First Days Home

If you've been waiting the last few days for a post that hasn't come the reason is that I am delirious.  Little Tessa has decided she likes to stay up for several hours at a time in the middle of the night and early morning hours.  The first nights home were pretty standard newborn nights with waking every few hours to eat and then going right back to sleep.  Tiring but not unexpected.  Then all of a sudden two nights ago she wanted to be wide awake at 10:30 when I was ready to pass out and didn't go to sleep until 2 a.m.  Then she woke up every few hours after that and before I new it 7:00 a.m. had arrived and Ben was in his room talking and ready to start the day.  Tessa quickly passed out for the entire morning as I watched Justin return to work and leave me for the first day home alone with the two under two.  It was not an easy day.  I was optimistic about last night and was awaked every 45 minutes at 11:45, 12:30, 2:00 a.m. by Ben fussing in his sleep and then at 3:00 a.m. and ended up sitting up with a wide awake baby until after 5 a.m. just in time to hear Justin's alarm go off as he headed out of town for work not to be returning until late tonight. 

I know this is common newborn behavior that will hopefully regulate itself and it is nice to have her sleep a lot during the day so I can get the bare minimum done and pay attention to Ben but sleep would be nice.  It is a bad feeling to lay down to sleep knowing you will be up very soon and will not be rested for a long time.  You are supposed to try to change the cycle by carrying on during the day while the baby sleeps and keep rooms bright and loud with TV or music on, talking, and regular household background noise continuously going on.  I am doing that so hopefully this changes soon.  I was ready to be up at night but not for hours at a time resulting in almost no sleep.  I can function for quite awhile on four or five hours a night but three or less is trouble. 

I am constantly so relieved that I didn't have a C-section.  I notice a huge difference in my recovery an energy level compared to when I had Ben.  Just being able to easily get out of bed at night makes getting up much easier.  Also, I am not in a fog of narcotic pain medication which has never agreed with me. 

Another good and frivolous aspect of having a typical delivery is that I am losing weight much faster.  After the C-section I made the mistake of getting on the scale the day I left the hospital, expecting to have lost at least 10 lbs based on Ben's weight and the placenta and other lost fluids.  I had only lost two pounds and a week later had still lost less than ten.  This time I weighed myself the day after returning home and had lost 15 lbs. already.  As of today I have lost twenty.  It is such a relief not to have the swelling an bloating from surgery.  One problem though...when we put our house on the market this summer I de-cluttered my old closet and packed up all but one pair of jeans and a few pairs of shorts because they didn't fit me anyway.  I filled a whole Rubbermaid container with jeans and all my other pants that have a button and zipper.  Then we lost the container when we moved.  We can't find that container anywhere.  I don't think I'm quite ready for jeans but I would like to try some by Thanksgiving and also it would be financially unrealistic to replace years worth of jeans.  Sigh...I think about that container several times a day and think hard about where it could be.  There is no way it got left behind.  And even if it did, the new owner is about six inches shorter than me and weighs probably forty pounds less than I do so she couldn't do much with them!  But there is no way we would have left a whole tub of clothes! Oh, where are my pants?

Aside from the sleeping issue, Tessa is a sweet baby.  She loves to be held and also enjoys sitting in the various baby holding apparatus that we have which is essential since I have to be able to put her down to play with and take care of Ben.  She likes having her hair washed under the faucet during bath time.

We gave her a bath our first night home.  With Ben, they did a bath demonstration before we left the hospital along with many other little first time parent lessons on diaper changing and cord stump care.  This time they pretty much  shooed us out the door with a basket of fruit and cheese and some non alcoholic champagne and a folder full of brochures. 

Tessa and Ben with Dada.  I feel kind of bad using all the boy oriented swaddling blankets we have but it's not really worth buying new newborn sized items like this since their use is short lived.  It looks like Ben got a brother in this picture!

Speaking of Ben the brother...

 

He has been doing pretty good with the transition of having a baby in the house.  He is interested in her and likes to get up in her business like this.  We'll say he is trying to kiss her but it's more like a face rub/head butt type of thing.  He can be over zealous sometimes and I feel bad pulling him away from her.  He tries to lift her into his arms regularly and I don't know if it is because he wants to hold her or if he just wants her away from me so he can have his spot back.  I try to make room for him to sit with me and look at books with her.  He's being a pretty good boy.  I feel bad having him stuck around the house all day and look forward to being able to go back to our usual routine of going to play at the library or the Y or shopping in the mornings.  This morning he brought his shoes over to me saying "bye bye".  Poor guy.  I don't like sitting around the house all day every day either.  The thought of taking them both out is overwhelming right now but I will have to figure it out!  I took a shower this morning when I was home alone this morning so I could feel slightly normal since I am not a "stay in pajamas all day" type of person and it went fine!  I used the bathroom by the living room instead of the master bathroom and I could hear Ben roaming around and running up and down the hall but when I got out he was happily watching Sesame Street.  Success!

 

Here are a few assorted pictures in no particular order. 

 

 

I love these pictures!  She looks so skeptical!

 

Big boy Ben.

 

Ben trying to play trucks with his sister. 

 

Lounging.

 

This afternoon I finally put her in a real outfit instead of a sleeper to try to take some pictures during Ben's nap.  I have already noticed I am following the typical parenting pattern of taking fewer pictures of the younger child.  Mostly this is happening because I can't trust Ben around my camera so it has to be put away when not in use which causes me to miss a lot of spontaneous moments.  At least my phone is always nearby .

 

I intend to get her picture taken by a real photographer but I wanted to get our Christmas card/birth announcement combo out in November so people could have our new address and most photographers require a few weeks for editing and everything and then it takes about a week for the cards to arrive unless we get them from Walmart one hour photo.  Even cheap-o JC Penney took two weeks to get me my digital CD when I had Ben's picture taken there last spring.  I don't know if anything I did today is worthy but I have to come up with something soon regardless of who takes the pictures.   She still looks a bit jaundiced so maybe it is too soon for professional photos. 

 

Well, I hope that was somewhat coherent.  I probably should have used the time to sleep but the computer has been calling me name for a few days and I have been wanting to upload pictures.