settling in

I read somewhere a few years back that after a mother has a baby, she should do nothing but sit around in her pj's and hold the baby for 6 weeks. I don't know what kind of fantasy world that person lives in, but mine would have to pretty much stop moving for that to ever come close to being a reality. My experience has been quite the opposite, and I've always found it interesting how you can bring a new little life into the world, make such a huge and enormous change in your life, and yet everything else in life keeps right on moving as if nothing ever changed. Laundry still has to be washed, dishes have to be cleaned, groceries have to be bought, meals have to be planned and made, big kids have to be tended to, bills have to be paid...and on and on. Life doesn't stop for the little one, as sweet as he may be. And you just kind of figure out how to work him into the routine as if he'd always been there.

We've been on our own now for two days and life already feels like it's back to normal, with just one small little adjustment. Little Elijah has settled quite nicely into the #4 spot and is trying his hardest to be as little of an inconvenience as possible--never cries unless he's hungry or getting changed, eats like a champ (the little porker was back up to his birth weight at 5 days old), sleeps and sleeps and sleeps, and is the sweetest little baby when he does finally wake up.

And so, it seems I'll still be spending my time doing the usual--doing laundry and washing dishes and planning meals and tending to big kids, because some things never change. But the rest of my time, I'll spend doing this...

...because some things do change, and these are the ones that matter.