Sarah is 5 weeks old! This was originally going to be a one month update, but I wasn't able to get the post done soon enough. Sarah has become quite chubby in the past five weeks, weighing somewhere between 10 and 11 pounds now. I've started referring to her as our little meatball. Up until about a week ago, she'd been a pretty good sleeper, but is slowly turning into a little terror. She still mostly eats, sleeps, and soils diapers all day long, but is spending more time awake these days. Unfortunately most of her awake time is spent crying! Always crying! She is rarely awake and at peace. I am at a loss as to what is wrong. I have no ability to discern the "different cries." In fact, I'm pretty sure they're all the same. For now, I'm just hoping that this is a phase and part of the "fussiness peak" that's supposed to happen around this time. In the mean time, I'm going to try to put her on a schedule to see if that helps. So far I've just fed on demand and let her nap whenever...basically fitting her into Noah's life, which maybe is kind of chaotic for her. Other than crying 75% of the time she's awake, she seems pretty healthy! :) Nursing is going well and definitely much easier this time around. I think that with Noah, every nursing session was a big ordeal and I used to marvel at how women could just eat or do other things while nursing. It's still a bit cumbersome at times, but for the most part, I can be more relaxed about nursing. Not to the point of nursing with no nursing cover though. That may be a bit too relaxed.
I've also now spent the past 5 weeks as a mother of two. I've received, and continue to receive lots of help from family and friends (Peter helps a lot too, but as the dad, I think he's kind of obligated to do so), but it still seems like a big accomplishment. Every day seems like a big undertaking and I can't really relax until both kids are sleeping at night. Sarah wakes up to nurse at night, but she usually gets in a good 4 or 5 hour stretch of sleep first, so I have a few hours to myself. While it has been somewhat easier (though no less frustrating) to take care of Sarah because we've had an infant before, it continues to be difficult to take care of Noah, as he's still going through new things. I think Noah had a particularly difficult time during the initial transition period, but things have calmed down a lot since then. But still, taking on both at the same time can be very tricky. Noah is very sweet with Sarah and always wants to say hi, give her kisses, and share his toys with her, but he's still a 2 year old and his emotions run high. Some days, everything goes smoothly, the kids are napping when I want them to nap, eating when I want them to eat, minimal crying, and I even cook dinner. On these days I feel like I can take on anything. Then the next day everything falls apart, everyone's crying, and it is really hard to hold it together until Peter gets home.
Today was somewhere in between those two extremes...had a nice trip to the zoo with the help and company of Amy, and even though Noah isn't napping like he should be right now, he's at least content hanging out in his crib, and Sarah's napping, so it's nap time for mommy.
