Two weeks of Owen

Well, here we are, two weeks into Owen's little life and we're still adjust and learning from him. Owen is such a precious baby, but delivering early seems to have made a dramatic effect on his adjustment to this world. Making his way into this world at 37 weeks, it seems like Owen still clings to his patterns from being tucked neatly inside. He loves to keep his arms and legs all balled up tightly and still is on an inconsistent schedule.

I remember having Collin and settling into a pattern rather quickly- steadily eating every 3 hours, and sleeping during the evenings. With Owen it seems like I'm grasping at straws, just trying to get through the day. Whoever said having just one baby was difficult to handle was absolutely crazy. I mean seriously, one baby seems like a walk in the park compared to wrangling a toddler and a baby all at once.
Owen is such a good baby, which makes me feel a bit like a bad parent because he's already preparing for a life with much less constant attention than Collin had. Now that there are two little boys, my time is much more precious with each of them. Owen rarely cries and is happy to sit in the swing, cradle or crib with only a few peeps here and there. He loves to be held at night though, so we are are still trying to figure out how to get him to sleep in the bassinet. As a result we've sort of defaulted to co-sleeping, which makes me uber paranoid and anxious, so we bought a type of Moses basket made to go inside an adult bed. This makes me feel a little bit better, but I'm still very anxious about the transition back to the bassinet and eventually crib.

Having Owen around has added a whole new dynamic to our family. Its drawn out a tremendous amount of love in Collin, who doesn't seem to be jealous or upset about the transition of attention. Instead he spends his time constantly saying, "Hi Owen!" and saying "hug, hug Owen!, hug!". Its adorable how much love he has to share.

Its hard to believe that my original due date is tomorrow (1/20/11) and Owen has been here two whole weeks already. So much has changed in our lives in so little time, amazingly exhausting and exhilarating us all at the same time. As Owen was welcomed home, Collin, in his one opportunity to exude power, decided that sleeping through the night was not quite his bowl of cherries, and so, in addition to being up with Owen we were up with Collin at two and three hour stretches. We're still trying to figure the toddler sleeplessness out, battling if its worth it to try to re-sleep train him now, so early in the upheavel of his life, or if we should wait until Owen's been around a bit longer before making such abrupt changes in Collin's life again. It's hard for me to determine if the lack of sleep or the dramatic changes in Collin's life are more challenging for him.... Any suggestions out there???

So, in comparison, here's how the CRAZY at our house goes these days.

Hold that thought- actually, I should preface this by saying that I really have no idea what our schedule will be like, as we still aren't quite on our own yet. We still have Drew's mom staying with us for another week, so the crazy around here is likely to get a lot more crazy in a few weeks.

Anyway....

We try to wake up around 8. Collin gets up around 7. This is where my biggest challenge is going to be as currently Drew's mom has been getting up with Collin and getting him breakfast, and I've been getting up with Owen a bit later. That won't be the case when its just me again, I'll have to get up at 7 again, which is no fun and a bit intimidating. Maybe I was crazy thinking this was a good idea- you know having two kids under 2.

9:00 Owen eats. He's a good eater and has finally started gaining weight. He's 6 pounds and 13 ounces today, up from his low of 6 pounds 0 ounces when he had just arrived home. He's a whole 7 pounds past his birth weight, and is now the weight Collin was when he arrived. I'm barely awake, have awful breath and generally perusing the house in my robe. There's no way I'm ready to go anywhere. I think, how on earth will I be ready to go to ECFE on Fridays by 9???? Its going to be IMPOSSIBLE!?!? I hope I figure it out!

10-11:00 play with Collin, try to clean up a little. If I've learned anything in having two little boys, its that cleaning has certainly went out the window. I'm lucky if I get dressed before noon with these guys. I stare at the cobwebs that magically appeared since yesterday. Is it possible the spiders will take over our house?

11:00-12:00 get Collin lunch, feed Owen, lay Owen in his crib (cross my fingers that he won't cry and scream) while I get Collin settled in for a nap. I wish we all could take a nap, but if I fall asleep now Owen will miss a feeding...oh, when will I ever get to sleep?????

12:00-3:00 hang out with Owen while Collin naps and Drew comes home. Hooray! We're one-on-one again. Owen gets sleepy in the afternoon and still hasn't "woken up" yet, he still sleeps the majority of the day. He sleeps in the swing, or little bouncy seat, or in his crib while I try to maybe brush my teeth so Drew doesn't think that I just rolled out of bed (because its likely I'm still in my robe). I'm thinking, how did I do this so well as a nanny and now can't get through the day with just two kids????

3:00 who ever would have guessed?- wake Owen up and feed Owen again. Welcome to the milk bar.

3:30- Collin's snack. I contain him in the high chair and contain Owen in the bouncy chair and smile. Everybody is happy, briefly. Maybe I can take a shower while Drew watches them???


4:00-5:00 try to clean up (second attempt :)- maybe make a bed, get a few toys picked up, get dinner ready, play with the boys a bit.

5:30-6:00 Get Collin dinner. Things are starting to calm down a bit. Hooray.

6:00-7:00 Get Collin ready for bed (bath, stories etc.), feed Owen again. Maybe relax? Is that possible right now?

7:00-9:00 Hang out with Owen, do the tiny bit of home chores I have a window of opportunity to tackle, but continue to be way behind :). Oh, we're always behind.

9:00- feed owen again and start to get ready for bed. Read: start to get ready to be up all night.

10:00- try to go to bed and get a bit of sleep. ha ha. That was a joke.

12:00- change and feed Owen again. wander back towards the bed and hope that I land on the mattress while carefully placing Collin in the Moses basket.

sometime bewteen 12:00 and 3- Collin wakes up, one of us sits with him and rocks while making every effort to will him back to sleep. Hopefully he goes back to sleep, but sometimes he doesn't for 2 hours or more!!

3:00- wake back up (or maybe I never went to sleep?), change and feed Owen again.

3:00 to 6:00- try to sleep, usually with Owen by my side, co-sleeping. Who am I? When did I become a co-sleeping momma? Did I dream this whole thing up?

6:00-8:00. The only time that we actually both sleep well and I don't have to worry about Collin (because his grandma has him, but this little bit of happiness will dissapear in about a week). So, a teeny tiny bit of rest, then it all starts again.

I lOVE motherhood. Can you tell?

Really though, in all seriousness, double the fun= double the trouble, but I wouldn't change it for anything. I love these boys so incredibly much. I didn't realize I had this much room in my heart for two little boys, but Owen has carved out his own little place that seems to be an endless container. He's so new and so little, but I can't image my life without him already. He's precious and perfect and we couldn't ask for anything more.