Every time a house guest departs, I am always struck by how quiet the house seems. It's a silence that cannot be filled, for example, by the noise of the Today show, even with all it's hard hitting news coverage of topics like the Gosselins and the fate of Michael Jackson's children.
M.'s parents, here since last Wednesday, just pulled out in their adorable Prius for the long drive back home about an hour ago. Shortly after, M. and Finn piled in the car for their returns to work and school, respectively. Lucy, completely zonked from our trip to the National Zoo yesterday, is sleeping up in her crib. It's quiet, and I don't really like it. I know, once I pick Finn up from daycare this afternoon and start the whole "juggling dinner prep and two kids" routine, all will return to normal, and I will welcome any quiet time I get tomorrow morning. Plus, with less than 3 weeks of maternity leave left, I really do need to be appreciating every moment of these days with Lucy.
Lucy and Finn were both charmers with their grandparents, though Finn did require a little warming up first. By the end of their visit, Finn was enthusiastically shouting "I love you" to his Granny and Grandpa, but when they first arrived, not even the promise of a wrapped present could entice him to give them a hug. Finn is now starting to understand that Granny and Grandpa are his daddy's Mommy and Daddy, but before comprehension dawned, we had several amusing conversations about just how Finn thought everyone in the house is related. At one point, when I foolishly introduced the concept of marriage (I am married to Daddy, Granny is married to Grandpa, somehow it seemed relevant but it brought Finn no closer to understanding), Finn was pretty convinced he was married to Lucy.
Speaking of Lucy, she is really starting to find her voice, and spent lots of time "talking" to anyone who would listen and bestowing heart-melting smiles. She really is a very good baby, crying only when she is hungry or tired (but man, when she cries, she is GOOD at it), and she definitely impressed her grandparents with her happy nature. Don't get me wrong, we are still dealing with some sleep issues, but (imagine this written in whispers with all kinds of fingers and toes crossed) she even managed to sleep through the night a couple of times. Usually those nights were on the heels of a day with little napping (like yesterday, where we were out of the house most of the day at the zoo, and Lucy never really got comfortable enough for a substantial nap), but if no napping = sleeps through the night, I'll take it.
Despite my sunshine-y post from about a week ago, I still haven't mastered the art of parenting two children by myself. After the first night of M.'s business trip that went so well, the next two nights were considerably harder. So to go from no help to having M. home AND two extra sets of hands, it was like heaven. I even managed to sneak out for a couple of hours on Sunday to run errands BY MYSELF. People, I bought SHOES. M. and his dad stained our deck and patio, something we have been talking about doing since we moved in two years ago. We had breakfast at the county airpark one morning, but aside from the trip to the zoo, the rest of our time was spent relaxing at home and letting Granny and Grandpa enjoy their grandchildren.
Lots of fun moments at the zoo, usually inspired by something Finn said. Seeing all the kids, he kept asking M. if we were at a school. He also got really excited about a horse that we saw (Przewalski's Horse), and kept exclaiming about the "dunkin." Once I realized that Finn was not requesting a doughnut and a coffee, it dawned on us that he thought the horse was a donkey.
Embarrassing story to relate: As mentioned above, I bought SHOES. A pair of brown shoes for work, and a casual pair that I can wear in lieu of my standard flip flops when I feel like it. The casual shoes are sporty and cushioned, the perfect shoe to wear when walking around the zoo, right? M. questioned my decision to wear new shoes to the zoo, but I was confident that they were comfortable enough to get me through the day. Not an hour in to the experience, I was already feeling pinching in three different areas of each foot. But I was determined not to say anything, because I didn't want to give M. the satisfaction of being right. Walking up the hill to visit the elephants, though, the blister on the heel of my left foot broke open. And though I was prepared for any other kid-related incident, there was not a band-aid to be found in the TWO diaper bags we had with us. The pain was too great, and I had to say something. End result, I hobbled around for the rest of our walk (luckily, Lucy got cranky and we didn't stay too much longer) wearing M.'s sweaty socks to lessen the pain. I have never been so grossed out and humbled. It was such a relief to get home and get those shoes and socks off my feet.
Before he offered up his own socks, M. did mention that he had packed a pair of socks for Finn (who was also wearing new sandals) in case he got blisters. I'm not sure what exactly he thought I was going to do with size 2T-3T socks - apply them to my feet as a bandage??
Regardless, the take home message, in my eyes, is that each diaper bag is now going to get stocked with a healthy stash of band-aids. Beauty is pain!
Pictures to come, I promise! Just need to clear some room on this computer first.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Two Month Stats
Lucy had her two month doctor's appointment yesterday. They kept us waiting so long that my overtired girl was already crying before they even came near her with a needle.
As predicted, she's a heavy weight - 12 lbs, 6 oz (90th percentile), 23 and a quarter inches (75th percentile) long. Her head is also 75th percentile.
This is a quick post as baby girl is screaming for some attention. More later!
As predicted, she's a heavy weight - 12 lbs, 6 oz (90th percentile), 23 and a quarter inches (75th percentile) long. Her head is also 75th percentile.
This is a quick post as baby girl is screaming for some attention. More later!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Take Two
M. is out of town on his second business trip since Lucy arrived. As the days and hours approaching his departure slipped by, I found myself growing more and more anxious, remembering with no fondness the late nights holding a screaming, inconsolable baby that I experienced during his first trip. My fears of a repeat are so far proving unfounded, however, and 21 hours into his trip I must say that things are going pretty well. What a difference it makes to have a baby NOT suffering from reflux symptoms, I guess.
Granted, it is early days yet - M. does not return until Thursday evening. But his parents arrive for a visit tomorrow afternoon, so help is on the way should I need it. Only about 30 more hours on my own to go.
A brief rundown for posterity's sake (I am constantly trying to remember how I did things with Finn when he was a baby, and wish I had kept this blog then - like, when exactly did we switch him to a two-nap-a-day schedule? I'm so over this 4-nap-a-day thing that we're currently dealing with) about how I handled bedtime last night:
6:00 pm - Finn and I ate dinner while I held a fussy, overtired Lucy.
6:15 pm - After much begging, I allowed Finn a few minutes of outside playtime (Lucy in her sling) until the gnats chased us inside.
6:30 pm - I parked Finn in front of the Cars movie, and took Lucy upstairs to change her for bedtime. I brought her back downstairs and fed her on the couch while Finn continued to watch TV and play.
7:05 pm - I swaddled a sleepy Lucy, held her for a couple more minutes, and stuck her in her swing. I helped Finn pick up his toys, then corralled him upstairs to get ready for bed.
7:15 pm - Finn brushed his teeth, used the potty, and got into his PJ's. I read him two books and sang him his bedtime song. He resisted bedtime, told me he didn't like his big boy bed, etc, and I thought I was going to be in for a long night of listening to him call for me over the monitor.
7:55 pm - I left Finn's room. Lucy was stirring down in the swing. I started doing some quick chores in the kitchen, but when her noises became a bit more insistent I picked her up and walked around with her a bit. I eventually sat on the couch with her in my arms and read my book (The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory) for a bit. I heard one or two peeps out of Finn, but surprisingly, no adamant demands that I attend his whims.
8:30 pm - Carried Lucy up to her room and put her in her crib. Finished up my chores down in the kitchen.
8:45 pm - Both kids in bed and asleep, I watched a little TV down in the basement with a glass of wine (Perhaps the wine was pushing it, but it all worked out OK as Lucy didn't get up to eat until almost 4 am). I chatted with Stacey and M., and headed up to bed myself at around 9:45.
The morning went pretty smoothly, too. I didn't get Finn in to daycare until after 8 am, but that's not a bad thing - it's because none of us got up very early (I was the first one up at around 6:35 am). Now I am sitting here, drinking some coffee while Irma cleans the house, listening to a previously sleeping Lucy poop in her swing. Good times.
Tomorrow, in addition to the arrival of M.'s parents, Lucy has her two month check-up. You know what that means - shots. And lots of them. Hopefully it also means a very sleepy baby afterwards. I'm prepared with my infant Tylenol, and I'm hoping she has no bad reactions. I'll update with her stats - it will be interesting to see just how big she's gotten!
Granted, it is early days yet - M. does not return until Thursday evening. But his parents arrive for a visit tomorrow afternoon, so help is on the way should I need it. Only about 30 more hours on my own to go.
A brief rundown for posterity's sake (I am constantly trying to remember how I did things with Finn when he was a baby, and wish I had kept this blog then - like, when exactly did we switch him to a two-nap-a-day schedule? I'm so over this 4-nap-a-day thing that we're currently dealing with) about how I handled bedtime last night:
6:00 pm - Finn and I ate dinner while I held a fussy, overtired Lucy.
6:15 pm - After much begging, I allowed Finn a few minutes of outside playtime (Lucy in her sling) until the gnats chased us inside.
6:30 pm - I parked Finn in front of the Cars movie, and took Lucy upstairs to change her for bedtime. I brought her back downstairs and fed her on the couch while Finn continued to watch TV and play.
7:05 pm - I swaddled a sleepy Lucy, held her for a couple more minutes, and stuck her in her swing. I helped Finn pick up his toys, then corralled him upstairs to get ready for bed.
7:15 pm - Finn brushed his teeth, used the potty, and got into his PJ's. I read him two books and sang him his bedtime song. He resisted bedtime, told me he didn't like his big boy bed, etc, and I thought I was going to be in for a long night of listening to him call for me over the monitor.
7:55 pm - I left Finn's room. Lucy was stirring down in the swing. I started doing some quick chores in the kitchen, but when her noises became a bit more insistent I picked her up and walked around with her a bit. I eventually sat on the couch with her in my arms and read my book (The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory) for a bit. I heard one or two peeps out of Finn, but surprisingly, no adamant demands that I attend his whims.
8:30 pm - Carried Lucy up to her room and put her in her crib. Finished up my chores down in the kitchen.
8:45 pm - Both kids in bed and asleep, I watched a little TV down in the basement with a glass of wine (Perhaps the wine was pushing it, but it all worked out OK as Lucy didn't get up to eat until almost 4 am). I chatted with Stacey and M., and headed up to bed myself at around 9:45.
The morning went pretty smoothly, too. I didn't get Finn in to daycare until after 8 am, but that's not a bad thing - it's because none of us got up very early (I was the first one up at around 6:35 am). Now I am sitting here, drinking some coffee while Irma cleans the house, listening to a previously sleeping Lucy poop in her swing. Good times.
Tomorrow, in addition to the arrival of M.'s parents, Lucy has her two month check-up. You know what that means - shots. And lots of them. Hopefully it also means a very sleepy baby afterwards. I'm prepared with my infant Tylenol, and I'm hoping she has no bad reactions. I'll update with her stats - it will be interesting to see just how big she's gotten!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Filling the Silence
Lucy's napping is still a bit erratic/non-existent, hence my absence. It's amazing how one little baby can suck up so much of your time! Lots to say, but no time to actually sit down and write a fully developed post on each idea. So, just to put something out there for the sake of updating (as I have been told by my grandmother that my blog stinks because I don't post enough), a few bullets:
- The last several days involved family, family and more family. Stacey and Cameron arrived on Friday. My brother Andrew, in the area for work, stopped by on Saturday afternoon for a bit. Kristin flew in Saturday night, Stacey and Cameron left Sunday morning, and I had Kristin and her BlackBerry for company until Tuesday afternoon (seriously, the girl works too much!). I must admit that once everyone was gone, the house seemed pretty quiet and lonely. I'm sure the rainy weather didn't help. I took some pictures, but better ones can be seen at Stacey's blog here. Her post is missing pics of Finn, though, so I will try to put up some recent ones soon.
- Stacey brought me the complete three seasons of Veronica Mars on DVD. I'm only 4 episodes in, and I'm already amazed that I somehow managed to miss this one when it was on the air. Fantastic show (and theme song)! I may have to re-watch with M. so that he can see it, too. Thanks to Stacey for filling some of my maternity leave TV boredom.
- I bought the Miracle Blanket because Lucy has been busting out of my swaddling jobs at night, and I think it's keeping her from sleeping longer stretches. The jury is still out on this one. Lucy seems to absolutely hate it - she fights against it constantly. But I did manage to get her to sleep the first night in it, and she slept one of her longest stretches yet. She will not nap in it (then again, she often just will not nap), and last night wasn't quite as successful - we couldn't get her to fall asleep until almost 11 pm (as opposed to her more typical 7:30/8:00-ish), and then she woke up again at 1:45. It may have been a $30 waste of money.
- M. is leaving for another work trip this coming Monday, and I've been slowly getting more and more anxious about it. Thankfully, we seem to have Lucy's reflux under control, so hopefully I won't have hours of crying from her while I'm on my own the way I did last time. But both kids have been going down for bed at around the same time, and I have no idea how to begin to come up with a plan to handle this by myself. Lucy often requires about an hour to get her down fully (change her, feed her, hold her upright a bit so she doesn't spit up all over the place, swaddle her, get her to fall asleep). Finn is high maintenance, too - he drags out story-time and bedtime singing to at least half an hour, and then he tends to have at least one (often more) episode of calling loudly for one of us to come rectify some trumped up problem or just cuddle with him before he'll fall asleep. And since his room is right next to Lucy's, we always give in and go up to him so that he won't wake his sister up. M. and I are usually both tied up with whatever kid we're in charge of each night for at least an hour. So my big problem is, which kid do I put down first, and what do I do with the other one in the meantime??? My head hurts just thinking about it.
- We tried switching Lucy to a generic version of her formula, because it's $11 cheaper per can. That could add up to crazy savings, right, since we go through over a can a week? Well, Lucy apparently has expensive tastes, because halfway through the switch she developed constipation and fussiness. So, we are back to the expensive name brand formula, and general brokeness :-).
- Speaking of brokeness, we don't actually know if we are, because M. and I are terrible at keeping a budget. With all the new expenses that come with adding kid #2 to the family (daycare, diapers, formula, reflux meds), we have no idea if what is coming in, income-wise, is greater than what is going out. So, we are going to take a stab (yet again) at keeping track of expenses/keeping a budget. Last time we tried this we used an Excel spreadsheet, and the downfall was that it was just too time consuming and detailed to maintain. I'm looking for something simpler this time, and I'd like to avoid software we have to buy (see above re: we may be broke). I'm planning on looking in to www.mint.com - anyone have experience with this site, or other recommendations?
That's enough of my jumbled thoughts for now!
- The last several days involved family, family and more family. Stacey and Cameron arrived on Friday. My brother Andrew, in the area for work, stopped by on Saturday afternoon for a bit. Kristin flew in Saturday night, Stacey and Cameron left Sunday morning, and I had Kristin and her BlackBerry for company until Tuesday afternoon (seriously, the girl works too much!). I must admit that once everyone was gone, the house seemed pretty quiet and lonely. I'm sure the rainy weather didn't help. I took some pictures, but better ones can be seen at Stacey's blog here. Her post is missing pics of Finn, though, so I will try to put up some recent ones soon.
- Stacey brought me the complete three seasons of Veronica Mars on DVD. I'm only 4 episodes in, and I'm already amazed that I somehow managed to miss this one when it was on the air. Fantastic show (and theme song)! I may have to re-watch with M. so that he can see it, too. Thanks to Stacey for filling some of my maternity leave TV boredom.
- I bought the Miracle Blanket because Lucy has been busting out of my swaddling jobs at night, and I think it's keeping her from sleeping longer stretches. The jury is still out on this one. Lucy seems to absolutely hate it - she fights against it constantly. But I did manage to get her to sleep the first night in it, and she slept one of her longest stretches yet. She will not nap in it (then again, she often just will not nap), and last night wasn't quite as successful - we couldn't get her to fall asleep until almost 11 pm (as opposed to her more typical 7:30/8:00-ish), and then she woke up again at 1:45. It may have been a $30 waste of money.
- M. is leaving for another work trip this coming Monday, and I've been slowly getting more and more anxious about it. Thankfully, we seem to have Lucy's reflux under control, so hopefully I won't have hours of crying from her while I'm on my own the way I did last time. But both kids have been going down for bed at around the same time, and I have no idea how to begin to come up with a plan to handle this by myself. Lucy often requires about an hour to get her down fully (change her, feed her, hold her upright a bit so she doesn't spit up all over the place, swaddle her, get her to fall asleep). Finn is high maintenance, too - he drags out story-time and bedtime singing to at least half an hour, and then he tends to have at least one (often more) episode of calling loudly for one of us to come rectify some trumped up problem or just cuddle with him before he'll fall asleep. And since his room is right next to Lucy's, we always give in and go up to him so that he won't wake his sister up. M. and I are usually both tied up with whatever kid we're in charge of each night for at least an hour. So my big problem is, which kid do I put down first, and what do I do with the other one in the meantime??? My head hurts just thinking about it.
- We tried switching Lucy to a generic version of her formula, because it's $11 cheaper per can. That could add up to crazy savings, right, since we go through over a can a week? Well, Lucy apparently has expensive tastes, because halfway through the switch she developed constipation and fussiness. So, we are back to the expensive name brand formula, and general brokeness :-).
- Speaking of brokeness, we don't actually know if we are, because M. and I are terrible at keeping a budget. With all the new expenses that come with adding kid #2 to the family (daycare, diapers, formula, reflux meds), we have no idea if what is coming in, income-wise, is greater than what is going out. So, we are going to take a stab (yet again) at keeping track of expenses/keeping a budget. Last time we tried this we used an Excel spreadsheet, and the downfall was that it was just too time consuming and detailed to maintain. I'm looking for something simpler this time, and I'd like to avoid software we have to buy (see above re: we may be broke). I'm planning on looking in to www.mint.com - anyone have experience with this site, or other recommendations?
That's enough of my jumbled thoughts for now!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
