Full hands, full hearts: The early newborn phase

Hello! Our hands are a bit more full these days, as one can imagine. I've begun a post about Finn's birth story, and I plan to chip away at it a bit, here and there, as time allows, and publish that post soon. But in the meanwhile, I thought I'd write a little bit about life right now, in the haze of baby snuggles and night wakings and adjusting to being a family of four.

This definitely feels like a season of receiving. We have felt so loved and served by our community, with meals and well-wishes and prayers for us as we adjust and rest and heal. Friends, family, and acquaintances have brought by curry, beef roast, stir fry, tacos, roasted chicken and veggies, chili, sourdough pizza(!), homemade bread, and other sweet things, which has been an enormous blessing.

This past weekend, my family visited (I'll share more in a post just about their visit soon!), but my mom cooked for us and folded loads of laundry and emptied the dishwasher. Apart from their visit, Nicholas has done the vast majority of caring for Coop and cleaning while I busy myself with nursing and eating and healing and holding a sleeping babe on my chest.

It snowed on April first! Pretty and fresh and while I love snow, it was just fine by me that it was melted by midday.

I've done a little baking, here and there, since it is something I love to do. So far, I've made gluten free banana bread, grain-free chocolate crinkle cookies, sourdough bread, and one batch of sourdough cinnamon rolls.

Daily, Cooper wants to hold his baby brother. He gives him kisses, and if Finn is crying (and even if he isn't) Cooper will often say, It's okay, I'm here, I'm here. So sweet to see their brotherly love and how excited Coop is when Finn opens his eyes and looks at him, or how funny he thinks it is when Finn kicks him or passes gas. ;)

We've had a lot of wet and cold days, so we've made an effort to find fun things for Cooper to do, like paint, or play with window stickers that his Aunt Katelyn got for him, or dump out legos on a big sheet.

We are all soaking in snuggles with Finn. Those newborn snorts and sighs, hiccups, sneezes, and periods of being awake and looking around with wide eyes. And what a joy it has been to see Nicholas father our two sweet boys.

I've been sneaking in some sock knitting during nursing sessions and lots of knitting on the body of Nicholas' sweater, since that's low-concentration, comfort knitting for me, and easy to do with a sleeping babe on my lap.

I spent the first few weeks mostly at home. But in the last week, we went on our first walk as a family of four around the neighborhood, and then visited a local farm park to look at tractors and animals and for the chance for Coop to run around in wide open space.

I don't want to paint the newborn phase as all rosy, but I will say this recovery has been leaps and bounds different than my previous postpartum period, plus so many things feel less, well, new, since we have done it before. I feel like I've been able to breathe and snuggle Finn and Cooper and enjoy the newborn stage much more this time, and that is a blessing. I mentioned our hands are fuller, but I also have to mention that our hearts are more full too, praise God!