First Weeks Home

Well, it has been an exciting first couple of weeks home! Zoe was introduced early to MY best friend - the swing that plays some music. What a wonderful device - it rocks her to sleep many evenings. She does have an opinion as to whether she prefers to have it moving or not. She's an incredible sleeper - fairly noise tolerant, which is great when you've got older siblings chasing about the house. Her longest naps are the ones during the day still - night time is when we only sleep for 1-2 hours at a go. It's more than a little exhausting, but it does at least let me spend quality time with the older two during the day. Dan being on night shift this month facilitates the occasional daytime nap or at least some relief in refereeing the occasional spat that gets out of control.

Penny is absolutely enamored with her little sister. She's constantly tickling her face with her curly hair or saying how cute she is. Paul is also quite fond of his little sister. When he sees her, he often pokes her chest with a big smile on his face. I ask him if he likes his new baby and he gets a wide smile on his face. When she cries, he gets a little upset and sets the swing in motion for her. When I go to get her out, he'll try to lift her himself. It seems like they're taking to Zoe very well. They do tend to tear at each other when I'm busy taking care of Zoe, though. There is no end of fighting over toys, space, etc., it seems.


We've had some fun first outings already. Zoe seemed amazed by her first trip to Lowe's. She thoroughly enjoyed checking out fans and air conditioners as we escaped the ludicrously high 90 degree weather by hitting a few stores last weekend. The thermometer on the car reported 99 degrees, though the forecast was only 92 or so. Going out with all three and Daddy was a cakewalk. We could divide and conquer nicely. The main problem was that there was no room in the shopping cart for any purchases. With Zoe in a baby carrier, we had at least some room in the cart for groceries when we visited Costco. It was far less impressive, though, it seems.

This week was my first on my own with the little dears all day. It has been interesting, to be sure. Getting to school is not a certain matter, but we managed to be on time every day last week. Granted, Daddy woke up and stepped in once and Nanna came over to facilitate a nap for me one day. It also helped that we had a day off school on Thursday - random school holiday. We took that opportunity to head over to our long-missed Pirate Ship Playground. There were some permanent changes (things we had seen washed away), but no dangerous items at least. The kids were so excited to be back and able to check everything out. Zoe enjoyed a bit of respite in the baby carrier, but that made it a little hard to pick up Paul when he made a break for it out of the park. He was having such a good time pushing the stroller out toward the marina, but he just wouldn't turn back when I asked him to stay away from the parking area. A football hold until I could fasten him into the stroller was all it took to bring him back into line, but playground time was over and we headed home for lunch. Paul does have a tendency to dash off, so I'm thankful that all the parks in NYC seem to consist of layers of fences. I'm sure we'll figure out a better system eventually.

Our most recent big excursion with just me and the three little ones was Penny's graduation. The rain was a terrible inconvenience as the school wouldn't let us in until a certain time. Paul was a natural New Yorker, pushing his way through the crowd into the drier interior. Meanwhile, I politely stood in the rain, trying to balance a carseat, a backpack and an umbrella and reassure him that I was still there. Once inside, we found what seemed a less desirable seat along the outside wall where we could escape as necessary to avoid disturbing the ceremony. Zoe slept and it was Paul's nap time, so he was very cuddly throughout the entire ceremony. The ceremony was tons of fun. They danced in to the tune of "Shake, Senora" with little rattles going. They did a number of songs and a poem recitation before stepping up a little step stool and triumphantly waving a scroll in the air. Penny wasn't quite herself  - she's been feeling off all week (digestive virus of some kind, poor thing) - but I didn't want her to miss her own graduation. She passed on the cake at the reception afterward - smart girl. It's been a rough week for her at times. We have a good chance of being most of the way through this stomach bug, thankfully!

So perhaps in the week ahead we'll continue to work out our routine, improve health a bit and catch up on a bit of sleep. We'll see.