Postpartum Update: Truth Talk

Postpartum life is a fickle thing my friends.  At first you have the potential baby blues, unexplained crying, hormonal shifts, night sweats, etc., all while your heart expands tenfold and you get to know the sweet nugget that came into your life.  I'm nursing round the clock, sleeping when I can catch it and trying to not fail my other two babies in the process, not to mention my husband and the dog.  There is so much love I could burst with joy. But there's also so much mess, noise, chaos. So much milk sprayed in the face of my infant and all over my clothes while I fumble around in the dark for another late night feeding. So many angry, impatient outbursts at my toddlers for not listening again to whatever thing I've asked them to do...or not do.  So many piles and piles of laundry and dishes, floors that need to be vacuumed, meals that need to be made, you know the drill.

For the first few weeks, though, I truly felt like I was on cloud 9.  I was no longer pregnant and I was snuggling my absolutely perfect third baby boy.  Every day my big kids would go off to daycare while my husband went off to work and Grayson and I would snuggle and nurse while binge watching shows on Netflix. I'd have friends come for coffee or lunch visits, family members stop by for baby snuggles, meals delivered by sweet friends to feed my entire family.  Someone would pick up my big kids from daycare and take them to the park or their home to entertain them until bringing them back home where I was waiting with open arms {or at least one arm depending on the day and whether or not I had decided to let Grayson nap in his bassinet}.  People would ask how I was doing and I would genuinely answer "Great!".

Weeks passed and the weather went through fits and starts of nice weather and crappy. On days we couldn't get out of the house, I'd remind myself that these days are fleeting and soak up the opportunity to hunker down. On days we could get out, we'd grab coffee or go on lunch dates, running errands with an ease akin to how I used to feel solo... one kid in the grocery store is far easier than three! We got into a good groove, I started cooking more meals and picking up the kids from daycare more days than not and seemingly without warning we exited the sweet coddled phase of life after birth and were plunged back into life.  Life with 3 kids, and a dog with the most basic of needs, a house to take care of and bills to pay. For this life I prayed. 

I went to my 6 week postpartum checkup very honestly and told my doctor I was doing okay but definitely struggling with irritability and frustration. I was managing but life isn't about just getting by and we made a plan to work towards getting things back on track.  The never ending challenge with anxiety is that it can come in fits and starts year to year or month to month or week to week and while I can certainly feel it shifting and changing, I know my family can too.

Sometimes I think they can see the walls I put up brick by brick in front of them. Sometimes, it must be hard to love me. They know I’m in here, the smile, the glow, the love, but where does it go and how do they break through the walls? Should they? Or should they wait patiently asking “How are you?” and getting a perfunctory “good”.  How is anybody? Do you mean right now? This moment? I’m probably annoyed. Because when you say how are you? I think of all the reasons I’m not okay. And all the reasons I don’t want it to be any of your business. All the reasons I’m strong enough to handle it. All the reasons I don’t need you to ask. But I do. I need you. I need you to ask. I need you to be there. There is a still a piece of me that knows that but I will push you. I will push you because I know you’ll stay and pride makes people do silly things.  

I had so many people tell me how crazy my life would be with three boys so young, how I would be busy and have my hands full and every time I heard a version of "good luck", I heard it as a criticism.  I felt like I had to prove to everyone that I could handle this because I had already heard the doubt in so many voices.  So I needed to have it all together and make it look easy so as not to admit defeat.  Somewhere along the line though, I started to take my own advice and hear what they were saying to me in a different tone. Maybe they didn't mean it in the negative way I was hearing it.  Maybe some of them simply meant "get ready for the ride of your life. It's messy and beautiful and you'll never be the same...you'll be so much better. You've got this, mama" 

I've seen a meme floating around that says something like "check in on your strong friends too" and it's spot on. I am so lucky to have people that check in on me, that stay by my side when I respond to genuine questions of concern with short, blunt answers.  They give me permission to be "okay" or not okay and the respect to come to them when I'm ready.  There were moments in those first few weeks where I really felt like we had it down and we were nailing life with three kids, and maybe we were.  But nothing is perfect.  When things get hard, my initial reaction is always to bristle up and put my armor on, to handle it, to figure it out, to make it work.  But I'm learning more and more that it's so important to lean on others.  It's so important to ask for and accept help when you need it.  Take the wall down, and let them in. 

I know that posts like these, when I lay it all out there, are the ones that are read most often which tells me that someone out there might find comfort or peace in these words. Maybe they feel the same way or know someone who does.  I hope for that when I write, but honestly, I write because it's therapeutic and it helps to remind myself that I AM okay.  When I'm great, I'm really great. But some days are a lot harder, and that's important to talk about too. It's not all smiles and cuddles and afternoon naps, but there are still beautiful moments in the hard days.  There are belly laughs and pre-bedtime snuggles when I silently beg for forgiveness for losing my temper.  There are first moments and milestones, and lots of delicious coffee.  There are walks in the sunshine and lazy Sunday mornings. For this life I prayed.  

This life, my friends, is beautiful. It's crazy and overwhelming. It's deafening and blissful. It's messy and just plain wild, and I love it. I have 4 wonderful weeks left of maternity leave and you better believe I'm going to soak it in, through the high moments when I'm clearly Mom of the Year and the low points where I'm counting down the minutes until I can pour a cocktail.  So cheers to the good days and an early bedtime on the bad ones.  :)

-T- 

All About Duke: How we're prepping for preschool and keeping up with our first baby

A couple of weeks ago I signed Duke up for Preschool 2019-2020! Our sweet 3 year old will be going 3 mornings a week and he is so excited.  Back in October when we went in for Duke's 3 year well child check-up, our pediatrician recommended that we do a speech evaluation for him.  He was very hard to understand and I was pretty much the only person that could fully translate what he was trying to communicate to other people. The key thing that pushed us to do the evaluation (despite the fact that we really trust and value our pediatrician's opinion) was when he said adults will likely take the time to understand what Duke is trying to say, but kids won't, and the last thing we wanted was for him to get left behind because his friends couldn't understand him.

We started speech sessions 2x per week in January and he's been making a lot of progress. One of the main factors in my mind that really affected his overall speech is the fact that he knocked out his front tooth when he was 18 months old.  A lot of sounds are harder for him to make with that gap! Anyway, he's really been improving and it's gotten me exploring other educational resources for him to continue to challenge him and get him excited for school in the fall.

I came across Education.com and they reached out and asked if we'd like to try an activity for Duke.  He's been interested in letters so the tracer worksheet they sent us was absolutely perfect! He still needs a lot of practice but one of his favorite things is doing his homework (anything to feel like a big kid!) and he loved getting out a pencil and sitting with me to practice this worksheet. We've been spending a ton of time outdoors as the weather warms up, so this bug-theme was spot on for us!  Look how cute it is!

Learning fun will be in full bloom with this spring bug-themed word tracer worksheet. Word tracers are a great way for little ones to practice pre-reading skills such as letter formation and word recognition. For even more reading skills practice and learning fun, be sure to check out Education.com.

Now that we are rocking the 3 kid life, I am always on the lookout for creative solutions to keep the bigger boys entertained without always resorting to screen time so I can't wait to check out more activities like this in the future. Duke has already been asking for another one and I know Theo won't be far behind in his quest to be just like big brother.  Other favorites for these two include chalk drawing in the driveway, water beads, and loads of pretend play with tractors, trucks and dinosaurs!

Between mastering potty training (thank the good Lord! By far my least favorite thing...) and seeing him in a school setting during speech class, the past couple months I feel like our first baby has grown up so much! He is just the sweetest big brother with such a caring heart. He's funny and absolutely wild and I love watching him grow into his own little person, although nothing about him is little! He is so tall, weighs in at 43lbs and it's hard to tell how old he is when he's running around with kids that are a couple years older than he is at the park.  He can scale the climbing wall and slide down the fireman's pole BY HIMSELF at the "big park" in town and he's got a pretty good t-ball swing.  He absolutely loves driving his truck all around the neighborhood and helping Dennis and I with any task we'll let him.  He truly embraces his role as the oldest boy in the family and I know Theo and Grayson are lucky to have him looking out for them!

One last thing I don't think I've shared here before was how we finally decided on Grayson's name.  We had it in the running with a few other contenders for months and had actually settled on a different name pretty confidently before changing our minds.  Anyway, I started to ask Duke one day if the baby's name was some of our other choices and with each one he would say "Nope, mom, that's not his name."  When I finally asked him about Grayson, he said "Mom! That's his name!" and I almost burst into tears. It was the sweetest most confident declaration, like somehow my three year old already knew so much about his newest baby brother, I knew we had found the right name for our guy!

Time is certainly flying these days but we are soaking up the few years we still have before full-time school and all the activities dominate our schedules. These boys are simply the best and I don't want to forget all the sweet moments of this season of life. The tantrums and whining? Those we can gloss over ;)

Happy Sunday, friends! Thanks for reading!

-T-

Grayson Patrick | 6 weeks old!

Our sweet baby Gray hit 6 weeks on Monday!  While that means I am half way through my maternity leave {cue all the tears}, it also means that our sweet boy has "woken up" a bit more and is starting to show us his little personality. I love watching him grow and change each and every day- the Wonder Weeks app has always been one of my favorite apps for the boys and last week Gray started his first leap and I literally felt like I was watching it happen right before my eyes! He went through a big growth spurt and started taking in the world around him as he became much more aware of his surroundings. He has started to turn and look towards me when I'm talking and other people are holding him and even give some pretty great smiles {my absolute favorite new skill}.

I love knowing when he is approaching and going through a leap because it typically means he'll need some extra attention, snuggles, and nursing and being in the right state of mind helps me to focus in on giving Grayson what he needs instead of getting frustrated that he's changing up the game on me.  Anyway, I want to capture some of the details of this 6 week milestone so here we go!

Eating

Grayson is exclusively breastfed and it's going really well.  The first 2 weeks were pretty brutal. I honestly thought since this was the third time around, I'd just ease right back into it but HOLY COW that was not the case. I got extremely sore and had moments of dreading the beginning to each nursing session because the pain was so brutal. I was taking some serious deep breaths and counting to ten until the pain would somewhat subside and buying lanolin in bulk on Amazon.  Thankfully after the first two weeks, I healed up and we hit our groove and now I love nursing just as much as I did before! Gray eats like a champ which is such a relief.  I did a little at home weigh-in for my guy last week and it showed him at 10lbs even! He won't have his next appointment until 2 months so we'll see some official numbers then.

We haven't tried bottles yet but plan to this week because I will be at a concert next week and he'll have to have at least one bottle while I'm gone.  I'm sort of dreading starting bottles this time to be honest.  Partially it's because I don't love pumping before I have to {when I'm at work} but mainly it's because I feel like the time is going by really fast and bottles mean not only having to share my sweet boy but also that daycare is on the horizon. Trust me, I totally know the benefits of getting him started on bottles, I am just so acutely aware that this is our last baby so I want time to slow down just a bit.

Sleeping

We love the eat + play + sleep routine in our house so after Grayson nurses, he hangs out on his playmat for some tummy time, listens to me tell him crazy stories, or sits in the bouncer and looks around. Some days he has pretty long stretches of awake time during the day but others it's pretty brief until he needs a nap. Each cycle is about 3 hours so longer play time equals shorter sleep time and vice versa before he's ready to eat again.  I don't let him go longer than 3 hours during the day between nursing sessions so that his evening sleep stretches have a chance at being longer. He typically goes 3-4 hours between feedings at night. We nurse/go to bed between 10 and 11 and then he wakes up around 2 and 5.  After that he usually wants to nurse again at 6:30/7 and Duke comes in to say hi and get some snuggles. If I got decent stretches of sleep, we will get up for the day at that point, but we usually go back to sleep from 7:30-8:45 or so.  That might seem crazy to some people, but sleep is insanely important for my overall happiness so we take full advantage of maternity leave and get as much of it as we can!  Dennis takes the boys to daycare before work so I just have to worry about myself and Grayson, of course, during the work week.

Grayson likes his pacifier, especially when he's really tired. He typically spits it out once he's asleep and never really uses it at night because he falls asleep once he's done nursing, but for nap time and car trips, it's a life saver to soothe him.  We've been using a new swaddle that I am obsessed with.  We got this bundle from Lou Lou and Company and the swaddle blanket is perfection.  It is super stretchy so we can bundle Grayson up snug as a bug and he can't wiggle out of it. I highly recommend it if you're expecting or want to give an amazing baby shower gift!

Routine

Once we're up, I get ready for the day and grab a big cup of coffee and some breakfast.  Some days we head out of the house for appointments or a coffee date but otherwise we snuggle up and binge watch something on Netflix. I found Jane the Virgin a few weeks ago and am absolutely obsessed. I loooove it. We've had some awesome lunch date visitors the past 6 weeks that either come to the house or meet us out somewhere.  I love getting to catch up with friends or family and get a little adult interaction while I'm off work.  Depending on how the day is going one of my sisters or my parents will pick up the big boys for me from daycare and stop over for a visit or take the boys to their house to play. I feel a lot more comfortable with all three kiddos than I did a few weeks ago but it's amazing having family on standby since Dennis works until at least 6 every night and nearly all day on Saturdays. Some days we totally crush it- primarily when the weather is nice and I can take the boys to the park.  Other days, I am tired and have zero patience and do just about anything to keep us all happy until Dennis can tag in.

Grayson reminds me so much of Theo when he was a baby.  He looks just like him and has a very similar temperament, possibly even calmer. He is seriously sweet as pie. He cries when he's hungry or tired but otherwise he's pretty content.  I snuggle him pretty much all the time.  He sleeps in a bassinet at night and sometimes naps in the pack in play during the day but for the most part I love holding him for naps! I was like this for Duke and Theo too- I pretty much think the goal of maternity leave is baby snuggles any time I want em, so that's exactly what I do. :)

Big Brothers

Duke and Theo are loving life with G. They both check on him all the time. Duke loves to hold him and talk to him while Theo just makes sure to give him kisses on the head, say HI BABY and BYE BABY whenever he can and yell for me the second Grayson starts fussing {see, I put him down sometimes}. The transition from 2 to 3 has been really similar to the transition from 1 to 2 except now Duke and Theo have each other which is amazing. They play together really well so when I'm nursing or trying to get meals together, etc., they do a pretty great job of playing by themselves or together.  I've even had some Saturday mornings where the boys are playing great together while Grayson naps and I fold MULTIPLE loads of laundry - a huge accomplishment in the house where clean clothes go to die.  :) I love watching the relationship between Duke and Theo grow as they get older- they love each other so much and despite the occasional screams (Theo) from too much wrestling (Duke), they are a great team.

Alright I think that's all we've got to report on for now! We're just hoping warm weather comes back and sticks around so we can get outside more often for walks and park time. There is simply nothing better than kiddos that are worn out from running wild in the fresh air! Happy Tuesday friends!

-T-