Party of Five

We brought Maisie home from the hospital on Saturday and things are going great so far. Max and Tyler are finally starting to show a little interest in her after almost a week at home, so that's good! They called her Baby Robot for the first few days and then they switched to just Baby. As of this morning they've both called her Maisie a few times, so I'd say we're making progress.

The boys have been great in general lately and are at a really good, fun stage. They play well independently and have been making up games and using their imaginations a ton. They hold full conversations with us and each other, which helps us manage and avoid some tantrums since we can actually talk things through. They are totally open to bribery as well, which is also a plus ;)

I have many thoughts to share about how Maisie's newborn experience is about as different as possible from Max and Tyler's newborn experience, but I'll save that for another post. For now I'll say that we feel extremely blessed and lucky for our little family. So much of the past few years with preemie twins has put us in "survival" mode, and I often felt like I was waiting for the next stage just so things would get easier. Inevitably, each phase made a few things easier, but a few more things even harder. Right now I can honestly say that I wish time would just stop for a while (well, maybe in a month or so when Maisie is sleeping a little more...). Max and Tyler are so much fun and engaging, and we are really loving having a full-term baby to enjoy without the stress and fear and machines and restrictions we faced the first time around. Of course I'll always look forward to watching our kids grow and seeing what the next phase holds, but for now I'd be okay if things stayed just like this for a while!

Here are some pictures from Maisie's first few days. Thanks again for the emails, calls, texts, cards and comments last week. It means the world!

Heading home from the hospital in her car seat

We taught her snoddler brothers that they can only touch her hair or her feet. Good thing since they both have colds today!

Maisie, Max and Tyler

When she's not eating every 2-3 hours, Maisie spends most of her days like this...

or this...

or this...

or this...

or this...

... and occasionally like this:

Needless to say she is a very good baby so far. We'll see what happens when she "wakes up" to the world!