SAHM-hood

For those of you not aware, SAHM = stay-at-home-mom. This time around, I'm relishing staying at home with my little man. I think with Emma I was so frazzled and ready for Emma to make it to the next mile-stone, that I didn't appreciate her babyhood. Is it like that with all 1st children ladies? Regardless, I'm IN LOVE with this little boy. Don't get me wrong, Emma is still the center of my universe too, but I have such a strong UHMPH for this boy. It's like my heart has expanded to 3 times its normal size. I know this smacks of complete cheesy overload, but I can't help it. I was ready to go back to work when my maternity leave was over with Emma. I'm not sure I'm going to be OK when I have to go back to work this time. Now, if Emma was staying home with us every day, that might be a different story but right now, I'm loving being at home with him. Then when Emma comes home in the afternoons, it's a lot of fun too but a lot more work. Jackson stays where I put him, you know. Plus, he sleeps a lot. Emma - not so much with the sleeping. :)

I checked my email from school/work today. I have 377 messages. I stopped trying to go through them after the first 2 pages of messages - most of which I deleted. I think I'll just mass delete them all when I go back in April.

So - updates. Mom and Dad stayed here with us for the 1st week and Andy's folks were with us the 2nd week. They were a great help as well as doting on both grandbabies while they were here. As much as we appreciated the help, I think it was good to be alone last week. Emma really enjoyed being more involved with him last week and having me and Andy back to be with her one on one. Leanne came this weekend and it was a great visit. I think she enjoyed being the Aunt extroidanaire and was happy to head back to her childless home on Sunday. It was probably good birth-control. We took both kids to the mall on Saturday and we ALL needed a nap when we got back.

Emma is doing FABULOUSLY with Jackson. She loves to help me and she wants to hold him all the time. She is a great big sister. So far, there's only been one incident of her acting out against him and it was more her reacting to something Andy had said to her than her being mean to Jackson. She also likes to help me settle him down when he's fussy. She puts her hand on the top of his head and says, "It's OK, Jackson. Sissy's here." The only downside to this is that if he doesn't settle down easily, she feels that saying this LOUDER and directly in his face, will help. "IT'S OK, JACKSON. SISSY'S HERE!" We're working on that. At least she's trying. The one thing that's scary is that his ear-piercing screams at night don't seem to phase her at all. Lisa, I didn't believe you when you told me Avery ignored Savannah's crying. I am now a believer. She sleeps right through it and sometimes sits right next to him on the couch and acts like she can't hear the noises that are making the cats cower under the beds.

Speaking of cats - they have vacated our bedroom at night. Max is sleeping on the couch and Zoey is sleeping in one of the kitchen baskets on top of the kitchen cabinets. Zoey has also claimed the "sheet-saver" in Jackson's crib. She'll have to give it up when he starts sleeping in his crib in a few weeks.

We have actually kept him in the room with us at night. Emma slept in her room, in her crib from Night 2 at home. She was a noisy sleeper - still is. He is sleeping in the pack 'n play in our room. It works well for his feedings. We'll probably put him in his crib when he works down to one meal at night. At night, he's already going 4 hours between meals after his midnight meal. That is encouraging. I'm going back to work when he's 8 weeks old so I'm hoping soon after that, he'll be sleeping from about 10:00 until 5:00 or so. That would be fabulous. Emma slept through the night like that at about 9 weeks so hopefully he'll follow his sister's lead.

Gotta go pick up Emma. Gimme a call. I'm just hanging out doing lots of baby laundry and watching HGTV.