In the first two weeks I would occasionally forget for a minute or two that I have two children, while at the same time feeling that Max fitted so well into our family making the life without him seem like a distant memory. (At times I wonder if I truly remember how life before kids feels like – is it really possible that I was able to sleep in until 10? Or stay up all night to finish reading a good book? Eat a bowl of ice-cream and an orange for dinner? Travel to a different country for a week with a tiny backpack? Go out on any night of the week at the spur of the moment? Think myself super-busy when I could choose how to spend huge chunks of time?)
Anyway, back to life with two kids. Unsurprisingly I found parenting a newborn much easier the second time around, though at times I still wish they would come with a precise user manual. First time was hard as both of us had close to zero experience of taking care of a child and had no-one around to help out; not only the learning curve was the steepest I have ever experienced in my personal or work life, but we also figured out a lot of things by trial and error. The great advantage was that we were able to find the parenting style that suited us without having to sift through the overloading input from others. Nevertheless the first weeks of Katya’s life were hard, truly hard work made worse by the greyness of the English winter. Inside my mind the days and nights of those weeks turned into the never-ending exhausting dusk. Looking back I can tell that I was very close to sliding into the postnatal depression. This time around there was hardly a cloudy day since Max was born making it easier to get out, to stay cheerful, to enjoy life.
Of course the easiness of the taking care of a tiny baby is offset by having to find time, energy and wisdom to meet the needs of the older child and my mum was (and is for another two weeks) a great help with Katya, who is experiencing so many conflicting emotions towards her little brother and us, her parents, and is slowly adjusting to the changes that his arrival brought into her life. She is very eager to interact with him, to hold him, to play with him. In the first few weeks she would in turn get frustrated at his unresponsiveness and overexcited about tiny things like him holding her finger. Luckily he is changing so fast and the longer he is able to stay awake and happy the more positive moments they are able to have together. He loves her singing and stares and coos at the painting she did, which is hanging next to the nappy changing mat. She is eager to show him the world and cheers any new thing that he learns to do.
Max is growing so fast. At the six-weeks check-up he was 5 kgs and 61 cm, which puts him into 98th percentile for length. He has outgrown many of the 0-3 months cloths. He tries to put his fingers/fists into his mouth. He knocks over and bats at toys. He loves tummy-time. He looks at the world in fascination, instead of being irritated by bright light. He smiles and his smiles make our world a much more joyful place.
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