Compare and Contrast
Many people have been noting how similar Kai looks to how Erik looked as a baby, so I thought I would find some pictures where we could make a direct comparison.
Here’s Erik at 4 days old:
And here’s Kai wearing the same shirt, laying on the same couch, at 3 days old:
They definitely look very similar! Though it is a little bit harder to tell in the pictures, Kai’s skin tone, hair and eye color are all darker than Erik’s are. Erik’s skin tone is very fair like mine, while Kai (and Madeline) take more after Tony in that category. Madeline was born with dark brown eyes, Erik’s were light blue from birth (and stayed blue!), and so far Kai has more of a dark gray-blue color to his eyes. His seem to be more of a “baby” color that will change to something else as he gets older. Perhaps his eyes will be hazel like mine?
Kai also seems very similar in temperament to what Erik was like as a baby. Just like Erik, Kai seems very easy going and is a good eater and sleeper. We haven’t had any problems with nursing, and as soon as my milk came in, he was sleeping about three hours at a time at night and easily going back to sleep between feedings (unlike Madeline, who liked to be awake and screaming between feedings in the middle of the night as a newborn).
Madeline and Erik seem to be adjusting pretty well to having Kai join our family. We haven’t had any obvious jealousy issues thus far, though I can see that we will probably have some patience issues once Tony is back at work and there is only one grown-up here to help the kids. I think it might take them some time to get used to the fact that there will be times during the day when it will be 10 or 15 minutes or more before I can get something for them or help them with something because I am feeding the baby. Madeline obviously went through this once before when Erik was a baby, but since then she has gotten used to mommy almost always being available to her within a minute or two to respond to her requests.
Besides the logistical challenges of learning how to get out of the house and go places with three kids in tow, I think our biggest challenge once it is just the kids and I here will be finding a good schedule that work with a newborn, a toddler and a preschooler. We had a pretty good schedule going for the first couple months of the fall, but then as I got further along in the pregnancy, the holidays hit, and so on…well, the schedule pretty much went out the window! For the six weeks or so before Kai was born, we were pretty much just trying to get through each day with a minimum of disaster and without me going completely crazy from exhaustion. That meant extra TV and computer time many days, and just more “entertainment” for the kids in general rather than purposeful use of time.
I’m sure we’ll still have some days like that in the weeks ahead, especially on days following nights when Kai does decide he needs to eat all night long (and every baby has those nights, even the “good sleepers”). But overall I think a bit of structure will make our lives easier and more productive in the long run (though it might hurt a bit getting there!). Tony is home with us for another week or so, until he starts his new job on Monday the 23rd. Then the adventure of having three kids at home with me really begins!