Well we have the first few weeks under our belt. Man those first few weeks were rough. There is ZERO routine – you never know whats going to happen, when hes going to eat – when hes going to sleep – when hes going to cry. Youre in complete survival mode. And I was still recovering, and felt like shit and barely sleeping. But somehow, day by day – things are getting a little bit better. My mom was here for the first 10 days, and Char was here for the second week – so Phil didnt take any vacation days, except for the initial 3 days while I was in the hospital/coming home. I even got 20-hours of work in at week 2 when we got notice of a few edits for a re-submit for one of our manuscripts — Thank goodness it happened when we still had additional help!
It took Zevin a while to figure out days/nights but we are starting to get 3-4 hour stretches of sleep out of him at night. Nursing has been going okay and I’ve been able to pump occasionally to give myself a break. Hes going a bit longer in between feedings, too, which is nice. Its hard to be on the clock every 1.5-2 hours — I’m glad things are falling into a more manageable 2-3 hour routine. We kept our expectations very low for the first few weeks. We finally broke into our freezer meals and have been enjoying some take-out. Any day that we got anything ‘extra’ done (outside of keeping people fed and clean) was a good day. I was very proud when I got the kids nails clipped one day.
I’m definitely sleep deprived and not completely ‘with it’ at times. After Zev’s first doctors appointment, I turned the car off and started to walk inside – completely forgetting him in the car. I didnt make it very far before I remembered him in the backseat – but it was still a weird moment. Then, when the Wozniaks were here, I was sleeping in and Phil had Zev in the bassinet downstairs, but left to go get donuts with everyone without bringing him upstairs or telling me he was leaving. But Zev just hung out downstairs by himself for awhile! So now we are very cautious around here to always keep him in a safe place at all times – because our minds are so scattered! I just try to get through each 5 minutes at a time – never 100% sure of if everything is under control or not.
Days are seriously so hard now. I mean, its fine, we get through. But you never know how easy you had it until you have another kid. I took mental notes of my surroundings the other day – it was so cliche – like a bad adam sandler movie: cold coffee next to me, a pile of clothes with spit-up all over them on the dining room table, breakfast dishes still out on the table, pile of clean clothes yet to be folded from the day before on the floor, pantless evie on the floor watching a terrible netflix show eating goldfish crackers, barney in his cage because he just freaked out and had a sneezing fit over workers out front, zev finally asleep on my chest in dirty clothes (because i wasnt going to change him AGAIN after the first spit up episode). It felt comical. I have finally become ‘that mom’ that drops off her kids at school in her pajamas. I definitely didnt brush anyones teeth or hair that morning. And when I picked up Wil from school that day, I was informed that he had had a bloody nose – but somehow all the blood ended up being wiped on his crotch!? I asked him what happened – and tried to figure out how he even managed that – but I didnt get the full story. I feel like I spend half of my day just shaking my head at the absurdity of my life. Raising children is CRAZY.
Then, as if things werent hard enough, we decided to potty train evie. There was a snow storm on the way and Evie doesnt have school or music class for another week – so we knew we’d be spending a lot of time at home – so why not potty train?! why not pile on another major ridiculous parenting task this week?! why not. So here we are 6 days in, and shes doing pretty well. not perfect. but we’re getting there.
The snow storm was actually pretty fun. We had over 12 inches before Thanksgiving. The kids loved playing in the snow — and Phil was a trooper shoveling us out. The kids were out playing with Phil in the front of the house for most of the morning, then I was able to take them out back to build a snowman later — but about 15 minutes after I took them out back – we had a massive branch fall down in the front right where the kids were previously playing! It was crazy. It hit the house – but no major damage. (Side note: when we told our landlord about the branch and sent pictures, she had workers come a few days later and they took down the entire tree!! i was so upset!! I definitely dont think the entire tree needed to come down. I dont know if orders got messed up or what – but we definitely said a BRANCH needed to be removed, not an entire tree!!).
So we’re at 4 weeks 2 days as a family of 5, and things are going ok. Things can only get easier (…right?). I love not being pregnant and enjoy wrestling with the kids and picking them up and throwing them around, just like daddy 🙂 and every day we get closer to sleeping through the night. I cant wait until that day comes!
Woznation 
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