Adjusting to Life with a New Baby
These photos are why I’ll always and forever more be a mere Mommy Blogger, and not a lifestyle blogger or fashion (what?!) blogger or anything more sensational. My house, currently, six weeks in to having four kids.
I have tidied up. Several times. It makes absolutely zero impact. {{spy some new fabric for new Whole Parenting Goods projects in the next few months!}}
Life definitely feels and looks different with a fourth child, and our day-to-day is still in slow-motion, new-baby, postpartum-don’t-wear-a-bra-just-bathrobe land. AA does mornings with the three oldest so I can rest a little, gets SuperBoy off to school, feeds the middle two breakfast, and then deposits them with me so I can keep one eye on them while laying in bed nursing our BIG BABY. And I can gaze at the one clean room in the house: her nursery (because it’s virtually unused aside from clothing containing and occasional crib fun for the kids’ sake, not the baby’s!).
The kids play most of the morning with me periodically shouting from wherever I am, trapped under a nursing baby, to “STOOPPPPPP FIGHTING.” My mom does homeschool with SweetPea while MonsterTot does his ABCs to get a single chocolate chip.
We eat lunch around 11, head down for naps after quiet time, aka, trashing the guest room, and do a rousing round of speed reading all six Mercy Watson books. If you don’t own them, you need to.
After naps, around 2, we re-adjust to the fact that yes, they all live together, and yes, SuperBoy comes home from school, and yes, you must share. Somehow it’s a shock every single afternoon. Lego battles & laundry folding//looking at with intent to fold, fill our time until dinner. Usually my parents are both around and that means most children are happy, playing outside, or helping to sample dinner/dessert.
After dinner, I buckle down and do home work and practice violin with SuperBoy while the littler kids play on my bounce-the-baby-to-sleep ball and carry their rocking chair into our room.
I hold my breath until AA comes home (running these days!) and then retreat back to bed to rest and nurse and read books to anyone who wants to hang with me. And this babe.
Somedays my mom takes SweetPea to her nature school or Atrium class, and sometimes we have a medical appointment or physical therapy, but mostly we are curled up at home, healing my pelvis & tailbone and soaking in these baby days!
When my oldest was a baby (he turns 17 yrs on Sunday–panic attack) my grandma sent me a letter with advice. And she didn’t like to give advice or be bossy. She told me to take care of my child, hold him and love him. A messy house would be fine, because some day he would grow up and them I could have a clean house if I so desired. Her advice meant so much because my mom died when I was 7 yrs and I was missing her with each birth of a child. Well 17 years later, I think I kept the letter, but I can’t find it because my house is still messy, but I have thoroughly enjoyed during the toughest job I have ever had. I used to tell people excuse the house, I decorate in the period of early childhood. Enjoy your children. Read to them all day if you can. Eat supper on the living room floor. Make tents from quilts. And pray for them. Thank you for sharing the real life and not pretending. (Hope you heal soon. I thought I had a baby with a big head, but you win.)
Such a jewel of wisdom!!!!! Thank you.
“I decorate in the period of early childhood” – genius!
This post was refreshing to this new mommy’s soul! Thanks for your transparency! Wouldn’t change it for the world, would ya’? Yeah? Neither would I. 🙂
I love this! And sobtrue for all of us! Hang in there Mama, it’s all worth it.
Hanging, sister!!
Hi Nell!
Congratulations!! Just a question, Where do you get your fabric? I love the prints @ stuff you find, but I don’t seem to have very good luck. I love to sew (I’m not a competitor for you, haha) & give baby gifts, so I always have an eye out for cute material. Thanks!! Hope you are healing fast!
Blessings!
Hi friend! I love our local shops here in the Twin Cities, but fabric worm has great stuff too! Thanks so much for your healing thoughts 🙂
We have to compromise lots of thing for our kid. Congratulations for your new baby. Is this fabric not available online?? Actually I searched a lot in my local market but I can’t found.