Robin Artemis photo gallery

The next seven days, 15-22 April, 2011

After we brought Robin home from hospital on the Friday afternoon there was a week or so of adjustments. Getting used to having two children, working out where all the things we wanted and needed had ended up, working out how we were going to do everything. James was still on paternity leave so we got some quiet time as a family. My mother Sandra was here for that time too, continuing to help with Sparrow and settling her into the new routines, and being an extra pair of hands for the first few days while I was still fairly incapacitated from the c-section. She left the following Thursday and this set of photos runs up until then.

Mother and son.

We were finally allowed to take Robin home from the hospital on Friday afternoon just before it was time to pick up Sparrow from daycare. So we took Robin along to get her. I think Sparrow was a little surprised that at her own daycare she suddenly wasn't the centre of attention. And she was definitely happy to see me, told me all kinds of things and showed me lots of stuff from her day. Robin wasn't terribly engaged with it all, understandably - just lay on my lap and made sleepy faces at all the adults and children cooing at him. Then we piled them both in the car and went home. This is from that trip - the first with two kids in car seats in the back. James and I were giggling a little about suddenly being a typical two-adult-two-kid family. So unusually normal for me. Suits James wonderfully though. We are going to have to think about if we ever want to have anyone in the car other than us though - there's not even enough room for James' bottom between those kid seats, so our car is now officially and permanently "full". Maybe we'll rent a six-seater when family come visiting.

Starting to get set up and settled in. These days were full of those slightly baffled and vague moments where you think "All right, what now?". We've got the box out for Robin to sleep in, but he was comfortable on the bed so we hadn't moved him. And everyone else is just temporarily quietly occupied.

Saturday morning we took Robin down for a first walk around the shops. That was our chance to catch most of the locals, shopkeepers and shop staff that we know and let them coo over the brand new baby. I had thought that I wouldn't rush it but it just happened that we needed to go down anyway and lots of people we knew were around so we made a stroll of it. Sparrow is going to have to get used to no longer being the one that everyone stops to look at. I think it was a little odd for her, she could tell there wasn't something quite right about the way it was all being done but couldn't put her finger on it. She got plenty of attention too though, that apple was given to her by one of the fruit shop staff as a celebratory present for her. And most people made the effort to talk to her about her new brother so that she got included in the conversation.

Father and son lying around and having a good look at each other.

James carrying Robin in the carrier. The new Heart to Heart insert makes the Ergo carrier work so much better for this age range. We had a lot of awkwardness with Sparrow in the carrier as a newborn, but it works very well with Robin.

And there's a better look at the boy, sleeping.

Grandma holding Robin. The laptop in the back is showing random pictures for Sparrow to look at - she liked looking at the photos and talking about what was in them if she knew, or getting us to tell her about them.

Working out how to make sure everyone gets attention, Robin gets his feeds and I don't overwork my healing bits was always a fun juggle. Sparrow and I are watching Little Pim while Robin takes his time. We got James to sit behind so we could have a picture with all four of us, taken by Mum.

Early morning is my time with the kids now. Robin wakes up for a feed and a change and another feed, then goes back to sleep while Sparrow wakes up for breakfast. Convenient for being able to attend to each of them well but means I'm up and going from 5 or 5:30 am. Then eventually I get both of them together. Sparrow is thrilled to be holding Robin. Robin is not completely impressed by his big sister yet, she's probably just a very enthusiastic and loud fuzzy face in the general fuzzy morass. This is where I was sleeping with Robin for most of this month, on this mattress in the book room (in various configurations). We were trying not to disturb Sparrow too much with all the times I was getting up and down in the night - last thing I wanted was for her to be joining in with the party! So where Sparrow got leisurely night feeds with various interesting lights and always lots of music of different kinds, Robin had a lot of dark and quiet feeds. I couldn't have it completely dark at this stage though as he was still having a little difficulty working out how to feed, still too new and with too little muscle control. So I needed to be able to see what he was doing and assist.