At Home

As the visits, emails, and phone calls die down, we are readjusting to our day-to-day lives. Travis went back to work this past week and the boys and I are learning how to manage the daily routine with as little screaming as possible. In fact, things have been moving so smoothly that I have agreed to start teaching again this fall to fill in for another professor.

The smooth adjustment has been mainly made possible by the fact that Caleb sleeps. I never expected to have such a good child, though perhaps getting Noah though infancy was a trial by fire that I somehow passed and am being rewarded for. Noah had to be held every minute and even that wasn't enough to keep him from screaming or resolutely resisting sleep for hours on end. Until Noah was 10 months old, the most Noah ever slept on his own was 10 minutes. In fact, up to December, we still held Noah in the rocking chair all through his naps. Caleb, in contrast, will drift off and, after I lay him down, will stay asleep for 2 hour naps. Needless to say, I am really loving this.

Things have also been easier than I expected in terms of Noah welcoming the new baby. He doesn't seem to be too jealous, though he does order us to hand off the baby when he wants our undivided attention. From the first few days when we brought the baby home, if Grandma Beran was holding the baby, he would push her to me and tell her to hand the baby over so he could take her to play. Overall, though, he accepts that when no one else is around, he has to share his mom and is generally patient...well, as patient as a toddler can be.

He even has his moments of protectiveness. A few days ago my mother and I went shopping at SuperTarget with both Noah and Caleb in tow. My mom and Noah went around into the next aisle as I lingered over the diaper bags. All of the sudden Noah broke into cries of, "baby, baby, no! Mommy, baby!" and hear my mother trying to calm him. As I came around the corner I saw Noah pointing at a man holding a baby, perhaps two months old. It took a few minutes to get his attention, but we finally showed Noah that the stranger was not holding his baby brother and Caleb was still safe with mommy.

This is a story worth holding onto for after Noah and Caleb's first fist fight.