In the meantime…

 Having this baby was so much harder on me than I thought it would be.  He didn’t sleep through the night until after he was two, and weaning him took more effort than it has before.  He’s very demanding and for the first two years of his life, he spent a lot of time screaming or crying.

(More time than most of my chickens, but not more than all of them- I’m talking about you, Jack.)

It may be because I’m older, but I think that a lot of it had to do with the fact that most of my children are so much older, and the rhythm of our life has changed so dramatically.  Add the recovery from pandemic times, and the way that changed the way people visit and engage with each other- and then throw in the difficulty of living so far away from old friends and family, and the early, dark, and long winters and I think it makes sense that it has been hard.

I can write this now because I’m on the other side of it, I think, and Ollie is an active, demanding toddler, but it was my lowest emotionally and mentally since my dad’s death.  Another long winter in this northern place is coming, but the Baby- as he calls himself- sleeps through the night, communicates his needs with more than screaming, and is all around a charming kind of guy.  He’s just in that stage where everything he does is adorable…

Or maybe we are in that stage.  All of this to say- I wish I had set down more of our day to days, more of what happened in the last ten years, but I won’t be hard on myself about it.