The first week home

Me and my birthday present!

Naomi is home! And we think she likes it! Even though she's spent most of the time sleeping (most of the daytime, anyway).

Day 1: We arrived home on my birthday! What a present! I'd celebrated myself last weekend--now it was time to celebrate Naomi. The big sisters had been kept up from their nap to greet their new little sister, and did so with appropriate exuberance. I learned that while I was away, Kalina had mastered Daddy's dart gun, which she could fire with surprising accuracy as Elise darted among the darts retrieving them. I was pleased to see that the girls were alive and well, although it took me a bit to get reacquainted with the fridge and pantry.

Ready to go home!

Day 2: Naomi's first visit to the pediatrician! At 8:15 a.m. Why this cruel timing? Because it's safer for the newborns to arrive before the germs do. I threw a few things in a diaper bag, and Naomi and I headed out just the two of us (our first mommy-daughter date!). We discovered that she weighed 5 lbs. 11 oz.--the same as she had the day before when leaving the hospital. But this was a good thing--many babies are still losing weight at that point. I no longer felt quite so bad about the long stretch of time I'd allowed her to sleep the previous night. Naomi is perfectly healthy! We discussed how to keep her that way, and the doctor advised me to be as pushy with hand-washing as a first-time mom. But he also said that now's a pretty good time to have a newborn--not to many germs floating around yet, and we can always go to a park if we need to get out. We scheduled a bunch more appointments (the next one is at 2 weeks), and headed back to the safety of home.

Home!!

Having slept relatively well the night before (owing to the ultra-sleepy newborn stage combined with the fact that since we're not first-time parents, we can nod and smile at the nurses' commands to wake our baby every three hours to eat), I began to put myself and the house back in order while Naomi slept, and slept and slept. I did wake her often to eat in the daytime, and I did hold her a lot. Who could resist?

And we hit a milestone! Not one that's on any of the books, but since it was cute, I'll write it down. Naomi started smiling in her sleep: big, goofy grins, no less! What was she dreaming of? Couldn't have been puppies, ice cream or snow on Christmas mornings, but it must have been something special to her. Milk? Being swaddled? The adorable outfits she's been wearing? Mommy???

The big girls continued to want to hold Naomi, the only downside being that Naomi cries almost every time they hold her. Both big girls are very understanding, however--even Elise knows that babies cry all the time. She is quick, however, to have me take the baby back. As is Daddy at times.

The baby is just hanging out,
happy and awake. I had to
get a picture.

With a sleepy baby and an extra pair of hands at home, I made dinner! Actually, Naomi woke up just as I was about to start, so I started dinner and directed Matt through the rest of it. Regardless, we had a real meal, and Naomi joined us.

Day 3: Daddy and the big girls went to church. Naomi slept, and I continued my quest to make the house look decent again. The big girls decided that diaper changes are worth dropping everything to watch, and that the swing makes music. Now, swing music plays on repeat for hours every day. They are not yet sick of it. Nope, not them.

I'd noticed that the baby, for the most part, spent her time during the day sleeping, eating or crying. There's more to life! I wanted to tell her. But for one of the first times today, Naomi's eyes were open and not tearing up--and in this moment, she noticed something really cool waving in front of her face: her hand! She was entertained for at least a minute, and I even caught it on film.

The baby first spots her hand
Cool, she thinks.

Daddy babysat Naomi for the first time on his own, while Kalina, Elise and I got frozen yogurt! All went well until it came time for Daddy to take off a Band-Aid the nurse had put on Naomi after her Vitamin K shot. Poor Daddy gets all the tough jobs. It was stuck tight (an alcohol swab helped), and fortunately I arrived home just in time to pick up the pieces.

Day 4: I was tired, probably having overdone it the previous few days, and so was the baby. While the more intrepid family members enjoyed a trip to the zoo, Naomi and I put our feet up and rested. We needed it: I'd been on my feet too much, and Naomi was, after all, less than a week old.

We've learned by now that Naomi prefers being held. Sometimes she's too sleepy to notice, but the rest of the time she'd like to be warmly cuddled in someone's arms. She's not too picky most of the time, but has been known to play favorites (sorry, Daddy).

I really like this hand!

We started tummy time, an unpopular attempt to make sure Naomi doesn't end up having to wear a helmet to reshape her head. She managed to roll herself over, having had enough of that silliness (you'll thank me later, Sweetie!). It doesn't help that anytime she's awake, she's hungry.

Nights had been deteriorating, so we may have purposely tried to keep Naomi up a bit in hopes that we could help her learn that daytime lasts from about 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., not 4 p.m. to 4 a.m.

Day 5: Our re-education process may have paid off! Naomi slept several very healthy chunks of time last night all by herself. I slept so long (2 and 3 hours at a time!) I was almost disoriented upon awaking, and Matt got his third full night since the baby was born, a fact that he doesn't feel like discussing. :)

Nursery sweet nursery. Couldn't
resist doing a little decorating for my
newest little girl!

Matt, Kalina and Elise spent much of the day at Grandpa's house and a children's museum, while I tried to relax on my last day of "maternity leave." Naomi tried to relax, too, mostly in my arms.

Day 6: We decided that our first day without Matt should be a "Big Girl Fun Day!" We dressed Naomi in a cute outfit, made chocolate chip cookie bars, enjoyed a few "big sister" presents, had a friend over in the afternoon and ordered pizza for supper.

Naomi and I learned that newborn sleep is random. She spent a good 24 hours needing to be held in order to sleep (including the previous night), or simply not sleeping but choosing, instead, to remain in a "fussy wakeful" state. I spent about the same amount of time typing things like, "Newborn sleep patterns" and "Why should it be this difficult to get my 1-week-old to sleep?" and "WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!?" into Google. I learned that it's me, not her. Newborn sleep is, for all intents and purposes, random.

In other news, Naomi's umbilical cord stump came off! It's no less weird and unsettling the third time than the first. Fortunately, the friend who visited is a nurse, and she assured me that everything looks great.

Day 7: Continuing the theme of random newborn sleep, Naomi drifted off to sleep in her crib, with only a little Mommy help, for her first nap of the day. I learned that she likes to be petted on the forehead, like a kitten, to help her relax and close her eyes. She spent the rest of the day peacefully napping acting like last night, another tough one in which we couldn't set the baby down if we expected her to sleep, never happened--I'm hoping it bodes well for tonight. When Kalina woke me up in the morning, it took me a good two minutes to realize she wasn't Elise. Ah, sleep deprivation--my old constant companion! But Naomi sure is cute. I dressed her for success in one of her most adorable outfits and carried on with the day.

The big girls visited their new preschool classrooms with Grandpa and met their teachers, a day I hated to miss but couldn't justify risking my newborn's health for. After all, what's germier than a preschool classroom?

Kalina and Elise remained excited about their new sister, and are always happy to check on Naomi, shush her, sing sweet made-up lullabies to her, wave toys in front of her face, swing her in her swing and turn on her infernal swing music (and, more often than not, leave the room right afterward and stranding me with it). Every diaper change is a spectacle sport, and the goodwill they feel toward their little sister has not yet faded into the jealous resentment I'm keenly watching for.

I'm grateful the weather is hot now (it switched from gorgeous to blistering as I entered the hospital) because it gives us a good reason to hole up inside. The girls are playing wonderfully together, and I even get to put my feet up now and then. Having nearly driven myself into labor with all the preparation I did in July and August, I think I've earned as much of a rest as I can possibly get. In fact, it's almost cozy having a newborn!

And that concludes our first week at home! Here's hoping they can all be so sweet!

Some of the highlights of Naomi's photo shoot in the hospital:

Welcoming Naomi Anne!

Naomi Anne! 

Naomi Anne is here! Earlier than any of us was expecting! And we're delighted to be graced by her presence all the sooner! And equally thrilled that by not entering the world on a Saturday, she's already shaking things up in our family.

It was a bright and sunny Tuesday and the big girls and I were going about our usual business, as I was pretty confident we'd have at least until the end of the week before our new little one made her debut. We enjoyed a park playdate with friends in the morning, then checking off a few more of the tasks on my, "Much easier to do pre-newborn" to-do list. This had me trekking through Target with a full cart, and may have contributed in some small way to our baby's appearance. I noticed myself feeling increasingly contraction-y and crummy (as I had been for a couple days prior), and enough so that I mentioned to Matt that we weren't necessarily not having a baby that night.

When you suspect you're in labor the first time, you drink plenty of water, time contractions, rest up and Facebook your friends. When it's the third time around, you put in a load of laundry, run the dishwasher, straighten the house a bit, put fresh batteries in the camera, finish prepping the carseat and pack your hospital bag (after all, the baby wasn't supposed to come until the weekend). So it wasn't until my head hit the pillow at 10:30 that I paid much attention to the fact that contractions were coming every 4-5 minutes.

But the baby wasn't supposed to come until Saturday! Why do I keep mentioning this? Because both of my previous deliveries happened at about 39 weeks, laboring on Friday night and delivering on a Saturday. Like clockwork. This would've put me in labor on my birthday, I should add.

So I worked on getting to sleep, which I did succeed in for about an hour (more than for any of my previous kids). Not too long after I woke up from that, Grandpa was arriving and Matt and I were leaving for the hospital.

The weigh-in!

I was surprised to find that my contractions were still quite bearable. I was even more surprised when they stopped the second we walked onto the labor and delivery floor. And quite annoyed when I almost got sent home (after all, I'm a third-time mommy, I know when I'm in labor and as long as I'm going to be up all night, let's have a baby instead of doing this again tomorrow night!). Unfortunately, the monitor showed that the baby's heart rate was dipping occasionally, but fortunately, that and the fact that I was, actually, having regular contractions 3-4 minutes apart (just not very painful) made them admit me.

Newly born

The moon was full that night, and possibly not out of sheer coincidence (from everything Matt could grill out of every nurse he asked), labor and delivery was a hopping place. I was lucky to get a room, (and even luckier later on to get a nice recovery room). In very little pain, I dozed. This made my contractions go away again. I wondered if I should just go home.

But my doctor and nurse had other ideas when I consulted them a while later. For one, the weak contractions had actually made progress! They were real, they just didn't hurt much at all. The next news was that my doctor wanted me to go ahead and get the epidural, and start me on a trickle of Pitocin to get things going a little better. The baby, by the way, was doing just fine.

Look what I have! A baby!

The fact that I had a shot at a relatively pain-free labor actually took a while to sink in. I was opposed to the idea at first, having had much more painful labors than I'd hoped for with the first two. Could it really be this easy? Should it? Then I realized that I was the crazy one, not them. The anesthesiologist was in my room within 30 minutes.

Epidural safely in place, however, I briefly engaged in a somewhat alarming struggle against low blood pressure. We fixed the problem soon enough, and shortly after I was  reading, dozing and watching The Price is Right as the baby did the hard work of getting ready to be born. The attentive nurse helped keep me comfortable.

When it was almost time, my doctor arrived for a casual chat. She was early because she'd had several cancellations in her schedule. But in reality, she was just about right on time, and after less than 5 minutes of catching up about our kids, it was time to push.

At 5, Kalina is a lot more eager to
hold a newborn than she was at 2!

Naomi was out within 10 pushes, crying nicely (the only time I like to hear crying!), more than Kalina and less intensely than Elise. She had a short little umbilical cord, but it was enough to make her the first cord blood donor in our family (the other girls having been born on Saturdays where, in Durham, they didn't have anyone to collect the cord blood). Good plan being born on a Wednesday, Baby!

Naomi Anne was born at 1:30 p.m., weighing 6 lbs. 1 oz., and 18 inches long. The smallest of our three small babies! (But in her defense, the earliest!)

She has dark brown hair, very dark blue eyes, very light eyelashes and--most surprising--a dimple on each cheek! But where did they come from?

The big sisters (and Grandpa) descended upon us in the evening for dinner! Kalina and Elise were overjoyed to meet the new baby, and tossed around lots of "sweet!" "cute!" and "baby!" Kalina noted that the baby's feet looked cold, and expertly covered them up with a blanket. And Elise grinned proudly, ear to ear, the whole time it was her turn to hold Naomi. I wonder if little Naomi knows how excited we all are to have her join our little family!

The bundle is twice as big as the
baby!

We also worked on pronouncing Naomi, a name they distrusted at first, but quickly fell in love with. Thank goodness for the practice: otherwise, the poor girl might grow up thinking she's to be called, "Meeomi!"

Naomi's first couple of days have been lovely. She's perfectly healthy and perfectly beautiful. Her only hardship in life, so far, is that she seems to have been born with a tummy full of amniotic fluid that she spent her first 18 hours or so spitting up and enduring some tummy pain over. Poor thing! She still seems to have some gas pains, but hopefully they'll calm down as her tummy gets used to having something other than amniotic fluid in it. She also gets really fussy when she needs to sleep. But don't we all?

Pancakes, yogurt, fruit and a cookie,
our first meal together as a family
of 5!

I have learned a few things about Naomi already. First, the spasmodic tapping I felt coming from her in-utero is her foot. It just kicks like that sometimes. She likes to cuddle and thought being on her tummy was just the best for her newborn photo shoot yesterday (pictures to come--she's already proving herself extremely photogenic). And she slept well last night--I was worried she had adjusted her sleep-to-eating ratio a little too far toward the sleep end, but her final weighing at the hospital showed her weight at 5 lbs. 11 oz., which means she only lost 5% of her birthweight. The nurse assured me that was excellent!

And, as the best birthday gift ever, I got to bring her home today. No, I did not put a bow on her. Yes, I am tempted to.

Look at my beautiful eyes!

Kalina, when we brought Naomi home: "Ooooohhhh look at her cute little outfit! Isn't she adorable?!?"

Elise: (sniffing her little sister) "She smells like a baby!"

Now, we're all taking turns holding the cuddly little bundle, and she's alternating between tolerating and enjoying the attention.

 We're all so grateful to God for this newest little blessing! We can't wait to see what life has in store for her--and what she has in store for us!

An Interview

We raised a luna moth!

The kids have so many great things to say, every hour of every day, that I thought I'd see what they do in an actual interview. I had to interview them separately so they wouldn't give all the same answers/fight over answers. I also occasionally tried to get more clarification, but, perhaps because of the pressure, the girls were a bit less prolific than usual. Here's the transcript:

Elise:
If you could be any animal, what would you be? A penguin. Because I like penguins. Because they're black and white, some of my favorite colors. Because they go in water.
What would you like to be when you grow up? A mommy penguin that has baby penguins in her tummy. Anything else? No. [Previously, she'd wanted to be an astronaut mommy--the person who cooks for all the astronauts. Because even astronauts need mommies, right?]
What does Mommy do all day? Work.
What does Daddy do all day? Work.
What would you do if you could do anything you wanted for a day? Play and do work. Fix dinner, play with toys. Go to the Magic House, and the places where we go and I ride in my carseat. The Magic House, the grocery store.
Where are your favorite places? The Magic House, the mall
If you could do anything right now, what would you do? Go to the mall and bring this snack. [Goldfish]
What makes a rainbow?  The sky
What's your favorite holiday?  All of them. I just like holidays.

Sometimes the girls make me take
pictures of all their stuffed animal
setups. Cute!

What makes you the happiest? Ice cream. What's your favorite flavor? Chocolate.
What makes you the saddest? Being hurt
When are you the most scared? Because of the woods. What are you scared of about the woods? Bears. Sometimes I'm brave. If I was by myself I would be brave. And I would take a flashlight!
What do you do when you're afraid? Pray. Does it help: No. Only being inside.
What will you be doing one year from now? Going to preschool.
What would you do to make the world a better place? I don't want to talk anymore.
[At this point, we took a little break. I managed to get her started again, though:]
What's the funniest thing you can think of? Jokes. A pig having no home! [smiles--this is a classic joke from a few months ago] When Kalina gets hurt I'll think of some jokes. [To cheer her up]
What's your favorite thing to do with Daddy? Ice cream
What's your favorite thing to do with Mommy? Read and eat ice cream.
What do you love about Kalina? Playing with her.
What are your favorite foods? Goldfish, eating strawberries and chocolate and fruit bits and cooked carrots if you give me them, and Feta cheese.

Matt and the girls like to dig for
worms in the compost pile.

Kalina:
If you could be any animal, what would you be? A kitten. Because I love them.
What would you like to be when you grow up? A mommy. Anything else? No. [Just a couple weeks ago she told me she wanted to be a piano teacher for kids ages 3 through 7 1/2.]
What does Mommy do all day? Work and play with the kids.
What does Daddy do all day? Work on the fish tank and sometimes play with the kids. Today he went to Lowe's with me and Elise stayed home. [Matt has been building an aquarium stand!]
What would you do if you could do anything you wanted for a day? Eat ice cream, go to Grandpa's, have all the treats I wanted, and then take some naps, and then play with Legos. [Elise was listening in and mentioned that she would do that too.]
If you could do anything right now, what would you do? Play with Legos.
Where are your favorite places? Piano lessons, the Magic House, Home, Anna's house. Have you ever been to Anna's house? No. Why do you like these places? They're so fun!
What makes a rainbow? When it rains, there's a rainbow!
What's your favorite holiday? Easter and Christmas and Valentine's Day. Why? On Valentine's Day we get treats, and people love us. Christmas, because there's snow to play in sometimes and a lot of people come over, and there's a Christmas tree!! And Easter, because we get to search for Easter eggs.

Look how big I'm (not!)
getting! 37 weeks.

What makes you happiest? When I'm eating treats!!! What kinds are your favorite? All of them! Except the really spicy ones.
What makes you saddest? When I get hurt.
What makes you the most scared? When I go to bed, because I'm afraid that monsters or something scary will come into my room.
What do you do when you're scared? Pray. Does it help? No, but a little. What helps? Being with Mommy, or Daddy.
What will you be doing one year from now? Playing with Barbies if you allow me, I don't know. I hope to be learning how to sew, and sewing a bunch of stuffed animals for me and Elise. [Sure, she can play with Barbies, just not at my house if at all possible. Blech.]
What would you do to make the world a better place? Eat treats more often. How does that make the world better? Just because treats taste good.
What's the funniest thing you can think of? If a giraffe went running around in the hallways.
What's your favorite thing to do with Daddy? Do Dashy and Mountain King. [This is where we play two specific classical music pieces, and the girls run around in circles on the rug. There's some choreography to it, too.]
What's your favorite thing to do with Mommy? Build with Legos and play the zoo game.
What do you love about Elise? That she's my little sister, and that she is a baby penguin. I love that she is a penguin.
[Kalina got a few extra questions because her attention span was a bit longer.]
What's your favorite memory? When I was in my wedding. What did you like about it? That I looked pretty. [She's referring to being a flower girl in Aunt Laura's wedding, just before she turned two. Not sure if she remembers the wedding or the photos from it...]
What do you like to do with your friends? Play fairies and look for black rocks.
What would you do if you had a million dollars? Buy treats. Buy stuffed animals. That's all.
What are your favorite foods? Applesauce, beans, strawberries, watermelon, pancakes. Favorite for snack is Goldfish.

My observations:

1. Treats make quite the impression.
2. So if both my girls want to be mommies (even if a different species), and mommies work all/much of the day, then why is it so hard to get them to help clean up? Sheesh.
3. If we're ever relying on my girls to make the world a better place, we're probably out of luck. But we will have plenty of ice cream.
4. My children could stand to dream a bit bigger. You could do anything you want for a day and you'd work and fix dinner? And you could do anything you want right now and you'd play with Legos? Or, maybe, they're being raised with realistic expectations? At least their dreams are achievable?

We'll keep up with them as they grow. Stay tuned.