Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Sisterhood

Amelia adores her baby sister with her whole heart. I thought there’d be resentment and acting out, some selfishness and general hatred. Everyone warned me about her adjusting and how much sisters fight, blah blah. But so far, I’ve only seen love between the two. Amelia is constantly worrying about her ‘Baby Sis’ and always looking out for her. She loves to hold her hand in the car ‘to keep her company’ and talks to Annie in her special baby voice. And Annie? She turns herself inside out to follow her sister’s voice and her biggest smiles are for her big sister. It’s just too much. Our biggest concern about Amelia and her sister is that Amelia does too much. She wants to hold Annie and carry her around and gets in the baby’s face with too much gusto. Amelia is really an ideal older sibling, being such a careful (read: serious OCD), sweet, and sensitive kid. I couldn’t have asked for better for this moment when it comes to the baby.

Now I could go on and on about my girls all day because they have consumed my existence but I know that I’m seriously and biologically inclined to bias. So instead I’ll just post the pics I’ve been getting. None of these pictures were staged either. They all just happened and I had to run and grab my camera. :)

 

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“She needs a blanket, mama.”

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This makes her so happy. Even if it freaks BabySis out a little. lol

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Taking care . . .

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These are all of Amelia’s sleeping buddies. Very special belongings indeed.

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Amelia asked us to wrap her up like BabySis

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“You too, huh?” HA!

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You can’t lay Annie down without Amelia supplying all necessary comfort objects ‘to make her more comfortable, mama.’

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Do you see Annie looking at her sister?! My heart might just explode.

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Too much for one mama.

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Amazement

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I may never have had a sister . . . but now I have sisters. Be still my poor, bleeding heart.

Two Months

Annie turned two months old Monday! And it was the first time that I’ve missed the actual day of a monthiversary. I guess what they say about the second baby is true—she’s always less documented than the first. It’s not really that you are less excited or interested in the second baby so much as you are too busy with two babychildren to do simple things like eat. Or blog. (Equally important.) It turns out y’all, that two babies is a lot of babies. 

Actually, in Annie’s case, we missed Monday because the poor babygirl had a terrible reaction to her shots! Her fat little thigh swelled up from hip to knee, turned bright red, and was terribly tender. She threw her head back, closed her eyes, opened her mouth wide . . . and screamed. Inconsolably. For over an hour. We tried everything we could think of and essentially panicked but nothing worked. boo. She finally conked out from exhaustion once the Tylenol kicked in and woke up much better. So WTF. That sucked and ruined the rest of our plans for the day!

But enough about that. It’s the only negative thing to say about our little 2-month-old! Annie’s stats: 12 lbs., 4 ozs. and 23.5 inches (I’m skeptical on that though because I don’t think they stretched her neck out all the way. The rolls are deceiving.), putting her at 85th and 89th percentiles respectively. Yeah, it’s a whole different experience than we had the first time (but Annie is growing at the exact same pace as Amelia, as their 2 month weights are 2 lbs. and 4 ozs. different—just as they were at birth!) She is growing perfectly and looking bigger, rounder, chubbier, and rolly-pollyer than ever. The fluke rolling over was not such a fluke. She’s rolled over 5 times already! She’s started batting at things with her hands and looking around the room to follow voices and following things with her eyes. The best part is that she smiles all of the time and just in the last week or so has started cooing. She makes a happy noise when she smiles that is so adorable, we turn ourselves inside out trying to get her to smile loudly. Her little grin has evolved into a full-blown, full-face explosion of smile. She’s just a sweet little love who smiles more than she does anything else (except sleep).

Big smilesannie smile

 

Holding her head up like a professional!

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Rolling Over!

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Strong back . . . Super Baby!

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When it comes to sleeping at night, Annie is a star. She has slept for 6 hours at a time since we brought her home from the hospital—for the most part. She most typically wakes up between 330-430, eats, and goes back to sleep for a few more hours. About once a week, she sleeps until 5 and once a week, she wakes up at 230 so you never really know. I’ve managed to get some sleep in there too, but am still living the tired-new-baby life. Mom’s sleep translates into many fewer hours because she has to eat dinner once the baby finally goes to bed, do laundry, check email, talk to her husband, or otherwise just relax. Then, when the baby wakes up, you’re up, feeding, and hoping to get her back to sleep. Sometimes Annie goes back to sleep within an hour. Others not so much. So if she gets up at 330, stays up until 5, then it takes me another hour to get to sleep (now 6) and the baby is back up at 7 to eat again. Or the Big Girl comes in to say good morning at 7. *yawn* However, about once a week, I get a solid 5-hour stretch and feel new again. Annie is kind and sensitive to me like that. Now napping in the day is a whole different ballgame with her. It’s really hit or miss whether she’ll go down for a nap or not. There are some days that we spend the entire day getting her to sleep over and over and then unsuccessfully trying to get her to stay asleep in her crib. There are days when she sleeps for 3 hours in her crib too. So we are working on some routine there . . . and I have a suspicion that once Justin goes back to work, we will settle into our own little schedule during the day with more consistency. While Justin’s off, we are doing things during the day and whatnot.

Though I worried at first, it doesn’t appear that little Annie has any of the tummy troubles that Amelia had. The symptoms she had at the beginning turned out to be from an oversupply of milk and a strong let-down. That is, she was drowning! Of course my mind went to the worst-case scenario when all I have to do is look down to know that of COURSE I have an over-supply of milk! I mean holy huge boobs. Once I figured that out, things have been much better. Ironically enough, Annie is a puker. I say ironic because Amelia had such a severe case of reflux that she actually didn’t puke at all--EVER. It’s really rare except in the worst cases. Now we have the baby the pukes all the time but without pain. It’s a mess and gross, but I’ll take it!

In terms of adjustment, I’m really proud of all of us. Life has continued quite a bit after Annie’s birth and she seems to have just fit into the fold of our family. Life is completely earth shattering when you become a parent for the first time but when that next baby comes, it’s just about taking care of that baby. It’s not about finding the parent in you, which is a very traumatic transition. Then, when we think about Amelia at this age, she screamed for entire days at a time, completely crippling us in every possible way. Soooo, that we’ve gone out to eat numerous times, taken Annie here and there, and managed to spend time alone with Amelia has been pretty incredible. I’m actually shocked at how much time I’ve had with Amelia. And how much time I’ve managed to carve out for myself even. Although I think that Mommy Time is about to end when Justin goes back to work. In any case, I couldn’t peel myself away from Amelia until I had to with work, so getting away to hit the mall or get a haircut has been much easier this time. On most days, Justin and I crash into the couch with both kids in bed and talk about how good life is. It’s beyond exhausting and crazy hectic. It’s messy and absolutely unglamorous. But pretty good too.

Some pics from the second month . . .

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And the traditional shot! I’m 2 Months Old Today!

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Half grin

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