The littlest nut

It's been so long since I was blogging regularly that the blog hasn't been introduced to our littlest nut.

 

Blog meet DD.

He was born at the end of May and, though we were nervous about returning to the baby stage, he has been our easiest baby to adjust to. It was like he just slid into our family and we carried on without a hiccup. I think we are a lot more settled into our roles as parents now, so it was easier this time around.

 

 

He was a challenging baby to nurse, because he is tongue-tied, but we got it figured out eventually. Now, he's a pro! Sleep was great for the first few months, but now we are having trouble getting him to sleep in his own bed. I know this time is very short though, so we are getting through it ok.

 

He's a pretty happy kid who spends his days banging things together, watching all the action in the house, and soaking in the love from his big bro and big sis. They are amazing with him and it is so much fun to watch him develop through their eyes.

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His arms are always flapping and his legs are always kicking. He has shown little interest in getting mobile, which is perfectly fine with me - he'll be a busy little dude when he gets walking! For now, he is perfectly content to sit with a few toys and watch us all do our stuff.

 

He's quite a talker and though we aren't convinced that he is using words yet, he babbles, yells, sings, and growls constantly.

 

We are so glad that we decided to add him to our family. It is wonderful to hold another little one in my arms and he has brought so much joy into our lives!

 

 

It's time...

I love coming back here from time to time to read back on our stories. I'm sad that there's a gap in our record but then I came across this post that I wrote three years ago, which made me feel better.

My goal was to focus on being mommy more. I'll never feel like I'm doing a good enough job, but as I look back over the last couple of years, I'm proud to see that I've been way more intentional about my parenting. I've been busy teaching my kids plenty of mundane, yet important life skills. Skills like cutting their own nails, doing up their seat belts, working out arguments, and wiping their own butts. (You may laugh, but seriously, that last one was a much bigger ordeal than it should've been. Back when JJ was 3, not even the fear that a bear had eaten mommy was enough to get him to wipe his own butt and get off the toilet to come check on me!)

My favorite part of the post I wrote three years ago is this:

When the kids look back on this period of time, and wonder why there aren't any stories or pictures, I hope I can say to them, it's because mommy was too busy playing with you, doing crafts, taking the time to adapt my chores so that you could help me, finding ways to involve you in preparing meals, jumping in rain puddles, making birthday cakes that you talked about for months afterward...

While I can't say I've been awesome at playing with them (anyone else find imaginative play difficult?) and we are sadly way behind on our rain puddle jumping, I have been doing crafts, adapting my chores, and including them with meal prep. The birthday cakes have been less than impressive, but we've made some pretty amazing pizzas together.

We've been working for at least 3 years teaching the kids chores. And we are finally seeing some payback. They now have a good list of chores that they are able to do on their own or with a small amount of supervision. And as a surprise bonus for me, I find myself with a small amount of free time and the desire to write again.

So after little dusting off of the blog (and it looks like we are missing a kid's picture on here!), I'll be back.