A Good, Good, Afternoon

June turned 12 weeks old today.

Tonight at dinner Andrew said it was such a contradiction because it feels like we brought her home from the hospital forever ago, like she's always been here, 

yet at the same time...wasn't I just pregnant?  

I was just accepting the fact that she's two months old, and he rained on my parade 

and said, actually she's three months old next week.  

Downpour.

It just doesn't seem possible our family has been five for all that time, but here we are, nearly a third of the way into her first year, and finally feeling like we're getting 

a hang of this three, three and under thing.  

Last week was the first week we didn't have a string of difficult days, 

spent holding June with one hand and trying to parent two toddlers with the other, failing at both.  Her colic has been gone for weeks, but figuring out how to manage her acid reflux has felt like two steps forward, one step back.  Poor thing is constantly covered in sour smelling spit up, but thankfully she's gone from an unhappy spitter to a happy spitter in the words of our pediatrician.  (As long as we stay on top of her meds, and I avoid dairy and carbonation.)   

And despite having perhaps our most routine week and a half yet, I've found myself short-tempered this week, quick to frustration, and so after lunch out with a friend and her two girls, a rushed naptime routine, and a quick phone call to the same friend to apologize for being crabby at lunch turned into a good dose of perspective 

and grace giving, I decided we needed the afternoon off.  

 

No agenda, no to-do's, no errands, no productivity.

These two tots have really surpassed my expectations when it comes to being a two-time big brother and newly big sister.  Henry asks to hold June so much throughout the day, so of course his little ehco Nelle does the same.  He's had his moments, mostly after skipped naps, but for the most part, his love for babies has grown and grown, having his very own at home again.  

 

What has been perhaps the biggest surprise is that Henry and Nelle's have become the best little playmates and friends.  (Until they're not, which is many times throughout the day.  There's a reason people use the phrase, "fight like brother and sister".  After all, they are still three and almost-two, learning boundaries, sharing, manners, and the bonds of family.)  They may make each other crazy, but they are quick to ally together when I stop to feed June, Henry always asking Nelle if she wants to come outside or downstairs with him, her always answering, "uh huh" and off they toddle together, the best co-conspirators when I'm distracted with sweet cuddles from the littlest Bug.  Henry likes to tell me he's the dad so he needs the iPad (good try) and Nelle's the mom, and June and I are the babies.    And then he makes me say wah!  It typically ends with Nelle screaming because she wants to wander back to me, and Henry barricades her wherever they are, shouting, "no, she can't come, I need a friend!". 

 

This afternoon when I was feeding her after naptime, they picked up their morning game outside on the patio (played in their jammies until 10:45 in the brisk autumn morning air because clothing battles just aren't worth it lately with Ham) where they left off of car racing, Henry in the cozy coupe and Nelle on her princess ride, giggling, snacking on oranges and graham crackers, and having the funniest conversations led by Henry about filling up the tank, giving his coupe a little pat after he parked it, zooming down the sidewalk towards the new gate (locked, so he can't escape anymore), and singing the chorus from Uptown Funk, which as I'm sure you can imagine sounds a little more like the "ck" sound than the "nk" sound as they sing/yell "uptown funk you up", which they've busted out in the most appropriate of locations in the last couple of months after hearing it at Purple Power Play in Manhattan Labor Day weekend.  

Since June has arrived, we rushed into a new preschool routine with a three-year-old, spent four weeks of nearly every weekday between weeks three and seven driving to and from chiropractor treatments for June, have spent a handful of weekends with botched naps and bedtimes in Manhattan, traveled to the farm for harvest, and managed through long workdays for Andrew and me jumping headfirst into my busiest time of the year, with about thirty shoots behind me since starting back four weeks after June arrived. 

And I wondered why I was feeling so fried.

 

So this afternoon, I threw responsibilities aside, and we took a walk in our neighborhood, and Henry and Nelle wore what they wanted to, and we talked to no less than five neighbors, stopping 535 times to pick up leaves and look at acorns, and throw the football, and kick the football, and dance, and throw the leaves, and chased the light and breathed in the chill in the air, and just live life like a toddler.

And it was good.