Reflections

Seeing as tomorrow is officially Micah's due date, I am reflecting on the past four weeks of activity, chaos, sleeplessness, and challenges.

Micah's early arrival certainly threw us for a loop. We expected him to be early, just not quite premie early. Thankfully, my coworkers have picked up my slack because I left numerous projects unfinished. Although I've worked from home a bit over the past weeks, I've been very fortunate to work with understanding and patient people. I plan to return to my part-time schedule next Monday.

Isaac has really struggled with this transition. We knew the baby's arrival would rock his world, but he's chosen to express his confusion and frustration via acting out. I've given him more time-outs in the past few weeks than he accumulated in the prior two years. He's really testing his boundaries and seeing how far he can push. I fully realize that this is normal behavior for a two-year-old, but the severity really took me by surprise. Isaac was always an obedient and willing kid. Not anymore. We've been very fortunate to have family come visit us because that seems to help him with the transition.

The transition is complicated due to Isaac's speech delay. He was officially diagnosed with a speech delay back in August and began weekly therapy sessions. We really like his therapist and love that the sessions are held at home in his natural environment. We are seeing some progress, but we were warned that it will likely be slow going for awhile. I really think that much of his acting out relates to his inability to express his frustrations with words.

Micah is a really sweet and easy baby. He still shows no complications from his early arrival. He loves to eat and sleep. He hates a wet or dirty diaper. That's about it. He's even easy at night for the most part. He wakes up, we feed him, we burp him, and back to bed for everyone. Actually, Isaac has been the one to keep us up at night lately. Another sign of his transition struggles because he's always been a great sleeper!

Micah is starting to really lock in with his eyes, and it appears that he has Chad's almond-shaped eyes as we suspected. His eyes are lightening up from the initial navy color, and I think they will end up a light blue like the rest of his family. While we were pregnant, Chad and I completed an eye survey. If we entered our parents' and siblings' eye colors correctly, Chad and I can only have blue-eyed babies. Thus, Micah's eyes aren't a huge shock. :)

Thursday will be his one-month check-up already. Where has the time gone??