Weekly update

Having three children under the age of five does not leave a significant amount of time for blogging. Therefore, the daily updates are hard to manage, although that may be a good thing, depending on your tolerance for the detailed minutia of life with a newborn.

This week, George had his first post-hospital check up. Our regular pediatrician was on a Disney cruise with his family (also three children under five, I think), but we saw one of his peers. George is doing great, although his weight has not really climbed much since birth. He is hungry and, likely, very frustrated. He will gladly devour four ounces of formula at one feeding, but he has difficulty keeping it down. He manages better with three ounces, but is often hungry afterwards. So... his pediatrician (the fill-in) recommended a new formula, one with a cereal mix (or adding cereal to his regular formula) to provide more calories and nutrition. George is a lucky duck because we know (from the girls seeing him) that our regular pediatrician tends to be anti-cereal at this age. We knew George was hungry -- ravenous, in fact -- and we are definitely eager to get more food to him. He is scheduled for a recheck in three weeks. We will weigh him again Tuesday (a week from his last appointment); if he has not gained weight, we will reschedule sooner.

After the appointment, we made our way to the hospital to drop off some cookies to the nursing staff who took care of us when George was born. We had some really excellent nurses this time, and the least we can do is to send some chocolate their way.

As for the original monkeys, the girls, they have continued with their summer routine. They were really excited about sending cookies to the nurses, and Gracie was especially willing to preview/sample the cookies and provide some quality feedback ("they are REALLY good!!!"). They were a little concerned about George's appointment. Lauren asked, "Is he gonna get a shot???" Gracie was very concerned that he wouldn't come home after the appointment. We assured her that he is ours and that we will always bring him home after his appointments.

"But, are you going to bring home?"
"Yes, we are going to bring him right back home."

Here is Baby George in the waiting room:

A very bright spot in the week is that I was able to resume driving as of Wednesday. Accordingly, I picked up the girls from preschool Wednesday with Baby George in tow. He was a big hit at school, and the girls were basking in the glow of their new-found "big sister" status. They celebrated by having meltdowns on the way to the car. Gracie was crying in response to an admonition from one of her teachers (after Gracie told her teacher "no," she would not relocate at the lunch room table, thankyouverymuch), and Lauren was crying a) because she did not eat lunch and b) because she had to hold onto my arm (v. hand) since I was carrying George's seat... all of which is totally normal, I am sure. Today we resumed our preschool activities at home, and I am sure they were already rethinking their demands of one-on-one, undivided attention. We have gymnastics on the schedule tomorrow, and we will see how they respond to having Baby Brover hang out with them for that activity. It should be interesting.

Otherwise, there are many, many images to share, and I will try to get to that tomorrow. It is so much simpler to forward all pics through Instagram, but the quality is definitely not the same. (That reminds me that I did a little photo shoot with George Tuesday after his appointment, and I at least need to get some of those shots posted.) Anyway, I will try to share more soon, but, if I do not get to it, have a fabulous Friday.