The Craziness Subsides. For a while.

The weekend has come to an end and, thankfully, so has my school semester. I finally feel like I can breathe again.

Our hosting weekend was hectic, having up to 9 adults and 2 toddlers in our house at one point. Camden handled the company like a champ. A year ago, hosting that many people would have presented a different set of challenges, in the form of extreme stranger anxiety on Camden's part. While he is certainly still a bit slow to warm up (every new visitor that entered our house got a several minute stare down as a greeting), he always does eventually warm up now. Sometimes, he might even get a little too warmed up-- he treated our guests to a streaking marathon, where he ran laps around our house in the nude.

I wondered what the dynamics would be like between Camden and our friends' 19 month old son, Jack. Camden adores playing with other children, but most of his social interaction is limited to his cousins and a handful of neighbors on our street. Having a stranger child come into his house and play with his toys was going to be new territory for him, so I prepped him on the need to share. With the exception of a couple minor incidents, I'm happy to report he did wonderfully. It was almost like he understood that he was the "big kid", as he even let Jack get away with snatching toys from his hands a few times (something he NEVER lets his cousin/BFF get away with). I think he's going to be an awesome big brother.

Camden and Jack's breakfast date.

One of the couples that visited are expecting their first child in a few weeks. It was funny to watch them studying Camden and Jack, taking internal notes. They didn't hesitate to pick our brains about parenting questions either. (Little did they know, I feel just as full of questions myself, even though this will be my second newborn experience.) Some of the questions were practical ("When do you stop nursing every 2 hours?") and some were downright funny. The father, one of Matt's best friends from elementary school, looked at me, seemingly perplexed. "So, Camden can just understand everything you say? I mean, you talk to him like he's an adult. You told him to get his juice off the counter, and he just went and did it." I made sure to clarify to him that he won't be able to instruct his newborn to warm up a bottle.