Anyway, life as a family of five is good, and it's only going to get better. Anna and Kate are completely smitten with their little brother. I don't know that any other little boy has received as much love and kisses as Ethan has. That's not true. I'm sure other babies get spoiled by their big sisters, too, but it doesn't change the fact that the girls are in love. They like to hold him, sing songs to him, tickle his toes, or just watch him.
Both Kate and Anna have started taking care of their baby dolls in a much more directed manner in the past week, too. The babies, Claire (Anna's) and Ella (Kate's), get rocked, swaddled, carried around, "milked", played with, and taken on walks. In fact, yesterday afternoon we took a family walk around the block since it was a balmy 60 degrees here in Wisconsin.
They're both showing their transition anxiety in their own way. Kate, my snuggler, missed me while I was gone. On Thursday afternoon and then again on Friday she just wanted to cuddle with me in bed for long periods of time. I'm okay with that :) She's also had a bit of potty regression and is a bit feistier at mealtimes, but I'm sure we'll work through that.
Anna told us on Friday that she didn't want to go to school. I can understand that. She just wanted to hang out at home with her family. She feels most loved and special when she's with us, so it was hard for her to say good-bye for the day. But we had a good weekend with lots of special things and today I think she was looking forward to being back at school. Mostly, Anna has truly risen to the occasion of being the double big sister :)
We were able to make it to church yesterday morning, with a bit of adjustments to the normal routine. The kids and I all piled in the van while Matt drove his car, so that Ethan and I could leave before Sunday School was over while the girls could still have their normal Sunday activities. We had simply hoped to make it to church as a family and I'd completely forgotten how much babies are loved at our church! It took Ethan and I at least 15 minutes to make it from the front door into the sanctuary. And it's not like people at church haven't seen little babies in awhile; Ethan was the third boy born in November and the sixth baby born since the beginning of August! Everyone jokes that there must be something in the water at our church :)
Backing up another day, Ethan had his check-up with our doctor on Saturday morning. I brought Anna along with us so that she and I could have a special date (she'd been asking for one since I was in the hospital). Ethan weighed 8 lbs. 13 oz. at the time - about the same as he'd weighed on Thursday when we left the hospital - all normal. I can already tell that he's put on weight since Saturday; the little guy's thighs are filling out again :) Overall, Ethan is perfectly normal. We are so blessed!
Our family doctor checked my blood pressure since it had still been high on Thursday morning at the hospital and it was on it's way back down. Still, I'm supposed to go to my ob tomorrow morning for another blood pressure check. I can tell that it's probably close to normal again; my overall puffiness of the last few weeks is almost completely gone, I'm actually wearing long pants and long sleeves again (instead of capris and short sleeves), and I enjoy being covered up at night when I'm sleeping!
As for Ethan, so far he is a laid back baby. When he is awake, he is very, very alert. He loves to listen to everyone around him and watch whatever he can actually see. His body is also often still and calm when he's awake, which I would not have guessed based on how active he was during pregnancy :)
He's also a pretty good eater and sleeper so far. The last two nights he's only woken up twice between about 8:30 and 6:30, a big improvement over the first few nights. Now if only I could go back to sleep as easily as he does!
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