Day 4

This was from Thursday afternoon, on our way out of the hospital...

And here is Madeline on her way to the doctor for the first time this morning. Not a very representative picture in terms of her complexion (!), but this is the best I could get with my iPhone camera.

She was down a bit in weight (6 lbs 4 oz now) and height had stayed the same. She's a little jaundiced but her bilirubin counts were within a safe range. Overall she is a healthy little girl and we are so, so thankful. Somehow she looks more beautiful to me every day.

Sweet Robbie continues to struggle with the transition overall and was challenging at times today with his behavior. I sat him down to discipline him at one point and he quieted down and then leaned into me to hug (and not the kind where you know they're just trying to distract you from disciplining them). I spoke gently with him and asked him more about how he was feeling, trying to give him words to use to articulate what's going on inside of his little heart and mind. He was receptive to our conversation, and obedient for a while afterwards. It's so hard to know when to continue to be firm with routine discipline and when to stop and take into account all that he is trying to process and allow some room for grace. I hope we are getting it right, I'm sure much of the time we aren't!

Meanwhile, Ellie walks around the house chatting away to herself, pushing the hair back out of her face with both hands, reading books to herself in the corner, and generally entertaining herself and the rest of us with her happy-go-lucky personality. Who would have thought she would seem like the easy kid!? She was our high maintenance lady a few weeks ago, and now she is suddenly the least needy of the 3 kids. Bless her.

We let the kids hold Madeline for the first time today. Robbie has been asking for this since she came home, and spent a lot of time this morning talking to Maddie and showing her his trains. He is such a sensitive soul, and is careful and attentive to her. Right before I left for the pediatrician with Maddie, I was changing her diaper on our bed. Robbie came into the room and insisted on climbing up on the bed to see what was going on. He was concerned that she was crying through the diaper change, and after a failed attempt at consoling her, he looked up nervously at me and then burst into tears, crying "the new baby scared me!". Rob had to come and get him and as we were trying to console both kids, my phone started to ring. It was just comical.

Day 4 of Madeline's life, in the books.