One month old [but who's counting]

The more you have going on in your life, the faster time flies. It is hard to believe that Erica is already one month old! The harder part is that its hard to believe that we've been on this no-sleep schedule for a month. Erica has still not seen the light that sleeping should take place at night. I don't know that there is an exact pattern other than I am falling to sleep many nights next to Shawnie nursing on the couch then moving to bed around midnight. I am usually awakened by Shawnie coming into bed around 3:30 or 4am when Erica is finally ready to sleep. Paul wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30am so I get up with him. The girls are up by 6:45 and school and work come quickly after that. Before we leave, Shawnie wakes up to fix the girl's hair (something they don't like dad doing for them). She stays awake until (and if) Erica and Paul take a nap around noon. On the days I work from home, if the boys take care of themselves I can usually let Shawnie go back to sleep. But that has not always worked out and one of the requirements work places on my working from home is that I am not the primary care giver for the children. So I don't want to push it.

None-the-less, it seems like we're settling in to the new norm. I have learned new parenting techniques which help me push past frustrations I've had in the past. I am also needing to work harder at pushing past the struggles which come from sleeplessness. I guess you could say these will be some of the lessons [re]learned with this child. Also, I have had to take a much greater role filling Shawnie's shoes than with any of the other children's births.

While its not that what I'm doing is new -- I know how to go grocery shopping and clean the house, take care of the kids in ways that Shawnie used to be the go-to parent -- it's more that the responsibility balance has shifted.

The old pioneer analogy of a marriage being like a pair of yolked oxen fits well. When a new burden is placed in the wagon, both must share the load. The part of the analogy which has been new to me this time around is that when I am one of the oxen, it is not just that I am pulling a new dead weight. Instead, as a new burden is added to the wagon and a re-balance occurs, the responsibilities which are new include the different perspectives of the added load. I guess it is in this way that we continue to learn and grow in the family. I also wonder if the perspectives I am gaining are unique because we have so many children, or if they are more gained over time no matter how many children you have. Its not like this is the first time I've recognized the load shift in this way.

Anyway, I'm not trying to write a novel with each post. So I'll salt-and-pepper a few photos taken earlier tonight and call it good. These photos are all un-edited. So they are huge if you click on them.

The only "toy" Paul really plays with from
Christmas are his sunglasses