Olive Sylvia

Well, she's here!  Our sweet little Olive, perfect and precious in every way, she is finally here.

Our baby girl was born in the late afternoon, a week after her due date, on Friday, February 27th.  She's our smallest baby, but not by much, and at birth was 8 lbs, 13 ounces and 21 inches long. So we were able to squeeze her into some of those newborn clothes I had "just in case" for at least a few days.

The circumstances of her birth were definitely not what I had anticipated, but when it came down to it, she was born very quickly after an extremely short period of "active labor".  Full birth story will of course be coming, but I don't have the energy to tackle that tonight, since we all know that the tiny stupid details are the best parts of birth stories.  Expect that post to be wordy and full of too much information.

The hospital stay was an enjoyable, sweet blur.  That first night at about 8:00 PM we had a billion visitors arrive at the same time, all clamoring to see this child we've been waiting patiently for.  (Some of us more patient than others.  Ahem.)  They all brought sweets that perfectly complimented the Pizza from Pizza Luce that Dan and I had ordered before they arrived.  We ate like kings for days, sweets and dessert with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still continue to do so as our daycare provider orchestrated a meal delivery schedule with all the other parents for the entire first week we were home.

This baby, oh my this baby... she really has enchanted us.  I have so thoroughly enjoyed these first 10 days of her life, I can't really describe it.  Apparently, everything is sweeter the third time around, and I am consciously trying to soak it all in since I anticipate she will be the bookend to our little family.  (Never say never, but yeah... never again.)  There are so many lovely newborn things that I forgot about.  I forgot how wonderful and slow and long and sleepy these first days are.  On multiple occasions I have felt overwhelmed with love for this precious, innocent little person that less than two weeks ago was still growing inside of me.  Her squishy little milk-drunk face on my shoulder after nursing has been the cause of a few weepy moments of gratitude.  We are so lucky to have this girl, so lucky to be able to bring her home into this happy household full of family members so ready to shower her with love.

Her brothers are smitten.  They spent a lovely few hours on Saturday morning at the hospital with us, watching cartoons, eating cookies, and snuggling day old baby Olive and me in my hospital bed.  They had time to decompress a little with us after a very exciting, confusing day in which they woke up to find grandma in their home with news that mom and dad had gone to the hospital and their baby was coming!  Louie was really upset when they had to leave the hospital and he broke my heart a little.  Of course it was all pretty overwhelming, and he just kept begging us to let him stay with us, or to go home to his house rather than back to grandma and grandpa's.  He left, tearfully giving me kisses and telling me he loved me, and I just... ugh so much love for that sweetheart.

Still, when we came home from the hospital Saturday night, just a little over 24 hours after her birth, we decided to have my Dad wait to bring them home until Sunday morning.  We were able to ourselves come home to a quiet, calm home.  And then the next morning were able to provide the boys with a quiet, calm house to come home to as well.  We spent all of Sunday just having as normal a day as possible at home, and it was like night and day from how things went (super chaotic and stressful) when we brought Louie home 3 years ago.

The boys marvel over and dote on her daily.  Gus in particular has been a dream with her.  She is the first thing he thinks about every morning when he wakes up, he comes into our room looking for his baby Olive, ready to bid her a good morning and babble nonsense in a ridiculously high-pitched voice.  He couldn't wait to show people his new baby, especially his friends at preschool and daycare.  Both boys want to hold her all the time, and that hasn't even gotten annoying yet, because I swear I am so much calmer this time around.  I have somehow let go of any agenda.  And certainly I am able to roll with things so much more than I have been over the last 9 months.

Oh, and this baby girl is not phased at all by this family's wildness.  The dog barking frantically, mom losing her temper (it happens), insane screeching and running and stomping, tantrums, hyper Star Wars play happening literally a foot from where she's laying.  Nothing seems to bother newborn Olive.  It will be interesting to see how that changes or evolves as she moves out of the lumpy, sleepy, newborn stage... but I swear, the craziness calms her.  I can tell that she is used to it.  She knows us.  We're her people.