Three Kids and a Baby...

...is a whole lot different from having four kids.  Four kids implies that your children have basically the same needs- they all eat and sleep and play around the same time every day.  Three kids and a baby means that you have one tiny person who demands your attention all. day. long. and three other small people who spend most of their time wandering around wondering whatever happened to that lady they used to call "Mom".  I remember the transition from two kids and a baby to having three kids.  I'm guessing right around the time having three kids felt easy was the time we decided to have another baby.  Technically we have four kids, but these days it's a whole lot more demanding than that.

Noah has just recently decided that he is okay with sleeping in small spurts not in my arms or with his nose shoved into my armpit.  He seems to like having his own quiet room and his own big crib to stretch out in.

For all of the complaining that I've done over the last three months about having him sleep in my bed, I felt a bit rejected last night when he tossed and turned and shook his head until I finally deposited him back in his own bed, where he immediately fell asleep.  He has never slept for longer than 4 or 5 hours, and that has only happened once or twice.  But he goes to bed around 7:00 and can stretch the night out until 9:00 the next morning, at which time he wakes up full of smiles and coos and the most adorable chubby-legged kicks and wiggles I've ever seen.

He loves to stare down the ceiling fan in my bedroom, and has plenty of emotion directed at "the thing that Mommy is always holding that is constantly in my face" - my phone.  It's where I take all of my pictures now, but he sure does not like it one little bit, as is illustrated by this series of pictures.

What a scowl!

He does not like to be held by other people.  He will tolerate Daddy and his sisters and brother in small doses, but strangers are just not okay.  I always cringe when people offer to "take him off my hands" for me, only to watch him erupt into screams and then apologetically hand him back to me.  I've had other babies that are content to be passed around to anyone that is looking for a quick baby fix, but Noah, not so much.

I confided in a friend one day that for the first six weeks or so I hadn't been feeling much joy in the newborn stage.  Newborns can be so hard.  When they need you, they need everything you have to give, and that doesn't leave much to give the other people in your family.  I hate to think that I've glossed over this fact in the past on my blog, but the truth is, the love that I feel for each of my babies as we've bonded and learn to work together is so huge and wonderful and all-encompassing, it really does erase the memory of the hard times.  The love of a mother's heart is such an amazing thing.  Even on the hardest of days, I am so grateful that I get the chance to be this little man's mother.

And it's not that I want to forget the hard days, but I'd just so much rather remember the good ones.  The chub of his thighs.  The adorable baby snorts when he's crying.  The way he immediately calms down when he hears my voice.  The soft fuzz of his head and the sweet smiles that he offers me in his sleep when his belly is full and he's all settled down.  He is completely irresistible.