Fortunately, I post regularly on Instagram and have picture updates in our little Chatbooks. Thank heaven for Chatbooks! *snort* No, but really. It's the easiest form of journaling ever.
Anyhoo... Let's see. Where do I even start?
It took Jack 2 months to breastfeed comfortably. I pumped and gave my milk away through the beginning of August, when we went to our family reunion in Utah and I just couldn't stand the thought of pumping anymore. Jack was a pretty solid nurser by the time I stopped, though. And, while we're on the subject, and since I've had ample time to reflect about it (what with all the time I spend nursing, haha!), I have decided that even though it is THE ABSOLUTE WORST trying to get my babies to nurse, it's also TOTALLY WORTH IT and I love it. With every baby, there's been that moment when I'm like, "That's it. I'm never doing this again. The next baby is just going to have to deal with being on formula." But inevitably, I go through it again, despite the difficulty and emotional roller coaster. I just love nursing my babies!
Okay. Off that now. I talk about it enough, dern it.
We spent 4th of July here. Daniel took the girls to the parade in the morning, and Jacky Boy and I stayed home and relaxed. Slept, I think. We went to our friends the Fischer's house for an evening get together, which we've done almost every year we've spent 4th of July here. It's always a lot of fun. And we didn't watch fireworks. Daniel's not a big fan of fireworks, and I feel like I've seen them, and the shows are all pretty much the same. Plus, we always tend to put our kids to bed early, even on holidays. But, I kind of wanted to take the girls and have them experience that for the first time. I think they'd ... well, they'd either really love them, or really hate them. They get scared with stuff like that sometimes, especially Camille. Well, maybe next year, I'll take the girls to watch fireworks and let Daniel bring Jacky Boy home.
That's what we've started calling him. Jacky Boy. I don't know, I think I called him that one day, and the girls just latched onto it and started calling him Jacky Boy. And now, we just can't shake it.
While on the subject, Jack is the sweetest little man EVER! We are all absolutely smitten with him (maybe Camille a little less so. She's still pretty young, and, after all, she was ousted). Brooke is especially taken with him. She's been the sweetest, best big sister in the world. She always wants to hang out with him, talk to him, play with him, take care of him. If he's ever upset, she tries to find ways to make him happy. There've been a number of times when she gets him laughing in a way that I can't. Deep, belly, baby laughs. It's the most delicious thing I've ever witnessed. It's been so fun and rewarding watching Brooke and Jack bond. They really and truly love each other. Brooke thinks he's the cutest thing, and Jack's face lights up whenever he sees her. I love it!
Jack is such a smiley, happy baby. It doesn't take much to get a smile out of him, and people everywhere just faun over him because of it. He's just this cute, BEAUTIFUL (he looks just like Brooke!), handsome, happy little man, and such a joy to have in our home. And he really loves his mom, which, I mean, obviously makes my heart fit to bursting. When someone else is holding him and he sees me, he reaches for me. When he wakes up with Dad, he starts looking around for me. He gets excited whenever someone hands him over to me. I just... I just love being a mom.
The month of July passed with us hitting the pool, Brooke taking swim lessons (which she OF COURSE loved), Daniel giving little mini swim lessons to her (which ended up being more effective than the lessons we paid for), and really living in survival mode. It was hard. Daniel keeps saying that going from 2 to 3 kids, your busyness rises exponentially. And for whatever reason, that's totally how it feels. Going from 1 to 2 kids was like, Okay, doable -- you've just got one more little person to care for. But then, that next transition is like, all of a sudden, BOOM! You have no time for anything except take care of tiny people. I spend so much time nursing and putting Jack to sleep, the girls spend all this time making messes and doing who even knows what. In any free time, I have to decide whether to eat or sleep, and it's like the HARDEST DECISION OF MY LIFE. And the house went to absolute pot. I just did the bare essentials: dishes, make food, laundry. It was pretty frantic there for a few months. And Jack's sleeping was sort of good, then bad, then good, then bad... etc. And I was getting very little sleep usually.
Then, of course, first weekend in August, we drove to Utah for the reunion. It was fun, but, ya know, not much of a vacation for me. It was, like, business as usual, just in a different (more beautiful location), minus all the housekeeping stuff (which, admittedly, was super awesome). We loved visiting with family, though. The girls had a lot of fun with their cousins, and Daniel got in some good mountain biking (not as much as usual, though, because, well, ... new baby. 3 kids).
We did Jack's blessing in Utah at his parent's house. It was really nice, because most of his family was there, and Brian and Sammy even came.
