Adjustments: Life with 3

It's been awhile; life with 3 is definitely interesting! Especially when they're all under 4 and the younger 2 are only 20 months apart. Or when the older 2 fight over toys. Or when I finally get the baby to fall asleep and an older child wakes him up. Or when the toddler misbehaves while I'm feeding the baby. It's like he knows I can't put him in time out easily. I swear, that boy gets into everything. We caught him standing on the windowsill last week... Never a dull moment!

And yes, I have pics to share :) I think my parents would hound me if I didn't.

I can't believe it's already been 5 weeks! My little baby is already 5 weeks old! How did that happen?! And yet, it feels like he's always been part of our family. He was meant to come to us when he did. It's amazing how that works out, even though we weren't planning to have another baby when we did. But Heavenly Father did plan it that way and His plan is always much better than ours.

Learning to manage life with an almost 4 year old, a 21 month old, and a newborn definitely has moments of insanity. And yet, this transition has been easier than the others. I think it's mainly because we had a lot of help. My mom came to help for 10 days and then friends from church brought us dinners for a week. Also, I haven't had any major health issues this time, unlike the gallbladder nastiness after Hyrum's birth. Or any car totalling stress like after Emma was born. Yeah, let's not do that ever again, ok? At least with gallbladder surgery, there's no way that will ever be an issue for me again.

We've found that dinner and bedtime is the hardest time of day for everyone. The big kids are hungry, tired, and grumpy, and the baby always wants to nurse at some point during the dinner and bedtime process. It didn't take long to figure out that I can't handle that part of the day on my own. Trying to get the big kids fed and ready for bed by myself while feeding the baby just doesn't work. As such, we've decided that we all need to be together at that time of day. LOL, John has a 6 PM curfew ;) Haha, just kidding. Mostly. Sometimes we're all out and about at that time of day, but at least we're together. At this point, we all need to either be at home or out in public together. No more meetings or appointments or anything else during dinner/bedtime unless we're ALL there.

Late at night, like between 11 and 1, is hard, too. Nathan is super tired then, but has a hard time staying asleep. He'll fall asleep nursing or when we rock him, but he frequently wakes up again. It's frustrating for John and I because we're tired by then, too! And after taking care of 3 kids all day, I'm in some serious need of time to myself. Thankfully, I married a saint; he takes the baby for awhile (after a feeding) so I can get a break. Then, when I'm ready to go to sleep, I feed him in bed and we fall asleep together. Co-sleeping isn't my ideal way to spend the night, but during the early newborn days, it's the only way we can all get some sleep.

Nathan is such a sweet, cuddly baby. He loves to snuggle. He'll nap in his swing a lot during the day, but not so much at night. He takes at least one nice long nap during the day - usually when Hyrum naps. Yay for coordinating naps!! Mommy's mid-day sanity keeper.

And of course, Nathan loves to eat. He certainly has no problems gaining weight. He was already 9 lbs 6 oz at his 2 week check up. That's more than a pound over his birth weight! Granted, it was the day before he hit 3 weeks, but still - he dropped down to 8 lbs even, so he gained a pound and a half in a very short amount of time. His head circumference was 14.5 inches. He was 23" long, which puts him in the 97th percentile for length! Crazy! Maybe he has the random tall gene? Haha, wouldn't that be funny? Unlikely, since Hyrum was 22" at his 2 week check up. It's hard to compare, though, since Hyrum's was at 14 days and Nathan's was at 20 days. But Hyrum was 24" at 2 months...and he's a shorty now, so...we'll see!

Like all newborns, he goes through about a million diapers a day. Literally, as soon as I change him, he goes again. But it's better than when he goes while I'm changing him. Yuck. Although I think he's starting to consolidate the poops. He hates having a wet or poopy diaper.

Nathan loves baths! He gets mad when I take him out of the tub and dry him off, but I think that's more of a temperature thing than anything else. It's hard to regulate your temperature well when you're little :)

He's starting to coo more and it is just so cute! He smiles in his sleep a ton. He even laughs in his sleep sometimes! It's adorable. I swear I saw a real smile already. Emma says he smiles at her all the time, but he doesn't really. He grabs my fingers all the time. I love it! So sweet.

Poor little guy is starting to get baby acne and cradle cap :( He has a little strawberry patch in the back where his head meets his neck. Emma and Hyrum had them there as well. I didn't notice Nathan's until last week. I didn't think to look for it until then. Plus, with his red hair being a bit of a mullet back there, I had to make an effort to see if he had it.

We think Nathan looks a lot like his big brother. Seriously, he's like a smaller, redheaded version of Hyrum. He even has the same newborn hairline! It's especially noticeable when comparing newborn photos. I'll have to post some comparisons soon, but this post will have plenty of pics as it is.

Emma and Hyrum both adore their baby brother. They are so sweet with him. Emma says, "oh he's so cute!" and "he's so little" about a million times a day. They love to hold him or bombard him with kisses. They talk to him during diaper changes. Emma tells him, "Mommy will be right back" when I go to wash my hands. I love the way she talks to him! Hyrum likes to throw the diapers away. He doesn't quite get the whole being gentle thing yet, but we're working on it. He likes to "help" me feed the baby...uh, not so much. I try to redirect his "help" by asking him to rub Nathan's back instead. Hyrum also loves to burp the baby...but he's a little rough with it. Both big kids bring Nathan toys to share. Emma wants to teach him how to play and Hyrum tries to share sippy cups with him. They just love him so much! I love watching them with him.

...Except when they wake him up...

Overall, life with 3 is great. It's definitely crazy, busy, and stressful, but that comes with the territory. Newborns require a lot of time, regardless. It is 100% worth it. We have the cutest, sweetest, best kids ever! I love them!

That said...I'm certainly in NO RUSH to do this again! I want a larger age gap next time. A 20 month gap is hard because Hyrum has a long way to go with his communication skills. He's perfectly on track, but 21 month olds aren't exactly proficient in speech ;) That, and toddler boys get into EVERYTHING. No, we're not doing this again until after grad school. I don't even want to get pregnant until after that. Having 3 kids during grad school will be hard enough; I don't want to add crazy pregnancy hormones and extreme exhaustion into the mix. Not to mention insurance issues. Grad school is only like 6 months away anyway and it'll take about a year and a half. So, 2 years from now and we'll be DONE with John's schooling! YAY!

And of course, what post about kids is complete without pictures?

First, I made a birth announcement :) I blurred out our last name for web posting.

Paper: A Quiet Moment, geniaBeana Scraps
Ribbon (darkened): Hazy Shade of Winter, geniaBeana Scraps


Someone decided the swing was for him...and only a week in!


Sleeping on Mommy's bed...


2 weeks!


My awesome friend Vicki took family/newborn pics for us at the campus apple orchard. I took this pic while we were there, but I'm sure hers turned out way better. I can't wait to see them!




Apparently toy bins are for climbing in...oo, and you can see my cute toy labels :)


First time going to church!!




Emma in her Halloween costume. She decided months ago that she was going to be a black cat. I made the ears and tail out of felt and a cheap elastic headband (8 for a $). The skirt isn't technically part of the costume, but she insists that it is...oh well, it's super cute!


At the straw maze :) That tire was seriously gigantic! We ran into some friends there and Emma insisted on staying with them the whole time.


1 month old!!!






At the nature park. You should have seen how crazy the ducks were when they saw us with bread! Seriously, we had like 60 of them going after it.


Dressed up for church again.


*squee* I love this!!


Thanks to the generosity of awesome family members, we were able to buy some cute new clothes for Nathan. Yay, he has some non-hand-me-downs! We also got the big kids some needed new jammies and I got a new purse to use as a diaper bag. In the almost 4 years I've been a mom, I've found that most diaper bags are ridiculously poor quality and fall apart within a year - unless you're willing to shell out $70 minimum. Yeah, no thanks. I'd rather buy a decent quality purse; they last longer. Plus, diaper bags are generally just too big for my daily needs. I only need space for a few diapers per diaper wearer, wipes, a foldable potty seat, nursing cover, possibly a change of clothes, my wallet, small lotion bottle, camera, and phone. I don't need a gigantic bag. I don't want to carry a gigantic bag. And most diaper bags just scream baby. I'd rather have something that looks like an actual purse. So...that's what I buy instead. And it only cost me $20 at Ross.


In one of his new outfits :)



So, that's how it's been :) Good overall, but with lots of crazy busy-ness and stress. It's hard to find time to do things like clean or do any hobbies, but that's part of life with a newborn. We're loving our little family! It's so right for us to have 3 adorable children. And there's no question that they're adorable :) They all drive us crazy sometimes, but they are definitely the 3 cutest kids ever. We love them all so much!