It's been a week since you guys had a baby. How's it going?
My brain feels like it's leaking out my ears. This morning Dan ran around the house asking "Where is the sprinkle cheese? Did we finish the sprinkle cheese?" and I looked at him blankly as my brain tried to make the connection between the phrase "sprinkle cheese" and the object that it might represent. I answered something snippy like, "I don't know what day of the week it is - I have no idea if we finished off the sprinkle cheese."
Later after Dan left for work I found the cheese. We hadn't put it away after dinner and it was ON THE KITCHEN TABLE.
So yeah, things are pretty much going exactly as expected.
Thankfully we have wonderful family and friends in the area, and today Harvey and Zion went to play at one grandma's house while the other grandma came over and held Elijah for over an hour. So I had the biggest blessing I can imagine right now: a quiet hour around my house HANDSFREE! I ran around just putting stuff where it belongs. Having a 3rd baby has given me a newfound pride in how much work I do every day just putting shit away. I don't mean this in a bad way; rather the reverse. It makes me feel important to believe I'm indispensable to the household, at least in this one area that no one but me cares about.
People have asked how the kids are doing with the transition, and I think the answer is also "as expected." Harvey is in love with the baby and excited to help with dressing him or pointing out every time he opens his eyes. At the same time he's thrown off by the disruption to his routine, and unsure how the breakdown of parenting responsibility is changing. He compensates by asking Dan to actively engage him every single second. Can you play legos with me? Can you fight with me? Can you read me TinTin? Dan is very quickly teaching Harvey to read in the hopes that it'll give us five minutes of peace and quiet one day.
Zion also asks to hold Elijah and says very adorably, "I wuv you baby Elijey." At the same time he's taken to coming into our bed in the middle of the night, which I don't mind if that's what he needs, except sometimes I dream I'm trapped inside a submarine. Also Zion has ramped up his being bad on purpose, breaking Harvey's legos and saying "I'm gonna hit you, Harvey" which is more annoying than actually hitting. On the plus side, Zion's doing a good job verbalizing his feelings. He's been saying "I love you Mama" more frequently, and also "I'm mad at you Mama" both of which feel like good emotional awareness.
Physically I am doing well, healing much quicker than I did with my previous two births. If there's a word that characterizes this third birth experience it would be "mercy." I am very much aware that while I have some complaints, postpartum could be SO much worse. My body may be tired and misshapen, but it's not broken.
My brain, on the other hand, is suffering from exhaustion. This evening Dan asked me to steam a squash for soup and I sat there looking at the vegetable for over a minute thinking: how do I cook these things again? I'm supposed to cut them up, right? But I don't think we eat the skin on this food, and if I cut it up the skin will still be on. There must be some way to make the skin come off... nothing... still coming up with nothing... have I ever cooked a squash before? Oh, I know! A peeler!
So we seem to be making it through somehow. Baby Elijah is a delight. And now there's soup in the fridge.