The drive home from the airport was noteworthy because of the singing in Cori's car. As we'd had to go in two cars, Cori returned with just Oshin and Orry in her car. On the way, Oshin began to cry in his car seat. Cori then began to sing to him from in the front, singing an array of songs, all with Oshin's name in at Orry's request. But he continued to cry without change. Orry then suggested to Cori that she sing one of the songs "you learned at your choir". This she did, launching into With a Voice of Singing and You are the New Day. These being the songs which she was singing with the choir when Oshin was in the womb, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that Oshin immediately stopped crying when Cori began and he looked around peacefully and attentively. He is obviously a fan of Cori's choir singing!
It was a lovely thing to see - Oshin so engaged with Cori, from well before birth - and something which Cori looks forward with sharing with the choir when she sees them next.
It's not a picture of Oshin listening to music, but it is him with eyes open and attentively looking around:
This is how he will be found for a few periods if time each day, happily in someone's arms (mine or Cori's) or, for a short while, lying on his back somewhere, with his head tipped round so that he can peacefully look at something or other. He won't be looking at anything in particular - not things as such at this stage - perhaps the window/light, or the colourful edge of the cot.
We have tried to read to him or to engage him in something like noisy toys or music, but he tends to cry for us to shut up soon after we start, so we make do with just holding him happily.
Our first family outing was out to Peel Castle / Fenella Beach, where Cori sat quietly and I explored caves and 'rock climbed' with the boys:
(The last picture, by the way, is of a buggane's head in the sand, says Finn).
Whilst at the beach, Cori took the opportunity to take some pictures of Oshin in the cot there, and he looked as lovely as you'd imagine:
The rock climbing was something from The List. This we made shortly after the Americans left, of all the things we should do to help around the house (since there were now a larger number of children, then they had to try to take on more of the household chores etc.), and also the fun things we wanted to do this summer (mainly during my paternity two weeks).
The boys have been very into the list, in theory, though the hope of them doing more house work off their own back has not materialised, sadly!
In the first flourish of the list & excitement about house work, there was some surprising 'putting away', especially from Orry:
The boys have been quite lovely about Oshin. In between their bouts of doting adoration of the baby (which are very much there, but don't last very long before they're distracted again), they have been doing really well at playing quietly by themselves and together in a make-believe situation. They play together very well in this way, in a way which is quite new to them, as they were previously playing in a way that left Orry slightly out of it, and so liable to spoil the game out of boredom. But now they can play happily like this for long stretches of time:
Within a few days, we had our first visitors to see Oshin.
With Finn, and probably with Orry, we very much wanted to form as a family, so visitors were nice, but only in a limited visit. And also, everything was difficult, and it was seemingly a two-person job to manage the baby with Finn. Looking back now, we have no idea how that was the case - were we rubbish at the parenting thing, or did we just have mad expectations of what 'busy' & 'difficult' were?!
However, with Oshin, he pretty much is slipping into the way we have things anyway. Things are coming back to us as we go along and we work him into the boys' & our lives without much difficulty. Things will have to change when it's just Cori, but for the moment it's surprisingly simple. And, since everything is already in place, visitors are very much welcome. It means Finn & Orry are entertained and we are left alone to sit down and drink tea for a while, which is all we're normally hoping for. - Great!
Finn and Orry also very much enjoyed visitors, especially ones who brought gifts like magazines for them, which they are enjoying here:
Our first BIG outing was to the Royal Agricultural Show, which was, inevitably, a lot of walking about for Cori:
The usual delights of freebies, competitions, rides and machinery was on offer:
There were also plenty of friends to bump into and chat with, and Finn's fearless confidence had him as the volunteer at one of the public performances, with the owl / bird man:
An unfortunate outcome of the day at the Show resulted from our not expecting that good weather, and the sunshine. We had brought Oshin's hat, but not his sun hat or anything like that. After a day at the fair, despite our best efforts, it was clear that the Out side of his face in the carrier was ruddy with the sun.
We are terrible parents:
Oshin survived though (we think), and lived to discover the joys of being close to a washing machine, as Finn and Orry did before him:
We were surprised in the first few days to find Oshin smiling in his sleep. Of course, he's not smiling when awake at all, but it is still a lovely thing to see on his face, even if he is asleep:
Whilst we're at it, here's another little video of Oshin sleeping, this time to the dubiously relaxing sounds of Radio 3. (We weren't being deliberately pompous with this choice - he had fallen asleep with Finn and Orry noising about in the room, so we wanted something to keep the same soundscape as we escaped to lunch... or, at least, the making of lunch, before he woke up!):
With Oshin around, we dug out the book we had made of Finn's First Year. This was a photobook we had made from the pictures in this blog (so, if you want to know what it looks like, just go back to 2011 here). It was a really nice thing for the boys to look at, to contextualise Oshin as not just a baby but as someone who will become a boy soon enough. However, to the same extent that Finn enjoyed seeing a book all about himself, Orry grew very sad/whingey that there wasn't a book about him. (It had always been our intention to make such a book, but, inevitably, we couldn't afford the time when there were two children, and Oshin certainly won't be seeing one any time soon!) To make Orry feel less neglected, we made our own one, drawing them from pictures in the blog. Orry was delighted with the outcome - his own book about himself was a delight:
Whilst we're on the subject of creative things, here is the lovely card that Orry created with Gramma & Auntie Jaimie, for that first time they came in to meet Oshin in the hospital. It's a lovely thing:
Also on the Oshin art theme, Orry sat down at his whiteboard and asked for suggestions of what to draw. I asked if he could draw Oshin and this is what he came up with - a lovely thing indeed:
Sticking with the older boys a moment longer, Finn (and Orry, to a lesser extent) has been really enjoying the books which Gramma brought from America. They are 'chapter books' about a Zombie Goldfish. They are not the sorts of things we'd have chosen, as they are close to being as annoying as you'd imagine, but Finn has really taken to it. Evidently, books perfect for 6-year-old boys should be as annoying as 6-year-old boys generally are!
Me & the boys also had a very enjoyable trip out with friends, leaving Cori and Oshin alone for the afternoon. We had a great time getting wet and lost in the woods up in the hills - the sort of thing we could never get the boys excited about on our own, but with other children involved it is the best afternoon's entertainment imaginable:
But, returning to Oshin to finish off with, since it's the sort of thing we'll forget about in the future, I filmed what the week-old Oshin crying sounds like:
And, in case you are traumatised by the sight of crying babies, here is a rather more contented film of him (with suitable baby simpering):
We were somewhat shocked on the first night at home that Oshin didn't need feeding to go to sleep, and that Cori was able to put him into his cot for his sleep. This was a thing which just never happened with either of the other two.
But it didn't last for long. It soon became apparent that that wasn't going to be a feasible way forward, as Oshin joined us in the bed soon after, and then I was turfed out to make room for him there a few days later. It wasn't long after that that the 3-sided cot was put up next to / adjoining the bed as we did for Finn and Orry. Why fight the inevitable?!
With Cori breastfeeding, it means that I cannot be much use in the night, but my taking him away for an hour or so in the morning is a joy for Cori. My getting him to myself for a while is also rather nice (especially in that first week when he tended to go back to sleep, allowing me to read with coffee!).
I don't have a picture of one of our morning hanging-outs (since Cori's not around to take the picture), so here's one of my holding him as Cori gets ready to take him for the night:
This seems like a good place to leave it, as there are other things for other posts, including lots of lovely pictures more, such as The Photoshoot...
