My Boys

I've been delaying writing the post all about what life is like with both boys because it seems that I can barely find a few minutes of empty arms (when I'm not trying to sleep) to organize my thoughts. Finally both boys are napping at the same time, though, so I'm taking full advantage of my five minutes before I expect Nathan to wake up hungry.

Nathan is fortunately taking after his big brother in one respect so far: his love of sleep. I can only hope this sticks around. He has plenty of awake periods during the day, but he tends to sleep well at night. He wakes up every three to four hours to nurse and sleeps--well, like a baby the rest of the time. I'm not suffering from lack of sleep nearly as badly as I expected to at this point. Of course, it helps that Patrick also consistently sleeps well all night, giving me plenty of time to catch as many z's as possible around Nathan's sleep schedule.

The only sleep problem we've encountered appears to have been a reaction to my diet. It seems that after making me crave so much chocolate for the last nine months, now Nathan has a strong reaction to it, keeping him awake like I'd had a cup of coffee shortly before. Any chocolate intake between lunch and bedtime will spell out a bad night's sleep for us all. That's not too cool of my youngest son.

Nathan is definitely a cuddler, too. I wondered when he was so reluctant to leave the warmth of my belly. During the day, he wants to be held as much as possible. The moments are rare when I can set him down happily for more than a couple of minutes at a time. He gets fussy quickly. Sometimes rocking him in his infant chair helps calm him down, and sometimes it doesn't. I need to try the swing that Patrick hated on Nathan. Maybe that will save my arms a little bit (not that I mind holding my baby one bit!).

Patrick is adjusting reasonably well. As expected, he's desperate for attention nearly all the time. Any time I have to hold or feed Nathan, Patrick is suddenly hovering around me, bringing me toys to play with with him or wanting to crawl into my lap. I can usually accommodate him, scooting over to hold him with the empty arm or playing along with whatever game he's playing with his toys at the moment. But sometimes even that isn't enough attention for him and his antics to get that attention get increasingly outlandish. Without a doubt, he knows what things are the biggest no-nos, and he'll go straight for those. Negative attention is still attention, after all.

At the same time, though, he seems to be coming to an awareness of his baby brother. There are times I've caught Patrick not only showing interest in Nathan but even doing something sweet for him. Patrick has stroked Nathan's hand or foot several times to attempt to calm his crying and even tried to rescue him from the infant chair when it was clear that was not where Nathan wanted to be (although that could have been either Patrick's newest obsession with latches or his possessiveness of the chair). He's also showing a lot of interest in the whole nursing thing. It hasn't gotten to the point of making me uncomfortable yet, but I'm starting to see boys' fascination with breasts. It certainly starts early!

I'm still waiting for a good opportunity to get pictures of the boys together. Right now the only way Patrick will get very close to Nathan is when I'm holding both of them, which makes taking pictures difficult. He's also a little careless about the "gentle" concept when it comes to his brother; I don't think he understands how much more fragile Nathan is than Mommy or Daddy. He's simply not mature enough to handle being alone next to his brother, much less holding him. It's too bad because I really want pictures of both my kids together.

Speaking of pictures, I've been taking them regularly of both boys, but as usual I'm running into the problem of finding computer time to download, edit, and post them. Trust me when I say you'll know right away when I do.