I really can't believe how smoothly things have gone on around here. I've read in many a baby book that babies sleep from 20 to 22 hours a day, but never experienced that with any of my children. Although Jedidiah did come close, but he still had his crying fits until I could figure out all the foods that I was eating that was bothering his tummy. But Aubrey is totally sleeping a lot. He was awake for 1.5 hours this morning, but then since then he will wake up to eat every three hours, nurse, then go back to sleep. All I can think of is that going no dairy from day one is really helping. Either that or something is wrong with him! His jaundice seems to be getting a bit better, as far as I can tell. I am hoping for some sun to come out so that I can keep him in the light to help break down the biliruben further. Aubrey is a lot like Jed, quiet, quiet, quiet. Thankfully he doesn't seem to have any sensitivities, unless you count an aversion to wipes that have not been warmed up :-) But his active time is nursing, and after that if he;s not asleep he just quietly looks around him. Then he goes off to sleep. So far sleeping mostly in someones arms. Although I've been able to put him down on the couch for a bit (before one of the girls comes around to hold him!). If I try to put him in our bed to sleep he wakes up. I think that could be for two reasons. The first being our room is pretty cold. The other, even though we have a noise maker, it isn't the same *noise* that is out here in the rest of the house! He seems to do well with running, banging, screaming, talking, etc. than a static noise maker. He will sleep well if he is snuggled up to me at night. And to top it all off he seems to be the only one willing to take a paci. He was getting fussy when it was time to fall asleep, and would fall asleep if I nursed him. I do believe in teaching babies to fall asleep on their own, just not when they are a few days old :-) But I didn't want him to keep nursing to sleep as I knew his tummy was full and he's had signs of reflux. So I tried a paci today when it was time for him to be sleepy. He took it!! NONE of my babies would take one, at all!!! Ever! Pretty crazy!
As for me, I've been recovering very well. I've been keeping my feet up and resting as I can. But I have to say that it was getting pretty boring :-) So I told the girls we would start back with school. We started yesterday. We are not doing a full load, but we are doing some things. Along with math, and some science today I had the girls work on making up some goals to accomplish this year. It is so easy to get side tracked by all the daily things that need to be done, and then when we have the time to do something else we all sit around in a daze, wondering what we should do. We usually end up wasting that time. So I thought if we had some goals to work on we would be prepared during those times to work towards things we would like to be doing. I made up my own goals as well. Today I sat down with the girls individually to go over their lists to see what supplies they might need to accomplish their goals. I had five headings for them to fill out. They were: Books, Projects, Ideas, New Skills and Goals. That way they had some idea of where to go with all of this. I'll have to post mine sometime. I'm looking forward to making some progress with some things that have been hit or miss for me.
Along with resting I've been doing some things for me. Wow, that sounds kind of selfish. I've been doing some reading. I was going to work on Jonah's blanket, but I couldn't find my crochet hook! Thankfully Jeremiah was able to pick one up when he ran to the store. So hopefully I can start back on that. I am getting close to being done. I think I have three more color rows to do and then I am going to put a two color border around the whole blanket. Besides that I've taken the time to "move" a little bit. I had "lost" my ankles and feet with the IV fluids I was given. I thought doing the primary back stretch and the lymph pumping of a few T-Tapp moves would get some of that fluid moving. It takes me just about three minutes, of moving really slowly, but it does make me feel better. I also decided to do some dry skin brushing. Not sure what prompted me to even think of that, but I did and decided to give it a try. Wow, it's really relaxing! After all that I get in the shower. Ah, just some time to myself. I remember not being able to find the time to get a shower in when Isabella was a newborn. It was just she and I. Jeremiah would come home from work to find me still in PJ's. Now, with a seventh child, I'm taking a shower daily! Funny how that works. See, all you out there who find having two children hard to do, you really just have to have a few more before it gets easier :-) Having two children is VERY hard!!! Much harder than having seven. Well, ok, I suppose it's a different kind of hard. And I suppose this post might look different if Aubrey was another Flannery or Jonah :-) No one minds holding Aubrey because he's so quiet. No one wanted to hold Jonah for more than a minute or two because of all his crying! It really does make a HUGE difference to not be the only one taking care of Aubrey. Isabella and Moira love to change his diapers and change his clothing. All the girls start putting in their bid to hold him next. This leaves me the time to shower, to read and relax. That doesn't happen when you have a newborn and a two year old!!! Not unless you have a live in nanny. I'm thinking most of you don't.
Ok, it's dinner time. Then we are taking down our Christmas tree. I'm looking forward to that if for no other reason than our poor tree looks quite pathetic with half it's branches all smooshed up. I've not had the determination to straighten them out. So they've been smooshed for a while now. Oh, and before I go I just HAD to say something about a news article title I saw when I was logging into the computer. It read something like this: Winter storm that shut down the South turns north. Is this title meant to 'warn' people, or scare them? Does the writer of this article know just how LITTLE snow we need to shut us down? I laughed when I saw this. Way, way too funny!! So all you northerners, watch out, the BIG one is coming. Now, granted I realize that the areas around us did indeed get a lot of snow, but I still laughed when I read that, as if it was a scary thing :-)
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