Hope Still Flies

In true fashion, time refuses to slow down. The first month as a family of four has flown by. I feel a little cheated since a quarter of that time was spent in the hospital. But I'm so, so grateful to be home now. Atticus has slid nicely into our lives, and we're all adjusting and finding our new normal. We did get to come home when he was eight days old, and are very fortunate to not have had any issues since.

I got used to having Michael around for another week, and then he had to go back to real life. He's on spring break this week, plus we have grandmas around (yay, grandmas!) but I know he has a ton to do. Graduate school. It's no joke. I'm doing my best to try and give him time to get done what he needs to get done, but he also feels like he's needs to help out (because he's amazing). So we'll find our normal here soon.

And can I just give a shout-out to all the stay at home parents out there - especially those with a toddler and a newborn. Even just having both boys on the weekends or the couple hours daily before Michael gets home after I pick up Thad is just crazy. Not enough hands, time, or patience. If I manage to get dinner made without too much screaming, I feel like Superwoman. Being able to send Thad to preschool keeps me sane, I think, and has definitely let me heal physically.

Back to the point of this post - Atticus is doing great. Getting bigger and stronger. Today, at 1 month he'd have been 41 weeks gestation, which is the exact age Thad was when he was born. It's so crazy to me that he's been with us a month already. I'd forgotten so many things about newborns. How much they sleep. How much noise they make when they sleep. How many unknowns there are. How much I google about baby poop.

Parenting is glamorous. How did anyone do it without Google?

(Since I never added pictures to the last post... here's last month (about 1 week) vs today.)

Can anyone believe it's been three years since Thad made his dramatic entrance? I'm pretty sure it still feels like yesterday.

Which is a little confusing because I just had Atticus a week ago. Maybe that's it.

But this post is for our big boy. Mr. Thaddeus Reed. 3 years old and smart to boot.

This kid amazes me. He's grown so much in the past year, and not just physically. We've seen him go from being a very shy, reserved toddler, to a slightly less shy, talkative preschooler. He still has anxiety about some things, and is pretty unsure of new situations/people, but overall has come such a long way.

At school (what we call daycare for him now) he's moved from the 2s room to the Preschool 1 room, and is thriving. (Side note: all of the teachers at daycare are absolutely amazing. Every teacher he's had has played a large part in who he is and his growth) He's learned all of his letters (working on lowercase), can count to 30, and can write his name. It's so much fun watching him learn new things, and how excited he gets about it. We went from worrying about his not talking much, to him being very verbal, speaking in sentences, being dramatic. All the usual things.

He's potty trained - just wearing a pullup at nighttime. He's about 38 inches tall, and maybe 35 pounds? He's lengethened out quite a bit - skinny all around. His hair is finally turning more brown.

Thad's current obsessions - Paw Patrol, garbage trucks, recycling trucks, fire trucks, sports (specifically basketball and soccer), "Old McDonalds" (McDonalds), and cars. He only watches a handful of things on tv, just watches them to excess. He's still big into basketball, soccer, and baseball, and loves playing any and all of them with whoever will play with him. His gross motor skills are pretty impressive, and he's good at dribbling a basketball.

Still a sweet and caring boy. He minds relatively well most of the time. He can be ...dramatic. Especially when he doesn't take a nap. We're working on calming him down when he's gone off the deep end for no reason. (Though I'm sure he'd beg to differ that us not letting him help make his oatmeal is "no reason".) He gets upset if we yell at him (really yell at him) - I think it scares him, and he defaults to just saying, "no" (in a scared/sad voice), and eventually his sad face comes through and he starts crying. It breaks my heart. We give lots of cuddles, and talk things out after he calms down. Our timeout time is pretty limited so far... 

I know 3 is supposedly worse than 2, plus having to deal with mommy and daddy splitting attention with this new brother thing. This year will definitely be different for him. But change... it's the only constant in life, right?