Thursday, March 4, 2010

Family Time

Because no one has invented a house that will pay for itself yet, even though it's the year 2010 (Seriously. Somebody get on that. Do I have to think of everything?) I had to return to work last week. Hence the lack of updates to the site. We're all still settling into our groove and finding when the new routine allows our free time to happen.

The two weeks I was able to take off from work were really wonderful. It was a blessing to be able to spend that time with Madelyn, Patrick and Angie. Patrick and I had a lot of good time together while Angie took care of feeding Madelyn and I was able to take Madelyn off Angie's hands at times so she could enjoy some one-on-one with Patrick as well. And I can never get enough time with Angie so it was great having two weeks to just hang out with our kids. It's such a cool feeling to think that this is OUR family. Ang and I keep having to remind ourselves of that as we see Patrick trying to show Madelyn his new shoes or explain that she can't eat his food because she doesn't have teeth. It's so exciting to think that these are the two kids we'll be spending the rest of our lives with and watching grow up to be adults.

Patrick still seems to be adjusting well to Madelyn's arrival, although this week has posed new challenges as Madelyn becomes more and more aware and requires more of Angie's attention during the day. If you've ever been around Patrick, you know he isn't a big fan of NOT being stimulated in some way. He loves to play and run and discover and he loves it even more if there's someone there to share in the experience with him. He's a very social kid and about the only time he sits still is when we're reading books, at which point he'll sit for hours at a time if you let him. He's great at playing by himself but a 19-month-old can only do that for so long. This last week he's had to start learning how to deal with sharing Mommy's time and attention with someone else during the day. He's doing a great job adjusting so far and doesn't seem to resent Madelyn for it at all but it has meant a couple meltdowns recently. As always, Angie is handling the whole thing amazingly. I've always been impressed with Angie as a mother and seeing her now as a mother of two is doubly impressive. She knows exactly what to do and is extremely creative when it comes to doing things like entertaining Patrick while trying to feed Madelyn. It would be very easy for her to just turn on a movie and sit Patrick in front of it every time she needed to tend to Madelyn (and, let's be honest, I'm sure there will be days like that sometimes). But she does things like have Patrick help her bake brownies or make dinner or clean the house. When she has to do something that's specifically with Madelyn whether it's out of necessity, like feeding or changing a diaper, or just out of fun, like playing with Madelyn and her toys or reading to her, she makes sure to get Patrick involved in some fun way where he feels important. In the first two days of being home alone with both kids she somehow managed to pull off an arts and crafts project with both of them, go to the store twice and clean the house. All things I can barely manage to do on my own. Especially the arts and crafts.

As for Madelyn: she's incredible. We wake up happy every day to have her in our lives. She's such a content and sweet baby. She's just over three weeks old and is starting to be more awake and aware of us during the day. She looks for us when she hears our voices and does that great thing babies do where they just start waving their arms and legs when they get excited.

Since the last post about our snow day, we've had a beautiful weekend in which the four of us went to the park and then another snow day just a couple days ago. And, it looks like this weekend is supposed to be sunny and in the 60s again. Go figure. Here are some pictures from our family trip to the park last weekend and a few others from the last two weeks.


1 comment:

Meme said...

This is so touching and so lovely. Family of your own. Wonderful to see your dreams come true. Love you four-meme