hello baby brother. nice to meet you.

One of the most surprising parts of motherhood for me has been the utter joy I feel in watching my children fall in love with each other.   Watching your children all meet each other is almost as magical as meeting your children yourself.  After a really peaceful night at the birth center my parents brought down the big kids to meet their new baby brother.  In an instant our peaceful space at the birth center was bombarded with the beautiful chaos of a family of 6.  It was glorious. 

Since I’m so darn sleep deprived, I’ll let these pictures tell the story.   Just look at those expressions of awe and love and (in emmeline’s case) worry.  I also loved introducing the little guy to Grandfather.  I don’t think this guy has any idea how lucky he is to have such an adoring grandfather.  Emmeline was full of exuberance and also a bit of concern and confusion.  I think she did get that this was the baby inside my belly.  The first thing she did after looking at the baby was to look at me, examine my flabby belly and ask, “The baby brother come out your bum?”  Yep, Em.  That’s pretty much what happened.  I think Charlie was the most enamored by his little brother.  He couldn’t keep his gentle little hands off of him.  And his love isn’t wearing off (now 10 days later).  He doesn’t want to do much but caress and love and talk to and hold his little brother.  It is pretty darn sweet.  The midwife, Mo, who was discharging us was so great with the big kids and had them ‘help’ out with the infant exam.  They were captivated as they watched.  Don’t you love all those cameras?  We’re documenting every minute of this kids life.  Mo also gave the kids a little tour of Peter’s placenta and cord and sac (which Hazel made me promise I’d have them save for her to see).  Hazel is not a squeamish girl, she usually declares things that most people find to be gross as ‘amazing'.  However, just now as I’m writing this Hazel came over and looked at the picture and told me that the placenta was the first thing she’s seen that she thinks was actually kind of gross instead of amazing.  You can kind of tell she is thinking this by the look on her face in these pictures.  It was pretty cool to have Mo explain how it all works, to show us the inside of the cord and the sac and the knot.  I can’t believe I have these four beautiful healthy children.  When did that happen?   I’ve wondered this many times over the past ten days.  Where there was once just Jeff and me there are now 6. What a tremendous blessing. Once Emmeline finally got her turn to hold the little dude she took over.  She shushed him and rocked him and pushed our hands away…..totally confident that she knew exactly what this little guy needed.   Among other things she was sure he needed some chocolate covered pomegranates shoved into his mouth.  Luckily we caught this one before it ended badly. 

Oh, I want to relive that hour over and over again in my head.  It was all crystally.  Magical.  And then, I lost all my adrenalin and was exhausted.  In a good way.