One Week In

Today is my first solo day with four kids.

I keep remembering that I have four kids now, and feeling blown away by the fact of it.  How did this happen?  It really sneaked up on me.  It seems like just yesterday that I came home from the hospital with baby Sly.  And my kids have all been born just about two years apart, which doesn't seem like a crazy pace (unlike my grandmother's, who had her eight kids in ten years!), but somehow, we've already hit four.

When we're out of the house, older parents often look at our children wistfully and tell us "it goes by so fast."  For a while, I think I was too caught up in the thick of things to really be aware of the truth of that statement, but suddenly, it's really starting to hit me.  It's all going by so fast!

Tom amazingly managed to pull off a week of paternity leave from work, and my mother-in-law was also visiting until yesterday.  So the transition to becoming a family of six was definitely smoothed out a bit.

But as for today, and having to deal with the daily tedium of caring for so many young children, I'm managing so far,

I was worried the older kids would have an especially rough day today since they're coming off a  full week of exciting visits from friends and family, and a very jumbled schedule.

Stella fell asleep at the dinner table last night.  That's what a new baby in the family + daylight savings time can do to you, I guess

This was Sly at lunch today, upset because he didn't want to eat the tuna noodle casserole that he wouldn't finish at breakfast.....that he wouldn't finish at dinner the night before.  Yes, we're those parents.

But we're making it through.  It helped that we didn't have to go anywhere this morning, and I could just jump back into our former routines.  I've been working really hard to keep my attitude in check today.  Because I know myself well enough to realize that once I let myself lose my patience with the kids once, it becomes that much easier to lose it again and again.

We "did school" today for the second time all month.  I'm not going to waste time feeling guilty about it, because, hey - I was nine months pregnant/newly postpartum for that whole time!  And what's homeschooling all about, if not the ability to be flexible and adjust things to your own family life?

Ever-pleasant Linus, peeling his clementine into the trash

A number of friends and people from church have offered to bring us meals over these next few weeks, which will be so helpful for me.  Obviously, providing meals to a new mother is useful in a material sense (i.e. there is a meal already sitting in my fridge for me, mostly prepared and ready to go), but I'm especially appreciating what it does for me mentally (i.e. the sheer freedom of not having to worry about what I'll make for dinner or whether I'll have to drag four kids out to the supermarket for something relieves so much potential stress).  Seriously - if you know anyone expecting a new baby, try to bring them a meal!

My Flora - what a doll baby!

I think I may consider easing back into more regular blogging.....I have a birth story that I owe it to Flora to write down, at any rate.  And the photos on my header and side bar are in sore need of an update!