About an Edmund and a Harriet

During Edmund's first few days, I imagined what my evening routine would be like: Harriet would fall asleep, Edmund would nurse lazily, and I would have a few quiet moments to write a blog post.  Scratch all of that.  This is the first night in two weeks that my ideal evening has become a reality.  I'm enjoying it tremendously and you are getting a little update on life in these here parts.

Edmund is doing marvelously.  He eats heartily, sleeps soundly, poops loudly, and amuses us with his quizzical expressions each time he condescends to wake up and engage with the world.  He is so ridiculously laid back.  I don't think I could have appreciated this quite so much if it weren't for the stark contrast between Harriet and Edmund in this respect.  I commented to Steve the other day that I am excited to see what E's personality is going to be and not just what I'm projecting onto him.  Then we both agreed that Harriet's personality has been the same from day one...and Edmund is likely the same way.  I know I lectured the poor guy in utero about being a chill individual, but it's just so shocking!

Get this, people: he sleeps in his own bed.  Without waking up.  For hours.

(Okay, so maybe this is a hunky dory newborn behavior, but I can honestly count with one finger the number of times Harriet slept in a bassinet at this age.  One time.)

Anyways, Edmund has overcome a nasty diaper rash, a blocked tear duct, and a goopy umbilical cord site all in one week.  The poor kid was oozing from all sorts of places, and I felt very sorry for him.  He handled all of my wiping and massaging and ointment-applying and is now happily on the mend.  While I have been extremely cautious about exposing him to the illnesses that seem to blossom at this time of year (curse winter), we have been able to get out and about.  We went to church on Sunday for the first time since his birth and he successfully slept through the entire service.

And how is Harriet doing, you ask?  Harriet loves Baby Edmund.  She says to him, "Whatcha doing?" and "I seeeee you!"  She offers him crackers, and I have to remind her that Baby Edmund doesn't have any teeth and is therefore unable to consume her big girl food.  She loves to touch his hair and point out his facial features.  She is generally very sweet and kind to him, but sometimes she gets a little pushy - especially when I'm having to care for him and am not able to jump up and meet her needs immediately.  While she is very welcoming toward Baby E, the transition to life with a new person in the house has been rather rough at times.  She seems to keep finding new buttons to push each week, and we keep riding them out.  Week one was temper tantrums, week two was whining, and now week three is not going to sleep at bedtime.  Eesh.  Things are getting better overall, I think.  We are gradually easing back into our normal routine and I think she senses that the world isn't falling apart quite as quickly as she anticipated.  The good thing is that she will never remember not having Edmund in her life.

Harriet says pretty much everything and is combining more and more words to form sentences.  My least favourite sentence is "No, stop it!"  But I love sentences like, "Baby Edmund so cute."  Or "Mommy, come here!"  She is basically surviving on crackers these days. I used to pride myself on the variety of food that she enjoyed, but now we are down to crackers, beans and rice, and oatmeal.  These aren't bad types of food on which to exist, so I'm not worried about it.  We did have an exciting cracker experience this evening when she insisted on taking her beloved graham cracker into the bathtub with her, despite my repeated explanations of what would happen to the cracker.  Sure enough, the graham cracker fell into the water, disintegrated, and freaked the living daylights out of Harriet.  "It's yucky!" she wailed, and refused to sit back down in the water even after I had removed the slimy bits of cracker.  Live and learn, child.

Oh wow, the sleeping Edmund just filled his drawers.  Exciting times....