My head is full of words that I wish I could form into wonderful beautiful sentences to describe the past week. But lets be completely real. I'm tired. So tired that my teeth hurt. Is that a real expression? I feel like I've heard it before. This time though, I use it because literally, my teeth hurt. See, I've been doing much sleeping while sitting up, holding a nursing baby, my head rolled forward, my teeth clamped together at an awkward angle. And so they hurt. Weird, huh?
But the baby? Oh, he's totally worth it. He was born on Tuesday. 8 lbs. 2 ounces, a head full of hair, though not quite as much as the others. He has Sam's hairline, which makes me excited to think I might have another with Sam's crazy curly hair. For now, his eyes are blue, but it's a dark blue that in some lights starts to look brown, so it won't surprise me if he winds up with the same chocolate eyes of his brothers.
We've been home since Thursday, recovering nicely and enjoying all our lovely time together. The big kids are completely enamored with their new baby brother. Even Ivy took one look at him in the hospital and was hooked. She climbed onto my bed, looked at me with her huge brown eyes, held out her arms and said, "Mom, I have it?"
I've only had a few moments where I looked at Josh and wondered if six kids wasn't going to break us all together. In the car, on the way home, for example, with kids squashed into every corner of the minivan with little room to spare, whining about elbows and personal space and not being able to recline and... I don't need to go on, do I? At least the dog wasn't with us. Five days in, we've had a few more weary moments, but it's easy to forget them when you see the kids scrambling to get their hands washed so they can take a turn holding the baby after school, when you recognize the efforts they are making to pitch in, to be more self reliant when Mom can't help tie shoes/tuck them in/spread butter on their toast/etc.
And of course, one can't forget the magic that simply happens when you spend any amount of time around a newborn. Six times in, it's still a miracle--a living, breathing testament that God is real and good and ever present in our lives.
I almost forgot. Baby has a name. Jackson Ayres... both family names that seem to suit him perfectly. We're calling him Jack.
