Lifelines

I’m waiting on Charlie to return from Jenny’s with my three older children.
It’s 10:20 and we still have bedtimes to rush through.
We’ve been birthday shopping, out to dinner, and I’m getting ready to make cupcakes for tomorrow.

I meant it when I said that I wouldn’t be cutting any corners my first week “back!”

But I also wanted to share that today Luxe is one week old!
Last night, she slept a five hour stretch (could’ve solved the world hunger problem today if someone had asked, THAT’S how good I felt), today she lost her little umbilical cord.
All in all, she’s my CHILL BABY!!!
(I think. She could still turn monstery on me. But so far…she’s a keeper. A WAY keeper.)

She’s definitely still very new to us but at the same time, she’s slid right in somehow.
We’re in the middle of all kinds of firsts…first errand trip, first dinner out, first afternoon alone (I SURVIVED!!), first big girl bath coming this week, first, first, first…

I’m not the type of mama for whom these little weekly graduations pass without notice.
For some strange reason, I LAMENT over each week that passes.
Maybe because I feel like I’ll blink and we’ll be sitting in front of a cake that has two candles burning and I’ll say…”Where did the time go?”
And then I’ll blink again and that cake will have five candles.
Then eight and then ten.
SOMEHOW I have a 13 year old and this is the only way I can explain that phenomenon.

So here is my Luxe, sitting peacefully for the moment, in a swing that was simply given to us when Creux was a babe by a client of Charlie’s.

(And Lori, I can’t take any credit for that mat you inquired about–it was a cast-off as well. As it turns out, Bexley clients have SWANK baby “here, you take it” items. All I can tell you is that it came in a F.A.O Schwartz package. And it’s an AWESOME baby toy–all those animals make sounds and the spot where she was laying crinkles when she moves.)

Monday’s still “bringin’ it” so I better move on out.
Boy, blogging has become a LUXURY for this girl!

My water broke early on July 3rd.
Eighty percent of women spontaneously go into labor on their own within 24 hours.
I was not one of them.

On July 4th, I was CERTAIN she was coming.
What I did not know then but do know now was that I was deep, deep into a false labor trip.
What I also did not know was that my body would actually dilate and efface JUST LIKE I was in real labor.
But the body has a way of righting its wrongs and despite all of this…I could not push her out.
(Whereas in actual labor, I could not hold her in. BIG difference.)

When we thought that our baby would arrive on the 4th, we scrambled to make a tie-dyed onesie just like the older kids had.

Charlie headed up this craft and I have to say, one of the WORST things about not getting a 4th baby was going to bed that night, babyless, and seeing that gorgeous onesie sitting on my night-table just…waiting.
Empty.

But since my kids are LIVING in their 4th tshirts, you just might see it worn yet :)

(And didn’t they do a great job? I thought it was so sweet that they were out there late on the 3rd, trying to get that shirt ready so it could be washed and wearable for what we thought would be baby’s birthday.)

Digging into the photos of the time period where I was locked in my bathroom/bedroom, willing that baby to come out.
TO NO AVAIL.
Charlie was holding down the fort–in typical fun fashion.
He bought a underwater light for our pool and now, we have all kinds of swims.

But my gang likes the glowing ones best.