Last night Nana (my mom) came out for a short visit... it was her first time meeting Nico, and the first time she has seen Josiah since the hospital. It was nice to see her and Nico did great.
Some pics posted here--
http://picasaweb.google.com/ng.mangine/NanaVisits
BTW- it's officially impossible to get a good picture of everyone in the family at once when you have three small children.
You know what's weird? Even though we "missed" the first two and a half years of his life, we are still getting to experience a lot of "firsts" with Nico-- at least I assume they are his firsts... like his first ice cream cone, his first McDonald's happy meal... Sometimes Nick and I get frustrated that he's not eating better, but then we remind ourselves that pretty much everything he's eating is a new taste for him-- that kind of changes our perspective.
Life is... well... good. Very, very busy. Pretty overwhelming. But still good. I have to admit that it's probably harder than I thought it would be, even though Nico is adjusting better than I thought he would. So I guess what I am saying is that I had a lot of false confidence in my abilities as a mother! :) I know it's going to take time to settle into a groove. It's really hard now that Nick is back to work, but I just remind myself that raising kids is my job now-- and it's the only time these kids will be this age. I don't want to miss out on anything because I am just trying to "get through it"--know what I mean? I want to enjoy this time and drink it all in. I am learning to let things around the house go-- I mean REALLY let them go... and not even really care that it pretty much that it looks like a tornado went through when people come over.
Since so many people are asking me-- yes, I am still doing the nursing AND pumping routine with Josiah. Yeah, it's a pain. But it's pretty important to us that he get exculsively breastmilk after all he's been through. And I am still giving Nico a cup of breastmilk a day too-- his diarrhea has been totally gone since we've started doing that and he's not had any food problems, so I am just going to keep it up as long as I have the will to do it.
Another thing people are asking is how the kids are sleeping. ACtually, they are doing really well. Nick and I have only spent one night in our room since Nico's been home, but that's okay. We are working on cutting the cord (for us, not for him!) I think it's that we just feel like we've missed so much with him that we want to be around him all the time... plus, he does wake up at night sometimes and is afraid. Once he knows we are there he goes right back to sleep. Tonight we are going back to our room-- probably for good. So all the kids are in one room. Josiah is basically sleeping through the night. Last night he was up once, but that was a fluke I think because he's been going anywhere from 7-10 hours uninterrupted. Nico sleeps like a champ-- usually 10-11 hours a night and a LONG (3+ hour) nap.
When we look back over the last two months (Josiah will be 2 months old tomorrow!)-- we have SEVERAL things that we just shake our heads in amazement at. More on that another day... gotta go for now.
