And then there were four...

I have so many intentions to write in this blog and suddenly its 9 months later... and 9 months is a long time really.. long enough to make a baby which is exactly what I have been doing.

Our precious boy "I" arrived in a hurry in February. Dark hair, blue eyes and very beautiful. As you can imagine life has been on the crazy side of chaotic over recent weeks so there has been even less time for anything. Except now I have a smart phone I can read the online papers, cruise the internet and post on Facebook while baby is plugged in and I am on the couch. Funny how life comes a full circle, when D was born we gave up our newspaper subscription because we just never got a chance to read the paper. And now I can thanks to a nifty app. 6.5 years ago there was no such thing as an "app".

Its never helpful to compare people or things but its funny how some things are scarily similar. Having a baby is like that. Not the births, they've all been totally unique but the aftermath. The dry as a desert mouth as baby starts to breastfeed. When I am so tired at night that I can barely sit upright anymore. The hormonal tears that erupt at the littlest things. The saggy belly, stretch marks and extra kilos. The delight at the first smile. The laughter at the poo explosions. The adorably cute clothes. All the same.

Yet having yet another child is different too. Its easier in some ways. I don't worry the same about what is happening... what to do and when. If something doesn't work, I try something else. If that doesn't work I try something else again. If that doesn't work I talk to my friends and sister and then remember something or try something new and even in all that I am not stressed at all, just going with the flow.

Baby is 6 weeks old and I remember being told that after 6 weeks everything settles down. And in some ways it has. I am making lunches, nagging the kids, making dinner, folding washing while watching television and trying to keep up with everything else with varying degrees of success. In some ways having a small baby is useful because I have a genuine reason to sit on the couch every 2-3 hours :). I have a even better reason to sneak in naps on the weekend. Sure it can be a little limiting in terms of activity and "me alone" time but I can survive that. I do miss it, the chance to pop out for a bit to recharge my batteries without my darling, but time consuming and busy, children. But that's not a reality at the moment and if spend too much time thinking along those lines then I think I'd probably get pretty unhappy with this part of my life journey and the thing is that I am not. Unhappy that is. Yes, its ALL day and night EVERY day and night. Yes most of it is up to me. But its not for forever. He won't be this darling, squidgy, snuggly, snuffly, wiggly, dimply newborn forever. At some point he'll stop smelling like that gorgeous milky newborn baby smell. He'll start moving around, eventually he'll be running and climbing and jumping. He's started smiling and cooing but before I know it it'll be making louder noises, sounds, words, sentences and then tell stories and answering back like the others. And this time will be a distant memory but not one I'm going to be happy to leave. We've decided that this is our last child, that our family is complete so its all the more reason to cherish these moments and these times now because I won't be having them again.

Funnily enough though, when I had the other three children, when I started thinking like this I started to get sad at the idea of them getting bigger and wanting to do it all over again. This time I don't. Its like I am happy living in this moment and knowing that this is it, there will be no other moment but its not something to be grieved over but something to be enjoyed and cherished.

So I think I am done. Tellingly I think the first thing I said to DH after baby was born was "I'm done". I am done. I don't want to be pregnant again. I don't want to birth again. I will hold the memories of those things with all four children close and with joy but now I am ready to move on. And for a reality check, my body is done too. It can't take much more of a hammering so the doctors say and truthfully, I agree with them. Its time to move on.