Sorry Summer-girl! I missed a week.
Hard to blame me though, with the Holiday season and company in town. Finding a moment to give an update on these early days with you has proven more difficult than originally anticipated. Not to mention that my early hubris that you would be an easy baby is now being punished.
Yes. As some of the nurses warned me, Summer "woke up" as she approached her gestational intended birthday of Christmas. This has been fun in some ways as we've gotten to see more of her dinner plate big baby blues. However, her predicable and reliable sleep patterns went out the window with this newfound alertness. She still doesn't fuss as much as her brother did but what she lacks in fussing she makes up for in night-time, half-lucid, poo-grunts. This has been taxing on Kimbre and I as even with our trade-off at night system, chaining any reasonably long window of sleep together has proven difficult.
I love my kids but the first few months in the newborn phase are certainly hard. Christmas eve was as extreme of parenting roller coaster for me as I have ever experienced.
The evening was the top of the first hill. The candlelight service at the pretty Methodist Church here in Corvallis was a fantastic moment of family togetherness. Summer looked freaking adorable in her little Christmas dress, the first formal outfit we'd ever tried putting on her and I loved experiencing the magic of the season with my little family, looking forward to years of great Christmas' together to come.
The evening and night was a different story. Summer kept me up all night with her fussing. She was just impossible to please. Every time I thought I had calmed her down and I laid my head down to sleep, she would scream at me. It felt like she had a sensor on the couch that would shock her every time I laid my head down on it. Even little Jay got in on the mix with a bad dream demanding my attention at 1 am. Summer was still up then and crying as well, which left me juggling two crying kids and not enough hands or energy to get things quickly escalated.
As with most things though, I survived it and was rewarded with the unbeatable experience of Christmas morning with a 4 year old. Honestly, Jay's unbridled excitement and enthusiasm filled me with such a warmness that I would have endured a hundred tough Christmas eve nights just to experience it once.
Having kids is without a doubt, a sacrifice. In our case, it's a sacrifice we volunteered for, twice. The lows, at times, have left me feeling really down but the highs always seem to be just around the turn, reminding me how lucky I am.
That being said, I even need to cut this post short. Summer is crying again. I'll update with pictures and do some proofreading edits tomorrow (hopefully) when I find a free moment.
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