Quinn, Troubadour

I'm back to work now.  Week 2.  Week 1 was a half week.  Everybody seems to be adjusting well.  I'm going in earlier and getting home earlier, which seems to be working well for everybody so far.  Quinn was sad as I left this morning - he and I played a lot together while I was off and that is a hard part of the adjustment.  For me too.  I promised to play with him when I got home and off I went.

Bec, Quinn and Rilla went to the children's museum today, one of Quinn's favourite places.  They had a blast and Quinn ran everywhere.  As they sat down for lunch Quinn sang The Marilla Song that I sing to her all the time.  He did a pretty true rendition of it and Bec was impressed.  "Daddy would love to hear that I'm sure" said mommy.  "Can I phone him at work and sing it?" asked Quinn.  And so he did.  It was a welcome break, and it was a pretty true rendition.  Quinn can now add it to his repertoire of "Me and my pickup truck, we don't pick up much", "American Pie", Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Old McDonald had a farm, pickle edition (with a crunch crunch here...).

Good clean fun, mostly

Quinn and I were playing space lego, his new favourite thing.  He was bouncing around like he always does when he has to pee.  I figured he's big enough that he should be able to go to the bathroom when he needs to.  He always seems so put out when you ask him if he needs to pee.  While he has been capable of going to the bathroom on his own for quite awhile now, it's only recently that he has chosen to do so again (with a little prodding).  Finally he stated, unprompted, that he really needed to pee.  Off he went.  It was quiet for a time.  Then I hear "I think I need new underwear".  Then, "I think I need new shorts too".  Followed by "I think some went on the floor".  And at last by "actually I think it's a lot on the floor".  Off Quinn went to get clean clothes.  Off I went to get clean floors.  It was a sizeable puddle.  It's very unusual for Quinn to have an accident - in fact it's the first one since he toilet trained as far as I know.  I gently suggested to Quinn that perhaps the next time he doesn't need to wait until it's an emergency before going to the bathroom.  He agreed.  Hopefully it's a life lesson learned.  A now we have a clean spot on our bathroom floor.

Then it was bathtime.  Rilla and Quinn were going to have a bath together.  Bec decided to weigh herself with Rilla to get a weight for her.  Surely it can't hurt to take an extra minute Bec thought.  Rilla peed.  Rilla peed a lot.  Mommy needed a new shirt.  Mommy needed new pajama bottoms.  Some went on the floor.  Actually a lot went on the floor.  How can such a small girl hold so much pee?  Some went on the sink, the scales and various other places.  Mommy, accustomed to bodily fluids, continued with the bath.  Off I went to get clean floors.  Again.  Now we have two clean spots on the bathroom floor.

Quinn and Rilla had a blast in the bath.  Rilla really seems to like it.  Quinn squirted her in the belly.  Mommy and Rilla squirted Quinn back.  The first couple of baths Rilla squawked briefly upon getting out, but now she doesn't even do that.  Mommy got some dry clothes, and I admired the floors.

The name game

When we chose Quinn's name, Bec was adamant that we choose a name that was unmodifiable.  And largely we succeeded.  He still gets "Little Bear", but any Quinn derivative or modifier elicits an "I'm just Quinn" from Quinn himself.

Marilla however is so far known as:
- Rilla
- Rill
- Rillabean
- Rilla-bo-billa-bo-banna-banna-bo-billa (Quinn's favourite)
- Miss Marilla
- Rillapooh
- Rilla Jane
- MJ

All in all, her name seems very natural to us, a perfect fit in all its various forms.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go...

Sadly, my month off is up.  It's been great and I don't want it to end.  I have spent a whole lot of time with Quinn and that has been fantastic.  Sure, there were lots of times when I thought my head would explode with one more 'why', but he is a great little boy (not so little any more!) and I've had the opportunity to bond with him this last month more than any other time during his four-and-a-half years.  We've gone to three museums (five if you count the three museums at Civilization separately), gone to the park a lot, gone for a bike-ride/water taxi adventure, and we even had fun grocery shopping today.  We've played soccer, water play, lego, moon buggy, helicopter rescue, pillow fight, jetpack.  He has become quite attached to his green OLPC computer, and operates it quite proficiently ("I'm recalibrating the mouse" he says triumphantly as he resets the finger pad driver with a keystroke combination...substitute mouse ordered...).  We watched Daily Planet, helicopter rescue videos and some Olympics.  He calls me "Dave". I fall asleep with him every night and wake up / get up with him every morning.

Marilla is doing well.  One month old.  Wow the time flies.  Sleep is still sketchy - last night was bad for Bec.  She started smiling about a week ago, at least for daddy and Quinn.  Much to mommy's chagrin she doesn't get as much smiling, which has been hard for her given how much she does for her.  It's the novelty factor I'm sure - I remember going through that with Quinn too.  With respect to breastfeeding, Marilla is in the transition period from a one-boober to a two-boober.  Her stomach hasn't quite grown to two-boob stature yet and as a result the entire contents quite often erupt.  Poor little girl - she looks up so plaintively amid all the scurrying around it causes.  She continues to be largely readable and consolable.  She has had a couple of sustained crying episodes (that I know of) but even those weren't off the scale like I remember some of Quinn's.  The best part for me is that she seems to now recognize "The Marilla Song" that I sing her every day, and she smiles when she hears it.  It lights up my heart.

And now I head back to work.  It's going to be hard.  Hardest on Bec, especially with respect to sleep.  She has been making up an hour or two of sleep in the morning, which won't be possible with Quinn up.  Quinn has been fantastic with Rilla, but I'm worried that she will become more competition now.  My days will become hectic again, once again squeezed for time on all fronts and feeling inadequate in all roles in my life.  But as I keep stressing to Quinn, we are family and we stick together and help one another.  We'll get through it.

Late breaking news: it's 4:30am and Rilla (and mommy) slept 10 til 4!  Maybe this is a good omen...amen to that!

She's a snoozer...

...during the day at least.  First excursion outside: slept.  First trip in the car: naptime.  First trip to the pub for dinner: snooze city.  First trip in the stroller: yawwwn.  Midwife visit: zeds, excepting some grunts while being weighed (10 lbs at two weeks - growing like a weed!).  Park? Snooze.  Beach?  Soporific.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for nighttime hours.  Sleep all day, party all night.  We're having a bit of difficulty getting this girl's clock turned around.  Not unusual I suppose.  It seems about every other night Bec gets a 3 or 4 hour stretch.  She seems to be holding it together pretty well somehow with some scattered sleep and an additional stretch in the morning.

Quinn's handling the whole transition well but he is very definitely four-and-a-half.  He's a high-energy handful.  He's had a couple of play visits with friends, some visits to the park with friends and I've taken him to two museums for extended outings.  Gramma and grampa had him overnight again this week and he had a great time out there.  Meanwhile we all got as much sleep as possible.  How did we ever think one kid was difficult??

Squirt! Crash course in multi-kids

On Marilla's third day the scorching heat wave finally abated enough to introduce Marilla to The Outdoors.  Not a big trip - the back yard.  She dealt with it the way she seems to deal with most everything so far - she snoozed happily away.

At one point Bec went inside for a well-deserved snooze and left Quinn and Rilla with me.  And the motion-activated sprinkler.  Quinn is of course fascinated with all things aquatic, and played happily with sprinklers and hose sections and nozzles for quite awhile under daddy's watchful and wary eye.  He was very good, being quite careful to not shoot water into the neighbour's shed upon my prodding (why daddy?).

Then he found the motion-activated sprinkler.  Gramma and Grandpa had brought it in to help us discourage our very cute but destructive neighbourhood groundhog.  I had hooked it up temporarily as a test and Quinn was very excited about it.  Now Quinn started to set it up again.  I half dozed off for a minute and when surroundings came back into focus I saw Quinn turning on the motion sprinkler that was teetering back and forth in an inadequate mounting hole in the ground.  I had visions of a wind-blown leaf triggering the sensor, the sprinkler tipping over and all heck breaking loose.

Rilla snoozed placidly in my arms, and thusly prevented from taking direct action myself,  I asked Quinn to turn off the hose.  After the requisite "why daddy" and explanation delay, he started to, upon which it triggered and immediately did almost a complete 360, Quinn having played with the side-to-side governors.  It sprayed daddy, Rilla, the house and the general vicinity, and scared the crap out of Quinn who had memories of grandpa being squirted square in the face.  I shielded Rilla and took refuge behind the barbecue.  Quinn took refuge under the removed blue plastic half-roof of his playhouse.  The sprinkler stopped.

With the situation seemingly stabilized but not yet rectified, I took stock: Rilla - mostly dry and still sleeping; Quinn cowering but safe; daddy - a little wet; mommy - not contactable.  I asked Quinn to make sure the hose was turned off.  He refused. After much imploring he at last reached up from his safety of cover and determined that it was, in fact, off.  But how much was still in the line?  After much coaxing I finally convinced him to pick up the sprinkler and point it away from everyone.  After one spurt it quickly peetered out and the baptism was over - Quinn having faced a fear, daddy having faced an outnumbered situation for the first time, and Rilla sleeping happily through her first water fight with her big brother.

Introducing Miss Marilla Jane Matthews

At 6:01am on July 4th, Miss Marilla Jane Matthews made her splashy entrance into this world.  Quite literally actually.  We did a home birth and it was amazing.  There was not a hint of trouble in mom or baby in the leadup nor during the event itself.  Labour was 5 hours, as opposed to 20 for Quinn, and this seemed to have kept everybody's demeanor rosy from the outset.

So far 'Rilla' seems to be a good sleeper.  Hopefully that lasts, especially given the difficulty sleep has been with Quinn.  Early in pregnancy with Rilla we bought a cheap single mattress and I (predominantly) started sleeping in Quinn's room to handle his frequent awakenings.  This seemed to revolutionize the lives of all involved and so we have stuck with it to this day.  I'm not exactly sure what the exit strategy is, but I keep telling myself that almost nobody grows to university age with their parents still sleeping on their floor :)

Rilla has well and truly shocked mommy and daddy back into the diapers game.  Day 2 she surprised mommy with two change-table poops in addition to the original.  Day 3 daddy was ambushed with no less than 5 change-table blasts.  At least Quinn got a big giggle out of it.  And hey, I suppose it further confirms that all systems are 'go' for our new baby girl.

Bec's milk has come in already and feeding is going well.  It's amazing what a difference it makes the second time around.  Experience now tames things that once seemed so earth-shattering. Plus you trust your instincts a lot more and it keeps the overanalysis to a minimum.  Name selection seems emblematic of the difference in approach between our two kids, taking months of spreadsheeting and book reading first time, and a 5-minute conversation second time.  I'm sure Rilla will have her own challenges in store for us, but so far so good. 

Quinn is adjusting really well and being an excellent big brother.  He is helpful and careful and respectful, gentle, wants to be the first to make her laugh and smile.  He sings to her.  Omigod 'Old MacDonald Had A Farm' and 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' have never has as cute a rendition as Quinn's loving rendition.

On Day 2, as I took Rilla for an hour in the morning so Bec could get some sleep, I realized it was her first trip beyond the confines of mommy and daddy's bedroom since she was born.  We toured the house and she sensed the changing setting somehow.  Different sounds and smells likely, light too.  Though I understand newborns' eyes aren't fully functional yet, her eyes were clearly responding to her environment.  The manual stairmaster eventually got her to sleep (Bec's milk wasn't in yet) as we practiced counting to 14 about 75 times.

Tomorrow may be her grand entrance into the outside world.  Quinn's friend Phoenix turns 5 tomorrow and there is a party at a nearby park.  However, there is a heat warning still in effect in Ottawa, and Bec's still recovering so we'll just have to see where young Marilla Jane makes her next splash.