From Zone to Man-to-Man

I am absolutely loving our new family, but I have noticed one thing…there is absolutely no down time with two kids. That is the reason that so much has happened and I have yet to even write about it.

Basically since my last post, we have had two nights that Grace actually slept for over 5.5 hours, and several other good nights sleep sprinkled in with a few not so great nights.

Nolin has adjusted amazingly to having a baby sister. We hit a period that he would scream for attention and everything was “his”. It didn’t help that I tried to reason with him and let him know that actually if he wanted to be accurate  everything was in fact mine and his mom’s.

Oh my God I sound just like my dad.

Well I think these are all pretty characteristic traits of a 2.5 year old, and I guess they just seemed exacerbated when you have 4 week old wide awake in your arms. But the last few days, Nolin has been very easy. He helps out whenever he can and continues to add his own color commentary and insight into our daily lives.

Grace also turned 1 month old…where has the time already gone?!

Although it has only been 5 weeks, I told Jenn it is hard to remember her not as part of our family. At 1 month I will say that she is incredibly alert, incredibly gorgeous, eats like an NFL player and has the diaper changes to prove it.

Yeah, I love our family. But it has become more of a coordinated effort. It is much more difficult to get out of the house, and there is a lot more one-on-one time with both the kids. We have moved from a zone defense to a man-to-man defense.

If Jenn has Grace, then I have Nolin and vice versa. As we get accustomed, this is all getting easier.

We also told Nolin’s birth parents about his new baby sister Grace. To say I was a little nervous, would be an understatement. Even though things have been hectic, I have probably been putting that off subconsciously for a while. I think I knew how they would react, but was afraid for a different outcome.

It was a welcomed relief when our great news was received with genuine excitement. There are a lot of blessings in adoption, and they have been one. We are looking forward to introducing Grace to them when we see them next.

Speaking of blessings, we were not exactly sure how an Open Adoption would play out with Grace’s birth mother as we did not have a chance to meet her prior to Grace’s birth. This weekend we received the greatest gift we could have…a beautifully hand written note and picture to Grace.

I hope that one day soon we will all have a chance to meet and thank her for her strength as well as celebrate this amazing gift and beautiful little girl.

Finally we also took our first road trip. This was a test to see how a 13 hour drive to Virginia may play out. We went to Treasure Island to visit our friends who were vacationing there. Last year when we went their daughter was interested in Nolin, but he really wasn’t sure what to think. This year they were both the right age and had a good time playing together.

It was a great trip, and both Grace and Nolin were pretty easy for our overnight adventure. I did have to leave with Nolin to take a brief stroller detour to help him fall asleep. As we were turning down the beach access his last words were Are we going all the way to China?

Slightly taken back by his question, I thought I sure hope not.

A lot has happened, and I am going to try and get better at staying more current with less time, but for now I have realized that while personal leisure time is now a luxury not often available, our family time is a luxury I often enjoy.

For now enjoy the pictures…