5 Days In as a mother of 2: What I've learned.

So here I sit: 5 days into being a mother of 2, at 3:32 in the morning. I'm wide awake. Daniel and I have been taking shifts with Allie. At first I couldn't sleep through her grunts and groans and little movements. I can now, but I went to bed at 8:45 so I'm not tired now. It'll hit me at about 3 tomorrow but it'll be fine. I know I can survive sleep deprivation and she's a much better sleeper than Dawson was. We roughly get 2 hours of sleep, up to eat and a diaper change, up for about 20-30 minutes and sleep again...so far anyway. It took til day 3 for this to work itself out, but I'm not stressing it. If I know anything as an experienced mom, once you think you've got it down it changes. Go with the flow.

Emotions: As excited as I've been to meet this little girl I've experienced a WIDE range of emotions since her birth. Guilt for changing Dawson's life. Happiness-obviously. Overjoyed and overwhelmed. I find my patience thin with D and that, at first, affected the way I was looking at all of this. I'd get frustrated for D for not realizing that Allie needs me and at Allie for not realizing that D needs me. Obviously this is irrational as they are both too small to even sort of comprehend that but it's what I was feeling. The first 3 days were rough on me. I love my little boy so much and I've changed his life so much and he's acted out more because of it. He's still my loving little boy, but I can tell all of this has been hard on him. I think he's worried that I'm going to leave again (like I did to go to the hospital) and/or that Allie is getting more attention. It's working itself out, but it's definitely a work in progress. I broke down last night because D decided to stay away til 3AM and the middle of the night is my sanity right now. Handling one child is much easier than 2. I felt much better after getting all of that out. I've cried a lot. Happy tears, sad tears, overwhelmed tears, fearful tears. Just a lot of tears. I know a lot of it is hormones and a lot of it is changes.

Daniel: Daniel was TERRIFIED of D when he was a newborn. It was really intimidating to him. This time around he's WONDERFUL. He's jumped right in with all of the things that took him time to do with D. Part of me is really happy about that and having him home to help has been great, but part of me is kind of worried that he'll have a stronger bond with Allie than with D. I really really hope not. D stays really close to me but I want him to have that same bond with Daniel too. I want to bond with Allie like I have with D too.

Anyway, just some late night thoughts, but here's some pictures from the last couple of weeks. We were busy before Allie with playing outside, carving pumpkins, and loving the last few days of a one childhood household. Now we're busy playing outside and loving our 2 babies.