Truen are both around 3 months old (and Eliah is just as wild about sucking on his little fist, the cuteness).  Same loveseat, but with quite a bit more wear and tear (the sadness), and the little brudders were also snuggling with their Daddy.

My very own swirling eddy

Swinging back from buoyant to overloaded . . . .

Today my "mother's helper", the 18 year old who has been helping me for a few hours each week, was here.  (It is also coincidentally her last time helping, as she is moving to Maryland in three days.)  Over the month she was able to come, I whittled my expectations down from SPECTACULAR to survival with each passing week.  No grand projects.  Just maintenance.

So today I washed sheets and made sure the beds were made before she left.  I also washed a load of towels, hung them out to dry along with the sheets, and hand-washed Jamie's woolen night diaper cover.  And by golly, I finally got up the baby calendars to compare and contrast my first three babies' development and personalities with my fourth little cherub.  I've been meaning to do this for more than two months.

You should see these calendars.  Diego's is perfect.  It is loaded with pictures and every month is filled out to a 'T'. Truen's calendar has pictures, but they aren't pasted in yet.  April 2008 is still blank with a folded piece of paper shoved in, the notes I took that month while at my parents' house.  Yeah.  I haven't actually written it in yet.

I also haven't even finished the physical calendar, and by that I mean binding it and hole-punching the top of each month, as I had the grand inspiration of a handmade baby calendar for my second child. Oh dear.

Jamie's baby calendar is complete other than his first two months, which was written on a bank calendar and not transferred over yet.  I was smart enough to not attempt a "from-scratch" baby calendar again but not intelligent enough to actually get a baby calendar before the babe was born.  Ahem.

Also, Jamie's calendar does not have any pictures.  I did order them in early 2012, but made the mistake of deciding that it would be a good idea to order pictures from the entire year that 1) I really liked, and 2) would be an accurate representation for the year.

Let's just say that when the four pound box arrived, my knees turned to jelly.  It was beyond overwhelming.  And so . . . the box was banished to the abyss of our bedroom closet.  It was too much.  I couldn't even face it.

But now.  But now!  But now I want to see the pictures of my sweet little Baby Jamie during each particular month.  I want a visual to go along with the information.  Cue gut-wrenching groans and a head-slap or two.

At least with Truen's calendar I can flip to each specific month, even if it is laying atop the chest of drawers instead of on the wall like Diego's.  Jamie's is hanging nicely on the wall, but there's a hole in my heart where the pictures should be.

So dramatic, I know.

And so, today during my hour-long Quiet Time which was interrupted 3-4 times by baby burps and a boy's bathroom break, I tackled that gargantuan box.  Ugh.

The first task was to refamiliarize myself with my purpose and intent when I first made the order.  I realized that the pictures were sorted by title instead of date, so the second priority was to sort by date.  All bazillion pictures.

I conquered, but then my time was up.  Tomorrow?  Only time will tell, but my will is set.

Buoyant

As I pulled this sweet little fella out of bed this morning, I thought to myself, "I am so lucky to have a baby again" as I nuzzled him and smelled his sweet scent.  It is worth all the life-rearranging and added work.  It just feels so good.

(I should also note that this was a morning that he slept later than usual, combined with me getting up at a more normal time, which allowed me to be free-wheeling and kicking booty before he woke up.  Times like these help keep me buoyant.)

He is 10 weeks today.  I just love 2 month olds.  They are so sweet.

A summer full of food preservation

I can't believe August is almost half-way over.  Where has the summer gone?

All along the way I've been preserving food every weekend, working mostly on Sundays.  Freezing, drying and fermenting are my modes of transportation thus far.  September seems to be the "canning month".  It'll come, and too soon if you ask me.

We've had a bumper crop of broccoli this year for the first time ever.  Blaine finally found a variety that actually produces.  Interestingly, while the heads are huge, it is a major sacrifice on taste.  It tastes like normal, grocery store broccoli.  So . . . fairly boring.  The thumb-sized broccoli (no joke) that we have been used to growing, while small, packs a punch on flavor.  They're spicy and significantly more tasty.

In the past we've grown 50-ish plants just to get a reasonable amount to eat along the way.  Definitely not enough to put up.  But this year, think 50 plants of store-sized broccoli and you'll get the picture.  Inundation!  We've been eating as much as we can, giving it away, loading the freezer with bags and bags of it, etc.

Now that I think of it, I'm also dehydrating the chopped stems for vegetable soup this winter with "waste not, want not" as my mantra.  Besides, I like the stems.

* * * * * * * * 

This weekend I busted out all seven Pickl-Its -- the Bundle of Five and the Condiment Duo.  Oh yeah, baby.  I worked on the onions this weekend.  On-ions.  I'm drooling.  So tasty.  And they are just so beautiful.  Blaine pulled all of them last week, then sorted out the little fellas for fermenting.

 Pickled pearl onions --

with thyme, cinnamon sticks, peppercorns, 

mustard seed, juniper berries, and cloves

I know.  Rockin'.

 Sliced onions for sandwiches and salads --

with celery seed in the little guy and nothing in the big'un.

And then there are the pickles.  Classic crock pickles.  Kosher pickles.  Pickle barrel pickles.  Sour pickles.  Whatever you want to call them.  I just say, "DELICIOUS".  We have always seemed to let our cucumbers get away from us every year, but after the solo batch of pickles I made last year, the ones we devoured with great satisfied squawks and howls this winter, we decided to get serious this year.

Blaine has been closely monitoring the cucumbers this season, picking them at just the right size, then bringing them in and storing them in the refrige for my mini-blitz over the weekend.  After a week of counter-top fermentation magic, we've got the beginnings of something gorgeous.

 Pickkkkkkles --

with cardomom, peppercorns, celery seed,

bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves, dill heads, and garlic.

The grape leaves are to keep them crunchy with natural tannins and

the water is murky because I used some of the leftover liquid from last week's batch.

This was last week's batch --

I decanted them into half-gallon jars and

brought them down into the root cellar for a nice, slow ferment.

They'll be ready this winter (and already smelled sooooo good).

The ground I've covered this summer includes --

• Dried celery
• Dried broccoli stems/stalks
• Dried peas
• Dried green beans
• Frozen parsley & cilantro "herbcicles"
• Frozen broccoli
• Frozen chard
• Frozen spinach
• Frozen collards
• Frozen rhubarb (for Blaine's wine)
• Fermented kimchi
• Fermented dill pickles
• Fermented pearl onions
• Fermented onion slices

Food preservation notes.

Not bad for a mother of four with a new baby.  Though let's keep it real: I wouldn't have been able to do any of this without my fella.  Blaine.  He is always such a huge help: slinging baby, hanging with the boys, dealing with conflicts, covering snacks, fetching ingredients, transporting jars up and down, picking the produce, heck - GROWING the produce, and this year, he's even helped in the kitchen.  What a man.

Today marks 13 years of marriage, giving us a total of almost 17 years of back-history together.  I couldn't be happier.  And it just keeps on getting better.

Awesome

Blaine works with a guy who is the king of all stooges.  He's our age and a great talker, but reality proves to be much different.  Seriously.  Working with this guy is like mining gold for prime sitcom material.  He could easily be on Seinfeld.

Story #1: 

He is very proud of his yard.  Very proud.

A year or so ago, his neighbor made some comment to him about "keeping up with the Joneses" in reference to his yard.  I can't remember why.  The next day he came into work and told Blaine the story, totally pooh-pooh-ing his neighbor and said, "I don't know who these Joneses are, but I know my yard is way better than theirs".

Huah!  Smackdown.

Story #2:

He loves comedians and will listen to their acts over and over again in the office.  He also loves to flirt with women in their mid-twenties that come into the warehouse.  And yes, he's married.

Just yesterday, he recited a comedy routine verbatim to one such lady visitor.  It was a routine about "unsweetened tea" and why on earth companies market tea as unsweetened when they don't have to take the sweetener out; why don't they just call it "plain tea" instead of using a polysyllabic descriptor in their tagline?

Verbatim.  Blaine has heard the routine 10-15 times and this guy recited it word for word.  He can't even come up with his own material.

The woman laughed throughout his "routine" and afterwards giggled, "tee-hee-hee . . . what does polysyllabic even mean??"

And his response my friends, is gold.  Pure gold.  He stuttered and said, "Ehhhhh . . . errrrrrrr . . . . uhhhhhhhh . . . . why don't they just call it plain tea?!"

Oh yes, he did.  Or should I say, "Oh no, he didn't".  Un-un-un-un.

Blow-out nature post

This is a strange re-entry from a week without posting, but it can't be helped.  I've been meaning to post on all this for more than a month, detailing some of the excitement at our house.  But, you know.  Life gets in the way.  We've been up to all kinds of things.

And so, while the baby is taking a much-needed "mega nap" and the boys are playing peacefully after nap/quiet time . . . the inspiration hits.

(Nevermind the house, which looks like a hurricane hit it.)

Both Blaine and I are intrigued by the intricacies of the natural world, both flora and fauna, and enjoy introducing its varied pleasures to our boys.  So with that in mind, here are some of the highlights from the last couple of months:

Last August Diego found an enormous green caterpillar with a brown face,
crawling in the grass under the basswood in our front yard.

We put it in a jar with a twig and basswood leaves and

after a few days it curled itself up into a cocoon, wrapped in leaves.

We kept it in the root cellar over the winter,

brought it out this spring,

and THIS is what it hatched into: 

 A polyphemus moth

It was HUGE, close to the size of my hand.
It was in the cocoon from August 2012 until June 2013.

It came out of its cocoon a few days after Eliah was born --

We had no idea what exactly it was until that point.

That night we put it on a rotted log alongside the garage.

It sat there for a good hour before it finally up-and-fluttered-away.

I actually got to see it happen --
It buzzed its wings a couple of times before it took off.

The boys were out and about on the acreage with Blaine,

but I was still sticking close to the house at that point in time

during my postpartum recovery period.  So lucky.

 The #2 amazing thing: morel mushrooms in our grove!

What the??  We were amazed.

This was the second week after Eliah was born.

Blaine went mushroom hunting on the first warm day after significant rainfall,

and bada-bing-bada-boom, there they were.
Tons of them.

 They were beautiful, just gorgeous --

I felt strong enough that I went out into the trees to see them.
(Still recovering from childbirth at the time, you'll remember.)

We had no idea that we could find morels in SW Minnesota.

My parents were here that week and since

I was obviously not up to kitchen work, we dried them --

They needed to be used/stored within 24 hours for peak flavor.

Un-un-un-un.  So exciting.

 Then there was our "pond life" aquarium 
and garter snake terrerium.

We had 2 varieties of snails, 2 crayfish, 2 fish, 

all kinds of water bugs, a leech, and 8-10 tadpoles in the aquarium.

Blaine and the boys dug up mud in the shallows of a nearby creek.

We had so much fun observing all the activity in the morning sun,

particularly the cranky crayfish tending their burrows.

We also realized this year that we have a garter snake den on our property,

under a cement slab near our quonset.  It was wild --

The boys were catching 7-10 snakes a day,

feeding them worms and even "basking" with them in the sun.

Finally . . . a baby praying mantis.

Truen got a bit obsessed with mantises this June,

and we indulged him by ordering mantis egg sacs off ebay.
We released them into the garden after they hatched by the hundreds.

(They are a tropical variety that dies with the cold weather hits.)

This particular little fella is living in the chard,
hopefully wreaking havoc with this year's grasshopper explosion.

We are hoping to catch a mantis and keep it as a pet this winter.

Happy Birthday Diego

 Two months old

Just look at that belly --

oochie-coochie-coo . . . gggggweee

8 years old

Polly was biting his ear --

Seriously, they were made for each other.

Our other baby, the furry one

 Introducing our newest little darling:

Polly Sparkle

Blaine and Diego made a kitten house for her together,

after Diego's idealistic solo attempt

went up in a puff of smoke (AKA 'reality') and tears.
As you can see, she actually uses it.

 Diego and Polly are the sweetest of friends.

She mews piteously for him at the back door when he's inside

and he carries her around like his own little baby.

They wrestle a lot too (kitten vs. hand).

 

 "She's already grown so much", but seriously, she has.

Babies are babies, no matter what kind.  It is amazing.
She really is "the perfect kitten".
She's playful, affectionate, friendly and likes to snuggle.
What more could a kid want?

Tsunami

This morning for the first time I thought, "I don't know how I'm going to do this".

It was in the middle of my attempt at helping Diego make a pricing sign for their farmers' market stand.  (Diego and Truen are teaming up this year and have made $12 selling to household visitors, mostly their Gramma and Great-Aunts.  The rural version of the proverbial neighborhood lemonade stand!)

Not surprisingly, Jamie tired of his coloring after a few minutes and was running amok.  The baby, who had been asleep in the swing, woke up and started crabbing (very unusual).  Truen was immersed in hole-punching a piece of paper but wasn't letting Jamie use the other two or three hole-punchers.  Diego was getting frustrated over his mistake of using a blue crayon to color his scallion instead of the intended green.

And that is when I thought it.  How am I going to do this, with this spread of ages?  I was definitely thinking about homeschooling, yes -- but it was a more base thought than that.  Even a smidgeon of directed focus towards the oldest child in this family seems to be impossible.  It seems like I can't do anything that involves more attention than a passing conversation, inquiry, or direction.  Unless Jamie is asleep.

And that is it.  One of the major disruption forces working against household peace: the two year old.  It is hard for me to do much of anything with the older two, again, unless he's asleep, because one of three things is happening: 1) everything is blissfully quiet, but he's off destroying something, 2) he's talking or hollering over whatever I'm trying to do or say, or 3) he's attempting to rip the game pieces or book right out of our hands.

Add a baby to the mix and it is a recipe for complete chaos.  Of course, unless I am actively interacting and directing and attending to the littlest ones.  But then I don't even feel like I'm able to pay attention to them either.  It isn't just Jamie.  Someone is always fighting or crying or hollering or asking a question or playing loudly or needing a snack.

I know I'll be fine and things will eventually iron out, but wow.  How is it done?

Flashback

 3 years old in 2008

The apple of my eye...

8 years old in 2013

Time flies with the speed of the wind
(though I do understand the irony of "you ain't seen nothin' yet")

"I see you're very busy," they say.

Six weeks postpartum and I have yet to post my birth story.  Or even start the post.  Dah.

I'm honestly almost to the point of not caring.  Which kind of makes me sad, but it can't be helped.  'Tis the season.  Of year and life.  It's summer-time.  The garden is putting out and I have four boys that keep me hopping.  The little "down-time" I do have (oh the irony) dissipates elsewhere.

But I'm happy.  Very happy.

One of my goals this summer is to take the boys swimming once a week.

We've gone to the kiddie pool once and the lake twice.

Two out of the three times, Jamie took a nap on his own volition.

Once in the stroller, once on the blanket under a towel.

So wonderful, because he's actually cheerful at the end of the day.

 The nice thing about this lake is the waves on a windy day --

Almost as good as the seashore.

They had so much fun jumping the waves.

They were also battling the waves (of course).

 

 I had Jamie in a little floaty-thing because 

the waves were so strong it was knocking him over.

Thank goodness I brought it (a dumpster-diving treasure, btw).

 I just love this picture of Peg-Leg Dieg --

It gives such a great view of his changing teeth,

not to mention how adorable and happy he is in the water.

 And here's what me and the Little Mister were doing on the beach.

He was snoozing and I was soaking in the maternal bliss.

No one was fighting, everyone was entertained and happy --

It was beautiful, warm, pleasant, relaxing.

It was so bloody satisfying.

Life carries on in other ways too.  Like newborns turning into plump little babies.  Eliah is six weeks old now.  Un-un-un-un.  I can hardly remember life without him.  It seems like he's always been here.  

He loves being held upright, looking over my right shoulder.  He's starting to make little baby noises more and more, still so softly, like he's just trying them out.  We snuggle together all night long, which feels so. good.  I still don't mind waking up to nurse him throughout the night.  The only bugger is when I can't get a burp out, but then I just prop him up across my chest while laying down, pat his back and doze.

 He started smiling on Saturday morning.

I could tell it was coming soon --

I saw one side of his mouth turn up on Friday night.

He's a big hit with his new skill and it makes everyone laugh and feel happy.

(The picture is blurry from me gggggwa-ing to get him to grin.)

 But I still love seeing that serious little face --

He was ooooooo-ing in this picture.

The composition in this picture pleases me.

Not to mention the little feller, gettin' plump.

It's hard getting work done with a little one though.  Very hard.  Especially now that there are three older brudders who still need me.  It is inevitable that someone needs something at pretty much all times.  I've kept on track with maintaining an hour of Quiet Time for the older boys during Jamie's nap, but Eliah's long nap isn't always reliable in coinciding in conjunction with this designated down-time.

There are piles everywhere.  Many tasks are on the back-burner, waiting to be done.  Paperwork and my very important task of recording life ("special notebooks", calendars, picture emails, blog, etc.) is piling up.  All the boys' winter clothes is sitting in a big stack downstairs.  Not to mention trying to keep a good supply of food in regular rotation.  Not so easy when you cook from scratch and have only a smidgen of time.  

Blaine and I are working as a team on food preservation, and he is spending a lot of time doing inside work I usually have covered in addition to his outside work, which is so wonderful . . . but the weekends just aren't enough.  There is just too much to get at.  We are working in survival-mode only.

 Cilantro
("herbcicles" frozen in ice cube trays)

 Peas and beans

(blanched and dehydrated)

I have been brainstorming solutions for the past couple of weeks and realized what I need: HELP.  I need help.  Hilarious and overly obvious, but dude.  I need help.  

Then I remembered a conversation I had with the 18 year old daughter of my friend (the one who wants to be a doula and came to observe Eliah's birth).  It was on the way to a prenatal appointment; she said that she loves children and would be more than happy to help if I needed it (she also loves babies).  

At the time I didn't need any assistance, so I thanked her and said I would keep that in mind.  But two months later . . . I remembered.  Yo.  That hit the spot.  Help.  I need help.

So she'll be coming for a couple hours once a week to help out.  All I need her to do is hold the baby or play with the boys while I do a blitz on what-have-you.  I already made a list and it is mighty-long, believe me.  We are bartering her help for garden produce.  I am so pleased.  I've been literally daydreaming of all the potential.

 And we're still all loving to snuggle with our newest little guy.

This was taken after his first bath a couple weeks ago.

Awwwwww . . . the dimple. 

Truen still regularly asks to hold him,

which inevitably triggers Jamie to hold him next.

This was taken Saturday morning.  
Look how much fatter he looks in this picture!

Un-un-un-un

It is a beautiful summer day.  "A ten," as Blaine's mom would say.  Gorgeous.

We have 15 acres to explore.  We have ducks, geese, chickens; a sandbox, swing set, kiddie pool; the perfect climbing tree; butterfly nets, their "tipi house" fort in the trees, lots of space to run, and a little baby kitten that showed up to live with us last week.

And I just had to tell them to go outside and play.  That they wouldn't be coming back inside until lunch.  That there was no choice, they would absolutely be going outside.  For a good, long time.  Un-un-un-un.

Though I will say . . .

Right in the middle of writing this, the baby kitten came into the house while they had the back door open, finally giving us an enclosed space to get a hold of it.  I held it in a towel and caressed its head until it relaxed and then we all petted it quietly until it started purring.

Now they are parading around the yard with their new little kitten friend.  Formerly known as Benjamin Sparkle, newly renamed Polly Sparkle.

All it took was a little jump-starting.

Big Brudder, Little Brudder

Whew!  And there went another week.

Eliah's blissful long afternoon nap coordinating with Jamie's nap dissipated at the end of last week.  Up in a puff of smoke.  It was nice, really nice, while it lasted.  He hasn't quite settled into a solid routine yet, so I'm working on staying flexible and taking what I can get.

We moved the swing back down into the kitchen and I put him down to rock for a couple of naps each day or if I need to work quickly in the kitchen.  Otherwise, he usually takes at least one morning nap and an evening nap in the sling.  I like keeping him with me unless I need to bust a move and get some serious work done.

And . . . knock on wood . . . he's sleeping, by himself, in the bed, during Jamie's nap while the older boys are upstairs for QT.  The sweet bliss of solitude.  May it last the entire hour.

Just look at this big and little brudder --

taken yesterday on the 4th of July.

Eliah is 5 weeks old today.

 Givin' the old boy a smooch.

Isn't Jamie's hair pretty??

I put his bangs in a clip yesterday to keep it out of his eyes.

Now that the weather has warmed up,

I really need to give that boy his first haircut.

But when???

Awwwww . . .

This big brudder is so proud.

And check out that cleft chin.

A quick story about Jamie: 

Last week we went to the pool and park for the day.  It was the third or fourth time I've ventured out since the baby was born.  We stay home a lot.  On top of that, due to living so far "out here", when I go somewhere, I make sure it counts.  We left at 9:15 AM and didn't get home until 8:30 PM.  I know.  Insane.  

Chiropractic appointment, strawberry patch (no picking, I just bought a flat), fireworks stand, lunch with friends, pool, playground, pool again, out for dinner, home.  It was wild.  It went really well; I usually consider our van "home" for the day and make sure to pack everything, especially a lot of water and food and cloth wipes with a tea tree oil solution for our hands.

Anyway.  Jamie.  When we got home at the end of the day, he walked into the sunroom, looked around, and stammered, "Our house . . . our house . . . our house . . . our house beautiful."  (He was extra-cheerful because he had slept in the stroller at the park between the swimming sessions.)

I love that.  Getting a peak into his little mind and seeing that home is a place of happiness and security for him.  Sometimes it takes being away from home for a stretch of time to appreciate it fully.  The sweetness of it all.

And now for another set of big and little brudders --

 These fellas.

♥ ♥ ♥

Far away, so close.

I wonder if there will be a time when these memories blur?

I remember taking each of these pictures so well.

Their little faces . . . awwww . . . 
My tender mother's heart . . . it hurts a little.

Misc. postpartum notes

Oh my goodness.  This calls for a good old list post.

• Eliah will be 4 weeks old tomorrow.  One month!  I am amazed.
• I am approx three-quarters of the way through writing his birth story down.  After I'm done, I will start working on posting it here.
• He has started taking a long afternoon nap.  Hallelujah!  It used to be late morning, but it now coincides perfectly with Jamie's nap and the older boys' quiet time.
• I am so thankful for that hour of solitude.  Though now it is the only time I am able to take care of any particulars (paperwork, email, blogging, etc.) now that the evening hours are out the window.
• Yes: the Evening Crabbies have begun.  Isn't 3 weeks a bit early for that??  But the little fella is highly irritable at night and keeps us hopping.
• The only sure-fire way to snap him out of a crankfest is to put him on the washing machine where his makeshift "changing station" is.  We have watercolors on the wall that my MIL and the boys did a couple of years ago.  That combined with the door frame and the dark, red berry wreath is second heaven to Baby Eliah.  He stares and stares.

These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago,

but they are so sweet that I can't resist posting them.

 

 

Just for you, Ash ♥

• I am feeling very good, pretty much back to normal.  My main issue is getting enough water.  My honest-to-goodness goal is two gallons a day.  It seems like an insane amount, but I pay for it if I don't.  I drink water through the night as well, every time Eliah wakes up to nurse I guzzle as much as possible.
• My other issue is my own fault.  I am so sad about this, because I was almost done bleeding.  BUT.  This week I went into the basement and saw that the dehumidifier bucket was full.  I picked it up and carried it up the stairs and outside to water a plant without pausing to think, though I did notice it was starting to feel uncomfortably heavy a little over halfway through.  Dah.  I am so stupid.  I ripped open whatever healing had happened inside my uterus and started bleeding red blood again.  I bet I put myself an entire week behind.
• At least my body feels fine, but what a pain.  I have to be careful for even longer now and, worse, I don't have the luxury to just sit and lay around for the next week to speed healing.

 Kimchi ingredients assembled:

pak choi, radish, scallions, ginger, garlic, chili peppers, salt

 The entire bowl, 5.5 lbs of vegetables,

packed into this 3-liter Pickl-It.

 The results after a week-long ferment.

Not quite as pretty, but so, so delicious.

Blaine described the flavor as going up-up-up-up --

It just didn't quit.

On the transition from Three to Four --

• I've been told by several different people that once you go beyond three children, it is the same-difference.  The stress levels don't go up much after Three.  Though I'm only a month into it, this definitely seems to be the case.  
• Perhaps it is mostly because I'm used to the level of mania, so adding one more doesn't seem to be much of a deal.  Or perhaps it is because our routine is so entrenched by this point and this little guy is sliding into place so easily.  Perhaps it is my accumulated level of experience.  I'm not sure.  All I know is that it doesn't seem that strange.  It honestly feels rather . . . normal.
• Though I will say . . . Jamie.  That little rascal.  He's two and a half so I know it is normal, but ay-yi-yi.  He has been exactly what everyone says to me when I'm out in public, that "I have my hands full".  Yes.  I've had to work hard on keeping my patience with him and in some cases I have partially or mostly failed.  He's a stubborn little guy and doesn't bend easily.
• He's been getting into things like crazy.  On my first day solo, he pooped on the floor in the morning (an accident, but still) and ate all of Truen's green strawberries in the afternoon (not an accident at all).  Later in the week he found a stick of butter on the table and glopped it all over the place under the table. 
• Tables are his favorite place to hide when he's on the sly or being naughty.  If I see him under a table, I know I'm in trouble.  Add to that his sly, furtive glances and that coy look and the electrical pathways instantly connect.  He knows.  And I know.  That rascal.
• His other main issue has been getting into a funk for whatever reason (fill in the blank . . . it can be that ridiculous) and having a very hard time coming out of it.  Things usually dissolve into him being nasty and screaming at me until he spends some time strapped into his chair in the bedroom by himself until he is finally ready to be kind and respectful.
• Oh dear . . . in brighter news, he just learned how to put on his sandals by himself last week and has been working on dressing himself this week.  Perfect timing!  And he's so proud of his little self.

Angelically asleep

He'd have his "papo" all day long if I let him,

but I've kept it confined to resting on the loveseat in the sunroom.

• Along the same lines of the transition from Three to Four, I've found myself not as stressed as I remember being last time.  I honestly don't mind waking up to nurse several times a night.  I revel in the solitude and silence that time provides.  I love snuggling with him and seeing his sweet face in the half-light. 
• Nursing the baby throughout the day, carrying him around, sitting and holding him while he bops and bobbles on my chest, etc. isn't as much of a drain on me as it was the first time 'round.  Don't get me wrong: I loved it dearly, but it was a shocking transition to go from autonomous adult to baby-slave.  
• I must be used to it.  I think I am also reveling in things, knowing that time is fleeting.  My life will be "back to normal" soon enough, I know that.  I have decided to make the choice to take things slow and savor "just life".  Even if it means showering is a rare treat or getting dinner every night is a strain or I don't get to do "what I want to do".
• Zoinks.  I think I have matured as a mother.  It is a good place to be and even better . . . I know it is only up from here.  
• Now if only my body would stop aging while my mind and spirit progresses.

 Zombies.

 Isn't Diego's zombie outfit hilarious??

He was moaning and hobbling all around, 

totally cracking me up.

• All the boys are extremely affectionate with Eliah.  At times they will stop what they are doing just to comment on how cute he is and give him a little snuggle.  It warms the cockles of my heart.
• Diego and Truen are particularly helpful.  I have them sit with the baby when I need to shower or be quick about something.  They run and fetch things for me, or lug heavy items if I need it.  I've had them not just clearing their spot at the table, but clearing the entire table and wiping up their spots.  I've really appreciated their assistance and have tried to make sure they know that.
• We have one week left of our little homeschool.  After that, I am going to read one chapter a day out of Viking Tales, The Blue Fairy Book, The Burgess Bird Book for Children, and the DK Illustrated Children's Bible in rotation.  I'll plan on four days of reading with Friday as our "flex" day.  Something always comes up, you know.

Smitten

Yes . . . I am that busy.  No time to write, but take a look at some pictures.  In order of date, starting with a week ago last Sunday.  Baby Eliah is the sweetest most darling little fella.  Totally in love.

 Two weeks old with Mama

In the boys' "Tipi House"

 Two-ish weeks with Jamie

Sunning his wittle diaper rash

 Two-ish weeks with Truby

Waking up from another nap

 Three weeks old with Diego

Dramatic lighting from the storm that blew through

. . . one of my faves.

Snuggling with Dada at three-ish weeks

Another one of my faves . . .

The sweetness.