Just over 3 weeks old now, young Luke is happily eating, checking out the world with big dark blue eyes and little interested noises, pooing, and sleeping with the most serene look on his face. All good baby stuff :) He's dropped into the same sort of routine that we used for Jessica and so life is (mostly) fairly predictable about what happens next, with some timing variations. I must say that I am so much more relaxed this time around and even though there are now two little people, it's definitely not as hectic as the first time. Especially the first 6 weeks, which, looking back, still are a blur.

Friends have asked me if I was worried about having enough love for a second child. Now that we have one, I can truly say that, firstly, my love for our first child grew much deeper and I long for and miss the times when she was small, yearning to have more time with her and have some time back. And then secondly, my love for Luke was "automatically" there. It's not something I worked on, or an emotion that gushed out when I saw him for the first time. It was more like a completion, or a quiet presence. It's as though he has always been part of me, and of our family. Which in a way, he and Jessica both have, as I have prayed for them since I was 13 years old (so that's about 23 years already - yikes, I'm getting older!)

Poignant and humorous memories of our first week:
- Jessica with ear infection and temps in the 40s, crying and being dunked in the bath on a heat wave Tuesday (the day after I got home)
- Jessica taking meds morning, midday and night for a week oh so very bravely
- Mosquitos humming madly round the bed the first few nights I was home
- Luke peeing on Adam
- Luke sprinkling the doc's waiting room when I went in to weigh him last week (a perfect hit on the toy bin
- Luke nailing Adam's foot with a poo (I nearly tore my stitches laughing when it happened, and ended up in tears on the bed)
- Luke smiling
- Jessica and Luke in the bath together for the first time
- Jessica eating again after a week of refusing all food 'cos she was feeling so sick
- Meals every night dropped off by fabulous friends (yum, yum! YUM!)
- trying to leave the house with two kiddies in tow (I forgot all the Kerry-things, though I did remember all their paraphernalia)

Jessica learnt to say "Loooook" today for the first time (so cute) and is now giving Luke "loves" which means bumping her head against his. She's practicing her kisses on him too with some encouragement. Of course, there are some moments when she gets a bit enthusiastic. Picture her rocking the car seat vigorously with Luke head-banging inside :)

I'm managing to get some sleep when Jessica goes down for her day sleep, which really makes quite a difference. I did fall asleep in the middle of an "AM" feed yesterday and woke up an hour later with the light still on and Luke passed out on the bed next to me. Then he woke up when I tried to move him to his bed, so I broke my intentions and fed him to get him down again after changing him (3 times in one change... he has a tendency to fill his nappy several times over 10 minutes or so and always seems to do it when I change him after the midnight feed). Crawled back into bed at 2am and snuggled down next to Adam. Yawn. It's not hard to fall asleep after a feed nowadays!

I'll post pics tomorrow. Need to head to bed now. Just had to get some musings out. Night night!