Elaina - 4 months

Elaina is sleeping in her own room now! The transition from her rocker to her crib was totally seamless. She usually wakes up 1-2 times per night. The first time is usually about 30 minutes after I put her in her bed and then the second time is about 5-7 hours later. It's great!! All her naps are still in her swing. If we're out and about or if she's particularly fussy in the evenings, I'll put her in the ergo and she sleeps perfectly soundly in the ergo. I love that she loves to nap in the ergo but that she no longer HAS to take a nap there. As I write this, she's actually snoozing in the ergo. I strapped her in and cooked dinner while she peacefully fell asleep. When she naps in the swing, I tuck my blankie (version 2.0) around her and she pulls it up to her face to fall asleep. She screams if she kicks the blanket off. I'm sure she would do that with any blankie, but I love seeing her all snuggly in my favorite blankie!

At the doctor last week, she's in the 90th percentile for height and 50th for weight (14 lbs. 1/2 oz and 26 inches. I might have the inches wrong, but I know it's more than 24). Her cheeks and thighs look perfectly chubby to me, so it surprises me that she's relatively 'lean'. She can roll over from tummy to back, but she doesn't do it all that often. 

Lately she's been learning new ways to use her voice. Compared to when Ben was a baby, she still doesn't chatter nearly as much as him. Hearing her chatter is a treat! It's not exactly raaaare that we hear her talk, but it's certainly not all the time! She sucks on her lower lip a lot! Lately, she's been sucking on it so much that she keeps bruising it!! yowch! Her bottom two teeth are also kind of making an appearance. I think it will still be a while before they really poke through, but the other day my mom noticed two red spots on her lower gums. The next day she was super fussy and I could see little indentations where the teeth are coming through. It's barely noticeable though. Speaking of fussy, this girl is hardly ever fussy! If she's fussy, I know she's hungry or tired. When she was fussy the other day because of her teeth, it was totally uncharacteristic of her! She's so easy going! She's MUCH happier about tummy time these days. We're trying to give her as much as we can to round out the little flat spot on her head. 

What else do I want to remember....let's seeeee. Nursing her. I still love love love it. Her latch has never been super fantastic. Other than the first couple weeks, it doesn't cause us any problems, but I definitely notice the difference between her latch and the way Ben used to latch. At night when I'm nursing her to sleep, I wish I could capture pictures of her every time. Her face is so angelic! And her fuzzy hair!! She's lost almost all of her super dark, long, baby hair but now she has this sweet brown fuzz that's growing in. Luckily, it's growing in evenly and she doesn't have any awkward bald areas like Ben did.

We started watching Ben and Kyler recently. Kyler tries so hard to get Elaina to smile! And he succeeds! She also looooves watching her big brother and she smiles at the random things he does. Her smile is so sweet and gentle. It's not an explosion of sunshine like some babies (Owen!). It's more like a sweet, soft, warm, spring breeze with a little blast of sunshine or something equally gentle and sweet and heartwarming! It's perfect!! 

I love love love her beautiful face. Her gorgeous, big eyes and her chubby cheeks!! And her sweet little mouth! It's so little and sweet! And she loves to smile with her sweet mouth wide open.

I don't know if it's her personality, or the fact that this is the second time around for me, but I feel so bonded and connected with her...totally in tune with her. I feel like she's my little sidekick (now that I write this, I think I remember feeling that Ben was my sidekick when he was a baby). Her care is basically 100% on me. Joel is on Ben duty as soon as he gets home. When Ben was a baby, we truly shared his care 50/50. But not with Elaina. He obviously helps with her, but since we've got another one to take care of, things are different this time around. 

Love in the new year

Today at church, I was holding Elaina in the Ergo and she was snoozing peacefully. The message at church was about giving up control...what a fitting message for us as we head into a year of unknowns (me quitting my job and Joel starting to look for principal jobs, along with the unknown unknowns!). As I was listening to the message, I was staring at the perfect girl asleep on my chest. I was thinking about the perfect love that I have for my kids. I love everything about them, including their 'imperfections' (although, I don't consider them imperfections!)...stinky toots, stinky cheese hands, crazy hair, and every single little thing about them. One of the things I'm so thankful for as a mom is that it's given me a little glimpse of God's love for us. The way I love my kids is just a glimpse of the way he loves all of us. Our goal is to love people the way God loves us. The thoughts that came to me as I stared at Elaina's perfection is that it's my goal for me to love myself, Joel, and everyone the way God loves us. The closest way I know how to do that is to view myself, Joel and everyone else through the same lenses I view my children...as precious, precious, perfect souls. I'm not how this perfect love for my kids will change as they get older. Already, it's different between Ben and Elaina. I still think Elaina's little toots are cute and precious...meanwhile, Ben's toots are getting less adorable as he gets older. I'm SURE I won't think his teenager toots are cute at all! Who knows how my view of their other "imperfections" will change as they grow! I'm thankful for the baby stage where I'm programmed to love every.single.thing about them and to experience this perfect love!

Speaking of perfect love, here's a pic of Elaina nursing. I love love love nursing her and I wish I could bottle up the peaceful sweetness to carry with me forever!

Ben's fears

Poor Ben. We've had a marvel superhero book at our house for a few weeks and it has caused lots of anxiety for Ben. Right now, Joel and Ben are taking a late night trip to the library just to take the book back and get it out of our house. Ben has cried several of the last few nights because he's scared of the monsters in the book. He even slept in our bed for the first time since he was a little baby!! He knows monsters aren't real but he's still very scared of the monsters in this book. He says the monsters don't scare him during the day, only at night. He's constantly talking about monsters and fighting monsters and talking about what monsters like to do and who they like and on and on and on (not just about the monsters in the book). Same with bad guys. He talks all day long about bad guys. At night his talks are a little more fearful. Lately when he talks about his fears at night, his little lip quivers and he tries not to cry....but a lot of times he ends up crying. This evening we were hanging out downstairs and he came up to me with a quivery lip and told me he was feeling "thumbs down". I don't know where he learned that. So we sat down and talked about his fears and then watched some funny animal videos to get his mind on something else. Right before they left for the library, he was crying and said it was because he had some sugar in him....so he wanted to eat a cheese stick to fight the sugar! He broke my heart with his sad, brave face that lit up and started laughing through the tears when I suggested more funny animal videos. Hes sooo big but still soooo little and sweet!!! My heart feels for him sooo much. I think his brain is doing what my brain has done my whole life. Gosh darn over-active imagination!!! I so so so hope I can help him deal with his fears!! 

Ben update - November 2015

There have been a few things the last few weeks that I wanted to record about Ben. For starters, I'm LOVING the bond that is strengthening between us now that I'm home more. He has such a tender heart and he loves his mama's love. He tells me many times throughout the day that he loves me and I get lots of random hugs and kisses. The other night, I was putting Elaina to bed for the normal 2 hours and he was crying and crying because he missed me (he was over tired, but it was still sweet). For most of his life, Ben has kind of preferred Joel, so it's kiiiind of a nice treat to be the preferred parents for once!

I can't explain how much love and curiosity this boy has in his heart. On December 1, we started our advent calendar that takes us through the story of Jesus' birth. On the first night, we talked about the angel that told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus. We talked about how we don't get messages from angels, but that God sometimes talks to us in our hearts. Ben had so many questions. He wanted to know how God eats and poops. We said God doesn't have a body so he doesn't need to do those things....but then Ben wanted to know how God can do so much stuff if he doesn't have hands. He had other good questions, but I can't remember them all. Somehow we got to talking about being thankful and a few other things. At one point, Ben said he had happy tears of love. Over the last several weeks, Joel and Ben read a section each day out of Ben's Christmas Bible Stories book. He learned lessons about how God wants us to love everyone. On Thanksgiving day when everyone was here, I overheard Ben say a few times that he loves everyone in the world. GAH! And one more thing...the other day he randomly just folded his hands, closed his eyes, and said ""dear Jesus, please make more Dinos. Just small Dinos, not big Dinos" and then he went back to eating his cereal. 

Also lately, Ben has really been into "what if" scenarios. For example, Joel mentioned to him that he needs to leave his shoes on in the car, just in case we need to get out in a hurry. After that, Ben kept talking to me about "what if".
B- What if we need help?
J- Well, we'll use our phones to call someone to help us.
B- But what if our phones are dead?
J- We'll get out and go ask someone to help us.
B- What if we can't open our car doors?
J- We'll turn our emergency flashers on to let other cars know we need help
B- What if they can't open our doors either?
J - Well, the police have special tools that can cut our car open
It went on and on. He does this with other things too! We were at the sporting goods store and he saw a bunch of guns for sale, so he had a gazillion questions about how they sell guns and keep them away from the bad guys. I really hope this isn't the start of serious anxiety! Last night he was crying before bed because he was scared that the floor was going to open up and suck the house into a hole.....yikes. Poor kid.

The picture below is Ben writing his Christmas list :)

Sometimes Ben seems so, so, so grown up. For some reason, his head seems huge (not in a bad way...just in a grown up way) and that makes me feel like he's all grown up. But then when that sweet head is sleeping or crying or giving me sweet kisses, I see his sweet innocence. He is SUCH a good boy. Lately, he's been yelling at Emma in an angry voice that's not acceptable. The other day, I told him if he yelled like that again, he would get a time out. Well, a few days later, he yelled at her and then said "Mom, do I need to go to time out? You said I did".  Well, he was in the middle of doing a good job of eating dinner and I didn't want to interrupt that, so I didn't put him in time out. On the rare occasions that he gets a time out, he goes easily to timeout and sits quietly until the timer goes off. Even when the time is up, he usually chooses to sit longer. It's really hard to punish him! Anything punishment is happily accepted and he has a happy response to how he'll deal with the punishment.  If we try to take something away, he happily says that it's ok because he has other toys or that he'll get it back in "50 days" or whatever. He does get really sad if he clearly upsets me or someone else. He whacked my dad in the face on Thanksgiving so he got in a bit of trouble for that and he was clearly upset that my dad and Joel got a little stern with him.

He had something on his finger and was innocently trying to show us. Hahahahaha

When I tell him not to do something, he always wants a detailed explanation of why not. If I tell him it's because I don't want him to break something, he happily tries to figure out how we would fix it IF we broke it. ANYTHING I say not to do, we have a big conversation about it. It kind of drives me crazy. Sometimes I don't have a good reason for not wanting him to do something. Lots of times he asks how I would feel if something broke. He really doesn't like making me sad. He broke my nutcracker after I told him many many times to be gentle. When it broke, I instantly saw him searching my face for my emotion and anticipating my reaction. He's so fascinating to observe!!

Anyways, I'm sure loving all this extra time with him. He's only going to the Taylor's a few more times and then him and I will have even more time together! He's exhausting and sometimes my brain wants to shut down and not listen to anymore questions....but I sure do love him!!!

Elaina - Three Months

What a joy the last few weeks have been with our sweet girl! For starters, sleep has gotten drastically better. I read a website that convinced me to try putting her in a swing. That was the trick. Right away, she started putting herself to sleep in the swing and her naps have gotten much longer. YAY! She doesn't sleep in the swing at night (she sleeps in the little rocker by my bed). At night for the last two weeks or so, she has just woken up once or twice per night. I know that can change as she goes through growth spurts or whatever, so I'm happy to enjoy these nice nights while they last! I still hold her and nurse her for 1.5-2 hours each night before bed....that's the next thing we need to work on.

Thanksgiving was last week and we had a full house! The Faulkners and Erika stayed two nights and then we had my entire family here on Thanksgiving day. Since I was busy with family and Joel was home, I spent much less one-on-one time with Elaina and I actually missed her!! She has such a sweet spirit. She's pretty easy going and quiet and very peaceful. She lets us know when she doesn't like something (tummy time...), but she doesn't get really wound up or intense about too much. She really likes it when I sing to her. It's a pretty sure bet that she'll start cooing if I sing to her.

The past few days, she has been opening her hands a little more instead of keeping them clenched in a fist, so we get to see her thumbs. You would think that Joel and I had never seen thumbs before!! We just gush over those sweet little thumbs!! Her fingers are so long and her thumbs are no exception!

A few memories I wrote down over the last few weeks:
She's always swaddled when she sleeps, but one morning I unswaddled her thinking she was ready to wake up. But, she fell back asleep on my chest. While I was nursing, she had one sweet little hand resting on the top of her head. Then, as I was holding her, she kept doing the adorable newborn, sleepy stretch.

What is so magical about my chest that makes Elaina sleepy? Some mornings it seems like she'll sleep forever on my chest! I sure love snuggles with my girl!

I don't want to forget to mention her angel kisses. She has one on the back of her neck and one on her eyelid. The one on her eyelid is darker on some days. I'm not sure what makes it darker. The angel kiss on the back of her neck reminds me of Erika's angel kiss :)

On November 21, she laughed for the first time. I had been talking about how baggy her pants were around her skinny waist. I happened to tickle her while I said "skinny skinny skinny" and she laughed!! Gah!! Since then, she's laughed some more, but its a rare treat. She tends to laugh when she's really tired, so they quickly turn to cries.

Watching her grow and develop is so fun! Lately she's been more intentional with grabbing things. She has no interest in trying to roll over in either direction. She is NOT a fan of tummy time. But She will quietly lay on her back on her floor gym, batting and grabbing her toys. I swear I could leave her there for 45 minutes if I wanted to. She definitely doesn't demand our attention very much. She likes interacting with us and gives us gigantic smiles when we talk to her or play with her, but she's also usually perfectly fine hanging out by herself.

As for me, I'm feeling great. Being away from work is fantastic, to say the least. I feel like a much better wife and mom without the stress and pressure from work and the relationships with people there. I've been working out a little and trying to take good care of myself. I'm paying attention to my diet to ensure that I get enough vitamins and nutrients to maintain my emotional health. At night, I like to use essential oils and listen to a meditation on yogaglo. During nap times, I try to do some exercise on the treadmill, drink tea and have quiet time. I feel really good. Winter isn't normally my best time emotionally, but this year so far is the best winter I've had in years.

Love

Yesterday evening, Ben got bonked and he cried (he rarely cries any more). I snuggled him and he continued to wail and wail. It was a really sad cry with real big tears. I kept snuggling him. He continued to cry for a good 15 minutes. Joel snuggled him for a while, too. It was obvious Ben just needed some good love. It wasn't the owie that was making him cry anymore. Finally, he sat up and gently said that he thought he had gotten all the emotion out now and the only emotion left in him was love. I love his heart!!!!!!!! Here are some pictures from the crying episode

Elaina 2 months

11 lbs, 9 oz. 24 inches. 

What to say about Elaina. The first thing that comes to mind is her sweetness. I know. It's shocking to hear a mom of a new baby girl say this. Lately she's been cooing and talking more. But it's so gentle and sweet! Her voice is so quiet. I remember Ben's coos were so full of vigor and he talked sooo much. Elaina's are so gentle and sweet and she doesn't talk a whole lot. In the morning when I pick her up out of her rocker, her whole face lights up in a giant smile. I'm happy to see you too, baby girl! For a few days, she would stay wide awake at night. Every time i laid her down, she would wake up. When I picked her up again, she would greet me with a gigantic smile. It was impossible to stay frustrated with her!

I would say Elaina is an average newborn. She's not the most difficult, but she's not the easiest baby I've ever heard of (*cough*...Eli, Owen...*cough*). Her crying is pretty predictable...tired, hungry or needs a change of scenery.  The biggest challenge is still her sleep. We carry her until she falls asleep and then she usually sleeps for 30-45 minutes. Depending on what's going on, sometimes we'll try to put her back to sleep for a longer nap. But in the afternoons and evenings she needs to be held for her whole naps. At bedtime, I sit in our room with her for 1-2 hours, nursing her and holding her before she's asleep for the night. This works fine when Joel is home and able to put ben to bed...but It makes me sad that I don't get to help Ben with bedtime and its rough when Joel has evening meetings. I feel like I'm chained down by her sleep. She's still only awake for an hour between each nap. After feeding her and changing her, it doesn't leave me any time to get out of the house to di anything. I'm constantly waiting for her to either wake up or for the hour to be up until I have to put her to sleep again. As much as i loooove tiny newborn sweetness, I cannot wait to have a little bit of a break!!!

She has started to hate her car seat a little bit less. She doesn't scream bloody murder for every car ride any more, although we still have lots of crying. 

This weekend i took both kids up to Kirkland to see Aimee and Alicia. Alicia's baby girl, Ella, is only four weeks younger than Elaina. I was so nervous of how Elaina would do. She screamed the entire hour drive on the way up, but then she slept soundly in the ergo for our visit. Seeing Aimee and Alicia was just what I needed. I was feeling a little down with the recent gray weather and lack of human interaction! My visit with them perked me right up. 

As for Elaina's skills...I've noticed she's tried to grab her toys several times. And she was reaching for Ben's face this morning. She likes watching me roll a soccer ball around. I was singing to her yesterday and that really made her coo. Also, I had her do tummy time on a cushion. My back was turned and she rolled over and fell off the cushion. Oops! She was notttt happy about that. I'm excited for the upcoming weeks when she will start to develop more skills and be even more social! Like i said in the beginning...she's just so sweet!!

I love all her facial expressions!

And lastly, I loooove nursing her and wearing her