Meeting the Cousins

My sisters each have three fun, creative, well-behaved little offspring whom I completely adore. Around the third week of his life, I decided it was time to head west and introduce Lucas to all of his cousins. It was so fun to see them react to him in ways that just totally fit their little personalities.

Heather lives in Winston which is halfway to Boone, so I stopped there first. Her kids were super excited to meet the little man.

Kaitlyn (10) was interested in meeting Lucas, but probably more interested in just catching up on things. She's at a fun, awkward age right between childhood and teenagerdom, so she has lots to chat about and lots of fun questions and observations about the boy.

Eliana (6) was smitten with him. She wanted to hold him constantly and was quite impatient when anyone else had a turn. My poor sister could only hold him for about 2 mins before Eliana was ready for her turn again. It was adorable. I will gladly let her be a baby hog anytime she's around:)

Owen (4) was a little more reserved. He was fine with sitting next to Lucas, but didn't really want to actually hold him. Understandable -- that's not really a boy thing. But I am glad that Lucas will have at least ONE boy cousin to play with.

After Heather's we went up to mom's and saw Amber's kids.

Sophia (6) is Amber's oldest and was a lot like Kaitlyn -- interested in holding him, but also very interested in just talking about him and making sure I knew how to be a mom. In her sagelike wisdom, she observed that he held his head up pretty well and wondered if I'd started letting him have tummy time. I actually hadn't thought about that yet, so I was pretty glad she mentioned it.

Julia (4) was a lot like Eliana -- not really into sharing the boy, but very interested in holding him and petting him. He fell asleep in her arms which just totally thrilled her. She kept saying "when he was in your hands, his eyes were open, but then he came to my hands and now he's sleeping." When Sophia would ask to hold him, Julia would say "No, you can't, I make him go to sleep." She also kept saying "he's just so cute, isn't he?" adorable.

Isabel (19 months) definitely had the funniest reaction. She thinks that she is a six-year-old, so I think she was completely oblivious to the fact that she would probably be considered a baby as well. She started out holding him on Maw-maw's lap, but that lasted all of about 5 seconds before she decided that she was big enough to hold him herself. She can't really talk yet, but the entire weekend whenever she decided it was her time to hold Lucas, she would walk in and stop jabbering very bossily at whoever had him. Then she'd crawl on the couch, put a pillow in her lap, and hold out her arms, palms open, making little grabby motions with her hands and talking animatedly until you gave him up. It was freakin hilarious. If you didn't give him to her immediately, she would glare and get a little loud until he was in her arms. I'm glad he has a cousin close to his age to play with and am quite certain she will put him right in his place:)

Surprises

Megan W. asked me the other day what I was most surprised about with motherhood. My immediate response was "Laundry!" because holy crap, this kid makes a huge mess for someone so small.

Now that I've had a little time to think about it, here are some things that have kind of taken me off guard in this whole parenting business:

The dichotomy of the emotions I feel. I was surprised that I could feel so honored and blessed to provide nourishment for my son, but, at the same time, feel so frustratingly tethered to this responsibility.

Cluster feeding. WTF?! No one told me about this. seriously. There were many tears shed in the first few days and much complaining along the lines of "he can't seriously be hungry again. he just can't." but he was.

How incredibly unprepared I was. I thought I was going to know what to expect with this whole parenting thing. I thought I had my eyes wide open going in -- after all, I have 5 nieces, one nephew and almost all of our friends have children. But I had no idea. I just had no idea how much there is to know and how silly and feeble you feel when faced with the responsibility of forming and shaping a human being.

Sleep deprivation. I find it amazing that I can still function and be slightly cognizant when I've only slept a few straight hours for weeks on end. It's amazing how much strength you have when you swear you have no more.

How much I care about poop. No seriously. Before we left the hospital, they gave us a chart of pictures of poop to look out for. We tracked his bowel movements and pees for the entire first 2 weeks of his life and discussed them frequently. I hate when moms put things on FB about poops, but I get it now -- you spend an amazing amount of time and energy focused on pooping.

Josh. He didn't have much to do with babies before ours came along. In fact, he would often refuse to hold them until they could hold their heads up. But not with Lucas. He's so hands on and willing to do anything and everything to help. He's smitten and I love it . . . I call him the baby whisperer because he can make Lucas calm down when I can't and has the unending patience that I lack. I didn't know having a baby would make me fall more in love with my husband, but I'm sure glad it has.

And of course the love. Just the amazing feeling you have when you look at the little person who you helped create. Lucas doesn't do anything at all and yet every part of me just bursts with pride and adoration when I look at our little man. I get so proud when people say he's cute and just find myself looking at him and thanking God constantly for this little blessing.