Sustaining Life

I had somehow blocked out how much time is spent just sustaining life when you have a newborn.  The hours spent feeding the baby and changing diapers are staggering.  At one point when Leon and Michael were newborns, I did the math.  I don't remember the results, and I'm scared to look at them, but I know the total hours spent on feeding each day was in the double digits. 

Thankfully, so far Natalia has been a pretty easy baby, especially at night.  She gets up, eats, and goes back to sleep.  She only wakes up to eat or burp.  Which has been wonderful, since I don't know what we'd do if we had a super-needy baby right now.  But we still spend a lot of time on really basic care.

When we want to get fancy, we throw bathing into the mix.  The other kids generally get nightly baths.  (Leon and Michael ALWAYS get nightly baths, and Ree is allowed to opt out a few times a month.)  Natalia gets bathed every other night, after every else goes to bed.  Of all the kids, she probably needs a daily bath the most with the spitting up and pooping after every meal, but it's hard to find the energy to do it, and thankfully she hasn't filed a complaint with child services just yet.

But there's no time sucker with a new baby like the laundry.