Early days

Yesterday after lunch calm and tranquility reigned. Our house was a cool oasis of peace… for about two minutes until someone woke up.

Early days with a brand new baby are intense. It feels like the world outside stops for a while as you become focused on a tiny, fragile, brand new life. It has been Carnaval this weekend in Santa Cruz and we wouldn’t have noticed, apart from one drive by squirting while in a taxi.

However having other children has dragged us back to a sort of normality a little earlier. Chloe and Evie aren’t too keen on us just sitting and staring in wonder at Caleb for hours on end. That does not cut the mustard in terms of quality activity. It feels like there are about twenty children in the house. We are outnumbered now and Evie is being a bit of a pickle at the moment. She is either crawling around, searching for paper to eat, or zooming around in her walker, running over our feet like a pre-toddler version of Boadicea.

If she could Chloe would spend all her time holding Caleb and constantly kissing him. She can’t understand why this is not such a good idea when you have a cold. I am even starting to mix our children’s genders and names up. I used to find it funny when Mum called me or my brothers the wrong name, now I find I am doing the same.

We did actually manage to all leave the house together for the first time on Sunday when we went to Church. Chloe got all her things and was ready when we wanted to leave; we actually left an hour later after two filled nappies and several false starts. We still weren’t the last people to arrive at Church.

So the question is can life actually work with three children? Will we ever be on time for anything ever again? Will the smell of baby poo ever leave me alone? (It seems to be following me around the house. I smell poo when there is no poo. Does this mean the problem is with me?)

But it’s only early days.