Guess who turns three months old today?
Three! months!
It has occurred to me that this child? Is going to grow up on me, just like her brothers.
And she's so excited about it, too.
At three months old, Marin Ann weighs 13 pounds, 6 ounces, and is 23 inches long. She smiles like crazy, and coos, goos and gahs through most of her waking hours. She has recently learned to put her hands together and happily stuffs them in her mouth at every opportunity, and is beginning to grab hold of the toys that dangle from her baby gym.
She really likes to watch her brothers as they breeze past her in the most noisy, speedy, entertaining ways,
and I believe she is learning to take advantage of her place in the family as The Youngest Daughter.
Whoopsie! Sorry Jack! Did I just KICK YOU SQUARE IN THE FACE?
Though on the flip side of that, she's learning to tolerate pretend karate chops to the forehead and such (what Jack refers to as WHACK-E-CHAAAAS. I don't get it either.)
Yes, Marin is a happy baby. Happy happy happy all day long.
And all night too.
Because do you know what she does at night? Still at three months of age? She wakes up! And stays up! For hours on end! Beeeeeing haaaaaappy. (When her mother? Not so much with the happy.)
Through three children now, I have waited to bear The Sleeper Child. KJ never slept at night. Never, ever ever ever ever, oh my God how awful it was. Jack? Not so much with the sleep, either. Neither of those children ever slept through the night, not even once, until well past their first birthdays. Now, I will give all three of them credit for being good nappers (both Jackson and Marin willing to nap only in their respective baby swings, but sleeping nonetheless,) but as for sleep during the night? So very sketchy, still. Sometimes she will surprise me with a solid three hour block at night, but in exchange will play for an hour and a half to follow.
She continues to take two or three feedings during the course of what I would consider her night, usually staying awake through that middle time-slot. And hot damn, she wants nothing more than to smile and coo and watch recorded Oprah shows with me at three a.m. every stinking night.
Mockery.
Beyond the Sleep Issue, the other thing that made me nervous about having an actual crew of children, as opposed to just a pair, was all of the germ sharing that inevitably takes place.
With my first two, I became accustomed to passing colds back and forth, so much so that runny noses, in my mind, aren't even notable anymore. I worry more about things like respiratory infections, ear infections, chills and fevers, pink eye, the cold flu, and thrush.
And do you know what we've experienced this week?
Am not kidding - we have all of the above.
From start to finish, all three kids and I have some version of sinusy-respiratory-sore throat-fever-chills-body aches. Then in addition, KJ went the ear infection route while Jack opted for pink eye (a new one for our family! Go Jack! And also, I assume I can thank the McDonald's playland gahhhh if there was somewhere else to get exercise in the winter), and just before Thanksgiving Marin took on oral thrush as her plague of choice, and is just now finally getting over it with her second medication.
Walgreens is bleeding my bank account and dancing on my debit card, I promise you.
(Also, good thing we got our flu shots this year, right? Oh, wait...)
On a positive note, doll-baby Marin will never miss a day of school in her entire life, having been exposed to every damn childhood virus available in her first three months of life.
And though it may seem otherwise when I discuss our Fun with Exhaustion and Various Diseases, I can't begin to say how happy I am to have three children. I feel like I really have the hang of it in just three months' time, and what a dynamic our newest little pumpkin has added to our family. It took some re-defining of who we are and where we are headed as a group and as individuals, concessions as to how long it should and does actually take a mother and three young children to prepare for exiting the house during the winter, and most certainly we are all learning more patience and turn-taking. But at this point, with children ages six, almost three, and three months old, I am blown away by how blissfully happy I am with my life.
(Oh don't deny it - you know you love when I end a blog entry all trippy and euphoric. Mmmm babies, I love me some babies... Consider me so the advocate of embiggening your family, now.)