Back to reality

It's now been a week since Emily was born, and several things are becoming apparent.

1. This may be tempting fate, but I seem to have missed the whole baby blues thing this time. There's been no crying whenever people ask me how I'm feeling (that was most embarrassing last time!), and only the odd tear when someone sends a nice card or e-mail.
   
2. I was told that I'd be a lot more relaxed second time round, and so far that seems to be true. I'm slightly concerned about sorting myself out a routine in the next week so that I'm able to manage the school run and various other deadlines, but luckily I have a marvellous neighbour whose little girl is in Isabel's class and who has offered to drop off and collect if I need some help.
3. All babies are different. Again, perhaps a truism, but so far Emily's little character is quite different to her sister's. She seems a lot more chilled, but perhaps that's because her parents are more relaxed. She's already sleeping well - in fact last night, she slept so well that I had to try to wake her up at 4.30am (after last feeding her at 10pm) because I was so full of milk that something needed to be done! And after I'd fed her then, she slept 'til 7.30am, and only woke up when her big sister came in. Amazing. I certainly wasn't expecting a good night's sleep at this stage, but I've now had three good nights out of four, which is not to be sneezed at.
4. Kids are amazingly resilient. Isabel so far is showing no signs of sibling rivalry (maybe it's a bit too early!), and indeed is revelling in having a baby in the house. And everyone's been so nice to her - she's had presents galore (including from Emily - a new scooter, which went down very well!), and even a card from one of my friend's mums to congratulate her on her new baby sister. And she got two certificates from school on Friday which she's very proud of - one for 100% attendance last term at school, and one for good work. She had to go up and collect them from the headmaster in front of the whole school, very exciting. And nice timing, given Emily's arrival.
5. I'm ready to start getting out and about - managed to take Emily along with me when I took Isabel for her ballet class this morning, and then took the two of them for a walk after lunch since it's a lovely sunny afternoon. Meant to rain tomorrow and then for the following few days which is such a shame since it's been beautiful. Having said that, it'll give the flowers in my pots a chance, they're getting baked at the moment!

So Week One gets the thumbs up from me - bring on Week Two!