Can I say we’re hitting a stride with this Quadripod thing? I don’t know. I’m halfway through my second week back to work after taking six weeks off for Maia’s birth, and although getting back into the work thing is tough, it does feel like we’re adjusting. Admittedly when I returned to work on the sixth I felt like I was leaving Sarah with the short end of the stick. Being with the girls is wonderful, amazing, and fun, but it is WORK. Of course the work I do with the NWP and with teaching my students is work too, but compared to soothing a newborn and keeping a two-year-old entertained, “normal” work seems more like a vacation.

But we sailed through the first week and it was hard, but doable. Then we had a very busy weekend. Sarah’s birthday was on Saturday and Iana was in town so they did the spa thing and I stayed home with the youngsters. Everything was going fine until Maia woke up and realized there was no mama and no milk. She was pissed. Earlier that day Keana had scraped both her knees (very lightly) on the way to the park and she waited till just this moment to demand to be held. I couldn’t set Maia down so I tried to reason with Keana. She was not having it and within a few seconds I had two screaming girls, bawling their eyes out. It was one of those moments that you realize those ridiculous scenes in those comedy movies, you know those ones where the man has at least two kids puking or crying or whatever; those actually have a factual base. Maia really likes constant movement and background noise, so eventually I got the situation mellowed out by making a human train where I bounced Maia and repeated “chucka-chucka-chucka-chucka” and Keana followed along throwing in a “TOOT! TOOT!” as the three of us paraded around the entire house. This only lasted five minutes but it was just enough to calm them down. Then I was able to sing them both to sleep in Keana’s room with a variety of songs ranging from Paul Simon’s Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes to Creedence’s Someday Never Comes. There was something about singing those songs and holding little sleeping Maia in my arms while watching Keana sleep on the bed that got me all choked up. Maybe it was a stress release, maybe it was my love for them, and maybe it was both. I had to push back the tears though because it was ruining the song, but at that moment I couldn’t have been more thankful for that time together. Of course 10 minutes later Maia woke up screaming again and cried for another hour until Sarah got home, but at least there was that wonderful, brief moment of peace.

That night my brother Peter came up to see Maia for the first time and we had a fun birthday dinner/slumber party with the siblings. The next morning Peter had to leave early to pick up a friend from the airport and shortly after that Iana had to run to the airport to fly back to San Diego. Then we quickly got ourselves together for a homebirth potluck at our midwife’s house. Sunday night arrived much too soon when we realized we were about to start another week.

Needless to say, Monday was very tough for Sarah and the girls, but the week has gotten progressively better. On Tuesday our friend and doula Joscelyn came over and did a ton of work around the house and helped out a lot with food prep and meal ideas for Sarah. I arrived home from teaching at 10:15 p.m. on Tuesday night to a house full of sleeping ladies. As I ate my late dinner, silently at the kitchen table, I turned our new life over and over in my head. Our life with just Keana wasn’t ever really easy (though it had gotten easier), and now with Maia our life is certainly much harder. But I know we’ll look back on these early days and nights as a Quadripod—probably in the not-so-distant future—and just laugh at how crazy we were, being thankful that the hard stuff is over and looking forward to all the good stuff that lies ahead.