Housebound

Hi there. I have 5 minutes before I need to pull the chicken from the oven, so let's see where this goes.

 

We've been hunkered down, riding out a cold front that blew through on Friday. The picture above is from our lovely walk on Thursday, pretty much the last time Cora or I left the house- it went from 75 degrees to 30 degrees in the course of an evening and now Cora wears hats indoors and my skin is drying out from the heat blasting all the time.

 

Other than modeling the finest in knit hate couture, Cora has spent the vast majority of her time being held by the various members of her family. Like pretty much all her time. It's the benefit of being #3.

 

 

It's been cozy, having everyone buttoned in together. There's been board games (I adore board games; our bursting board game closet is one of my last lines of defense in staving off any and all electronic entertainment for my children, something Kindergarten is probably going to ruin for me soon- the other day Landon asked me what an iPad was and wanted to know why we didn't have one). There's been reading (Landon's new favorite thing is to read his beginner books to Cora; in fact, he won't read unless she is able to listen too. I've assured him she can hear in her sleep). There's been cooking and baking (braised pork ragu! pumpkin bread!). Napping, coloring, tickling. A few timeouts for Claire and one mandatory "I don't care if you actually fall asleep but you're going to lay in your bed for 90 minutes" for Landon sprinkled in the mix. Cora's behavior has been perfect- sometimes I think that with Landon's infancy we survived, with Claire we learned to enjoy, and with Cora we're simply savoring. Even at 4:45 this morning, while I rocked her back to sleep after eating, her tiny little hand gripped my fingers and I kept kissing her fuzzy head and I just savored. I think we all are.

 

I'm now drinking a glass of wine while dinner cooks and I wait for JP and Claire to come home from the pool/school (oh! just saw the lights come up the driveway). Landon is setting up Monopoly Jr. to play after dinner. I packed up my maternity clothes to be given away yesterday, which was a little sad, but as I sip my wine and watch Cora sleep in her papasan chair and listen to Landon explain the concept of Monopoly Jr jail to Claire ("No Yandon, I am not in jail, I am still playing this game!") and know that JP is cleaning bottles and dealing with the chicken, I just feel peaceful. Despite our constant (constant) debating, dismissing, and then always circling back to the idea of a #3, I didn't know how much we wanted her until her possibility became a reality. I worried so much about expense and our resources of time and attention and going back to diapers and bottles and midnight feedings, and yet, here she is, and it's fine and perfect and lovely. And it'll be hard too, and expensive (daycare round 3 begins in February!), and I'm sure we'll have some resource issues, but she's here and now that we've met her, all of that stuff seems so incidental. I knew, of course, that I would love any child we had, but I didn't quite realize that I would spend about 12 hours a day holding our new baby and thinking over and over again, "I'm so happy you're here."