Gen 2 Chapter 8: One plus One equals.... six???

Well, for starters, let me tell you how thrilled I am that we made the decision to stay here, with Berjes and Lakeisha. They really saved the day when it came to helping out with 3 little ones. We didn't even have to ask, they would hear one of the girls crying, and they would jump right in and offer a cuddle, a bottle, whatever was needed.

Even Berjes, who we all knew didn't enjoy babies, could often be found carrying a little one around, or in the nursery with the girls.

But even with four adults, it took every bit of our combined efforts to keep the girls happy. It was as if we all couldn't give them enough attention. A snuggle, and a little playing just was never enough for these girls.

Pretty much everything in our lives besides sleeping, eating or my work at the bookstore was put on hold. That meant no more painting, guitar, exercise or even time to ourselves. I really loved our girls, but I sure did miss Jeanna. My longing to just sit down and talk with her, kiss her, grew everyday.

Time seemed to fly by, and soon, Jeanna and I started both feeling like it was time to have a birthday party for the girls, and see them into toddler hood.  With a quick phone call, the party was set up. We didn't invite nearly as many people this time around. We knew it would take a lot just to get through 3 birthday cakes!

So, 1st up to the cake was Harmony...

And after fixing her hair and dressing her in her favorite color, here's what our beautiful 1st born girl looks like! She has her mom's hair, and I think those were my dad's eyes. I was told his eyes were a golden color.

Next up was Melody!

And after dressing her and combing her hair... it looks like she would have mommy's hair too! But her eye color, we aren't really sure of. It almost looks like a mixture between Jeanna and my eye color. Her favorite color is Orange, so we decided to dress them all in their favorite colors to be able to keep them straight. Especially since right now, Harmony and Melody looked so alike!

And last, but not least, we have our Symphony.

Wow! I was somewhat expecting another dark-haired little girl, but instead, came a little girl with a head full of fiery red/orange/yellow hair! I couldn't believe it! She had gotten my dad's hair color! A man I had never got to meet.

I couldn't keep the tears out of my eyes as I held her. My little reminder of my father. And it looks like she got her grandma and grandpa Stout's eye color. A true mixture of the grandparents! How cool! Oh, and her favorite color is aqua, so she'll be wearing aqua shades. Not that we'll need to worry about it! I think we'll all know who Symphony is!!!

That party took a lot out of all of us! We immediately started putting the girls to bed.

Well, all except for one... little Melody. She was wide awake, so we just left her to occupy herself with her new toys in the nursery, and figured she'd be ok for now.

Hopefully we could get her back on a regular schedule soon. Right now, all we cared about was sleep. Sweeeeeet sleep!

So, the next few days were a blur.

Early Morning Wake Up Calls.

Feeding.

Changing.

Toilet training.

Teaching to walk.

Admiring cuteness

I can't say there wasn't any less work involved, it still took all 4 of us to meet the girl's needs, but because they could play and entertain themselves at least some of the time, we found a few minutes here and there to start back at our hobbies again.

I was working on my guitar, and Jeanna had just learned how to paint portraits, so she started one of me to hang on the wall next to hers. One particular day, I couldn't stand it any longer. Even if we had only a few minutes, I wanted to spend some time with my wife. I found her upstairs, still in her pajamas, painting.

"Hey, I miss you."

She stopped what she was doing, and turned around. Oh, babe, I miss you too... so much!

Her eyes welled up with tears, and I pulled her in for a kiss.

After that, no other words were really needed. Her and I took a few minutes to ourselves, and 'reconnected'.

After, we just laid on the bed, trying to chat and catch up before one of the girls started crying for us.

"You know, I love the girls, more than anything. But I really do miss our time together. I know this is just a phase, but it's hard sometimes."

"Oh, I know. I feel the same way. But you are right, honey, this will pass eventually, someday we'll be in a house full of teenaged girls, who would rather us leave them alone."

She laid back on her pillow and laughed... "Wow. yeah. I think we should just do our best to enjoy them while we can, but promise me we'll try a little harder to spend time together, even if it's a few minutes, like this..."

"I promise Babe. I will."

And sure enough, little Melody needed her bottle, so Jeanna hurried and got dressed and went to go tend to the kids, and I hurried off to work. I was a few minutes late, but noone noticed.

As soon as I got home,  I let Jeanna off baby duty, so she could get some rest.  She looked really wore out, I think she needed to get some good sleep.

The exciting thing was, that night, Melody was potty trained! Yes! That's a least one kid we won't have to change diapers for!

Apparently... all was not well with Jeanna. She woke up from her sound sleep feeling sick... and I heard her run to the bathroom and started puking her guts out.

She thought she had caught a bug or something, and so I slept upstairs so that if she was sick, I wouldn't catch it. After all, we couldn't afford 2 parents to be sick!

The next day started out like every other day, an early morning screaming toddler waking us all up, followed by the sounds of play time...

but the one sound I heard this morning that had me worried, was the sound of Jeanna throwing up again in the bathroom.

And again that afternoon...Yep. It was obvious to both of us. We just might be adding another addition to the Song family. We both agreed though, that if that were the case, we would just take it one day at a time, and go with it. (Secretly, I was a little excited about the thought of having another baby with Jeanna. I loved our girls dearly, but it would be so great to have a son too!)

She decided to try and give her dad a head's up, since he's the one with the aversion to babies.

"So, dad. I hope the girls aren't overwhelming you."

"Actually, although I'm not a "child" person, your girls are growing on me. I love looking after them. I'm one proud grandpa!"

Ok, so she chickened out about mentioning another baby. But at least he liked the kids we did have.. that was promising!

So, after her dad left the table, it was confirmed. Jeanna and I were indeed expecting our 4th child. Wow!

She went ahead and told her mom, since she was right there. She was actually excited! I'm so glad everyone was taking this so well.

We both really wanted this one to be a boy. We really needed to balance out all the 'girlishness" in our house!

With Jeanna being pregnant, we knew we would probably need extra help with the girls, so she hired a babysitter to come help out during the day. He was a great kid, and he was really great with the girls. I'll tell you, it was nice having an extra set of hands around!

We actually got all the girls to bed at a decent time with his help, and were able to go to bed together, and get some much needed rest.

But that didn't mean that our work wasn't cut out for us. The girls still had to be taught all of their skills, and their birthdays and the new arrival were not that far off. We split up the work as much as we could.

Eventually, carrying a child in her belly, and looking after 3 toddlers started to catch up to Jeanna.

I tried to give her time to relax the best I could. There was just so much to do! Now, we needed another room for the baby, so Berjes and Lakeisha agreed to take the upstairs attic as their new room,  and we would remodel their room when we could to make it the baby's room. We also knew that the toddler's room would need some work too, when they became children, which was just around the corner. So much work do to!

For now, we put the baby's crib in our room, and figured we would keep it there until after the girl's birthday.

As the days went by, the skill teaching continued. As well as the tantrums, and the snuggles, and the grandparents coming in to save us when we were so tired we couldn't keep our eyes open.

Jeanna liked to work out with this pregnancy... she said it helped keep her energy level up, and she really wanted a head start on taking the baby weight off after the baby was born.

During this time, I got an opportunity to write another book. I hadn't written a book in a while, and my publishers thought it would be a good idea. I could write any kind of book I wanted, so I told them sure. We could use the extra money right now, and what better book to write than a children's book?

But, getting started on it would have to wait, because little baby #4 was coming! We decided that for this 4th baby, we would have a home birth. That way we would all be here and Jeanna could rest right afterward. Jeanna decided to go upstairs to the attic room so she could have some privacy...

As we took care of putting the three girls to bed, Jeanna was upstairs giving birth to a beautiful baby......

BOY!

Yes! We decided to stick with the music theme, and named him Cadence. He was such a calm and happy baby right from the start! I hoped he would be a Good and Brave kid.

So Jeanna put him to sleep in our room, and then her and I went to sleep, after a long day.

Berjes couldn't wait to get his hands on his new grandson, and sneaked in and fed him a bottle so we could keep sleeping. I swear, you would never be able to tell he dislikes children, he's so great with all the grandchildren!

Just a few hours later, Cadence woke up again, and I got my first chance to snuggle my new little boy. As exhausting as the past few days had been, I loved my 4 kids so much, and as I held my little son in my arms, I knew that although it was overwhelming, he was meant to be here with us...

*buckey's notes*-I know, I know, right! Another baby! But, this is how it works in a wishacy, gotta fulfill those wishes, and Mikie wanted another child... and they both wanted a boy! And, since the installation of LN, the babies are SO difficult to keep happy! Having triplets with this 'bug' or whatever it is is pretty much torture! I swear, if there weren't 4 adults.... >:\ It is super sweet watching Berjes, the man who dislikes children, autonomously go hug and care for the kids though. SO cute!

And, I LOVE that Symphony has her grandpa Harley's hair! That's something you all never got to see, because by the time Honeybee was with Harley, he was an elder. So cool! I think she might be my favorite... I don't know, we'll have to see what the new baby looks like! As always, thanks for reading!