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Almost 3 weeks

It's 3 weeks since Thomas was born. I don't quite feel like a mom of two kids but I guess you don't have to feel like one to be it. 

Thomas started crying real tears after 1 week, which made him crying feel so much sadder. He has a lusty deep cry and it makes him feel really sad. This week he finally started being awake during the day when he wasn't trying to get food which has helped me feel like he's a real human. He looks around with wide monolidded eyes and a wrinkly forehead with a look of skepticism. 

At night, he sleeps and wakes equally loudly, making sounds that resemble a gremlin or a mini elephant or warthog maybe. I got the all clear to not wake him up at night but his grunting makes it impossible to sleep through. I ended up buying a giant container of foam earplugs. The first night I put them in, I noticed that they blocked out the white noise machine, John talking to me, but let in every baby whimper, squeal, and squawk. The extra white noise machine blocks out Calvin crying for us to get him with the potty at night till my brain learned to tune into that as well. So now, I get panicked alerts that maybe I heard a toddler cry and more often than not, it is! It's almost a superpower. 

Calvin has recently learned to throw little tantrums, he gets this resolute look in his eyes and then screeches this high pitched cry, to show that he will not be going to the dining table, or turning off the TV, or putting on his shoes. If it wasn't so annoying, it's almost comical. Tonight, instead if the screech he started crying in a way that made me think he was in pain. Turns out, he had wanted to me to wipe his hands, or to pass me my medicine... Looking forward to dealing with that behavior while we're in public. 😂 Then in the evening, he told us that the light was red and he needed to brush his teeth and give us goodnight kisses, so sweet. It's like the book where the toddlers are dinosaurs.

This postpartum period has been really quite wonderful. It feels like we sort of know what we are doing, we have systems we can pick back up, and while I didn't want to compare... In comparison to my last maternity leave, I'm feeling so much better. In fact, I feel so much more functional that it puts my last leave into perspective. 

I had been very grateful that Calvin and I were both healthy and safe and while we had so many issues that we figured them out. But this time around, I can think (I think we're concluding that I had major blood loss last time), I can leave my house, I can see my family, while breastfeeding is not perfect it's working and I'm realizing how impossible my last postpartum period actually was and it makes me all the more grateful for the support I had from my community 2 years ago. Also feeling so grateful to have the support now, my family is getting to enjoy this time with everyone at home, seeing Calvin grow into his new role as a big brother, and reflecting on Calvin's first two years, enjoying this tiny baby while he's still tiny, because it's feeling really real that it won't be this way forever.

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