Crazy enough, I can no longer say I have 3 under 3 because Mac had a birthday recently. My oldest child is now 3 years old!
{his first solo attempt ever!}
He can now spell his name, sing several different Randy Travis songs from memory and says he's "big not little anymore."
My sweet baby boy is growing up so fast!
He now tells me that when he gets little again, he will live in my belly. Oh how I wish I could relive these last 3 years over and over. I miss his baby days so much, but I do love these times too.
For his birthday, Aaron and I took Mac on a real train ride. We rode, first class, along the river. He got to stand outside the cabin as the train traveled down the tracks and got to have cookies and lemonade.
The highlight was when the conductor punched his ticket. He said, "Daddy, the conductor punched my ticket crazy!"
He also got to have a picture with the conductor. It was really sweet.
Adrian recently celebrated his 13 month birthday! He still looks like a baby to me, but by all definitions, he's a toddler and a busy one at that!
He keeps up with Mac and tries to do everything he does, so if doesn't surprise me that he has skills that I wouldn't expect him to at 13 months.
The boys had a joint birthday party on Easter. It was a train themed party and they had so much fun.
How Ava's Doing
It wasn't until the day of the boys' party that I finally saw what everyone else had been seeing.
I've been told again and again that Ava looks like my dad and I now see it. I finally put it together when he was holding her on the day of the boys party. Now I see the resemblance everytime I look at her. She even has his completion.
{not the best picture, but you get the point}
The picture below was taken at 4 weeks old.
She is finally spending time awake during the day and I almost feel like that is related to her getting to her due date.
Even though she was pre-term by a mere 3 days, it seems to have been the difference. She was/is small and spent a lot more time sleeping than I remember with the boys.
At 5 weeks old she began to outgrow her newborn clothing. And is still hovering between newborn and 0-3 month sizes.
Breast feeding her is still going well. I can get really giddy when I think about how happy I am that she is nursing so well. It's just so much more than I could have hoped for.
She sleeps in bed with me at night for easy access to my breast if she wants. She typically feeds twice a night.
I am still waiting on a smile from this little lady. She is always very serious looking and so far has only smiled in her sleep.
I keep forgetting to mention it, but she has a Mongolian mark on her left wrist. You can see it in the picture of her being serious above.
The boys both have them on their lower backs (Adrian's is larger. Also that is the more common location).
The marks are common in our ethnicity and nothing to be concerned about.
How I'm Doing
Physically I'm doing just fine. Emotionally, I'm torn.
I knew I would get to this stage. The stage where I don't want to go back to work, but it's what I need to clear my anxiety.
With all of my children I have gotten to this point. I start feeling like I finally have a handle on things and just when I do I remember that soon I'll have to go back to work and when I do things will be shaken up again. It makes me worry and feel anxious which then makes me wish to just get it over with even though I don't really want to go.
Being home with the kids and tending to them all day isn't easy at all, but I know that I will miss it when I go back to work so I'm really trying to just focus on the present versus worry about the future.
However in preparation for the future (and my return to work) I have started to pump and store milk. I had no idea how and when to start this, but a resource I found helped me come up with a pumping schedule which is to pump for 10 after each feeding (always feed baby first). I just pour what I get from each session into a bottle to build it up and then when I reach my target amount I bag it up and freeze it. But I also alternate between feeding the freezer and having a 'fridge stash with MWF being 'fridge days and all others freezer days.
So far that is really working out!
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