Shannon Phillips

Just a quick post as I know the grandparents get antsy when I don’t update for a while. It’s been a busy six weeks for us since Davy arrived—we had Robin’s birthday, and visits from all the grandparents (unfortunately I was not organized enough to take pictures, for which I am now kicking myself). Robin has been thrilled with the extra attention from his grandparents, and has honestly shown no resentment about sharing his parents with a new little brother. He is demonstrative and sweet with the baby, and eager to play with him—he tries to initiate games of peek-a-boo and Tickle Your Toes, even though Davy’s still too young to do much in response. He’s smiling a lot though, big toothless gummy grins that reduce his parents to cooing nincompoops.

I and both the boys have had check-ins with our respective doctors, and we all came away with clean bills of health. Davy is over ten pounds now, while Robin weighs thirty (and stands just over three feet tall). Robin’s still a little behind the curve on his speech development, but the doctor said he was “pleasantly surprised with the language I’m hearing today,” and told us he’d do fine in preschool. Still waiting to hear if we can get him into the one we want…

My big issue these days is exhaustion. Robin goes to bed late and Davy gets up early—and of course there’s the midnight feeding—and they never seem to nap at the same time, or if they do it’s directly after I’ve had my fourth cup of coffee for the day—so getting enough sleep is a real and ongoing challenge. I’m still struggling to get Robin the activity and exercise he needs because I’m so tired all the time. We really need to get our back yard fenced so that I can just turf him outside, and bring a book or something while I sit on the back steps with Davy. But I haven’t had any really bad days since the one I posted about. I think that Fisher-Price swing has saved my life: it’s really great for soothing Davy when he’s fussy and just needs to nap. So I’m at least getting through the days without any major stress or storm: just a perpetual haze of exhaustion and overcaffination. I’m seriously pretty sure that at this point I could sleep for 24 hours straight.