Our first week.

Today marks a week since Nate went back to work. Now ~ he works from home so this has not been a huge shift, but it has meant that the bulk of the daytime responsibility for the kids shifted back to me a week ago. He goes out of town for the first time next week, which I feel well prepared for at this point. Three kids! I still can't believe I have three kids.

We are managing. I have moments where it feels like we are sailing through this adjustment to being a family of 5, and others where I feel as though surely I am mere moments away from utter mental breakdown. (Mom? Mom? Mama? Mom? Mom, LOOK AT ME? Mom. Jake? Where is baby Jake? Baby Jake I love you. Baby Jake do you want to eat some of this cookie? Cookie, Jake? Mom? Mama? Mom? WAAAAAA, WAAAAAAAAAAA, (nurse, nurse, nurse) Mama I have to go poop! SO DO I MOM, I HAVE TO GO POOP FIRST MOM! Mama? Mom? Mom? Mom LOOK AT ME?! WAAAAAAA, WAAAAAAA, nurse, nurse, nurse).

This weekend was great. I spent all of Friday afternoon laying around outside reading magazines while all three kids slept ~ when they woke up we turned on the sprinklers, got on bathing suits, and got down and dirty with some watermelon. We attended Parents Night Out at ACAC with Jeannie and Tim ~ L&J played happily in kid zone while we took our baby boys out by the pool for some adult style R&R and conversation. Saturday we went to the Main Line Food & Jazz fest as a family and then all went out to dinner (I learned something ~ don't order a giant bowl of mussels for dinner as they are almost impossible to eat while nursing a baby. Duh), and Sunday we had a picnic with our breakfast sandwiches at a local lacrosse tournament. (Luke wants to be a goalie, which makes me unduly proud). TJ and Amanda came over and fed us an amazing meal that they lovingly prepared and cleaned up for us. We went to bed that night happy and pretty much feeling like we had this gig mostly, tentatively, figured out. That is, until Jake decided to pull an all night party on me for the very first time ~ meaning that come Monday AM I was deathly afraid of getting out of bed to face the day with 3 kids 3 and under on hardly any sleep at all.

I think that it is going to be a work in progress for a good while. The key is getting OUT OF THE HOUSE. Staying inside all day = possible mental breakdown for me. Whether it be to the pool, the gym, the park, or a friends house, it is critical that we get out. Otherwise the noise, the mess, the Mom, Mama? Mom! threatens to overwhelm me. Today we went to the park with Erin and her boys and then I actually braved lunch out with the 3 kids for the first time. It went great! It seems like its just a lot of trial and error at this point ~ even down to dumb details like when to use the sling and when to use a stroller and which stroller and what parks and how and what and where and why and all of that. Really Mothering is little more than loving the shit out of your kids and being really really good at managing logistics/multitasking. If you can love till you feel like your heart might break and you can do seven things at once, you will enjoy and even thrive with several young kids.

This weekends challenge : Newborn at a wedding! We luckily got quite good at this with Julia (Luke went to one wedding as a newborn and Jules to three ~ so this feels relatively old hat at this point) and on Sunday we will introduce Jake to a bottle of pumped milk as he hits three weeks old on Thursday. My first time out without Jake is going to be July 1 as Nate and I belatedly celebrate my birthday at Gilmore's (I was NOT going to Gilmore's with a baby, nuh uh no way), so I would like to put some of this massive quantity of pumped milk to good use by getting our little guy comfortable with the occasional bottle).