It has been a while since I have done any updates, so before I post on anything else, let’s start with that.
Clearly, I have had my baby. Kyrie Isabelle Jentzen was born on September 6th, 2019 at 9:45 AM. She weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and was 22 inches long. I already detailed her birth story in a previous post, which you can find here if you have not yet read that yet.
At first, it seemed easy to adapt to Kyrie’s presence. She slept all but four hours a day and not a whole lot seemed different, but as she grew (and was awake more) we learned that the transition from two children to three is quite a bit different than the transition from one to two. We found ourselves being late a lot (something that was surprisingly not an issue for us prior, considering there are more people in our family with ADHD than without.)
Lili did have some trouble adapting to no longer being the baby of the family and there was some regression. It took a little bit of working with her and a lot of frustration, but Lili is beginning to realize that just because there is another member in our family does not mean that we love her any less. I try to make sure to give her special time with me because I know that a lot of my attention right now is going to Kyrie, as she is a baby and needs more care, and a lot of it is going to Xander, as he works through his home school curriculum. I do not want her to feel left out, as she only has about 30 to 45 minutes of preschool curriculum in a day whereas, because Xander is in the fourth grade, his school time takes much longer. Lili is really excited to do school and even more excited that she will be starting Kindergarten in the 2021-2022 school year. I can’t believe it has been that long already.
Xander is in fourth grade this year. It’s not his favorite. I can’t really blame him. I wasn’t a big fan of the fourth grade, either. I just try to have lots of love and compassion for him. I know an education is not that important to him. He would rather be off playing Minecraft. We just take it one day at a time, and he is doing pretty well, despite his complaints. He sure loves his baby sister, though. He says keeping an eye on her during the short periods of time in which Chris or I are unable is his favorite “chore.”
Overall, we’re getting along quite nicely. COVID-19 was a bit of a hiccup, but since the kids are homeschooled anyway, it didn’t cause much of a change in our daily schedule. The saddest thing was having to cancel Lili’s fourth birthday party, as the lockdown happened a mere two weeks before party day. We tried to make her birthday special, nonetheless, with pancakes and silly dancing and watching her favorite movie, Frozen 2.
Kyrie and Xander also spent their birthdays in lockdown, but with it being her first birthday, Kyrie had no idea. And Xander took it all in stride. It didn’t seem to bother him much that he couldn’t have a party. He kind of likes his solitude, anyway. I told the kids I would love to do something for all three of them where we invite friends and family for a get together once all of this is over, but there’s no way to determine for certain when that will be. All we can do is keep our hopes alive and try to remain positive.
What are you doing to try and keep a positive outlook when there is so much uncertainty regarding the pandemic?
