Eliott's First Week

It has been a few weeks since my last post and I have so much to share...

Eliott Clark joined our family early last Monday morning (Nov. 16). Once again, our lives have changed forever. This time, in the form of a 9 pound 20 inch beautiful answer to prayer. There is not much in life that compares to being able to hold your baby for the first time. To lay there holding God's most precious gifts to us is a blessing that is completely indescribable.

The week following his birth was amazing, and emotional, and hard. It was hectic, and full of hugs and kisses, and packed with love. It was the sweetest sort of survival mode there is. We spent only one day home during that week, as he needed to be re-admitted to a different hospital because of high levels of jaundice.

For the first time, I felt the tug in my heart between my two kids. I wanted to be able to be with them both. I knew we had to be in the hospital, but missed Logan so much and knew he was having a hard time with us being gone. Thankfully, he was able to stay with my mom so I knew that while he was sad to be away from us, he was being loved on and so well taken care of. We have been so blessed with the best grandparents for our boys.

On our first morning back at the house, Logan climbed up into bed with us and told me how he was feeling. He said that he didn't like how everything was different now. He also told us that he didn't feel like part of our group anymore, which totally broke my heart and made me cry like a baby. But almost immediately, I was so proud of him for coming up with the words to tell us all of the emotions that his three year old mind was trying to process. So we sat and talked about it all, about why the baby needed to be in the hospital. We talked about how things would start to feel more normal now that we were back home again. I could tell that he started to feel better after we talked it all through.

Ever since we have been home, things have been going so well! Logan has come up with about a million little nicknames for the baby including, my boy, koala bear, pistachio, peanut, my little dude, my gingerbread baby (when dressed in a suede winter suit), and so many more. I don't know that he could adore his brother much more. He is the first to jump up to help with a binky at the smallest peep. He wants to help with every single diaper change. His instant love has blown us away.

Little Eliott has brought so much to our family in his week and a half of life. He loves to cuddle, and loves having his head rubbed (he rolls his eyes up into his head and gets these big grins across his face). Much the opposite of his brother, he loves being swaddled. He sleeps well at night now that we have been out of the hospital for a few days. He is waking up to eat about once anywhere from 1am-3am at this point and then again around 7am.