Incremental Living

Such is life with a newborn.  With the first three kids, it felt like the newborn stage was a series of 2-3 hour increments.  I lived from feeding to feeding.  Sometimes I was able to finish a task in between, but usually not.  It's amazing how much longer things take to accomplish in this stage of life.  Loading and unloading the dishwasher?  At least a couple of hours.  Washing a load of clothes?  After you consider having to re-wash them because you forgot about them sitting in there, well, it's a minimum of double the time it would have been.  Taking a shower?  Though it remains at the top of your priority list (even a quick 5-minute rinse off would suffice), it seems to be one of the last tasks that gets checked off, and even then, you usually have a two-year-old stripping their clothes off moments after you jump in because they "want a shower too."  

It sounds like I'm complaining.  I'm not.  This is just how life goes with a newborn.

I wrote several weeks ago now (man, time flies) about how I wasn't nervous about the changes that #4 would bring.  I'm still not.  She's just...a part of the family.  We know how this newborn thing goes.  But the thing that I didn't expect is that instead of 2-3 hour increments, life is a series of 5-10 minute increments.  It's the amount of time Leah sleeps consecutively without being poked or prodded or bumped by a big sibling.  It's the amount of time she goes before she thinks she's hungry again.  It's the amount of time Sarah takes to find something mischievous to get into while I'm changing a stinky diaper.  It's the length of time before a deafening crash comes from another room while I'm nursing.  It's the amount of time Leah is in her swing, sleeping soundly, before one of her big sisters thinks they need to turn the music on with it at an ear-piercing decibel level (seriously - why does it even go that loud?). 

I'm not one to tip-toe around a newborn.  This is life at our house.  But it would be nice to up life to 30-minute increments.  Shoot, even this very short blog post is going to take hours.  I can feel it. 

In the interest of brevity (and accommodating my own spurts of living), here are some photos from the past couple of weeks.  Just so you know we're all still out here...being crazy, loving on each other, and trying against all odds to get some sleep while we can.

Because she wasn't sleeping peacefully enough, someone (cough, Abby) decided Leah needed a little decoration whilst she was swinging.  

Since Daddy's off work, Sarah got to take a nap one day in our bed.  Look at that little foot up in the air.  She was konked out!

Wide awake and looking for food, no doubt.

Apparently, Leah doesn't like being amongst the animals in Abby's bed.

Playing on the new bunk beds...I owe you a whole post on these things, for sure!

 

Our sleeping princess.  (Even if she has a little bit of a furrowed brow in her sleep.  She gets her facial expressions from her mother.  True story.)

For now, I'm off to find another 5-10 minute task - which may or may not include parking it in front of the television with a cup of coffee.  

I'll never tell... 

P.S. - The irony of it all is that now that I have "no time" to blog, I have all sorts of ideas of things about which to write.  I'll just start a list.  Wouldn't want to deprive anyone of these compelling blog posts.  Until then, have fun on the edge of your seat.  (wink, wink)