Well! It's been a month since Susie was born, so things are fairly back to normal here. I mean, if normal is no time to make dinner and laundry baskets full of clean clothes everywhere (at least they're clean) and a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old who are whining an awful lot. Let's just call it the new normal, shall we? Anyway, we didn't have enough to do around here; so we decided to take a jaunt to NJ to see my parents last week. We had to convoy, since a 7-passenger minivan simply won't seat 8 (those darn seatbelt laws, wouldn't you know); personally, I really didn't mind riding separately from the above-mentioned whining children. Susie slept three solid hours on the way up - I definitely had the better end of the deal. The way down was another story, but it can actually be rather interesting comparing all the different turnpike reststops on I-95.
Our stay at my parents' house in NJ was bearable; though Larry did seem to develop some sort of nervous tic while we were there. He kept walking around muttering "loony bin...loony bin..." under his breath. Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Matt were all glad to see the children, even the whiny ones (have I mentioned that they're whining a lot lately?); and I was glad to let the kids mess up someone else's house for a change.
Susie is spending her time sleeping, nursing, spitting up, pooping, and hiccuping. She's very good at hiccuping. I'm spending my time carrying Susie, changing Susie, nursing Susie, preventing Rachel's squeezing Susie too hard, ordering the older children around, and pretending to Larry that we're doing just fine - really. 6 children? Piece of cake! No more trouble than 5 - honest! What's a little extra laundry? When he looks doubtful, I remind him that Susie may be the child who visits him and takes care of him after I abandon him to a nursing home in his dotage. It definitely won't be David. He doesn't like us anymore, because we insist he eat his oatmeal in the morning. He claims that there may be bugs in it. I told him that's all right, because it's organic. We insist that he eat breakfast, because he usually passes on dinner - he's a vegetarian, and the dinners are generally of a carnivorous nature. Anna, on the other hand, will only eat oatmeal for breakfast and pouts (no one can pout like a 12-year-old girl - I can feel it on the back of my neck) if we occasionally have cold cereal. I think they are all trying to drive me nuts. And, yes, it's working.