It’s weird to think that tonight’s the first night that I’ve seen my newborn sons in a week (on account of being sick).
It’s also weird to think that they’re still only 10 days old.
I suppose a lot of weird stuff has been happening lately. Just this same evening, I had to tell my toddling son that it’s not ok for him to drink someone else’s drink once they throw it in the garbage – I guess because he just saw STRAW and thought, “Hey, I know what to do with that!”
Relatively speaking, both babies are doing well. David, seen here, is down to only a feeding tube, and they’re even talking about trying him out on bottle-feeding soon, whereas his brother Matthew has a little further to go but is doing pretty good with breathing and all of that.
He still looks so frail whenever I see him or look at the pictures … I have to remind myself that he’s literally half the size of his brother right now, and that soon enough he’ll fill out those bones with actual muscle and fat.
But for now, it’s certainly a reminder.
In a way it’s hard for me to bond with the babies like Sara is right now. Maybe part of it is maternal instincts, and the fact that she spends the better part of her days making milk for their nourishment, but I would argue that I’m bonding in my own ways – trying to help keep the ship afloat back at home, and taking care of Christopher while Sara continues to focus on the newborns, and figuring out how in the world we’re ever going to pay for all of this!
It took me a while even after Christopher came home before I really started to bond with him, so I know it will come in due time. There’s no sense in forcing it and we’ve all got plenty of stuff on our plates to keep us busy in the meantime. Looking back, admittedly I don’t really think it’s something that can be “forced,” anyways – life just sort of happens and along the way, bonds are formed.
If we got to choose the things that we bonded over, that would make life way too predictable, which I’ve already learned has absolutely nothing to do with parenting! 😉