Crowd Control

Who decides to bring their brand new 3-week-old to the grand opening of the zoo playground that's been under construction for the past year? Yes, that would be us. We fought the crowd which included everyone else in San Francisco with the same idea, and entertained the girls with the complimentary carousel rides offered that morning. This was a fun treat, but the new multi-million dollar playground was even better and worth the wait!

Okay, maybe we contributed to the crowd just a teensy bit.

 Poor Luke thought he could just have the stroller to himself.

Nope. These girls are masters at hitching a ride any way they can!

Week 2

We have over two weeks under our belt with little Luke in the house, and we're getting used to a new CRAZY normal, especially with a certain threesome back home from their week in Arnold. Matt is also back to work, and had three late nights this week. Incidentally, Mary's newest word is "meeting," as in "Daddy. Meeting." I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to updating about Mary, but she is speaking more and more. "Meeting" joins "gross" and "coffee" as her most recent favorites... not to be confused with her all-time favorite of "NO!" But, enough about my giant baby. I'm here to post about my tiny baby. Although, before I go on to post some cute baby pictures, I should say that some things haven't changed a bit around here. This girl is still taking every last opportunity she can to read, even in the few minutes before we run out the door in the morning before school. I love it!

Luke is 1.5 weeks old here, and he is a bit chunkier now. At his 2-week check-up this week, he weighed 9 lbs 5 oz, and I think he might have gained all of that weight in his cheeks :) He's become a little more mellow at night, but that could be because he's now sleeping in our bed and nursing whenever he wants!

It's a rough life :)

Five More Mommies

Raise your hand if you ever wanted a real live baby in your house when you were a little girl.

Yeah, me too!

I should never have worried about how the girls would adjust to having a baby brother. They are the absolute perfect ages to want and love this new addition, and I couldn't ask for five better little mommies to help me out. Their abilities with him run the gamut, but they all love him equally. At one end of the spectrum, Megan is completely capable of holding him, walking around with him and could probably change his diapers if I wanted to give up all claim to him. She is the official baby holder in pictures of all six, and offers help even when she's reading :)

Meanwhile, down at the other end of the spectrum, Mary wants to do everything she sees her sisters doing, but gets upset when we put limits on what she can do. She's constantly saying "ground" so she can play with him on the floor, and she is always all over his car seat if he's in there.  I mean, she may as well be buckled up with him for how close she wants to be. It takes every ounce of self control to stay patient with her as she mommies him, as she is super sensitive when we dare act like she's being too rough with him.

Little Miss Bridget is always in the wings. If Megan gets to hold Luke, then she must have a turn too. She is already mastering different ways of holding him, and insists on "holding him like Mommy."

Wherever Luke is, these little mommies want to be. During his first week home, he attended soccer games and doctor appointments, and the girls wanted to be right by his side in the car. Being the one to replace his pacifier is pretty exciting stuff around here!

I can't forget Tessa and Annie. They love Luke, but they prefer to call him Bucky. They also quickly correct anyone who simply calls him Luke. He is "Luke Patrick Bucky Stecher." Yes, Bucky, as in the pirate ship in their favorite cartoon, Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Why not name him after a cartoon ship? Sounds reasonable to all of the four-year-olds in our house! 

(a real live baby to bathe! incidentally, this was Luke's first bath, at 2 weeks old)

I have to say that the most special motherly attention Luke receives is from big sister Tessa. She is as funny and jolly as they come, but she is also our most sensitive and cuddly kid. She is especially in tune to little Luke when he's upset, and insists on singing to him. Her songs are usually some variation of this:

"If my little brother Luke starts to cry, I'll get a star from the sky. If I fall down, I'll call Wonder Woman and get a star for my little brother Luke for a night light."

Imagine a croaky, out-of-tune voice singing this run-on song ;)

She's also been known to whisper to him while she thinks no one else is listening. Never have I been more thankful for my stellar hearing :)

"Luke, do you know what? Someday when you grow up, you're going to be a daddy!"

Five, Make That Six, Pumpkins

Halloween this year left me less inspired than I have been in the past. It's not often that you can get out of things by claiming to be "ready to pop out a baby any day now," so I'll own that excuse for this holiday! Knowing that our baby would be born within days of Halloween with a due date of October 26th, I cared more about being home and not so much about the details.  I tried half-heartedly to convince the girls of themed costumes like we've done for the past few years. So far, we've done The Wizard of Oz, Super Heroines, Alice in Wonderland, and Strawberry Shortcake girls. But there was no pleasing everyone this year, and I didn't have a fight persuasive argument in me :)  One of my ideas was a basketball team with jerseys for each girl and #6 on my belly! Alas, that would have taken planning and a larger Halloween budget --- both of which were lacking this year. As we got closer and closer to the big day, we finally gave in and ordered a pretty random assortment of costumes online. Not quite homemade or original, but it worked, and the girls were happy!

Leading up to Halloween, we had our assortment of fall events. Mary and I waddled though a pumpkin patch with the twins' preschool class, and the photos are trying to tell us something: This mom has absolutely given up caring what her children look like in public, especially when a perfect opportunity to be Gymboree-ified (definitely a word!) presents itself.

Really, I'm just letting them express themselves :)

Next up, Megan and Bridget picked pumpkins in the patch (AKA school hall) on a free dress day. It was a pretty banner day with those two events coinciding! Matt was there to help out with the patch and capture some cute smiles.

Armed with our pumpkins, the girls all carved with Daddy's assistance. Once again, I failed at this holiday. If this was left to me, we might have used a few Sharpies ;)

The end result was much better than Sharpie art!

We placed them outside and took this picture two days past Luke's due date. We still had just five little pumpkins, though! Little did we know that he would make his appearance the next night.

Then came the Halloween parades. The twins had two parades at their preschool, and they just happened to coincide with the two days I was in the hospital delivering Luke, so Grandma was in charge of getting these crazy girls dressed! Tessa was wearing the Sofia the First costume she picked out, and Annie was a unicorn. She later decided she'd rather be something else, so this is the only picture of our unicorn :) I have to include this picture because it is hilarious to see how shrimpy Tessa and Annie are compared to their classmates. This "little" girl Paloma will be in their kindergarten class and is such a good friend to them. We can pull this picture out at 8th grade graduation to see if they still look like her little minions!

They don't look quite as short when they're just standing next to each other! They were both princesses for the second Halloween parade.

Meanwhile, Megan and Bridget had a parade on Halloween morning as well. Bridget was excited to dress like a witch, and we only found out afterwards that she and three other friends had orchestrated a witch theme together. (Ah, so she can do a theme with her friends but not with her sisters?! Ouch!) And Megan was a cat -- not a surprising choice given her infatuation with cats these days. She even tried to lick her "paw" in a picture on our front steps on Halloween night. She was really in character :)

Shortly after their parades, Matt headed back to the hospital with Mary to pick up me and Luke. As an aside, can't we give dads more credit? I know I'm being politically incorrect, but really? A journey home partner?

Luke was suited up in his Halloween best and ready to join his family for some craziness.  

But, before we scooted out as a family of four, Mary wanted to hold "Lukey" again. She was lucky she didn't need to compete with any sisters this time!

And then we left our little hospital room as quickly as we'd come. We put our two kids in the back of Matt's little green car and joked that it would appear to anyone watching us leave that we were a little family of four. Not quite! 

Once home, Luke settled quite comfortably into his bassinet for the first time.

And then...the real craziness ensued. I can speak from multiple experiences that it's always just too much arriving home with a new little person. You're armed with approximately 21 bags of stuff, including things you never knew you needed or wanted from the hospital. (My parting gift from Kaiser was a new robe...) We had all of the grandparents, neighbors and five hyper girls eager to see Luke. Add to that the usual Halloween night activities, and you can imagine how overwhelming it was. Normally, I can't wait to go trick-or-treating with the kids, but this year I was happy to take some pictures of them ready to go and then enjoy an hour of peace and quiet.

Matt busied himself downstairs in the garage for about five minutes right before they took off, and he emerged fully in costume as a scarecrow. Thankfully, one of us flies by the seat of their pants around here (my journey home partner is a keeper!). I could never come up with something that quickly!!

After everyone left, Mop and I had this little guy to ourselves again. I'm pretty sure he's saying, "What exactly was all that about? Please tell me this is not my life!"

I'm sorry, little Luke. This is your life. Happy Halloween, little sixth pumpkin of ours!