3 Years!

Got hitched 3 years ago today.
Seems longer. In a good way:)

2 Years!

Two years ago today we moved in here with our 3 week old bambino. It was crazy. My dad and brother drove up the Uhaul with the remnants from our Bklyn apt. My aunt, her partner, my sister-in-law, and her friend all helped unload it. I was forced to nurse at a rest stop without my beloved Boppy since N had mistakenly sent it on the Uhaul. The Bean was wearing this terrible flowered outfit/pajamas. Granny ran like a crazy lady with her through the parking lot. I got a terrible dehydration headache from so much nursing and not enough water. The bed we were sleeping on collapsed and we ended up on a deflated aerobed in what's now Miss Bean's room. The Bean wouldn't go to sleep so N drove her around to the shopping horror that is 12A at eleven at night.

And today? The GIRLS!! slept until 6:30. We hung out. Our almost 13 year old neighbor came over to play with The Bean. She gave her 5! slightly loved stuffed animals as a bday present and now she has a new doggie with a PINK collar that she loves. Miss Koala took two short morning naps. She also had some rocking tummy and standing time. She smiled a lot. N went to 12A to take pictures, buy stuff, and do the recycling. Bean and Mama had eggs and tomato soup for lunch. I walked to the gym and lifted some weights. In the afternoon, The Bean and I took the bus to Hanover, which was super exciting as The Bean is very into taking the bus. We met Miss Koala and Papa N there, walked around, looked at art, bought some presents amazingly not for Bean, ran around The Green, and had an early burrito dinner outside. Everyone cried a little before bedtime, but that's par for the course when you're three months and 2 (and 34 and 35). Now, all is quiet except for the lovely sounds of N unloading the dishwasher, which I will soon load, which will hum into the night as the four of us snooze in our beds on a street in a town in a state called New Hampshire.

3 Months Miss Koala!!

Oh Miss Koala,
Today you are three months! Go you! As I told you when we were chillaxing on the bed earlier this evening, things should start getting a lot better. Soon, you should be able to sleep unswaddled and then you might start rolling over and being able to sleep on your belly and grabbing things and putting things that your not supposed to in your mouth and playing with toys and eating things like bananas and apple sauce.

I feel like you've gotten especially huge this month. And cute! But you're already wearing 3-6 month clothes. Your dad accidentally put you in a 6-12 month onsie and while it was big, it wasn't that big.

You did great at sleeping this past month although for the first time in a long while we had to put you to sleep in your swing tonight:(. I'm not exactly sure why though. Normally you've been sleeping in your bassinet with minimal fussing and, even better, a few times, you've been technically sleeping through the night! Last week I nursed you at 2 because I was in a little bit o boob pain, but you slept through it and didn't wake up till 5:00. The other night you went till 2:45 without having to nurse, which was awesome. You really like your naps too. The other day you needed to nap about four or five times during the day. Maybe it's a 3 month growth spurt or maybe it was the stimulation from traveling. We finally took you to New York State! We went to the Adirondacks this week to see the grandparents, eat some Donnely's ice cream (next summer you can get your own cone!), hike, swim, see friends and test out traveling as a foursome. I'm happy to report that you and your sister were awesome. Both car rides were super easy---you slept the entire way on both trips and you and Miss Bean both slept well even though your rooms were right next to each other and the walls are super thin. The only bad part of the trip was that my back got a little wonky and we ended up leaving a day early.

You are definitely more aware of the things, my darling bear. You track me and your sister. You liked looking at the stuffed Snoopy. You give lots of social smiles when you're in the mood. You're starting to use your voice and make cute, bird-like coos. Today in the car I watched you put your sinking pacifier back in your mouth. I think that was mostly luck, but tonight you reached for my finger in what seemed like an aware way rather than the sort of instinctual grabby thing all babies do.

Your sister has improved a lot this month too. Except for a few infractions today, the hitting has gone down tremendously. But I'm afraid, Lovey that there's nothing I can do about her volume. She is just 2, you know. We might as well just try and get used to it.

I can't wait to see what happens in month 4!

Love,
Mama Bear

Happy Second Birthday, Big Girl!

Today Miss Bean is 2! Can you believe it? Seems like just yesterday we were telling you she was in fact a baby, not a bean. Remember? Now she's a talking, running, playing, eating machine. Yesterday we had a smallish family party, which, in addition to the new doll family she got from her grandparents, she found a bit overwhelming and as such as spent today overtired from not going to bed till late and getting up much too early this morning. We're kind of pretending this is just a regular day since we're (insanely) having a pizza and cupcake party with a bunch of kids tomorrow.

Miss Bean is an awesome little kid. She's obviously cute, but she's also really smart and funny and, most of the time, sweet. She has an incredible memory, which is wonderful and a little scary as she won't forget things for months. She loves books and can play by herself, putting her babies and doggies to bed or organizing things, for long periods. Now she's starting to sort of learn of her numbers and ABC's. Her granny says she even smarter than her own two kids were at 2. But she might be a little biased and a little forgetful. But now that she's 2 though things are going to change. We're going to start making sure her teeth get brushed with toothpaste twice a day. Hopefully in a few weeks she'll be able to spit the toothpaste water out of her mouth instead of a.) pouring it down the drain or b.) drinking it. The other thing we're going to work on is having her pick up her toys before she goes to bed. I know this is probably futile, but you know, we've got an actual baby round these parts now so Miss Bean has to start earning her keep.

Happy Birthday, Miss Bean! We're so lucky to have you! This past year has been incredible and we look forward to all the great things your third year will bring.
Love,
Mama

BOOKS!

So, what did I do with all the time I was nursing and holding The Bean when she was a babe? Remember, I didn't read/finish a book for MONTHS back then. It seems crazy since I've been reading all the time since Miss Koala was born. Did you know I even brought a book to the hospital? N thought it was crazy, but actually there's quite a lot of down time after the labor is over. Day old babies tend to sleep ALL day and there's only some much Admiration of Sleeping Infant that I can stomach. I brought The Help, which was the perfect labor, post-labor, having a new baby in the house book. When they saw it, almost all of my nurses commented that they had read it too. It's a fun book---not great literature, but very readable.

Here are the other books I've read:

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichel
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley
Little Bee by Chris Cleave

All were very readable. The Magicians I didn't really like because it was too much fantasy. N dug it though. Garlic and Sapphires was pretty good, but not the great book I thought it would be. After a while, I got a little tired of the device of the costumes Reichel uses. Dragon Girl was good even though I'm not into the thriller/mystery genre. Like every third person in America, I found entertaining. Get This Number was disappointing. I enjoyed Crosley's first book of essays I Was Told There'd Be Cake, but the second wasn't as funny or interesting. Little Bee was a page-turner and I liked it up until the last fifty pages of so, but I can't remember why exactly. I just started Lit by Mary Karr. And 1-2-3 Magic: How To Discipline Your 2-12 Year Old because The Bean has been on the ATTACK lately.
What are you reading?

Two Months!

Sweet Girlie Girl,
Today you are two months old, Miss Koala! And, you are rocking the percentiles: 95th% in weight, just over the 75% in height, and the 90th% for your big ol head. You had your first taste of things other than boob milk today: the Rotovirus vaccine which is a sweet liquid administered orally and some Tylenol administered by mama this evening. You liked both quite a lot! You also got a huge number of vaccines in the form of three shots, which made you quite fussy tonight. I felt so bad for you. You were really miserable--over tired and probably feeling quite yucky. It took a lot to get you to go to sleep and I ended up putting you in your swing even though in talking with the doctor we decided it's better to get you more used to your bed. The swing is okay if we're desperate though and tonight just didn't seem like the right time to force the initial sleep in the bassinet. You are capable of falling asleep in there---I haven't had to put you in the swing in the middle of the night. So now we just have to work on breaking the habit. For both parents and baby.

What else other than your tremendous growth? You're cooing more, we think we've seen some smiles, you've had some ENORMOUS poops (conveniently all over your dad and not mama), and when you are awake you're definitely taking in your surroundings. It seems like you can get over stimulated in the evenings---we're still trying to figure out when exactly is a good time for you to go to bed.

You seem pretty easy going although the day after I said that to N last week, you got a bit fussy. But you don't seem to really cry unless you're tired or hungry or like the other morning in some kind pain. You're up regularly, every 2-3 hours, in the night---that first week when you went for four hour stretches (and that one 6 miraculous one) were teases. Your favorite eating time seems to be around 3 am.

Oh, and this month, right at week 7 you FINALLY accepted the pacifier! Interestingly, it's the same (and only) kind your sister liked.

You've been hit by sister around 600 times this past month. Luckily, it's not usually very hard, but she has, on a few occasions, caused you to cry. So, just between you and me, when you're 2 and she's 4 and you whack her because she takes your toy or won't share her snack, I'm going to fake yell at you and give you a fake time out. Cuz just that one time, she might deserve it. You gotta get a little revenge somehow, right girlie?

Oh, and when it's not a 8000 degree humidity heat wave, one of the best things about this month has been snuggling with you. You seem like you're getting pretty snugly. Here's to lots of snuggling for month #3!
Love, Mama

Twelve Days!

For some reason, perhaps I was inspired by N's pledge to (mostly) go off the internet for the next few weeks, I decided to give up Facebook AKA The World's Biggest Time Suck, for the month of July. So far, it's not painful. And I spend SO much less time on the computer.

I won't give it up forever, but maybe when I go back I won't feel compelled to check it multiple times a day.

Heat Wave

Yeah, I know you know. But are you nursing a 12 + pound super sweaty swaddled up baby? I'm gonna be so happy when it breaks. So is N if just that it means I'll stop moaning about the heat.

Speaking of N, do you know that he made the world's most delicious salad for dinner tonight? It was SO GOOD. Greek and summery and he shouldn't change a thing when he makes it again.

Maybe the heat has gone to his head, but he also made dinner last night. That's TWO nights in a row, y'all. Hooray for Jamie Oliver's $5.00 iPad app!

Today Miss Koala is 7 weeks old. She's such a sleepy girl. I don't know how much of it is her, the heat, or us. Basically we swaddle her and stick her in a swing in our room, which is moderately air conditioned and she sleeps...oh, all day. She'll wake up to nurse a little bit, but after an hour or so she wants to go back to sleep. I've actually had to wake her a few times because I was worried she'd been sleeping too long and would get dehydrated. Miss Bean wasn't like this at all. It was impossible to get her to nap, but maybe that was because we didn't to the swaddle/swing method during the day. We crazily tried to get her to sleep in her bassinet. Silly parents. Miss Koala does spend part of each night sleeping in her bassinet, but she starts off in her swing and ends up in our bed. Luckily, our pediatrician said nothing you do it really "habit forming" in the first three months.

Oh, and Miss Koala has finally come to terms with the fact that sometimes all life offers is a plastic nipple. Yesterday was a MAJOR breakthrough with the pacifier. And today she had some good long spells with it too. I predict in no time that she'll be an addict like Miss Bean was too.

Miss Koala: One Month

Oh Miss Koala,
I do hope you are sleeping upstairs. I imagine you are since it's quiet. It's not that you're a huge crier---you're really not, but you love to nurse nurse nurse even when you're not really hungry just very very tired and sometimes mama just can't do it anymore and has to hand you off to Papa N. It's been a little trickier getting you to go to sleep the past few nights, but all in all you've been a good baby.

Your life has started off so differently than your big sister's. The labors were night and day---yours being tremendously easier. We didn't have to move last week, which was wonderful. But you have a lot more noise in your life than your sister did. And even though she tries to be gentle, you are often getting poked and prodded by Miss Bean. With the Bean I felt like it took me weeks to sleep deeply enough to feel somewhat rested. With you, we're breaking all our rules and letting you sleep in the bed with us 95% of the night....This way we're all able to sleep. I would've have been much too worried to do this with your sister, but with you I'm able to prop your head up on the crook of my arm and sleep well. But I'm hoping that next month you'll be sleeping in your basinette more and more.

In some ways I'm able to enjoy you more than I was able to enjoy your sister at your age. Not having to move, having Papa N around, having friends around, being fluent in toddler/baby talk, having done this once before all contributes to this. But at the same time I have expectations that I didn't have with The Bean. Because I know nights like this won't last forever, I can't help but sometimes want to speed things up. I know how much better it will be for everyone when you can sleep on your belly in your own room and sit up and smile and laugh and eat bananas. And so on....I hope these expectations don't force you to grow up too fast.

All in all the month has gone by pretty quickly. It's exciting to see you opening your eyes more and more each day.

Here's to a wonderful second month!

Love,
Mama

Introducing: Miss Koala!

The Bean has a sister!
Miss Koala was born on Wednesday, May 19th at 7:43 PM. She weighed 8 pound 2 oz and was 20.5 inches long.
We think she's gorgeous!



Things will likely be quiet around here while N and I learn how to parent 2!