Baby love

I don't have a great memory when it comes to memories.  I have a great spacial memory - I can drive somewhere once and remember how to get there five years later.  But when it comes to events of the past, I'm hopeless.

As a coping mechanism, my brain has adapted to instead remember how I felt about the event, rather than all the details.  I will remember that I liked it, it scared me, it was really hard, or totally amazing.  Couldn't for the life of me tell you why, but I've learned to trust my feeling memories completely.

When I think back on the baby years, I remember loving my babies, but finding that first year really, really tough.  None of them slept through the night until almost a year.  My breastfeeders (Caleb and Benjamin) nursed every two hours, even through the night, until a year.  All three boys also needed to be permanently attached to me.  The swing, high chair, bouncy chair, playpen, strollers, and crib got very little use.  The sling and the baby carrier, however, were like outgrowths of my skin.  So you can see that while I loved my babies to death, it was very draining on me physically and emotionally.

Juliette is completely opposite.  She is happy as a lark to sit in the reclined high chair in a luxurious blanket, watching me hum around the kitchen.  She sleeps all night in bed with me, waking only once, twice at most.  She does love to be carried next to me during the afternoon/evening (her fussier time), but because she's so easy the rest of the time I actually relish holding her near my heart, or taking the occasional nap with her on my chest.

I am loving these baby weeks so far.  It feels totally different from the boys.  While it's still really hard to tear myself into four pieces to attend to everyone's needs, I'm not feeling as taxed by my newborn as I did in the past.  And I love this feeling.