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Hello from Wexford!

Oscar was doing well enough to be transferred back to the local hospital and so on the 01 December in a flurry of activity we high-tailed it home. Him in an ambulance with a full compliment of paediatric doctors and nurses, Brian and I following in a daze of sore scars and brave new worldness, the kids bringing up the rear with aunties and grannies in tow.

He has settled in to his new home without a bother. It has taken me, on the other hand, the 10 days to start to come to, to paw myself into my new home. Like a cat checking for snakes, circling and padding and pawing until I find the right spot. The crazy-lady part of me wondering about hiring cherry pickers to paint the outside of the house, fussing over dodgy inside paint jobs and wondering how quickly after a c-section I could climb a ladder to paint Max’s room.

But it is starting to feel good.

Focus, Layla, on the wood, not the trees. On the birds swooping past the window, on the kind moon bathing your bed in 2am light, on the prickle of stars framed over Max’s bed. On the velvet brush of Oscars cheek to yours, the joy of a kid under each arm as they drift to sleep. On the giant bath big enough for two. Let go of the boxes to be unpacked, the spice drawer not organised, you crazy lady, from a-z.

It is a strange divide, life in the house with my two kids and life in the hospital with my third. Sometimes it is hard to even imagine that Oscar really exists when at home putting on a wash, reading stories, serving up dinner. It feels odd to tell people I had a baby two weeks ago, standing there in the school yard with no baby in sight.

There is a lot of milk pumping, not enough pausing for breath. School runs and parent teacher meetings and hours with Oscar and homework and pumping and washing and pumping and pumping and pumping.

But there are moments. Brian and I at our new kitchen table while the kids play their elaborate Paw Patrol game, a coffee in the bedroom armchair as the sun catches the hedgerow, a snooze with Oscar in a corner of the NICU. Max and Martha’s gentle care as they meet their brother for the first time.

Moments of perfection, where life is deliciously good.

The wood, not the trees.