No Rest for the Weary

The reader will recall from Tuesday’s early post that our third child joined us early this week. That probably qualifies as the biggest news of the last 7 days, but the reader may judge. 

As I noted, labor lasted about 17 hours, but contractions were sporadic for the first 15 or so, making for a relatively smooth day (I acknowledge, however, that I was not the one in labor). We both napped, had decent meals, and prepared mentally as much as possible. 

Hakan has been very calm, and sleeps well… during the day, that is. Each night since he joined our club, he spends most of our prime sleeping time wailing like a banshee. He has had us up, desperately trying to ease his discomfort in every way we can imagine. I suspect that he gets gassy, because he tries to fall asleep, but then it is as if he is overcome with stabbing pains until he can eventually relieve the pressure, and then he will pass out for longer periods of time. Strange that it doesn’t happen during the day, though. 

Avey is absolutely thrilled to be a “double big sister.” Her first thought in the morning is about holding Hakan, and as soon as she’s home from school, she washes her hands so that she can admire him in her arms. I am sure she is excited to have another little minion to mold. We’ll see how excited she is when he can crawl into her room and rearrange all of her things.

Carver seems relatively unaffected so far. He likes his little brother, and enjoys climbing on the little chair we have for the little guy, but does not pay a great deal of attention to him. When he does, it is all positive; He’ll comment on how cute he is, or how he is a big brother now, but we have yet to determine the deeper influence on Carver’s psyche that his little brother has.

We are thrilled to have a brand new person to love, cherish, and introduce to the universe. We just wish that we had more hands and needed less sleep to do it. We had appointments every day since he was born (with the exception of Saturday), either at the birthing center or with his pediatrician, and sometimes both, so we have not had a lot of time to settle into any kind of routine at home.

I proposed my dissertation on Wednesday, which was awkward timing, but it was the only time my committee members could all meet. They loved the idea, and many of them commented on how well it was written. With only minor concerns and suggestions, they have approved it, so I will be working on getting funding and starting data collection as early as I can.

On top of it all, Avey is still in school, and has many end-of-year activities to which we need to contribute or that we need to attend. Saturday afternoon she had a dance performance with her classmates. They had learned four ballroom dances, and showed them off to the parents. Kira ventured out while I had some father-sons time.

The next week will be eventful also, as Kira’s mother will be here to lend two helping hands, Avey will finish up the school year, and hopefully Hakan will learn the difference between night and day.

#Happenings