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<p>So, to answer the question everyone keeps asking me: How am I doing?</p><p>Fine. Just fine. </p><p>Which doesn&#39;t mean that life with three kids isn&#39;t a roller coaster, and that I&#39;m not barely hanging on some days, while other days I&#39;m just coasting along, enjoying the ride. </p><p>It&#39;s...a lot. The three kids part. Kind of shocking, actually.&#0160;</p><p>And then it&#39;s not.&#0160;</p><p>I&#39;m extremely lucky - my husband is a class-A father and partner, most of my family has come to visit and help out, even though they live in Miami and I&#39;m up here in Boston - and my friends have been nothing short of amazing. No really, they&#39;re Amazing: Coming over with food and drinks (of the adult variety) and playing with my kids and have been nothing if not patient and wonderful, and won&#39;t you believe it! I&#39;ve run out of thank you notes because people have been too kind. Even people I hardly know. </p><p>THAT my friends, is luck. And I appreciate it more than I could ever express, even though I&#39;m supposed to be a writer. </p><p>But! The recovery from this birth has been tougher on me in so many ways. Physically (as the nurse so kindly reminded me &quot;you&#39;ve stretched your insides as far as they can take, for a third time, things won&#39;t be the same for a long time, if ever&quot;) and emotionally. I can actually feel the hormonal changes - my temperature goes up and down, I want to see people and then I don&#39;t. I cry. I laugh. I sit in silence. I lose my patience. I&#39;m at peace. I won&#39;t shut up.</p><p>I know it&#39;s all normal. But that doesn&#39;t mean it doesn&#39;t take some getting used to. </p><p>Exhibit A of my roller coaster life: I saw a pregnant woman yesterday, AND I WAS JEALOUS OF HER. Me! Who wouldn&#39;t shut up about my big fat pregnancy and how ready I was to give birth. (Don&#39;t believe me? Reference, oh, every post on this site since about May or something.)</p><p>Exhibit B: Baby names. I&#39;m second guessing our choice of name. Not because we don&#39;t love the name, but because random people can&#39;t say Matthias. (It&#39;s Ma-TEE-as!) I love the name. <a href="http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2009/10/the-global-hit-name-you-havent-noticed">It&#39;s a very popular name...internationally</a>. I guess it&#39;s not so much here. Oops! We know so many Matthiases, but I guess my son will be the first for many of our US friends. That makes me sad some days. Other days, I&#39;m all &quot;tough noogies folks!&quot; - our family is an international family (our children have both US and EU citizenship) and it&#39;s not like we&#39;re going to name our boys Bob* to make things easier for strangers. </p><p>(Not that there&#39;s anything wrong with Bob. You know what I mean.) </p><p>(Oh, let&#39;s face it...people are going to call him Matt. Sigh.)</p><p>ANYWAYS! The boys need me. Gotta go. Stay well. I promise to do the same.</p>
