9 weeks, 4,5 kilos

It's already 9 weeks ago that Miss N is born. I know I should have been writing every single day about her little moves and changes, the reaction of her sisters and more. But it's busy with a baby, family, house, husband, myself... Although I did have time to go out to a movie one evening (Jane Eyre, was OK), it's hard to steal time from anything just to turn on the computer and write.

Miss N is taking most of my time, but she is the easiest baby we had. She just does her baby things. I went out to lunch with her couple of times, she just slept through the whole meal. She sits in the car seat for hours so tat I can go get the groceries and to the post office, pick up kids, bring them to their activities etc, etc....Since week 6 she is smiling more and more. This week, i can see more alertness, more reaction to our actions. She is falling in love with her sisters. Already, they are interesting for Miss N. Although she is the best sleeper we have, I still couldn't figure out a good schedule. Two weeks ago, she was sleeping at 9.30-10.00, waking up in the middle of the night, around 3.30, and then not sleeping for 1,5 hours. I thought it was a pattern. This week though, she wakes up at 1.00am and 4.00 something.

Anyway, let's leave the sleeping patterns. What did we do lately. P went to his first trip when Miss N was 3 weeks. Did I have help! I had dinner brought every day to our house. Miss F and Miss A grew overnight. They had an understanding, I needed help, I didn't manage everything as before. One morning I went downstairs and they had breakfast ready, even a bowl of cereal for me.

During the week P was gone, Miss F said once to Miss A, as a matter of fact way - not sad, not mad, maybe a bit teasing, "She(meaning me) loves her (meaning Miss N) more then us, you know." She said it when I could hear her and I know she didn't mean the exact words. She meant to explain to Miss A that I just needed to spend more time with the baby. How do I know that, I can't explain. If she had mean it, I would be hurt, but I understood that she understood our situation. My biggest help, my little mothers.

Miss N was 4 weeks when Miss A turned 5. So proud was she, with her huge basket. She made her lunch all by herself and didn't express any reproach or sadness for staying at school until 2.30 instead of 11.30. She did ask me to pick her up as the first, but she always does that, so what's new?! The same evening, we had a sitter and went to Brooke's 40th bday dinner. It was at a restaurant in Lake Forest. We arrived 40 minutes late because Miss N was crying and I just couldn't leave. I literally arrived trembling and the first thing I did was to order a gin and tonic, my only drink the whole night.

Our first outing as family was to the Museum of Science and Industry, which went quite fine with three kids.

when Miss N was 6 weeks, Siska came for a week. It was fun, busy but fun. We went shopping, out for lunch, to kids' activities - ballet and gymnastics. We spent Sunday at the Museum of Science and Industry, Siska and I saw the Body World exhibition. It was very interesting to see all the mummified bodies and body parts. Miss N didn't like it, though.I had to nurse her twice in three hours and walk around holding her. Nevertheless, the exhibition was great. The same evening, we had dinner downtown - with a baby!

We had quite some guests at home. Blai and Carmina, Anne and Jeff. After Siska left Melinda and Toni and their families came over for dinner. Then last weekend, we had the big party, Miss A's Indian bday party. I spent days and days driving around to buy the necessities, cutting Indian tunics and head pieces, drawing indian figures on the big canvas that we turned into a teepee. I shouldn't forget Siska's help with the goodie bags, that was a lot of work, too. We had 19 kids + our two and couple little ones. I had help from 2 middle school kids, otherwise I wouldn't have survived it. We had to do the head pieces and tunics in the basement, the weather was cold and cloudy. The kids painted the canvas on the garage floor. During all this, poor Miss N was held by everyone, except me. At the end, P set up the teepee in the backyard. It looked - and still looks - great! after the party, 5 families stayed for dinner. The kids played in the teepee for the whole evening. It was, I think a successful party, it was surely fun.

Finally, the party is over, there are no visitors, no big dinner plans... I finally had two days that I could enjoy being home with Miss N. She is making the baby noises and gets mad at me when I put her on her belly. She can spend quite some time alone, she looks around, traps her legs and waves her arms. When I go back to her, she smiles. I read quite some Jane Eyre, which I read for my coming book club. She is 4,5 kilos already, almost double the birth weight. She grows so fast, and the other two grow so fast... I just want to slow the time and watch them growing every inch, every knowledge, wisdom and maturity level. Don't want to miss a thing!