Moving on

Since I have now shared with you probably the worst experience of my life (c-section!), I can now share with you how that experience brought about one of the best things in my life (Ben!). 

He. is. so. small. 

Ben is giving Ana a run for her money in terms of sweetest. baby. ever. Ben almost never cries. He fusses a bit when you change his diaper, or change his clothes - but beyond that, he is perfectly content to be sleeping or chilling in his rocker - awake or asleep. He may get extra points becuase every night we have to remove tape and reapply tape, which includes applying kinda smelly stuff to destick and then restick the tape. We put it right under his nose too! And yet, he never cries about it. His momma on the other hand, has never -not- cried during the tape process, but maybe in the next 4 months I will adjust. 

so alert!

Last night Matt and I were talking about how he has already changed so much in the little more than a week we have known him on the outside. He is much more aware when he is awake and he is awake for much longer. He is also starting to look different - maybe just because his eyes are more open... who knows. Last night at 3am when I was giving him a bottle I sort of thought he looked like my Uncle Jerry... which would be a pretty strange way for the DNA to fall down the chain. 

sleep deprived

I would say in terms of sleep, Ben is great! It is all the other stuff that takes all the time. He will stir to be changed/have a snack and then go right back to bed. The part that is taking all the time after actually giving him the bottle (which is a little slow if you keep falling asleep during it! Opps. Sorry Ben), is the pumping I have to do in the middle of the night, then washing the pump parts, filling bottles, going to the kitchen and putting the extra milk in the fridge. It is a little like doing the dishes every 2.5-3 hours throughout the night. But we have a great system going and I feel like I can survive it. AND I just realized that The Week website has awesome articles to read during the middle of the night! 

First bath! He seems skeptical. 

We've gone somewhere twice - the first time was great, the second a little more rough - but I am confident we'll fall into a better routine. It takes like 1,000 years to put 3 kids into carseats but I think living in the condo helped me realize that getting anywhere with kids takes patience. Endless amounts of patience - which sometimes I have and sometimes I don't - but hopefully I'll fall more on the "more patient" end of the spectrum.

tape break!

I am so grateful for this boy who is finally on the outside to kiss and hug and cuddle. And although he has required somewhat of a learning curve in terms of feedings (a lot different than Z and A) - I'd say overall everything has gone as well as it can - and for that I am extremely grateful.

... even the part where Ana doesn't really like/acknowledge Ben... at least she doesn't cry when he cries or try to hurt him or anything! She just effectively ignores him for the most part. Z also doesn't take much interest, especially not the way she did with Ana. She has always adored Ana.. but it seems like Ben may have to earn his way into their hearts once he is a little more social.