Reinforcements

June 30, 2014 – Partly Sunny, 61°, Sunrise 4:27 am, Sunset 11:39 pm

We have been a family of four now for 2 months. The first weeks with N were not as hard as I thought they would be. The sneaky thing is that it’s gotten harder as we’ve gone on. Those first days were pure survival, and we were also in the “baby bubble”; no real life had to take place. Just nurse and sleep. Now though, life is back in full swing and balancing  two kiddos is just as tricky as everyone said it would be!

I’m also realizing, all my memories of J as a baby are from about 3 months on. His first 3 months are a total blur! I thought I would remember how it all went with him, and be ready to cope better with #2…nope.N is just starting to get into a bit of a routine, but the first 2 months were just as much of a guessing game as the first time around. I’m trying to stretch his nursing to every 3 hours, instead of every 2. At night he tends to wake around 2 am, 5 am and 7 am. Last night I successfully was able to soothe him, and skip actually nursing at 5. At his two month check up (which he passed with flying colors!) the pediatrician said he should start to stretch out his sleeping, so fingers crossed!

God designed babies well though, just when you’re getting to the end of your patience, they start to smile! We got our first few smiles this month, and it makes such a difference – now there’s a real connection. 

Thankfully, my parents came to visit, and provide reinforcements just in time! We were lucky enough for Mom to come and help out for 3 weeks (thanks for sharing her Dad!) and Dad came up for one of those weeks.

Since they have come to visit us before we didn’t feel the pressure that we had to get out and see things, they were happy to just live life with us for a bit. And there was a lot of just hanging out in pajamas, chasing J around, even a few house projects. But it is Alaska, so you can’t not do something!

With Mom, we went to the zoo, and got to see the 5 wolf cubs they saved from the Funny River wildfire. The Alaska Zoo is not going to keep them, they already have a pack of wolves, but they are nursing the cubs back to health before they’re sent on to their next home.

Funny River Five

When Dad came up, we took them on a walk to one of M’s favorite places to run to – Campbell Creek. M loves to take Dewey there to swim and burn off some energy, and J loves to go and throw rocks in the water. Grandada even showed him how to skip the rocks!

All my boys, running the trails

M also had a race scheduled while Mom and Dad were here. So on Father’s Day Sunday, we headed down to Bird Ridge to hike a little and cheer him on. The race is an uphill only race, 3 miles, 3,400 feet of elevation gain. Mom, Dad, the boys and I started early so we could get a little bit up the trail, rather than just watching M start. J did a great job hiking some, and Dad carried him in the pack for the rest of the way.

It was neat to be able to share the Alaska race scene with them. Mom was awed, and kept telling the racers “We’re from Ohio, I don’t know how you do this!”. We were cheering all the runners “way to go!”, which J picked up on and interpreted as we were telling them which way to go. So he started pointing up the trail and telling them “go this way”.

after the race

Our last big outing, was with just Mom, we went and hiked the Eklutna overlook. There’s a nice bench, part way up the trail, that looks out over the lake. It was a perfect place for a lunch break, and for our first family of four picture where you can actually see N too.

Eklutna Lake

We are so thankful for the time we got to spend with Mom and Dad, the chance they got to love on J and N, and just for the wonderful examples that they are. We miss them already! And at the same time, it’s been really fun to get back to just the four of us. Yes it’s harder, but richer too!