My three kids and a kid update

Three kids. I now know why we planned to stop at two.

Today I listened to Katie and Jake fight, Jake fell off of his bed (I'm going to assume there was no foul play between the kids and that it really was an accident) not once, but TWICE (accident?) and there were numerous hitting incidences as well as disagreements over toys. Sooo, nothing unusual.

Then after dinner I sat down to feed Jackson and Katie sat next to me and Jake was playing. Happy kids.

Then Katie got up to turn on the light.

Jake scooted into the now vacant spot and Katie was not happy. I told her to sit on my lap. She did and Jake decided he needed to sit on my lap too. But with Katie on one leg and Jack on the other there wasn't much room left. This didn't stop Jake. He started to climb onto my leg behind Katie and practically ended up on my shoulder. Both kids are crying and I'm laughing at how ridiculous the situation had become. (The kids didn't think it was funny. If they did think it was funny, they showed it by crying harder.)

Finally after listening to Jake cry for 10 minutes I laid Jack down on the couch and put Jake in his crib. In the seconds I was gone, Jack puked on the couch and Katie finally calmed down (she might have thought the puke... or maybe my reaction to it... was funny).

I got Jake out a couple of minutes later ... just before daddy got home from the store to find two crying kids. He carried both of the kids from the kitchen to the living room and made them laugh.

It's weird how daddy can always diffuse the crazy.

Mom called a bit later to say that storms had come through and there had been some damage at the lake place. We're going to check things out and hopefully it's not too bad.

Kid updates!!
Jackson is growing like crazy. He lifts his head up to look around, he pushes with his feet, he's awake most of the day and is happy in his swing or his caraway or laying on the couch or being held.

Jacob is talking a lot more. It's so fun listening to him. He especially likes saying "wake up!" when he thinks I'm even considering closing my eyes for two seconds.

Katie is in school and loves it. She still goes three days a week and Grandpa usually brings her. She's woken up with a good morning song seranade, given a piggyback ride downstairs for hair and face, piggyback ride back upstairs so she can dress herself for the day and then they're off. John took over last week while Grandpa was on vacation. He got to see her room and watch her play. He didn't want to pick her up too late on the first day but Katie told him to pick her up later the next day so she could play longer. I will never doubt that Katie knows what she wants.

I realized the other day that God answered my prayers. I've prayed for an easy baby, a happy baby, a healthy baby.

What I've learned about Jackson - 14 days old (or, Got Milk? I do.)

Jack.

Sweet
Content
Sleepy
Hungry
NOT sensitive to noise

Jack has been such a good baby since his birth. I'm not trying to jinx it by writing this out or anything, but he has been a seriously GOOD baby ever since we met him in the operating room.

I've learned that his swing and nuk puts him to sleep, his car seat and nuk puts him to sleep, and rocking puts him to sleep. Yes. He sleeps a lot at this stage.

Not only has he been pretty easy in his first 14 days, he even nursed! None of my other babies would, and I was so happy that Jack took to it. And while I was at the hospital and able to "nap when the baby napped" it was kind of the one thing that only mommy could do for this sweet, tiny, new little baby and it was so cool to have that time with him... just the two of us.

Then, once we got home and those super helpful nurses weren't there to bring him over to the nursery at night so I could catch some sleep, or come in every few hours, wake me up, and hand me a snuggly baby (complete with fresh diaper) to nurse... well, I realized that nursing is a big commitment and it's HARD! And since we didn't invest the big bucks for a good pump, no one else would be able to take on any of the (500) feedings each day/night. Oh, and it was no longer possible to "sleep when the baby sleeps" because the other kiddos I birthed were 1) noisy, 2) needing mommy to settle disputes like the one about whose pop tart had more frosting or the one about whose beach ball was whose, and 3) noisy. Yes, I mentioned noisy twice because while Katie and Jake can be quiet and play really nicely together, they can also disagree and they must believe that he who yells loudest automatically wins because they are looouuuuddddd.

I also thought about my "hips," as Katie calls them, wayyy too much. The scene in "Look Who's Talking" wasn't too far off. You know the one, right? (Well, okay, maybe it wasn't THAT bad, but close enough to scare me just a bit.)

So we got home from the hospital on Saturday, I enjoyed nursing a number of times that evening and into the night and then on Sunday John headed over to Target to pick up some formula and bottles.

Good thing too.

Jackson seems to like a 3 to 4 oz. bottle at every feeding and for all the size of my "hips", there were not 3 to 4 ounces being produced so Jackson was eating pretty much constantly... and I was tired.

Jack's also a good sleeper. After his bottle, a diaper change, and a swaddle he's ready to go back to sleep. (Unfortunately, I'm usually pretty awake and right in the middle of Law and Order - at least one version seems to be on every hour - so I'm not getting as much sleep as I could be getting if I didn't like that show so much and could turn it off before the resolution.)

I don't know how he's able to sleep so soundly but it's awesome because he is able to totally ignore the massive amount of noise that his siblings can make. Seriously. loud. noise. I've mentioned that, right?

Like screaming, playing the recorder right next to him (no music lessons, grandma and grandpa just happen to have one laying around at their place) (and it made it's way upstairs for awhile... we stored it in Katie's tall dresser. Top drawer. Way in the back. On purpose. You know... to keep it "safe"), loud fighting, and just the other day there were loud shouts of "SUPER JAKE!" coming from all corners of the house while a heard of elephants (AKA Katie and Jake) tromped through the house.

Yep. He can pretty much sleep through anything at this stage. Hope it continues. Forever. Because he'll be sharing a room with Jake once we're ready to move him to the big crib and Jake can be pretty noisy.

So. Basically, we're pretty blessed to have this sweet, healthy, happy baby boy join our family.

I fell in love with him the moment the doc pulled him from my tummy.

Horsey Rides and a good Chop

Luckily I've been recovering pretty well from the c-section because sometimes watching John playing with the kids cracks. me. up.

Tonight Jake was giving daddy a piggy back ride.

And then he was giving him a chop on the head. I don't know how that game started but I *do* know that when Jake chops daddy, I actually HEAR the thud of Jake's hand connecting with the top of daddy's head.

And Jake doesn't care what he interrupts. In this case it was a diaper change for Jack.

It was pretty funny. I laughed pretty hard. And it didn't hurt (too much).

I'm thinking that maybe I'm finally ready to watch Funniest Home Videos again but without feeling like I'm going to pop stitches...