The Week After

The week after Naiara was born, the three girls (Renee', Ayana and Naiara) were able to stay with Steve and I in our Port Townsend home. The goal was to give Renee' a little head start on recovery and help her with the little ones. I seriously had forgotten how exhausting babies can be!

Little Ayana was teething most of the week (one molar and two kanines) ... so she had a little bit of a rough time and wasn't super interested in completing her meals. Of course, that made our dog very happy, as she was given permission to clean up whatever Ayana left behind. And of course, that was entirely entertaining for Yana.

Steve kept himself fairly busy elsewhere most of the time, but when he was around, he and Ayana kept eachother very entertained. At one point (and I wish I weren't too tired to have gotten my camera out for this), Steve and Ayana sat on the couch for nearly 45 minutes shredding a magazine and sticking the little paper pieces to one another.

Baby Naiara developed a little bit of newborn jaundice around day four. We googled as much as we could on the subject and decided it was mild enough to wait until their scheduled doctor's appointment the following week. Ironically, most of the newborn blankets and fabric coverings were pale yellow (Naiara's theme is Giraffes) ... so we kept taking her to the natural window light to be sure it wasn't getting any worse.

Renee' did fantastic with her recovery and healing has been much better and quicker this time from the c-section. She hardly looks like she could be a mom of two!

I tried very hard to get "Sibling Portraits" but the best we could do ended up being very comedic and memorable all in itself. There was just no way we could keep Ayana from wanting to clobber her sister.

Arlyn and Rochelle were able to make it over for Ayana's first birthday. She sure liked the tissue wrapping paper, the birthday song, and ... of course, the cake!