How is it possible?

That Claire is almost 2 months old already?  Where did THAT time go?  In fact I think it's going even faster with Claire than it did with Lily.  Probably cause I have both of them to keep me busy now.

Quick update:

Claire has mellowed A LOT for me.  I'm loving this.  She doesn't need to be held nonstop and she even seems happy most of the time.

She is sleeping longer and longer stretches now at night too.  So I usually only have to get up with her once now.

Lily still LOVES her and loves sharing a room with her.

She now easily goes 3 hours without eating.  Thank GOD.

That's all for this week.  With that, I'll leave you with the thought below....

Before Claire was born I had these grand ideas of all the gorgeous pictures I'd take of my girls together.  They'd be happy and smiling and beautiful.  Sorta like this one below.

In reality, they usually start out like the one above and quickly move into this:

Which quickly turns into this:

Either way, my girls are beautiful and I love them  Even if one always blinks and the other always cries in pictures.

As It Turns Out

Everyone was right.  They were right about the fact that my girls would be able to share a room with no troubles.  That Lily would learn to sleep through it or get used to it.  We officially moved Claire to their room now.  She is doing great so far in the crib, so I am happy about that.  Adam is back up in our bed (where he rightfully belongs) and Lily is doing SO well.

I just have to take a moment to gush about how wonderful my Lily is.  We explained to her that mommy and daddy would be coming in and out of her room to get baby Claire and put her back in throughout the night and it's really important for her to stay in her bed and not talk in the middle of the night until Mommy or Daddy say it's ok.  We explained that babies wake up a lot and need to eat in the nighttime, unlike her.  That she is a big girl and how much fun it will be to share a room with her Baby Sisser.  And she does just that.  Sure she does wake up when Claire cries.  But she doesn't say a word or anything when Adam goes in to get the baby.  She may wave a little bit, but she does not talk or get out of her bed.  And she is ALWAYS fast asleep when I go and put Claire back in her crib. 

If I had known it would go this smoothly I would have put Claire in there a lot sooner.  I'm so thankful for my big girl Lily and how much she seems to lover her sister.  I have a couple of pretty great little girls.

And with that, I'm sure I jinxed it.

7 Weeks and Whole slew of updates.

Claire is 7 weeks old today, how did that happen?  Next thing I know she'll be going to school and driving and getting married and having babies of her own......Hopefully in that order, though I don't really want to think about it.  Anyway..I digress.

She has been a new baby since going to Daycare.  I don't know if she'd have turned around on her own this week or if they wear her out more there or what.

We are no longer having to deal with her screaming for hours on end in the evenings.  She is pleasant to be around even.

Once we got the bottle situation figured out at Daycare she is slowly getting better about eating.  Taking more than 2 ounces and going longer stretches of usually at least 3 hours now.  Which is awesome!

At night I occasionally get a good 4-5 hour stretch out of her and she's dropped the hour long fussy session at 3am.  Mommy is super thankful for that one.

Starting tonight, since she can go a bit longer stretches now and we seem to have our morning routine down a bit better, she is moving to her room with Lily.  And I know Lily is super excited about sharing her room with her little sisser.

She STILL fits into a few of the newborn outfits I have even though I know she is well over the weight limit on them.  But they fit, so she wears them.

She is pretty consistent with her evenings now, and I would even consider her a pretty good sleeper.  Eats and gets ready for bed around 9.  Wakes up to eat around 1 or so, then again around 5ish.  It's not always exact but it's pretty regular.  And I'll take that as we all know how I feel about consistency and schedules.  (Yes, I'm a super freak)

How's the other child you ask?  She's great.  She's very into the question "why"  And it's definitely wearing on me.  I try hard not to dismiss her questions as I know it's a part of her learning and development but there are times when I just want to scream at her "BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY".  It doesn't so much bother me when she asks why as it does when she asks why when there is no real reason.  Like when you tell her "Yes, you can watch max &ruby"  after she's asked a million times and then she asks you why.  I want so badly to tell her well if you wanna question me then we won't watch max and ruby.  Cause, yes, I'm a grown up like that.

She is VERY VERY into dresses and dress up stuff.  A friend of mine sent her a new purple tutu and she's practically inseparable from it.  In fact she throws major fits when you make her take it off for bed or anything like that.  Of course she always wants to wear a dress these days and I just don't have many that fit her and they certainly aren't made for MN winter wear.  I hope to stock up on a bunch of dresses when the semi-annual consignment sales come up here.  I love that she loves dresses but the fights over them are getting old.

Overall both girls are doing amazingly well and I am starting to get into the groove of things and learn to love them both equally but differently.  I mean they are their own little people.  I never realized how hard it would be to not compare them to each other.  It's pretty crazy.  Though I vow to not say things like "why can't you be more like your sister"  Or other equally horrible things that will make them think that I like the other better.

We're pretty lucky I think.  Two healthy, beautiful little girls.  What more could we ask for?

Everything is coming up roses

Man you can sure tell when I get a good amount of sleep these days!  The last couple days have been GREAT in our house.  Monday we sent the girls to daycare and Adam and I had an us day.  Which entailed, him playing video games while I took a nap.  But hey, it works. When we picked up the girls from daycare, it was like someone switched babies on us.  Claire was quiet and content all night.  No holding her to keep her from screaming like someone was murdering her.  It was great.  Adam and I did night one of The Shred.  It was just a really great night and day overall.  Yesterday was my first day back at work and the morning went smooth and the day was fine.  I went to pick up the girls and again it was like someone switched babies.  She was SO good.  In fact she was sleeping in her car seat for quite a while after we got home and I wanted to take her out and hold her, but figured I'd let her sleep.  She slept til 5:30ish or so when it was time to eat.  Then I got to hold her and feed her and then she went back to sleep.  So Adam, myself and Lily did the Shred.  Then last night I fed her at 9 and then she slept til 1:30ish and then I had to get her up at 6 to eat and get ready for daycare.  A great night!

On a side note, Miss Lily LOVES to do the Shred with us.  I really think she'd be awesome in dance.  She actually follows along pretty well.  Though we get a major tantrum when we are done.  SO it goes in the world of a 2.5 year old.

On the plus side, I'm down 1.5 pounds from last week!  And I tracked AND stayed within my points for yesterday!  I consider that a success.

Holy Crap...6 weeks already.

Today marks Claire's 6 week milestone.  Where on earth did that time go?  Surely I'd like to know.

I don't really feel like we've made a whole lot of progress from my 5 week update.  We did try to put her in the crib last Friday night and that sorta failed.  I think I just need to re-adjust because it is so much easier with her in the bassinet.  Sometimes I wonder how we did that with Lily, but then I remember that she was sleeping 6 hours at a time at night at this point, where with Claire, On a good night, I'm lucky if I can get her to go 4 hours.  It still baffles me how completely different two babies can really be.  Claire gives us a run for our money that is for sure.

Today is my last day alone with her since Lily is at daycare.  Monday they both go back full time...well 4 days a week anyway.  I'm both dreading AND looking forward to getting back to work for different reasons.  Claire really is the most pleasant during the day and I am going to miss that.  Evenings are still tough around here.  Gradually getting better but still not great.

She is still eating about 2 ounces every 2 hours.  Occasionally she'll go 3 hours on her own during the day and I'm going to try to increase that.  Hopefully having her in daycare will help with that.  Otherwise, we are still just taking things one day at a time around here.  Still getting used to this confusing little person.  But I think we're doing ok.

Stay home or work update.

Many of you may remember THIS post.  It's where I laid out my options and struggled to come to a decision about going back to work, staying home, or staying home and finding some work to do.

It's not over, in fact, it's FAR from over.  It's still a struggle.  There are still days where I want to stay home...and there are still days when I can't wait to go back to work.

For the most part, now that Claire is becoming more human and less devil, I feel like I would still want to stay home with the girls.  I think I'd be really good at it and it would be good for our family.  However finances tell us another story. A sad story where Adam's pay is just a smidge short of our living expenses, not to mention there would be no room for savings or doing ANYTHING fun.  So Back to work I go.  For now anyway.  It's definitely not a closed option down the road if something came up.  But for now we do what we have to do for our family.

Only a little over a week before I go back.  Which bums me out as I spent most of my maternity leave struggling with the adjustment and learning the ins and outs of the baby, and now it's time to go back to work when I feel like I'm really getting used to it and getting used to the new routine of things.  I would like more time.  More time to really feel things out and figure out what is best.  What the best choice would be.  Sadly that's just not going to happen.

Hopefully I can get this thing figured out sooner rather than later.

More Pics

5 Week update.

Claire is 5 weeks old today.

Some highlights.

She SMILES.  Real lovely, beautiful Smiles.  And she means it.

She is slowly starting to sleep longer stretches now so that's a nice development.  My goal is to get her to go 5 hours at night in a row and then move her into her room with Lily.  I'm hoping this happens sooner rather than later.

Lily STILL adores her baby sister.  No hint of jealousy.  I'm really hoping that this keeps up.  I'm liking it a lot.

Her thrush is completely gone.  In fact I attribute that to her better mood overall lately. 

She had a Dr. Appt on Monday and she is back up past her birth weight at 9 lbs 4 ounces.  Of course the Dr. wasn't happy with the thrush progress so we got a new med for her, hence the reason it's finally gone.

We are starting to settle into our new routine at night with the girls.  Lily likes us to read her a story with Claire in their room and I'm definitely liking that routine.  It's a little more complicated with both girls but we'll work the kinks out as we go.

I honestly can't believe how different Lily and Claire are as babies.  Even the way we do things with Claire is so different.  We use different bottles....burp her differently....calm her differently.  She sleeps in our room with us, which I never wanted but sometimes it's the best option.  In fact there is a part of me that doesn't want to move her to the crib even because it's so much easier to grab her and feed her and stuff out of the bassinet and not have to get up.  But I know it's gotta be done....for all of our sanity. 

I think that's it.

We'll keep her I think.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Claire, then and now comparison.

Lily and Claire one month comparison.