Now that we're on our fourth kid, you'd think that we're experts and know exactly what we're doing. Well, here's what we know: While you're in the hospital you sleep as much as possible, you rely on friends and family to manage everything, and you just hold that new baby and treasure the miracle of it all. But, eventually, that hospital stay comes to an end, and everyone has to put on their regular clothes and go home.
And then, it's time to figure out how to survive for the next three months until some sort of regular schedule can again be established. Those first few days and weeks are just a weird blur of odd bits of sleep, many feedings, many, many diapers, and wonderful people coming from nowhere to bring you food. But the real life-saver for us has always been: Grandmothers! Because Archer failed to comply with our timeline and showed up 2 weeks early, we were caught way off-guard in terms of having help around to keep our house afloat. We are so grateful that Grandma Iverson and Grandma Lori both made unplanned, last-minute trips to help us manage those first 7 days. Of course, we let them have as much Archer time as they wanted:
In fact, we all made sure to take lots of time to just cuddle him:
This picture was a good reminder that Sam is no longer the baby!
Look-alikes! Clockwise, from top left: Henry, Ellis, Archer, Sam
I love how much the older brothers adore Archer. They can't get enough of him!
Having a newborn around is a major shock to the system. But, life still had to happen! Here are some other things we crammed into those first couple of weeks:
Yummy Peach Dessert! Grandma Lori made sure this was made a couple of times while she was here. :)
Ellis' 7th birthday! We had to postpone his birthday party (blog post on that is forthcoming), but we made sure he got a special treat on his special day.
Okay, actually we made sure we all got a special treat on his special day.
First day of preschool for Sam
A newborn photo shoot
Refinishing this chair we picked up at a rummage sale (with help from Grandpa Dave, of course!)
Not bad for juggling a FOUR boys for the first time!
1 comment:
Impossible! I can't believe you guys survived that! I'm glad it feels like maybe that part is over and on to other survival techniques. What a precious beautiful little boy. If we get to do it again, I hope to feel less desperate knowing that it does get better and I hope to take more time to just cuddle, knowing that we'll survive.
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