Today was Phoebe's first full day home, and it was a busy one. Ellen is still super excited about her little sister, but she is also over stimulated. Though I'm sure some of that is just making sure she still gets her share of attention. Jada and I are trying our best to make sure she feels involved, and also that she still gets to do her favorite things: music class, swim, etc. We've made arrangements with her normal day care provider to continue taking her in the afternoons still this week while we all adjust to our new work loads.
We came home yesterday afternoon just before 4pm. The nurses thought we were nuts, but Jada said she felt great, Phoebe was doing well, all her checks were positive. Plus we wanted to get home to see our Elle belle. It was a lot easier staying the extra time when it was just Ellen, and we were all at the hospital. It's a lot more difficult to take the time away with a 2 year old at home. Not to mention Jada just wasn't comfortable in the hospital bed any more. We were in Phoebe's room when Laurie and Ellen came home from El's day care provider's house. We video'd the reunion. Ellen was still carrying around her baby doll. She takes it with her just about every where now, and mimics what we do with Phoebe. It's very cute. The hardest part has been trying to get Ellen to control her enthusiasm around her little sister. We think she understands that she needs to be gentle, but like with Savannah, sometimes she just gets too worked up to be around her. So I ran interference most of the day.
We had our traditional pizza dinner to welcome little Phoebe home. Then we read with Ellen, and she went to bed around her normal bed time (7pm). Laurie hung out with us and held Phoebe. She had looked after Ellen all weekend, so this was her payment (just kidding. Ellen picked out a nice gift certificate from her favorite store - REI). Then our friend Pete came over on his way in from the skiing on the mountain for a few minutes. Then for us, it was off to bed...ok, we were in or near the bed, but we only were getting short increments of sleep between the pooping and feeding. (yes, when Phoebe gets older and reads this, she'll know that there was pooping involved). But it was better than no sleep at all.
Speaking of poop, Phoebe seems to have cleared out the meconium (that sticky tar-like substance that is made up of all the extra waste left over in the babies body from the amniotic fluids and nutrients provided in utero) already and has started on the yellow-ish brown stuff that is more common for a breast fed baby. And while we're on the subject, after dinner, Ellen asked if she could poop on the big toilet. We said yes, of course, we'll give it a shot. She just tooted, but she was so proud, and we were so proud. She's just such a big girl some times. And now, back to our story...
Ellen awoke the next morning at her normal waking time - 6am. I skipped my 4.30am trip to gym again this morning. (There was just no way...) I got her up and moving. Then Jada got up with Phoebe. We all had breakfast, and before long it was time to go to the doctor's office to officially register her as a new patient and do another quick check for the usual things: weight, color, etc. After that, appointment, we stopped by REI to pick up Laurie's gift certificate. Then it was time to drop Ellen off at day care. I also dropped off our first roll of film at Freddy's. We got a nice little 1.5 hour nap in the afternoon with Jada, :Phoebe, Savannah, and myself all cuddled up in the bed. It ended too early. Like I told Jada, I have been getting enough sleep to get by, but not enough to feel good about it.
On the way to pick Ellen up from day care, we stopped by the school so Jada could show off Phoebe for a party after the staff meeting that they had planned last week. Everyone was amazed that we showed up already only 48 hours after delivery. We found out that Jada's sub ("grandma Janet") had made little stickers for Jada's class to wear with Phoebe's name, date of birth, and weight on them. From what we hear, they were all very proud to be part of Phoebe's birth even in that small way. It was very nice of Janet, and we appreciate it.
Ellen was a little out of control after we showed up at day care. Like I said, she's still dealing with the changes the only way a 2 year old really knows how, so it's hard to get too mad at her. She'll figure it out. We had dinner, gave Ellen a bath, read her stories that Phoebe had given her, and she went to bed at her normal bed time. Now we're just taking care of some things that we haven't had time to do today. Phoebe is sleeping after eating very well today. So we're just having some nice quiet time.
Journal entry: March 04, 2003