After our roller coaster ride in the hospital, we were thrilled to get discharged and make our way home for some calm family bonding time.  We had been splitting our nights with Little Jacks, so we missed her terribly and couldn’t wait to start life with our new family member.

We spent a lot of time preparing Little Jacks for bringing a new baby home.  It’s hard to know what she thought about all that talk.  The actual homecoming did give good insight into how she felt about it in the moment though.

When we walked in the door, LJ was playing with my parents and screamed, “Mama!” I showed her the baby car seat with her new sister in it.  LJ broke into that Christmas morning surprise/smile look as soon as she saw there was “real little sister” in the car seat.  She did wonderfully in the moment, and I had this very naive thought of  “oh, we’re going to sail through whole adjustment period.”


We all photographed our wedding “first look.”  Well this was a homecoming first look.  Here Little Jacks is looking to dad with the car seat.

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Well, that was a silly thought!  Not an hour later, we were going to take Little Jacks to her Music Together class when she had a complete meltdown triggered by the fact that Jack Jack was sitting in what Little Jacks perceived as her OWN carseat.  In LJ’s defense, we made a huge miscalculation.  See, LJ is tiny and still comfortably fits into her Britax Chaperone infant carrier.  It’s so much easier to use an infant carrier when traveling so we used it when we went to Hawaii.  Big.  Mistake!  Having just spent 2 weeks in the seat, LJ clearly thought that it was hers and didn’t want anyone else sitting in it.  The meltdown lasted pretty much the rest of the day with intermittent periods of calm!  The heartbreaking moment was when Little Jacks said, “Put Jack Jack down.  Hold ME!”  I found it hard to tell her to be patient, but right now was Jack Jack’s turn.

But since then, Little Jacks has done really well.  We’ve had some issues with sleep (stay tuned for a future installment on that subject), and with wanting to “help” Jack Jack rather vigorously (patting, thrusting binky in the mouth, rocking)! We’ve also seen a few regression behaviors such as wanting a binky (which she’s refused her entire life up until now) and wanting to be swaddled.  Luckily we didn’t see any potty regression, which has been really nice.

We’re still working out those kinks, but we’re thrilled that it’s going so well.  It took about a week before Little Jacks didn’t even seem to remember life before Jack Jack!


Checking out the new addition to the family!


Closer inspection


You guys weren’t kidding that I was getting a little sister! Cool!