Summer Fun with Lucy

Lucy is loving summer time.  So much so that she doesn't want to miss a second of it sleeping!  This past month Will and I decided that it was time for Lucy to say goodbye to her crib and get a big girl bed.  We figured the sleep issues couldn't get any worse, and she was really getting too big for her crib.  So, we took the plunge and had a little ceremony as we took down her crib.  Lucy was super excited and to help her take ownership of her new bed, we let her pick out some new sheets.  She really wanted Elmo sheets, but all I could find were Elmo sheets for a Toddler bed, and not a Twin sized bed.  She settled for polka dots, and seems to be happy with them.  She doesn't wake up in the middle of the night anymore for us to fix her blankies, as she can do it herself now in the big girl bed.  However, she has been having some major anxieties regarding loud noises, and wakes us up if she hears the toilet flush, a motorcycle go by, baby sister crying or heaven forbid - fireworks or thunderstorms.  A couple of nights ago we were up literally from 12:30 to 5:30 as we rode out a thunderstorm with Lucy who screamed at the top of her lungs each time it thundered.  We weathered through it though, and Will and I have been obsessively watching the forecast to brace ourselves for the next storm.  Here Lucy is below saying goodbye to her crib, and enjoying her first snuggle in her new bed.

 This past month we have been teaching Lucy manners to lessen her likeness to a neanderthal and move her towards a well adjusted little citizen.  Sometimes I wonder why I even bother, but then other times her sweet little unsolicited pleases and thank yous catch me pleasantly by surprise and I am reminded of the end goal.  Some of Lucy's other phrases that have put a smile on my face this past month include:

-"Are you talkin' 'bout me, mama?"  This is asked anytime Will and I are having a conversation that doesn't involve her.
-When eagerly anticipating a visit from her Aunt Jane, Lucy kept asking over and over again where Aunt Jane was, and I would respond with "she's coming".  Finally, Lucy asked me: "She's comin' round the mountain mama?"
-After Will, Emma or I do something Lucy likes, Lucy will tell us "Good job."
-"Can I get some air back here?" is asked each time we get in the car.
-Nine times out of ten Lucy now calls Will by his first name instead of Dada.  Will likens it to feeling like he is my boyfriend, not Lucy's father and feels rather hurt.  Lucy isn't doing it to be spiteful however, and cannot wrap her mind around our request to call Will Dada as after all "his name is Will!"

We've had a large crop of strawberries and black caps (think black raspberries) this past month in our garden and in the woods by our house. Lucy has become an expert berry picker and we have enjoyed reading the book "Jamberry" over and over again.  We have also made a ton of strawberry and blackberry syrups and jams which Lucy enjoys eating on her pancakes and also rolled up in a tortilla with peanut butter.

We received some relief this month with the installation of a backyard fence and some window air conditioners.  These simultaneous events have allowed us to enjoy our summer so much more.  When playing outside now, we no longer have to worry about Lucy running into the street and can even sit down in a lawn chair and just watch Lucy play instead of always having to be two steps behind her.  The air conditioners have put me in a much better mood as I am no longer hot and cranky, and has even lessened some of the outdoor noise that has been keeping Lucy awake at night (although unfortunately not thunder!).

Lucy has grown several inches this summer and is just under three feet now.  Apparently this is the sweet spot of height as she can now open exterior doors and the refrigerator.  I am dreading our electric bill for this coming month, as I keep finding the fridge door hanging wide open.

This past month my brother Mike and his wife Jenna had a baby girl, Ellen and she is Lucy's and Emma's first and only cousin.  We were super excited to meet little Ellen and can't wait to watch the three girls grow up together.  In case there is some confusion, Simone is the 'baby' between Lucy and Emma in the above picture.  Below is my sweet niece Ellen with her mama and Lucy.

 I had to end this post with an adorable picture I caught of my mom and Lucy sharing a special moment together at our family reunion earlier this month.

We hope you are having a great summer!

Emma is 3 Months Already!

Our little Emma has been charming us for 3 months already!  I remember the learning curve with Lucy got dramatically better when she was 6 weeks, and then again at 3 months.  It seems no different with Emma.  But this time, the learning curve has become easier because I think Lucy is finally adjusted to being a big sister.  Emma continues to be a good little sleeper and although the below pictures mostly show otherwise, she is starting to stay awake for longer periods of time.

Emma went to the zoo for the first time this past month and seemed to take it all in quite calmly even though it was super hot that day.  Here she is below riding the train with the rest of her family.

Since Lucy was a baby, I have been in the market for a cute play mat.  I had one for Lucy but ended up returning it because it seemed too busy and I was worried she would develop focusing issues if I let her play on that crazy mat for too long.  This past month I finally found a play mat that I thought was simple, cute and still had enough activities on it to keep a baby's short attention span.  Ironically, when it is tummy time, Lucy generally joins in and the entire play mat gym shakes, rattles, wiggles and creates an environment of over stimulation for Emma.  It is rather hilarious though to watch Lucy on the mat with Emma - I liken it to a bear in a china shop.  Here Emma is below, seemingly fixated on a toy above her but the reality is she has her eye on Lucy for self defense.

Emma loves to suck vigorously on her fists and even wakes herself up because the sucking sound is so loud it startles her.  That bump on her head in the below picture is a mosquito bite.  Never have I been so mad at a little bug, as when they bite my sweet baby.

Emma is very vocal.  She "ooohs" and "aaahs" to whoever will listen, and even talks herself to sleep.  She is also starting to laugh and will smile at whoever will make eye contact with her.  Every child is definitely different and the things that worked to calm Lucy down are different from what works for Emma.  Sometimes I have to pause and remind myself of the tricks that work for Emma, instead of just going on autopilot from my experience with Lucy.  For instance, Emma will stop crying sometimes if you set her down and make eye contact with her, whereas Lucy would stop crying if you stopped making eye contact with her and picked her up.  There were times when Lucy would ONLY sleep in a moving vehicle - whether a stroller or a car - and Emma seems to be unable to sleep in either.  This is unfortunate, as it makes for stressful car rides and short walks.  We love her just the same though and life is good when I get to check on and kiss two babies on earth and blow one kiss up to heaven before I go to bed at night.  Below is an adorable picture of Emma being cuddled by a close family friend of ours.

And something the sisters do share - kissable, chubby cheeks!

All in Good Humor

 This past month started out rather rough for Lucy as she came down with a fever of 104, and was sick for several days. I knew she was seriously sick when sleep caught her off guard while watching Elmo. It didn't help that she was battling this fever while sitting in a house without air conditioning on an almost 100 degree day. A few days later when she was feeling better, the thermometer hit well above 90 degrees again, and she woke up from her nap all sweaty and told me, "Mama, a fever. Me have a fever!" The poor thing now equates any hot temperature with a fever! I told Will this was the last straw several days later when I myself came down with the same fever and didn't even know it until later on in the day - I thought I was just sweaty and feeling sick from our oven-like house not having air conditioning. Needless to say, we are now in the market for some window air conditioners. In the meantime, we have been enjoying a lot of popsicles out on our front porch, which does boast a fairly nice breeze on most days.

Lucy continues to have nothing but love for her baby sister, although I cannot for one second leave them alone together. Lucy has been very helpful with Emma, and is the first to hear Emma when she wakes up from a nap – even when she isn’t the reason Emma woke up. Lucy continues to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to Emma when she cries and can even be counted on to give Emma her pacifier if I am otherwise occupied driving the car or in the shower. Lucy takes great pride in Emma’s milestones and likes to baby talk to Emma and tell us things like, “Mom, Emma’s talk’in!” Or, “Big smiles, Emma, big smiles!” And even helpful things like, “Mom, Emma spit up! Where’s the burp rag?”

Lucy’s favorite thing to play with this past month is her doll Simone. They go pretend shopping together, Lucy gives her baths, changes her diaper, feeds her and dresses her. She spends most of the day with Simone in her arms, and has even gotten to the point where she likes to take Simone with us on outings. Lucy refers to her beloved doll as “Moan” or “Moanie” and tells me things like, “Mom, Moanie’s walkin’!” Or even better, “MOM! Be QUIET! Moanie’s sleepin’!” And then minutes later, “Uh oh, Mom. Moanie’s awake!” My favorite Simone play theme though is when Lucy has to go to the hospital to “Help Simone get born.” The other day Lucy told me, “Mom, Moanie just got born again. It was HARD!”

When Lucy isn’t playing with Simone, she can be found reading books. Her favorites this month are a series of “I Spy” books we checked out from the library. She has done them so many times she has memorized where each object to be found is. That is no problem, because every week we trade them in for new ones and we start the look and see process over again. It has gotten to the point though where yesterday I talked to an eye doctor because my eyes hurt after reading those books to Lucy. Maybe after thirty years of no glasses and a month of “I Spy” books it’s time for an eye exam.
Lucy continues to make us laugh with the words that come out of her mouth. Here are this month’s highlights:

-When given a choice between two things like drinking from a red cup or a blue cup she will sometimes tilt her head to the side, shrug her shoulders and tell us, “It doesn’t matter.”

-When talking about events in the past she will start out with, “Mom, me-member?”

-When talking about events in the future she will say, “Maybe, sometime?”

-When asked to do something she would rather not, she will tell us, “No, hurts.”

-And my favorite phrase out of Lucy’s mouth this past month happened after I had left Lucy to her own devices while on the phone and feeding Emma. Lucy tends to get into trouble when I feed Emma or am distracted on the phone, so the fact that I was double-distracted on this particular morning was a bonus for Lucy and she wasted no time. After I hung up the phone and finished feeding Emma I went to investigate the all-too-quiet house. There was Lucy in the living room with an empty box of Kleenex. The contents were neatly arranged like an Amish quilt across the entire living room floor. I was very impressed with her attention to detail and how smoothly each square was placed next to one another. I was torn about taking a picture so that you could see the beauty and magnitude of her project, but decided that it would not send the right message to Lucy. So instead I told her that Kleenex costs mama money, and that I needed her to put every last square back into the box. Lucy looked up at me and said in an understanding voice, “It happens, mama. It happens.”

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the biggest thing we have been dealing with this past month. I wish we were past this already, but we are still having some major sleep issues with Lucy. Bedtime has been taking sometimes over two hours a night, and naps have become hit or miss with lots of struggles beforehand. It doesn’t help that I have to be mindful of Emma as well and try and coordinate the schedule so they both sleep at the same time and Lucy’s sleep issues don’t wake Emma up. For instance, one of Lucy’s sleep delay tactics is to call for us once we have tucked her in and yell that she “Needs sum-thin’.” She needs a sipper, some lotion, her blankies fixed, to go potty, another sipper, etc. When we ignore her calls for “sum-thin”, she resorts to calling my name over and over again without pausing. One afternoon for nap I told her before I left the room that I had given her everything she could possibly need, so don’t bother calling my name as I won’t be coming until nap time is over. She nodded her head in agreement and laid down sweetly in her bed. Five minutes later after I had let my guard down, she started calling my name. “Mama. MAMA. MAma. MaMA!” with every variation you could possibly think to say mama. After two hours of solid mama’s, I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore and nap time was over. I calmly walked upstairs and into her room and would have scared the pants off of her, except she wasn’t wearing any pants. She was completely naked and had thrown not only every stitch of clothing she was wearing out of her crib, but her blankies, stuffed animals and dolls, pillow and even mattress sheet. I startled her out of some kind of trance staring off into space still calling my name and definitely not expecting me.

I can only believe that this was in response to an earlier tactic Will and I had thought up for bedtime. A couple days prior to this particular nap incident, we had decided that we would take an object out of her bed every time we had to go upstairs and quiet Lucy down after we tucked her in. Lucy is a collector and sleeps with several favorite blankets, stuffed animals and dolls and if even one is missing she cannot sleep until it is returned safe and sound to her bed. So Will and I discussed our plan together, and then told Lucy as we tucked her in how things were going to play out if she continued to call our name after we turned out the lights. She nodded sweetly in understanding and even told me as I walked out of her room, “Yuv you mama!” Three stuffed animals removed from her bed later, she finally fell asleep. Still, this was progress. The next night we reminded Lucy of the new routine, and she again nodded in agreement. After we tucked her in a hush fell over our house and when 15 minutes had passed, Will and I even went so far as to smile at each other and breath a sigh of relief at our cleverness. Not a minute later, Lucy called for me. Will looked at me, and then went slowly upstairs. Upon entering her room, he found Lucy laying flat on her back with her arms stretched up in the air holding her beloved bunny Hopps. “Take Hopps first Dada” she told Will with a grin. Lucy had the last word, and Will and I were left to think of another ‘clever’ plan.

The next day Lucy, Emma and I went to Costco with a good friend of mine who has a membership there. When we were in the aisle with the cereal and juice boxes, Lucy let out a squeal of excitement and yelled, “Juice boxes, mama, juice boxes!!!” The week prior, we were at a relative’s house and she had tasted the undiluted goodness of a juice box for the first time in her life. Up until then, she had only had juice with one part water, one part juice. She drank that juice box like an addict, and even choked on it several times she was drinking it so fast. Out of habit I responded to Lucy’s pleas with a resounding “No, we don’t need that” but then stopped in my tracks. Lucy sure likes juice boxes. She has been talking about them since last week. Hmmm. This could work. Maybe, just maybe. A memory of my family’s first Nintendo set came to mind from my childhood. My parents were always the last people in our neighborhood to buy the latest technology – air conditioning, a microwave and even a VCR. So when we got a Nintendo for Christmas after only a couple of weeks of begging, we were a little apprehensive. When I asked my mom why they got us the Nintendo so quickly, she slowly smiled and told me “Because bribery works.” And was she right – we would do anything to play Nintendo! Weed, scrub cabinet doors, not fight at the table – you name it! So I happily told Lucy, “Sure, let’s get some juice boxes!” Lucy couldn’t believe her good fortune and continued to talk about the juice boxes all the way home. At nap time I wasted no time, and brought out the big guns. I told Lucy that if she was quiet after I tucked her in and remained so until nap time was over, she could have a juice box with her snack that afternoon. She happily chatted about what flavor she was going to pick as I left her to dream of the sweet liquid. Three days later she finally got her first juice box and it has been working ever since! Will and I are slightly concerned that the bribes will have to get bigger and bigger as time goes on and that by sixteen we will be forced to buy her a convertible to get her to sleep but I am for once going to live in the moment and enjoy this small victory.

Below is Lucy at the playground by our house, shortly before bedtime in an attempt to wear her out.

A good friend of mine posted a blog about parenthood this past week that talked about the neccessary balance of humor and patience in parenthood.  The humor portion definitely held true this month with Lucy.  Maybe next month we will focus on patience!

Emma's Two Months Old!

At two months old, Emma is an established member of our family already.  She started smiling and cooing at us around six weeks old and watches Lucy very intently from her bouncer chair.  We aren't sure if it is for self-protection, or if she is just in awe of her big sister.  Based on the smiles she is constantly giving Lucy though, we are thinking her gaze is less about defense and more about admiration.

Last week at Emma's doctor appointment, we were told that Emma has the upper body and head strength of a four month old.  When your baby is less than two months old and pretty much sleeps, eats, poops and occasionally smiles, you'll take any characteristic prominent in your child and run with it.  We are shamelessly proud of our baby's physical strength and now refer to Emma as our little athlete.  Look at her standing and holding her head up like a big girl!

As our third child, it is almost impossible not to compare Emma to her two older siblings.  I'm not sure who is at the disadvantage with this habit, but either way, it is hard not to do.  Lucy never paid attention to the TV until she was about 18 months old and even now will be hard pressed to sit for longer than 10 or 15 minutes in front of it.  Emma on the other hand, will follow the TV with her eyes and fuss if she is facing the opposite direction and can't see it while it is on.  Here are the sisters below, watching Elmo together.

Here Emma is below in her car seat, holding onto her big sister's hand while Lucy sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to help Emma stop fussing.  During Emma's first week of life I happened to sing this song during a crying spell of hers.  Since then, every time Emma makes a peep Lucy launches into a verse or two of this same song and miracle of miracles, it calms Emma right down!

Emma was baptised this past month and we had a beautiful day to celebrate.  The picture below is part of a tradition that sadly started at Luke's funeral.  Luke was laid out in front of this stained glass window at our church before his funeral.  It was here that we greeted our friends and family by his side and through tears proudly watched them meet him for the first and last time on earth.  We have since taken Lucy's baptism pictures and now Emma's in front of it.  It is yet another way that we have found to integrate Luke into family traditions, and it helps us feel his presence with us.

 Here are Emma's godparents, my brother Mike and sister-in-law Jenna.

Lucy and Emma fell asleep on the way home from the baptism, and held each other's hands even while sleeping.

Here Emma is in her baptismal gown.  Lucy wore the same one, as did myself, all my siblings, my mom and all of her siblings too.

Emma cuddling with her godfather after her baptism.

Emma cuddling with her Great Grandma J. at her baptism party.

This has been a great month for little Emma.  She has found a way to fit right in to our family of four on earth and at two months it feels like she has always been here with us.  She follows a simple pattern of eating, alert time and sleeping throughout the day, and sleeps very well throughout the night.  She continues to be a laid back baby and we are so happy she is here with us!

Treasured Twos

This past month definitely came with it's share of challenges.  Lucy is apparently still processing the adjustment of having a baby sister and what it means for her relationship with her parents and for her life in general.  Thankfully, Lucy still continues to have nothing but love for Emma but instead has chosen to take her frustrations out on Will and I with continued sleeplessness that results in crabbiness.  She also continues to have anxiety about many things and new to the list this month are lawnmowers and thunderstorms.  She screamed an entire day this past month when we had severe weather that lasted from morning to night.  In the beginning I was understanding, but by dinner time I was shaking my fists at the clouds and less than patient with Lucy.  One of the things that has helped me to keep my perspective is listening to seasoned moms with grown kids talk about how much they miss the days when their children were small.  Being in the trenches, my mind is mostly occupied with survival and it can be easy to lose sight of those tender little moments sprinkled into the craziness. 

The other day we were at my parents house and I was busy with my mom at the computer when Lucy ran in the house with my sister and exclaimed in the most excited voice you have ever heard: "Mama!  It's RAINING mama, it's RAINING!!"  My mom practically ate up the excitement that Lucy had over the fact that it was raining and had I not seen my mom's reaction to Lucy's exclamation, I wouldn't have paid attention to it any more than if you had told me it was raining.  I mean, it had in fact rained every single day in Michigan for the last month, so it wasn't really news to me.  But my mom saw this message from Lucy as so much more than a statement of the obvious.  It made her miss the days when her kids would come to her with messages about seemingly the most mundane things but present them to their beloved Mama as the most exciting thing to happen since Christmas.  The pure innocence and joy of living life in the moment is not something that we tend to keep as we grow closer and closer to adulthood.  And it had not occurred to me until this point that Lucy would outgrow this stage and I too would miss it.

As if to drive home this point even further, that same week I was watching one of my favorite sitcoms with Will.  On the show, a mom with three kids was crying about the fact that their daughter who was graduating middle school no longer ran to greet her parents when they came home from work.  That stopped my heart for a second.  Up until that moment, I had completely taken for granted Lucy's happiness to see Will or I.  When we pull in the driveway, Lucy runs to the window as soon as she hears our car, stands on her tiptoes and practically shakes with excitement while yelling our name.  And when we do walk in the house, she runs into our arms and gives the biggest hug while telling us excitedly about whatever it is she is thinking of that moment.  Someday this will stop and Lucy will sit in her room and care less when we arrive.  Yup, the universe has gotten together this past month and has gently relayed a message from God to treasure these moments.

So here is my treasure chest of Lucy moments from the last month:

Watching Lucy experience the joy of being with friends.  She is really starting to play with her friends as opposed to just playing next to them.  When on the playground, I overheard her shyly say to a girl a little bit bigger than her: "Emma.  Emma.  Emma.  Baby sister name Emma." as she looked up at the girl.  The girl interpreted this to mean that Lucy's name was Emma, but at least Lucy was putting herself out there!  Lucy seems to forget her worries when playing with her friends, and goes back to the old Lucy we remember which is comforting for us to see.  Here she is below with some of her closest friends - Katherine, Killian and Chloe in the first picture, Aeden in the next picture and Emily and Kayla in the third picture.

Holding both of my girls at the same time.  Lucy loves playing baby and being swaddled just like Emma.  Here I am below holding both of my babies on earth, with a heart even more full than my arms.

Exploring the great outdoors with Lucy.  Will and I have always loved being outdoors together, and have spent much of our relationship enjoying outdoor activities.  Outside has become even more exciting when watching it through our two-year old's eyes.  Here Lucy is below on the playground of our favorite hometown park.

We have an interesting family of ducks living near our house, and Lucy loves chasing them.  She hasn't caught them yet, but she has gotten really close.  You can't really tell from this picture, but the duck family consists of two males and one female.  Either that is one lucky lady duck, or as one of my friends wryly pointed out, the third wheel duck is probably their grown son who won't move out.

Here is Lucy and Will watching some ducks at the above mentioned park near our house.

Listening to Lucy's ever widening vocabulary.  Some of my favorite phrases from this month include:

• "I like this house." While driving Will and I tend to discuss various houses we see and comment on what we like and don't like.  Lucy picked up on this habit last month and has joined in on the conversation.  She now frequently points to random houses and tells us what she likes about them.
• "Bulldozers!  Backhoes!  Dump trucks!"  This is shouted multiple times from the back seat of our car as it is road work season in Michigan.  Lucy is fascinated by this heavy machinery and even asked the librarian all by herself last week for help finding the bulldozer-dump-truck-backhoe section of the library.  We currently have the entire section on loan.
• "You still there Mama?"  Lucy will ask this multiple times during a phone conversation with her.
• "Hey, Mom?"  A glimpse at big kid talk I think.
• "Stop it!"  Yikes.
• "Bye one two Grandmas!"  She said this as we left my parents house when visiting my mom and my grandma.  She also likes to point out at various times "Look mom!  One two babies!" referring to herself and Emma together on the bed, together on the floor, together in the car, etc.
• "God bless all those grandparents."  When saying her prayers she is sure to make sure her many grandparents are all covered with blessings.  She is quite a blessed little girl with five great grandparents and four grandparents.
• "A boppy, mom!  A boppy!"  Let me explain this one.  As you might know from previous posts, a boppy is the u-shaped pillow that supports your arms when holding a baby.  Lucy told me this after she pooped and I had no idea what she was talking about until I peaked into the toilet and sure enough, she was right!  It was shaped like a boppy!
• "Back door, front door, window."  Lucy describing the house she made out of her cut up toast pieces.  She loves playing with her food and makes the most creative messes.  She would sit at the table for hours if I let her, and I often times find myself bribing her to get down so we can move on with our day.
• Lucy loves singing Frosty the Snowman: "Frosty the snowman was a happy soul, with a corn pop nose and a button mouth and two eyes made out of coal!"
• "Bye Bye Miss American Pie."  When I was leaving the other day, she waved goodbye and said this to me.
• And finally, the other day when I was trying to get her dressed in the morning I told her to "Turn around." and she responded with "Bright Eyes."

Here Lucy is below, making art with her food.

Some people have labeled the stage Lucy is now entering as the Terrible Twos.  My mom has always called them the Terrific Twos.  I am going to focus on my newly created label, the Treasured Twos and I hope that keeps my perspective as we charter these exciting and sometimes choppy waters!

Emma's First Month

Time flies when you have a newborn and a toddler! Our little Emma was a month old yesterday. After only one short month our life has fallen into a routine again thanks to our combined past experience with Lucy and wisdom from two great books on infant care: "The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer" by Tracy Hogg and "The Happiest Baby on the Block" by Harvey Karp. Our schedule for the most part still revolves around what Lucy is used to, with some extra time rolled in for regular daily events like meal prep, feeding, cleaning up (food, toys, clothes, poop, pee, vomit, etc.) and preparing to go on any outing. Since my day gained extra tasks, but not extra hours, the things that have disappeared to allow me to care for a second child on earth include sleep, socializing, hobbies and even at times, eating. Thankfully, with my new perspective from experiencing life with a newborn before, I know eventually I will get all of these things back. I also realize now just how fast each phase changes in a baby's life and how much I will miss it when they are bigger. I can hardly believe it has been a month since the below pictures were taken at the hospital.

After bringing Emma home from the hospital, we had a wonderful two weeks with Will home from work with us. Honestly, it felt more like a vacation than the Spring Break Will had earlier that month, as I was miserably pregnant then and we still were trying to get ready for Emma's arrival with lots of things to check off our to-do lists. The first two weeks of Emma's life were relaxed and special. It was mainly just the four of us, learning how to be a family and spending time together. We also had some great holidays sprinkled in there - Easter and Lucy's 2nd birthday. Either way, it was nice to be able to just sit back and relax as a family. I dreaded Will's arrival back to work, but yet looked forward to starting the learning curve of balancing two children on my own.

Emma has been an easy baby so far, but the past month has definitely had a steep learning curve for me once Will went back to work. My day is spent ensuring that everyone's needs are being met in a timely fashion with as little crying as possible. Some days it seems like someone is always crying, whether it be Emma, Lucy, both of them, or even all three of us. I repeat as a mantra over and over to myself and sometimes out loud: "I am only one person. I am doing the best I can. I am only one person. I am doing the best I can."

Sometimes I feel like I am a living math story problem. You know the one where there are five people on an island, and they need to cross in a raft to the other side but only two people can ride the raft at the same time, and certain people can't be left alone with certain other people? For instance, once we are all dressed in the morning how do we get safely downstairs to start our day in as few trips as possible? I can't leave Lucy alone with Emma, I need to carry the bouncer down with two hands, and I have to grab extra diapers, outfits for both kids and our water glasses from the night before. Oh, and I can't forget the random and awkward sized toys that Lucy has decided she can't be on separate floors from. I've learned to do quick math in my head, and an average morning starts off with about three trips up and down the stairs before I can begin the next main event - breakfast.

Here Emma is below, spending time in her bouncer while her doting sister is told, "Don't lean on the bouncer - be careful - what a sweetie you are Lucy. Oh! Don't squeeze her hand too hard now. What a loving big sister you are..."

Yup, when Emma isn't being fed, changed or held, she can usually be found in her bouncer. As I write this post, she is sleeping in her bouncer next to my chair with the baby monitor next to her relaying the white noise that is currently playing upstairs for Lucy's nap. I am getting a two for one nap right now, which is priceless. Emma's easy going personality allows me to most times set her down sleepy in her bouncer, tightly swaddled and she will nod off on her own as long as there is a constant white noise playing in the background. This could be from the shower, the vacuum, or the white noise CD I purchased shortly before her birth. I wish I had known these tactics for Lucy's infancy. We also feel no guilt this time around for giving Emma a pacifier, as we know from our experience with Lucy that the benefits far outweigh the work involved in breaking the habit later.

Below is a picture of Emma's first bath. She cried for most of it, and had a look on her face like she didn't quite know what to make of bath time. Here Emma is being coached by Lucy on how to do "tummy time".It has been so cold this spring, that this is typically what Emma has to wear when we go for a walk. I put her in a snow suit, snuggle her up in a baby carrier close to my chest and then zip us both up into a maternity jacket of mine. It is like I am still pregnant with her, except she sits up higher, and I can kiss the top of her head. I love, love, love carrying her this way.Here Emma is below cuddling with her Grandma Hines.

Here Will is, talking with Emma. As a Daddy's Girl myself, it makes me smile to know that my daughters will also get to be Daddy's Girls.

Lucy's 2nd Birthday!

We celebrated Lucy's 2nd birthday this past Thursday, just the four of us and then had a family party with all of Lucy's grandparents, aunts and uncles this past Saturday. Here are the pictures and highlights below.

Lucy's birthday morning dawned bright and early, as Lucy knew it was HER day.
She also told us in the weeks leading up to her birthday exactly what gifts she thought she was getting - a "play kitchen with a phone" (she accidentally saw where we had it hidden in the upstairs of our garage) and "Elmo stuff"! She ended up getting a vintage Little Tikes doll house in addition to a vintage play kitchen and Elmo stuff. Here she is below opening up a box of "Elmo stuff".Lucy requested Elmo cupcakes for her birthday, and helped me decorate them. She even added extra special flavoring to some of the cupcakes as you can see in the below picture. Apparently the guy behind the camera knew this was going on before I did, but didn't seem overly concerned by it. When I realized that Lucy was methodically licking the tops of each cupcake, I was less than kind to the birthday girl. The camera man then captured Lucy's reaction to the lecture in the picture below. To our family that ate the Elmo cupcakes this past Saturday - we served you the ones that Lucy didn't lick - I promise!Will made a growth chart out of oak that we measure each of our children's birth lengths and then their heights at each birthday. Lucy measured at 33 inches tall.Here Lucy is with her Mama and baby sister enjoying cupcakes and ice cream on her birthday.Here Lucy is again, this time on Saturday, enjoying cupcakes and ice cream next to her baby sister.

I love the look on Lucy's face after she blew out her two candles. We actually ended up re-lighting the candles and singing the birthday song about four more times after this picture was taken. I think this was Lucy's favorite part of her entire birthday party and she happily sang along to her own birthday song.And just when we thought we owned every kind of Elmo toy ever made, Uncle Joe went and got Lucy the original Tickle Me Elmo. You shouldn't have, Uncle Joe. But Lucy sure loves it!

Happy birthday Lucy! Mama and Dada-do are so proud of you! Words cannot express how much happiness you have brought into our lives and we are so glad you are our daughter.