The Drake Department of Domestic Development

Mira started preschool!

2012-02-10T22:09:00.001-06:00

Last week, Mira started preschool! She goes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, 9am to 1:30pm. Before she started, we had taken her to see her school and meet her teacher a couple of times, telling her that some day soon, after she turned 3, she would go to preschool there. The week leading up to her first day, she would ask every morning, first thing when she woke up, "Is it school today?!!?!?!" And I would say, "Not today, 3 days left." Then "two days left." Then "one day left." When she woke up on her first day and she asked again and I said, "Yes, today you are going to school," she jumped around in a circle, screaming "YAY!" at the top of her lungs.

When we arrived at her school, I opened the door to get her out of the car, and she said, "YAY, school! I'm so exciting!"

"YAY! I'M SO EXCITING!"

She's still exciting.

She picked out her backpack herself. In case you hadn't noticed, she has a thing for owls.

I could not be happier with the preschool we've chosen. It's called Spicewood Country School. They own 9 acres of wooded land with a creek running through. They have all kinds of animals: horses, donkeys, peacocks, rabbits, goats, etc. So in addition to crafts, music, and brief lessons on letters and numbers, the kids also get loads of outdoor time to interact with the animals and explore nature on little hikes.

And Mira has been so happy there. The first day at drop off, I was anticipating a few tears, but I was pleasantly surprised. I dropped her off and her teacher immediately took her over to the craft table and got her involved in what the other kids were working on. I said, "Ok Mira, I'm leaving. I'll pick you up after lunch." No response. Her teacher said, "Do you want to say goodbye to your mommy?" And Mira turned around for half a second, gave the briefest of waves and said, "Bye Mommy" barely looking over her shoulder at me. I was so proud of her!

At pickup on the first day, I went in to get her (her teacher said she did GREAT) and as we were walking out, we walked past the full-day students preparing for their nap. Mira told me, "I need a nap Mommy." I was not tuned in and I responded with, "Yep, we are going home right now to get a nice nap." But Mira looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "No I need a nap NOW." And finally my brain caught up and I realized that she was trying to tell me that she wanted to stay at her school longer; she loved it so much that she wasn't ready to go home yet! I had to reassure her that she would come back another day.

She has shown nothing but enthusiasm for this school. She is positively in love.

After her first day at preschool, she was a complete mess at home: whining, refusing to nap, "NO!" to everything, hitting, tantrums... you name it. Luckily, I had been warned to expect this from other moms in my same position. And it was really just the first day that she was a mess. By her third day, she seemed to have adjusted well to the new routine and napped fine and behaved... let's just say as well as any other day. ;-P

Ellowyn says "all done"

2012-02-09T12:48:00.002-06:00

I finally got a good video of Ellowyn saying "all done".

Here's the sign we use.

And here's Ellowyn's way more adorable version:

Stuff about Ellowyn

2012-02-08T20:52:00.000-06:00

Big sis shows Ellowyn that chalk is for more than just eating.

Ellowyn is really getting to be a pretty cool little person. She can clap her hands, and she does sign language for "more", "water", and "all done". And when she signs "all done" she also verbally says "aahh daahhh". I'm calling this her first word. (She says a lot of other things too, but I don't call it an official word until she will say it in the correct context without prompting on multiple occasions.) Which I guess means her first word is actually a phrase, but we can't all be perfect now can we. I've been trying to get a good video of her doing it, but have yet to be successful. I'll keep trying.

Anyway, she's also got really great manual dexterity and fine motor skills. In addition to signing and clapping, she can stack things (and knock them down), put two duplo blocks together (and take them apart), work simple peg puzzles, take pop tops off of cups and put them back on again... I don't remember Mira's fine motor skills being this advanced at this age.

She's still not quite walking yet. She will cruise (walk down the length of a table or couch while holding onto it) like a champ and she'll often stand and let go of whatever she was holding onto and just stand freely. She even walks while holding my hand (one hand or two). And yesterday, she took that single step that it takes to cross the gap from my coffee table to my couch. So I think she's close, she just needs to build confidence.

Her one-year checkup was delayed a bit (due to being sick... AGAIN), but we finally went last week. She is 25th percentile for height and up to 8th percentile for weight. Which is up from 3rd percentile, so great. The doctor showed me her growth pattern in relation to the official growth charts, and it's clear that she is growing at an appropriate rate, she is just down at the very bottom of the chart. And, as he put it, the rate of growth is what's important. So she's doing great on that. Oh and head circumference: 90th percentile. GIGANTIC noggin... itty bitty body. There's a reason I say she looks like a tadpole when naked. She's still wearing 6-9 month clothes, but she wears hats sized for two year olds. She's like Betty Boop. Without the tits and heels.

We also got the 1yr vaccinations, which included chicken pox. The doctor told me that 5% of patients develop red bumps (like chicken pox) from the vaccine. And sure enough... Ellowyn is a five percenter. On the bright side, the doctor said that if that happened it was a good sign because it meant that she got a good immune system response to the vaccine. It seems like, if there is any kind of sensitivity or complication or reaction, no matter how remote the possibility, Ellowyn will be that one-kid-in-a-thousand. Well, at least she seems to have outgrown her skin sensitivity so I can now wash all our clothes using the same (less expensive) detergent. So yay for that.

See the red dots under her chin? Thank you chicken pox vaccine.

But I shouldn't complain because in so many ways she is such a wonderful easy baby. She is generally happy, is able to play alone and entertain herself for long stretches of time, is bright and inquisitive, sleeps well, eats well... I have a lot to be thankful for when it comes to her.

Weigh in - 4 months

2012-02-07T11:53:00.003-06:00

I haven't been terribly focused this month. I've only been getting to the gym 2-3 times a week. And so my weight has been holding steady. I guess my body is telling me that 2 workouts a week is enough for maintenance, but not enough for weight loss. Which is good to know... I won't have to keep up this intensity forever, just until I make my goal.

Despite the fact that I haven't lost any weight, I feel like I am looking better. I am noticing changes in my body shape and my "problem spots" seem to be a little smaller. Brian has also told me that he is seeing visible changes. I think the most telling thing is that I had to tighten up the waistband on my Becco baby carrier.

So anyway, I'm going to keep at it, try and get back to 4-5 workouts per week, and hope that I can find my way past this plateau that I seem to be stuck on.

I lost 0 pounds this month. Since I started 4 months ago, I've lost 7 pounds, putting me 23 pounds away from my goal of losing 30 pounds.

Mira's in dance class

2012-01-25T18:48:00.000-06:00

You may recall that we have had Mira in gymnastics class for quite a while now. Well, when she turned 3, the classes went from being Parent-and-tot classes to solo classes that she attends by herself. At the same time, the place we are taking her has a variety of specialized classes for children starting at age 3. One of the classes available is dance/gymnastics fusion. Given Mira's love of dance and the dance talent of her aunts foretelling an innate ability, how could we not move her into the dance class the minute she was able?

Well, at first she was really nervous about it. The day of her first class, she said she was feeling sick (nauseated) and that she didn't want to go. But I told her, "Let's just go try it and see if it is fun. We'll never know until we try." So we went and the first class she spent just standing to the side and watching. She didn't participate at all, just observed. She also was not able to stay in the class the entire time; she made it for 30 minutes before she came out and "needed a break". Somehow after 15 minutes of sitting with me, I convinced her to go back in for the last 15 minutes of class.

The second class went only marginally better than the first. She still said she didn't want to go, but I managed to talk her into it again. She at least managed to stay in the class the entire time, but it was still pure observation, no participation at all.

Don't they look cute, all lined up and turned out?

I was starting to get discouraged, thinking that maybe she'd never warm up to it, but then, in the third class....

Have you ever seen so many pink tutus in your life?

My, my, that is some adorable dancing.

Also, by the third week, Mira had acquired an admirer. I think this little girl may have been a big reason that Mira finally began participating, since the girl was practically dragging Mira into the action. It was just the push (or pull) that Mira needed.

They do ballet and creative movement, followed by tap, and then gymnastics.

Learning how to shuffle. See the little tap shoes? *swoon*

And then she also gets some time in each class to work on her gymnastics skills too.

Parallel bars

Forward rolls

Look how strong she is: she can hold her own weight on the bars!

After class, Ellowyn decided she'd better spruce up on her dance skills as well, if she was going to keep up with her sister.

Party with the fam

2012-01-24T09:24:00.004-06:00

In addition to Mira's "Big Girl" party, we also had a birthday brunch with family and adult friends to celebrate both Mira and Ellowyn's birthdays. I think birthday brunch is becoming a tradition; we've done it every year since Mira was born.

E unwrapping presents

M working a new puzzle with Gramma Laurie and Aunt KK

E loves books, so this gift was right up her alley.

I stuck a bow on E's tummy and she puffed her chest out and smiled, so proud of her decoration.

Aunt Lindsey showing M how to use her new cook book that we got from our friend Becky.

M always keeps her wrapping paper neat and tidy when unwrapping gifts.

This percussion instrument set from Gramma Laurie and Papa was a huge hit. Literally.

E loves the percussion set too. (Her shirt says "High Maintenance", in case you were wondering.)

M got a dress up set, complete with high heels from my parents and sister. Here she is trying the heels out.

Singing the birthday song. That number one on E's cupcake? That was the same number one that we used for M's first birthday. I told Brian that if I continue keeping all the candles, we'll have all the candles we ever need to buy by the time M is 11 years old. Is this being thrifty or am I obsessively hoarding candles? I'm not sure.

Yay for my two beautiful girls!

Mira's "Big Girl" Bowling Party

2012-01-23T17:50:00.000-06:00

Imagine 13 adults, 11 toddlers, and 7 babies taking over the bowling alley and you'll have a good mental image of Mira's first "Big Girl" Birthday party.

Mira had so much fun with all her little friends. First, there was bowling...

The bowling alley has gutter bumpers and then also these special ramps. And we were using the lightweight balls, so the kids could carry the balls themselves. They would take their ball over to the ramp, set it on top, and push it down the ramp. The ramp gave the ball enough momentum to get all the way down the lane. And because the bumpers were up, every ball would knock over pins. It was great. (I can't take credit for the idea of a bowling party; the only reason I knew it would be awesome is because we had attended the 2nd birthday of one of Mira's little friends at a bowling alley and Mira had a blast.)

It was very much controlled chaos. But because we were doing it on a weekday morning, we had the whole place to ourselves, which was nice because it didn't matter if the kids rolled their balls under the tables and took off running down the lanes.

You can see the edge of the chaos on the left side of this picture. Notice that every kid is holding a ball...

After the bowling we went into a party room for pizza and cupcakes.

Everything went off without a hitch. It was great!

Ellowyn is 1 year old!

2012-01-18T18:42:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it's already been a year. I'm excited and sad at the same time: excited because every day I see a little more of the person Ellowyn is growing into, sad because she's my last and so I know there are so many experiences that I'll never have again.

I mean, who would want this face to grow up and change? Hmm?

"Books are cool! But I'm not so sure about this one..."

Ellowyn is showing herself to be a very different kind of person than Mira is. Ellowyn is much more independent and adventurous. She takes easily to new people and situations.

She sure loves her naked time after bath.
It's perhaps her happiest time of day. Until the jammies come out.

She's still loving food as much as ever. I swear she eats like a trucker. And yet, still not much to show for it: she's still only about 17 pounds, putting her under the 5th percentile for weight. (We'll get all her stats at her 1 yr well check next week.) I guess she has a remarkably fast metabolism?

Perhaps a bit more practice with utensils is in order.

And she's completely mastered the art of cruising. She can cruise hanging on to virtually any surface. We are working on getting her to walk while holding a hand, but she's not quite confident enough to try it yet.

On the day of her birthday, we did have a little celebration with just our family (there will be a bigger party with the extended family and friends coming up this weekend). Mira picked out the strawberry cupcakes and helped me make them.

Ellowyn was skeptical at first...

But then she realized there was cake.

We had been saving sweet sugary treats till her first birthday, so this was her first experience with dessert. She was hesitant at first, but quickly warmed up to the idea.

Mira, on the other hand, is an expert on the subject of cake.

Cake face is not so cakey.

Christmas 2011 (er... sort of)

2012-01-11T17:58:00.000-06:00

I say "sort of" because our Christmas wasn't in 2011. We didn't really celebrate until over a week into 2012. Better late than never?

The reason for our delayed festivities? We all felt like this:

Note the perpetual snot and glazed look.

Well, ok that's not entirely true. We did make a blundering effort to do SOMETHING on Christmas day. We went over to Brian's dad's house and hung out with his family, exchanging gifts and spreading disease. Looking back at my holiday photos, I can tell that I was really out of it on that day because I only managed to take 3 photos and all of them were blurry.

I guess it's true what they say about the photographer's mood coming through in their photos.

When we all had finally surfaced from the haze of never ending nose blowing and coughing, we realized that Christmas and New Year's had passed in a rather depressing way. Luckily we had still not celebrated Christmas with my parents, so we got a chance for a re-do. Here are some photos from that:

There we go. That's much better.

Goodbye Poofball

2012-01-08T23:01:00.000-06:00

On Thursday, we said goodbye to our cat, Poofball.

You may remember that our other cat, Mimic, died about a year ago of advanced kidney failure. Well Mimic was Poofball's brother from the same litter, so it really came as no surprise that Poofball's final days very closely resembled Mimic's. She started losing a little weight and then took a very rapid and very dramatic turn for the worse. It seemed like overnight she went from losing-wieght-but-ok to omg-she-looks-like-death. And I knew when I laid eyes on her that morning. I knew because she looked just like her brother did the day that he died.

So I took her to the vet and they wanted to do a ton of stuff, a whole battery of tests and probing and poking... I told them that I felt pretty certain about what was going on, so just do the blood work to see if it's kidney failure. If it's not, then we'll address the rest of it, but don't bother her with the rest until we've ruled that out because I had a strong hunch. And sure enough, blood tests confirmed very advanced kidney failure (results so far off the chart that they couldn't be quantified). Additionally, her white blood cell count was also off the chart. The vet said that usually indicates cancer. Any one of those diagnoses would have been enough to call it, but with both together... there was clearly nothing to be done but say goodbye.

Brian came up from work to be with her as she passed.

Later that day, I explained what happened to Mira (she wasn't present for the vet appointment this time). I told her that Poofball was very old (she was 14 years old) and that her body had stopped working and there was nothing that the vet could do to help her feel better so she died. Mira responded with "like Kronk and Big Daddy" (Kronk was our dog and Big Daddy was her great grandfather, both passed away within the last year). I told her yes, like them. And then I explained to her how all the tiny parts of her body would go back into the earth and the earth would use them to make something beautiful like grass or trees and also how we could still think about her and remember how much we love her and the things we liked to do with her and so she would always be with us in our memories. (I've become very practiced at this speech, since I've given it to Mira following 5 different deaths now.) And she got it. She's coming to understand death very well. A day later in the middle of play, she stopped what she was doing, looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "we don't have a kitty any more". And so we hugged and talked about Poofball some more. She is showing a depth of understanding that amazes me, given that she is not even 3 years old yet.

Poofball was a sweet beautiful kitty who made our lives happier by her presence and she is missed every day.

Weigh in - 3 months

2012-01-07T13:06:00.002-06:00

I've spent a vast majority of this month either being sick myself, or caring for one sick child or another. As a result, I haven't been to the gym at all in over 3 weeks. My priorities this month have simply been to keep everyone in the house breathing and trying not to let my asthma get too bad with this cough.

So it's no surprise to me that I have not lost any weight this month. I'm calling it a win that I haven't gained any weight either.

As of today, we are all very much better and my cough is under control enough that I feel like I could get back to working out. I plan to go to the gym tomorrow and if that goes well, I'll be back to my 4-5 day per week regimen. I anticipate much better numbers next month.

I lost 0 pounds this month. Since I started 3 months ago, I've lost 7 pounds, putting me 23 pounds away from my goal of losing 30 pounds.

More sickies: RSV

2012-01-04T13:22:00.000-06:00

Ellowyn has been sick since December 19th. Thankfully she is finally really starting to get better. She had RSV, which she shared with all the rest of the family (and then some). But the problem was that it didn't stop there. The disease progressed with Ellowyn and became bronchiolitis, which then developed into an ear infection. For the whole thing to run its course, it has taken 17 days.

The bronchiolitis was by far the worst part. The RSV was like a bad cold, the ear infection we knew to watch for so was caught early, but the bronchiolitis... she had it bad. Wheezing cough, fatigue, struggling for breath, gasping, rapid breathing, blue lips... the works. Hospitalization was considered multiple times (Brian somehow managed to talk me out of it, instead we had multiple emergency visits to the after hours clinic). She was on breathing treatments every 4 hours for 6 days. And those were not fun. Sometimes she was too exhausted to fight it and then she'd just fall asleep and it was kind of nice. But other times (especially once she started feeling better) she struggled and cried for the whole 15 minutes that it took to hold the mask over her face and administer the vasodilator. I went to bed a couple nights scared to leave Ellowyn alone in her crib for fear that one time when she stopped breathing in her sleep (which she did regularly), she would fail to wake herself, and I would walk in to a dead baby in the morning. It was terrifying. I can say all this now because it is over. At the time, I couldn't say how scared I was because of that superstition that if you say something then it will become true.

Ellowyn was also on a nursing strike. That's typical for her when she gets sick, but this strike was the longest yet: 14 days. Thankfully she's back to nursing today and seems to be making up for lost time. I freely admit that prolactin withdrawal may have contributed to my state of total freak-outedness during this time.

Anyway, because everyone was sick, we pretty much missed Christmas and New Year's. This holiday season was a bust. Thankfully, we have a make-up Christmas celebration with my parents and sister coming up this weekend, so we are pretending that Christmas is coming 2 weeks late. As such, I will have a Christmas post later, after we have had a chance to actually celebrate.

Ellowyn is 11 months (and one day)

2011-12-13T20:11:00.000-06:00

Ellowyn is 11 months old! It's strange how it feels like she has always been here. I can't seem to remember life without her.

A few weeks back, she went through a month-long phase of getting sick. She caught one thing right after another for four weeks solid. It was miserable. But since then, she's been much better. She's now sleeping 12 hours straight through at night, no night wakings, and also taking one nap a day for an hour and a half. This has taken some work and time to achieve, but it puts her on the same sleep schedule as her sister, which is SOOOO nice. She's eating like a trucker; I have to plan extra food for her at every meal (as opposed to Mira at this age, who could just share a little off of our plates). And she's still nursing 4-5 times a day. But despite all that food, she remains a skinny little thing. She must have the metabolism of a hummingbird.

In the last week she's learned two new skills: waving and walking behind a push toy. I don't have a good video of the waving yet, but I'm hoping to get one soon. In the mean time, here's a video of her walking with the push toy:

Weigh in - 2 months

2011-12-06T09:19:00.001-06:00

In the month since my last weigh in, I've been pretty busy.

In the first part of the month, I did really well. I was working out 4-5 times a week, 45 minutes to an hour each, and making good progress. I was up to 30 minutes on the rowing machine (rowing about 6000 meters, burning about 400 calories) and I was mixing in an occasional workout class. In the first two weeks of the month, I lost 3 pounds. I was really happy about that.

The last two weeks of the month are another story. We travelled to and from Dallas twice in those two weeks, once for Thanksgiving and once for a training conference I attended. The trips both ended up being great, but I'm sure you know (or can imagine) how stressful and time-consuming and exhausting it is to travel with a toddler and an infant. In those last two weeks, my workouts were sparse and my diet was shot, so I didn't lose any weight. And really, I'm just happy I didn't GAIN anything.

So there it is: I lost 3 pounds this month. Since I started 2 months ago, I've lost 7 pounds, putting me 23 pounds away from my goal of losing 30 pounds.

Weigh in - 1 month

2011-11-06T13:37:00.000-06:00

It was a month ago today that I wrote this post beginning my goal of eventually losing 30 pounds. I've decided that I'm going to weigh in here once a month. The results are in...

But first I'm going to make you all sit through an analysis of my diet and workout regime this last month. Ha! See how I'm the blogger and so I have the power? (What? You're just going to scroll to the bottom of this post anyway? Ok cheatypants. Way to rain on a blogger's parade.)

I've only been half serious about my diet. I'm making a lot of healthy substitutes: fruit or gum instead of other sweets, turkey instead of fattier meats, salads with low-calorie dressing, etc. But I'm still not counting calories. I know that would be most effective for me (and it's what I prefer to do, diet-wise) but I hesitate to do so because I'm still breastfeeding and there's no way to know how many calories that burns. Also, we eat out about once a week and I know I'm not making low-calorie decisions when it comes to eating out. I tell myself that it's only once a week so I can splurge a bit. Which is a fine mentality to have, I think, but it doesn't exactly help shed the pounds. On the positive side, I have noticed a huge cut back in my snacking. And for Halloween we didn't even hand out candy because I didn't want it in my house. (Mira has some candy that she got from trick-or-treating, but for some reason I'm not tempted to eat it, probably because it's HERS and I don't want to take it away from her.)

But as blase as I've been about my diet, I've been totally attacking my workouts. I'm going usually 5 times per week and working out for 50 minutes to an hour each time. I usually do the eliptical, since that seems not to aggravate my plantar fasciitis. Actually it's this weird eliptical that makes your legs go out in front of you like you're doing a knee lift, instead of going round in circles under you like a traditional eliptical. I prefer that one because it burns a lot more calories in less time. So doing 50 minutes on that thing, with a pace of 120-130 strides per minute (which is pretty fast, I maintain that rhythm using music that is 120-130 beats per minute), at an incline of 3 and a resistance of 20 (whatever that means), I can burn 500 calories in 50 minutes. Which I do. About 5 times a week. I'm starting to get a little bored with that though, and I want something that's more of a whole body workout. Not to mention that I don't want my body to get too "used to" any specific workout. I tried a zumba class and thought it was fun and definitely intense, but I felt like I was spending too much time trying to get the choreography and it was still just all cardio as opposed to having some strength training. So today I tried the rowing machine for the first time. Whoa. Fifteen minutes on that thing and my butt was kicked. My total workout today was 20 minutes on the eliptical, 15 minutes on the rower, and then another 20 minutes on the eliptical again. I wish the rower would tell me how many calories I burned on it because I bet it was a ton. If I had to guess, I'd say I burned about 200 calories in that 15 minutes on the rower, making my total calorie burn today a whopping 600 calories. It felt good, but my shoulders are already a little sore. I think I'll keep the rower in my workouts for this next month and see how that goes.

Ok ok... here's what you've been dying to know. In the month since my last post, I lost 4 pounds. I feel good about that. It's a rate of about a pound per week, which I think is realistic and maintainable. That said, I have hopes that this next month will yield bigger results. Mostly because Mira, Ellowyn, and I were all sick TWICE last month and when any of us is sick, it's pretty impossible to get my workout in because I can't go to the gym. So there were a lot of times last month that I wanted to go work out but couldn't because someone was sick. Hopefully we will all be healthier this coming month and that won't be a barrier for me.

One month in and I've lost 4 pounds, putting me 26 pounds away from my goal of losing 30 pounds. Feeling good.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-05T16:27:00.000-05:00

This year was the first time that Mira picked her own costume. She chose an adorable little witch outfit (and I added the striped tights because every good witch has striped tights and also because CUTENESS OVERLOAD). And poor Ellowyn got Mira's hand-me-downs, like always: she wore Mira's old goldfish costume. Someday that girl will have something of her own... I'm just not sure when that will be.

This year the girls made good use of their costumes; we attended FIVE different Halloween events. (It would have been seven if Mira hadn't been camping the weekend prior... yeah, we get around. :-P)

1) Halloween party in the park:
The Tuesday before Halloween, we met a bunch of friends at the park for a Halloween costume party. We painted pumpkins, ate Halloween themed snacks, and played on the playscapes. At one point several of the kids were all sitting together eating lollipops. It was so cute how they were all lined up together. I swear the photo below is completely unstaged! (I didn't bring my camera, but my friend shared with me this photo that she took.)

2) Halloween party at a friend's house:
Saturday evening on Halloween weekend, we went to a big party with a bunch of Mira's friends. One of the moms hosted in her big beautiful backyard. The costumes at this party were awesome. It made me wish that I had dressed up as something, since Brian and I were one of the few not costumed.

Yes, the baby there with Ellowyn is dressed up as french fries. His big brother was a hamburger.

You've heard of mini golf... well here's witchy golf.

Why yes, that is a bouncy house in the background.

3) Hyde Park Fall Festival:
My parents' house backs up to a park owned by Hyde Park Church and every Halloween they throw a big festival there. It's really great for preschoolers: activities, bouncy houses, a train ride, crafts, a puppet show... basically everything a toddler could want in a Halloween celebration. So the Sunday of Halloween weekend, that's what we did.

"Fishing" for candy.

Ball toss.

Bean bag toss.

Everyone's a winner!

Crafts.

Cookie decorating.

Obstacle course

Ellowyn had fun from her comfy seat in the stroller. Plus this sock is delicious. Wanna bite?

4) Fall Fun Fest in Round Rock:
And the Hyde Park Festival was so fun that we figured we'd do it all again the next day. On the morning of Halloween (Monday), the city of Round Rock put on a similar festival in Old Settler's Park. We also ran into quite a few of our friends at this event, so that was fun.

Watching the jugglers.

Bean bag toss. Again. By the end of the festivities this year, she was a pro.

There were some uniformed police officers there with a police car for the kids to look around in.

More crafts.

5) Trick-or-treating:
And of course, Halloween evening we went trick-or-treating in my parents' neighborhood. Last year, Mira was only up for about 4 houses. But this year, she thought trick-or-treating was the best thing since sliced bread. She said "trick-or-treat" at every door and remembered her manners with a "thank you" after receiving candy or compliments on her costume. After every house she'd say "And now let's find ANOTHER house!" I think we probably did about a dozen houses before Ellowyn demanded bedtime.

"And now let's find ANOTHER house!"

The last house we trick-or-treated had this strange bearded man... oh wait it's just Grandpa.

Ellowyn is pulling up

2011-10-28T09:48:00.000-05:00

In the last couple of weeks, Ellowyn has started pulling up to stand. Lately she's gotten really good at it and loves to practice her new skill. I have hopes that she'll be an early walker (babies get so much easier when they can walk).

Mira went camping!

2011-10-27T20:08:00.003-05:00

Last weekend, Mira went on her first camping trip. Brian took her and met some friends out at a local camp ground. They spent 3 days (and 2 nights), which was the longest Mira had ever been apart from me. Apparently she did great! She didn't sleep well (no napping, late to bed, early to rise) because she was so excited about sleeping in the tent with Daddy, but Brian says that it didn't make her cranky or unruly and that she behaved very well and really enjoyed herself. There was some swimming, some hiking, some nature-watching, some star-gazing... They couldn't have a camp fire because of the draught, but I'm told they still were able to make s'mores using a propane grill.

I told Brian to take pictures for me, and he did.... a whopping 6 photos. Sigh. Well here's the best of the slim pickings:

Brian sounds VERY enthusiastic in that video, doesn't he? He assured me that he did actually enjoy himself quite a bit, despite the lack of evidence supporting that claim.

Meanwhile, Ellowyn and I got some one-on-one time. I decided to keep her home with me because (1) I'm not a big fan of camping and (2) with Ellowyn being at that crawling-around-putting-everything-in-her-mouth phase, I was picturing a never-ending game of "chase the baby and pull things out of her mouth and then console her while she cries about having that delicious stink beetle taken away from her and then finally put her back down to chase her some more and repeat until dead". It was a nice break to have only one child to care for, and it was nice to interact with Ellowyn in ways that are not possible when Mira is involved. But I was still really happy to see Mira and Brian when they got home; I missed them so much!

Mira is learning her letters.

2011-10-22T21:57:00.001-05:00

Mira's been getting really good with letters. She recognizes and can name any letter, upper or lower case. And she's starting to work on the sounds the letters make. There are a few letters that she knows the sounds of really well and can name multiple things that start with the letter, like B and D and M.

Playing with some letters.

She can spell her name. Given a pile of letters, she can pick out the ones that go in her name and put them in the right order... although that whole "left to right" concept is a little iffy.

And she's even starting to work on writing some letters. If I draw a letter, she can do a pretty good job of replicating it in her own handwriting. I'd say, for being 2 and a half, this is pretty impressive:

And all of this is not because I push this kind of learning onto her; SHE wants to learn it and asks me to draw letters so that she can do it too. She'll start up a conversation out of the blue about the sounds different letters make. It's information she genuinely wants to know and regularly asks about. I think she may understand that this is the key to reading and that is why she wants to learn it. She's just like her father that way... naturally inquisitive. And like me in that she has a strong desire for understanding and craves explanations. Needless to say, I am so proud of her.

A touch of sibling rivalry

2011-10-19T10:31:00.000-05:00

Most of the time, Mira and Ellowyn play really well together.

Playing "Train"

Ellowyn tickling Mira's toes

Other times not so much.

It really wasn't a problem until Ellowyn started crawling.

Before Ellowyn was crawling, Mira went through a phase where she didn't want Ellowyn to have certain toys (or sometimes any toys). But that was pretty easily handled by a combination of teaching Mira how to trade toys with Ellowyn and telling Mira that the rule is that she cannot grab toys out of Ellowyn's hands. Things were under control.

Until Ellowyn started crawling.

Now Mira will be playing with something and (since Ellowyn thinks Mira is the bee's knees) Ellowyn will decide that she wants to play too. But the way a baby plays is basically to mess things up and create chaos. This really bothers Mira, as organized and orderly as she is. So then Mira lashes out at Ellowyn, by pushing her away or snatching the toy away from her or yelling at her or something similar. And Ellowyn doesn't understand what went wrong so she starts crying.

I've been reading various sources on the subject of sibling rivalry, and one common theme seems to be that the parents need to stay out of it as much as possible. The reason for this makes sense to me: every time you intervene, you inevitably take sides (and taking sides only makes rivalry worse). But I can't just stand by while Mira pushes Ellowyn over. Having a baby in the mix complicates the "work it out yourselves" approach. I've also read the tactic of putting a toy into time out if it is being fought over or having children take timed turns with a toy, but it seems to me like both of those tactics would have little bearing in my situation, since there is a baby involved.

My sister and I are 12 years apart, so I never experienced sibling rivalry first-hand. I do have some experience with mitigating sibling rivalry from my years as a nanny, but all of those kids were older and there are lots of tactics that you can take with older kids. I simply have no idea how to handle this when one of the kids is a baby with no concept of consequence or respect for others.

I know that, to some degree, sibling rivalry is just part of having children who are close in age. And really, this is not that big a problem: as I said, most of the time the girls play great together. I just hate feeling like I don't know if I'm taking the right approach on those occasions when they do have trouble playing happily together.

Mostly what I'm doing right now is using distractions with Ellowyn and giving Mira places to play where Ellowyn can't reach (up on the couch or at the table). I also do use time outs with Mira as a consequence for physical violence, but that's rarely necessary.

Anyway, I would welcome any suggestions, if anyone has ideas that I've not thought of.

Ellowyn is 9 months old

2011-10-14T12:49:00.000-05:00

Two days ago, Ellowyn turned 9 months old.

She's such a bright, happy, easy baby! She sleeps well, eats well, entertains herself easily... I really lucked out with her.

Here are her stats from her 9 month well-check:
Height: 27.5 inches (40th percentile)
Weight: 15 pounds, 2 ounces (3rd percentile)
Head: 45.5 centimeters (90th percentile)
The doctor is a little concerned about her weight being so low. Mira was low too, but never this low. He says it's probably because Ellowyn is so happy playing on the floor, crawling around almost constantly. But it means that he wants to keep a closer eye on her, so rather than waiting till 12 months to see her again, he wants to see her back in 6 weeks. He says it's just a precaution, he's sure she's fine, but he likes to keep closer tabs on the tiny babies.

She's still just got the two teeth, but I can see by looking at her gums that the top ones are on their way.

Flashing that toothy grin.

She's crawling very proficiently now. She still sometimes prefers the army crawl, but certainly not because she isn't *awesome* at crawling on her hands and knees.

Crawling, crawling, crawling...

Just a couple days ago, I caught her attempting this new trick:

Gonna have to get out the gate pretty soon!

And she still LOVES to eat. She mostly eats what we eat, with only a few exceptions. I'm already having to plan larger meals to accomodate her; sometimes I think she eats more than I do. After eating, her belly is always so distended, she looks like a tadpole. So her low weight is certainly not for lack of trying. In addition to 2-3 solid meals per day, she is still nursing about 6 times daily. Girl loves her some noms.

We tried avocado again recently and got the same reaction as before: hives, this time on the chest. So she really is allergic to avocado. The only other food that she has shown a sensitivity for is egg white, which she throws up every time. I'm hoping she'll grow out of that one.

And she can drink from a sippy cup all by herself now! Watching her do this cracks me up.

Girl needs some dance classes

2011-10-08T21:17:00.002-05:00

I think Mira has an innate love of dance. She frequently asks me to turn on music so that she can dance and every time she hears music she starts dancing. I can't tell if she is an especially talented dancer, but does it even matter when she loves it so much?

The place where she's taking her gymnastics class does offer dance classes too, but they don't start till age 3. You better believe that she will be in those dance classes just as soon as she can be.

I recently got some photos of her doing what she calls a "dance clap" (she turns around in circles, picking her feet up high and clapping her hands). Excuse the pajamas, this was first thing in the morning. Also note the cute little ballet slippers (a gift from Aunt Kevan).

And after a dance, every good dancer knows to do your stretches.

The beginning of a long road...

2011-10-06T18:20:00.001-05:00

My cousin, a mommy blogger like me, started tracking her weight loss on her blog a couple months ago. I thought it was such a great way for her to hold herself accountable to her weight loss goals. It also struck me as being very honest and vulnerable in a way that I admired. So I guess you could say I've decided to follow her lead.

I'm going to start a weight loss journal here on my blog.

I know a lot of you are probably thinking, "Wait a minute. I signed up for cute baby pictures and videos of that adorable little girl singing her ABCs. I don't give a flying flip about workout regimes and dietary goals and pounds lost and all that hoopla." To those people, I have to apologize. But this is something that I need to do for myself. I don't pretend to imagine that this is a topic that all of my followers will think is fascinating. But by putting myself out there in this way, I feel more pressure to succeed, and that's something I know I need: accountability. So this is more for me than it is for you. Feel free to skip the weight loss entries, if you're not interested.

There will also continue to be cute photos/videos of both the girls, so DO NOT DESPAIR! I know what your needs are and they will not go unfulfilled.

So.

Preamble complete.

I've been working out routinely for about 5 weeks now. I've lost 7 pounds in that time. Which is better than I thought I'd do because I've not been serious about my diet. But it's a start. And I'm feeling like I have more energy and I'm actually WANTING to work out, which is a big step. But since I've started working out, I've encountered a hurdle: plantar fasciitis. So my workout regimen has had to change: I was doing a lot of walking/jogging and that's just not something that I can do right now. So instead I'm doing the eliptical a lot, sometimes swimming. Anyway, I'm hoping that this pain clears up quickly so that I can get back to the kind of workout that I'd like to do, but I've heard that it can take many months for plantar fasciitis to heal.

At first, I was just working out for the energy and to feel better. But seeing that I'm losing weight, I'm thinking that maybe I should take this whole thing seriously. I'm working out 3-5 times per week, for 30-60 minutes. As far as my diet, what has worked for me in the past is to count calories. I've successfully lost weight on a 1200 calorie/day diet. But I'm not comfortable limiting my calories because I am breastfeeding. It's hard to know how many calories you are burning in milk production, and the last thing I want is to lose my milk before Ellowyn is ready to wean. So I'm not going to worry about quantity of food and instead focus on food quality (meaning I can eat as much as I want as long as the foods I eat are healthy and nutritious).

Anyway... the first goal that I'm setting is to lose 30 pounds. I may have more to lose than that, but I'll reevaluate once I get there.

So...

30 pounds to go.

Sick sick sick

2011-09-27T09:23:00.001-05:00

I'm so tired of having a sick kid. Last week it was Mira, this week it is Ellowyn. When Mira was sick, she was just pathetic: miserable and wanting to be held in my lap. I actually kind of like snuggling with her like that, but it makes taking care of Ellowyn more difficult. Now Ellowyn is sick and she is making me want to tear my hair out. She is really congested, so she's having trouble nursing and it seems to be a common trend that she spends the entire morning crying no matter what I do. We've been doing the steam shower thing, especially in the morning when she is most congested, but Mira won't just sit in the bathroom with us, so I've been plopping her in front of the TV (which I don't mind doing occasionally, but on sick days it seems to happen a lot). And to top it all off, I can't get out of the house. I've been stuck here for two whole days and it feels like forever. I think I lose my sanity a bit when I can't leave the house. AND I haven't been able to get to the gym to work out in 3 days so my body is feeling crappy. It's frustrating.

Rant over. Let's all have some cute pictures to cheer us up.

Mira helps me do Ellowyn's hair in the morning. Ellowyn is unsure about this arrangement.

Sweet sisters

Ellowyn is still a little wobbly when sitting up, but Mira is there to catch her.

A little time for me?

2011-09-22T22:55:00.003-05:00

About a month ago, things came to a head as far as my health is concerned. I had symptoms of PPD, tests showed I was seriously nutritionally deficient, I had no motivation... I was at the lowest point that I had been in for more than a decade. The turning point came in a diagnosis: ultrasound showed that I had polycystic ovary syndrome. It's a hormone imbalance that causes irregular menstrual cycles, infertility, and weight gain due to insulin resistance. There's no cure for this, the only thing that can be done is to treat the symptoms individually, but it has been known to reverse itself with weight loss.

That diagnosis was what made me decide that I had to start putting myself first, at least a little bit. I was sacrificing myself to my children, and while that is what's required of a mother to a degree, I was taking it to an extreme.

So I got a gym membership.

I've been working out 4-5 times a week for the last 3 weeks now. Most of the time I take the girls with me and they stay in the child care center at the gym while I work out. (We still make our playdates and fun activities in the mornings; I go to the gym with them after they're done napping in the afternoons.) I've already seen great improvements with my energy and stamina and motivation and my cycles are already back to normal. So I know this is exactly what my body needed.

While I feel great that I'm getting the exercise, I also struggle with feeling guilty about leaving my children in the child care center. They're only there for 30 minutes to an hour at a time, but still the first two weeks were really hard for them: lots of tears and I would frequently get paged to stop my workout because one of them just couldn't handle being left there. (The care-givers give me a pager when I drop the kids off in case they don't do well.) Let me tell you just how great this made me feel about finally deciding to do something for myself... Needless to say, I constantly question the decision to do this. And I hate to say it, but it often feels like the price is not worth the reward. It's been 3 weeks now and Mira is doing better... pretty well, actually. But Ellowyn still cries every time and she has developed a pretty nasty case of separation anxiety since I've started going to the gym. It really pains me to see her struggling and I'm constantly wondering if I'm making the right decision. I know that this is the right thing for me; my body is showing me in so many ways that this is the answer. But I'm finding it so difficult to put what my body needs ahead of what my daughter needs from me. I guess it's just not in my nature to be selfish in this way.

Why I'm a Stay At Home Mom

2011-09-20T11:19:00.000-05:00

I just recently had a friend ask me, "If being a stay at home mom is so hard, why do it?" In the moment, I gave a brief vague response about it being the best choice for my children. But it got me thinking and I realized there were so many things I wish I'd said. Because there are so many very important reasons why I chose to be a stay at home mom (SAHM).

It's true, it is hard work. Being a SAHM constantly tests my patience, ingenuity, creativity, and resolve. I can't eat or go to the bathroom without addressing someone else's needs first. It's difficult to never have a break from your children and putting them before you. Juggling two children presents it's own special challenges, especially when the needs of one are in direct conflict with the needs of the other. Even when they're sleeping (and if I'm lucky enough that they are both asleep at the same time), I'm listening for them and wondering when they will wake and planning what to do after that happens and recovering from their latest adventures and picking up the leftover messes. And god forbid I ever need to go to the dentist or get my hair cut. It's messy, painful, tiring, relentless, and thankless.

So why on earth would I put myself through that?

So many reasons.

Bonding: A special kind of bond is formed between a child and a parent when the parent is dedicated solely to the process of caring for and raising the child. This bond creates a feeling of security for the child. And in turn, that security breeds trust: trust that I will always be there and that their interests will always come first. That trust makes so many other aspects of parenting so much easier.

Breastfeeding: As a SAHM, I can breastfeed my children as long or as often as we need/want to. I don't have to worry about pumping or supplementing or weaning or finding an appropriate place/time. We can just do what comes naturally whenever it strikes us.

Stress-free kids: With no deadlines to meet or time cards to punch, my children are free to explore, play, sleep, and eat on their schedule. There is no mad rush to get out the door in the morning, no commute home wondering if I'll have time to make dinner for the family before the kids need to get to bed. Also, if my kids are not enjoying a situation, we can change it up. If they are getting stir-crazy at home, we can go out somewhere. If we are out and about and one of them melts down, we can leave and head home. This is a stark contrast to a day-care environment where, if the child doesn't want to be there... well, that's just too bad. The kind of liberty I have as a SAHM creates a nurturing, relaxing, easy-going lifestyle for my children that reduces their anxiety and stress.

Parenting my way: By being with my children 100% of the time, I assure that I make the parenting choices. I decide how much TV they can watch, what foods they can eat, what punishments/consequences to use, what lessons to teach, what experiences they are exposed to. It's a big responsibility, but I would rather take it on myself than leave those child-rearing decisions to someone else. Also, I am able to oversee their social interactions (and they do get lots of social time with other kids thanks to my network of other SAHMs) to make sure they are learning how to be polite and share and avoid physical violence and take turns.

Go, Do, Learn, Play, Explore: As a SAHM, I have the joy of being able to take my children places like playgrounds, parks, ponds, pools, museums, playdates, rides, activity centers, etc. If they were in a day-care situation, they would miss out on being able to go do these things with me every day. It is rare for us to spend a day at home, we are constantly going out and doing fun exciting new things specifically for the girls to enjoy. (And it's nice for me that we are usually out doing these things with another SAHM or two, so I have some adult company.) Bouncy houses, baking classes, gymnastics, dance classes, train rides, museum visits, nature walks, zoos, farms, puppet shows, story times at the library... these are the things that fill my days and these are all things that I'd hate for my children to miss out on.

Never miss a moment: Every day, I am creating loving memories with my children. And I know that I will be there for every first: crawling, teething, walking, laughing, talking, etc. These are memories that I will cherish and I can feel sure that their earliest childhood memories will be of the time they spend with me.

So many reasons.

Is having a parent at home with the kids the right choice for every family? No, of course not. If staying at home is a choice that would be regretted or one that felt forced, then children will not thrive with a reluctant parent. Also financially, while some monetary sacrifices are acceptable, if having a parent at home would be too hard on the budget, not having the money for groceries is not in the best interest of the family.

But for me and my family it was clearly the right choice and I'm so glad I made it. Even if it means that my successes are measured in whether or not I have bodily fluids on my clothes at the end of the day.

Any day now... (Ellowyn is mobile)

2011-09-19T09:35:00.000-05:00

Ellowyn just recently turned 8 months old. For over a month now, she's been getting up on her hands and knees and I've been SURE that she would start crawling any day. Yeah.... not so much. However, she's got a MEAN army crawl. She can really book it.

Here she is about a month ago (this was taken while we were at the beach).

And here she is more recently.

I think the fact that she can army crawl so well has lessened her determination to get up on her hands and knees to crawl. But she does still work on it. She'll get up on her hands and knees and rock a lot. Sometimes she'll manage to move her arms, but she gets caught up when it's time to move her knees. She just can't figure out how to move one then the other. But I'm sure it will be soon (though I've been saying that for a month now...).

Facing the Music

2011-09-12T23:49:00.000-05:00

My mother died just about a year ago. Today is the 2nd time I've been able to play native American flute music since that day, or rather night. The first was too raw, too much pain.

I got a phone call from my sister: "Brian, Mom's in surgery and there has been a complication..."

... I had gotten a voicemail from my mother the night before - and ignored it, like usual. I think I even pushed her to VM rather than take a late night call.

Oh Shit!

The thoughts that percolated at that point weren't terribly sophisticated.

WTF!@$*!(!

Huh?

Surgery? I didn't know about any surgery!

OH SHIT - what will my boss think? --Meta information - I was in my first week of my new, high paying, save my family's financial ass job--

F' the boss - "Sis, where are you - I'm on my way"

The pride I feel at this point, looking back on that decision to prioritize being with my family over my finances kind-of bothers me... it's honestly a decision I'd make again - but the fact that I feel pride in it means I could have gone the other way... and what kind of despicable ass makes that decision?

A bit of time in the waiting room with my sister and her then BF - a nice guy but not up to the multi-month crisis my sister would then enter - my other sister joins us - we eat a ad-hoc dinner and then find Mom's been moved to the ICU... after dying for 10 long minutes with docs manually pumping her heart.

Yeah - my head is spinning; my heart is cold; my strength for my family is palpable.

We plan - who's doing what shift - I insist on the overnight.... insist. I know my sisters won't sleep - but they will be worse than I if they don't at least try to sleep. To this day, I don't know if/how they did.

I did go home briefly while Kevan spent some time with Mom. I threw together a bag with my 'hospital sweatshirt' my iPod and it's portable speakers and a book. The speakers and iPod are key to this story.

My mother loved native american flute music; those rhythmic drums and haunting melodies. One of my favorite internet radio stations was based 100% around this musical style - and it was what I played for us the hours while I sat at her bedside. Praying to my goddess, her God, anyone who might be listening that she could pull through the coma, get over the twice an hour body wrenching retching, and have intelligence, rather than horror, reach her eyes once more. Yes, I saw her fear in her deep brown eyes. The terror. The soul ripping horror at her situation and our mutual inability to do more than pray.

So as the low sonics of wood flutes and skin drums penetrated the ICU, and the concerned young man who was taking *very* good care of my mum came and went; I waited - listening to the sounds - knowing my mother could hear them... and knowing that they called her to a fearless beyond... I helped my mother pass.

And have had a hard time listening to this music since...

Light a candle when you see this post - she loved candles.

Ellowyn's first teeth

2011-09-01T21:17:00.000-05:00

Ellowyn cut her first teeth this week. It's the front bottom two teeth. She cut one and then a day later the second. It's funny because, leading up to the teeth coming in, she was not cranky at all. It was only AFTER the teeth came in that she started the "teething" behavior. And by that I mean reluctant to nurse and difficult to get to sleep.

I'd post a picture of Ellowyn's new chompers, but they are only just barely poking through the gums so you can't even see them yet in person, much less in a photo. The only way I know they're there is that I can feel them when I put my finger in her mouth.

In related news, here's a cute series of photos/videos from one of Ellowyn's recent culinary adventures.

Mmm, blueberries.

Uhm... ew.

How did the unsuspecting blueberries get mauled into indecipherable mush? Let's examine the evidence.

Exhibit A: Note the "who me?" expression on the face of the accused.

Exhibit B: Note the blueberry-induced face puckering.

Exhibit C: And now the foot has entered the scene.

Exhibit D: The accused shows no remorse.

Exhibit E: Blueberry mush was discovered between the toes of the accused.

Guilty as charged. And to top it off, after she tired of mauling the poor blueberries, she proceeded to play with the remains, spreading blueberry carcass all over the surrounding area. Oh the humanity.

Beach!

2011-08-28T09:43:00.002-05:00

Last week, we took a trip to Port Aransas. My mom, dad and sister went too. Mira and I went last summer, but this year Brian was able to come too, so that was extra nice. We rented a 3 bedroom condo that had a short boardwalk over to the beach, so we spent every morning playing on the beach. Then a short walk back to the room for lunch, put the girls down for naps, then in the afternoons we swam in the pool or went back to the beach. In the evenings after the girls were asleep, we were able to take nighttime walks in the surf. It was really fun. I wished it could have lasted longer.

Ellowyn liked sitting in the shallow waves. For being only 7 months old, she did really well on the trip. She woke up a little more often at night, but that's just to be expected at that age. Otherwise, she was pretty happy and would tolerate about an hour or so at the beach before needing to head back to the condo for a break. I had brought along the baby carrier that I use when we're in the pool, and I spent a lot of my beach time with her on my chest. I'd go out into the water till it was up to my waist and the waves would come up to wash over Ellowyn's legs and body. She enjoyed the motions that my body made while carrying her in the waves.

It took Mira a little while to warm up to the beach experience and on the last day of our trip was when she was really starting to get comfortable with the ocean and the waves. But she really loved playing in the sand.

We had a great time and already plan to go back again next summer.

Mira feeds Ellowyn

2011-08-27T17:45:00.000-05:00

Mira loves feeding her baby sister. Ellowyn cooperates nicely.

Catching up since my last post

2011-08-12T17:05:00.002-05:00

Another month between posts.... I am seriously falling down on the job.

Ok, well... let's catch up.

Ellowyn:
We had some hiccups with the solid feedings, but it seems to be worked out now. She went through a period where she was whining all the way through feedings to the point that I would just give up and nurse her. I finally decided that the reason for it was that she was frustrated that she couldn't eat solids faster or get more immediate satisfaction with them. Combine that with a terrible case of constipation that just would not clear up no matter what I tried, and we actually gave up on solid feedings for about a week there. But she's back on now and I've figured out that the trick is to feed her when she is neither hungry nor tired. I know.... feed her when she's not hungry.... seems counter-intuitive and more than a little superfluous, but it's what works. Right now it's more about teaching her what solid food is all about rather than actually ingesting nutrition anyway.

Ellowyn is also getting very mobile. She's not crawling quite yet, but it will be very soon. She still can't sit up unassisted, so she spends most of her time playing on her tummy. She rolls and scoots all over the place. Other than that, she's still sleeping great and is just doing really well overall.

Mira:
These hot hot summer days are hard on Mira. We can't go any of the parks that we normally like to play at, I can't take her swimming unless I've got someone along to help, and in the afternoons the car gets so blisteringly hot that we can't even go anywhere in the car. So the morning is our only time to get out of the house and then our options are pretty limited. We've been doing lots of playdates at our friends' houses (or having friends over to our house). It helps just to have different toys to explore. We also do some indoor activities (museums, bouncy places, indoor playgrounds, the mall where we can ride the train and the carousel, the pet store, etc) but the options are limited. So I've been really thankful lately that we've got Mira in a weekly gymnastics class. It's been good for her. It's tiring for me because I have to spot her on the equipment while I wear Ellowyn in the carrier, but still it's worth it. She recently moved up to the older kids' class (previously she was in a class with 2 to 2.5 yr olds, now she's with the 2.5 to 3 yr olds). I was nervous about the switch because I wasn't sure she had been at it long enough to keep up with the older kids, but she really rose to the challenge and I was surprised that she was doing so much more on the very first day with the older group. I mentioned that to the teacher and she told me that it often happens that way because kids take cues from their peers so the older group pushes her to challenge herself. So she's doing really well in gymnastics: forward and backward rolls, climbing on the uneven bars, flip overs (spotted) on the parallel bars, walking on the balace beam, etc. In the last class (yesterday) she took a bad fall and busted her lip really good. She was crying and bleeding everywhere and we went out to get ice and clean up. Before she was even done bleeding, she was asking to go back in to class. I was so proud of her for that!

Mira is really coming into her terrible twos. Lots of whining and complaining and throwing fits and deliberately causing trouble. It's getting to be a real challenge a lot of the time. But that's a whole blog post all by itself... I may write on that soon.

Me:
I'm still working through this PPD stuff. I don't have all the answers yet. My GP is concerned about some vitamin deficiencies that came up in my blood work, so I'm taking additional supplements and then I'll get my blood retested in about a month. My OB is concerned about my cycle irregularity and intensity, so he's ordered an ultrasound to check for "structural abnormalities" but I can't take it until after my next cycle so basically... who knows when. And I'm also seeing a psychologist who specializes in PPD, is expensive as hell (we are paying her out of pocket since she refuses to deal with insurance claims), and is also utterly awesome and really seems to get me and is really helping me see some things more clearly and work through some emotions and identify some things that need to change.

Oh and I had a birthday. It was kind of crappy, truth be told. The day of my birthday, Brian was too exhausted from working long hours (poor guy, they're really asking a lot of him lately), so I let him sleep in and made him breakfast in bed. Then I did get to have a nice dinner with my family and my mom took me shopping AND kept Mira overnight (thanks, mom, I can always count on you). So that was nice. The day after my birthday, Brian took Ellowyn and went grocery shopping for me in the morning so that was a nice break. But after that, all hell broke loose. Mira came home from my mom's house sick and spent the whole afternoon sobbing in my arms because she was so miserable. Any time I would put her down she would scream bloody murder. And all this time, I was alone and trying to deal with Ellowyn too because even though it was a Sunday Brian was back at work. The next day our AC broke and the repair man had only bad news: we needed an entirely new system to the tune of $6000. The entire day I was trying to juggle both girls and scheduling the repairs and finding somewhere to be that was not my hot house and still getting someone to the house when the repair guys needed someone and trying like crazy not to have to cancel my therapist appointment because they have a non-refundable late cancellation policy, so finding a babysitter who didn't mind watching a sick toddler and an infant (who was also starting to get sick BTW) and then the girls not napping because we were in a strange house even though they really needed to, being sick and all. And a husband whose work is still being demanding so can't help much at all. And then over the next few days, Ellowyn not sleeping well because she's sick, Brian leaving for work before we're awake and not getting home till after we're asleep... It was kind of a nightmare.

But now it's Friday. Brian will be home from work before dinner tonight (!!!). And then shouldn't (!!!) have to work this weekend. And I have friends coming over on Saturday night to belatedly celebrate my birthday. So hopefully things are getting better and I can say that I survived.

Ellowyn is 6 months old

2011-07-18T14:41:00.001-05:00

Ellowyn turned 6 months old last week. In some ways it feels like that half year has gone by in a blink. In other ways, it feels like it's been forever. But one thing is for sure: I am totally in love with this girl.

Just like her big sister did, Ellowyn continues to slip down the growth charts: she's now 50th for length (down from 75th at 4 mo) and only 10th for weight (down from 25th at 4 mo). As always, the pediatrician is unconcerned, he just says I have slow-growing babies. Her head, on the other hand, is big as ever: still 90th percentile for head circumference.

She's still sleeping great: sleeping for 12 hours at night, usually up only once a night, and napping 2-3 hours each day. And every time I put her down for bed, she goes to sleep on her own. She is awake and happy when I put her down, I give her her lovey and turn on her mobile, and then I leave the room. She babbles a little bit and then falls asleep. This is an entirely new concept to me. With Mira, I always actively parented her to sleep: we nursed, we rocked, we sung, we cuddled, we patted. Not with Ellowyn. She would rather be left alone, thank you very much. It was kind of like reverse sleep training because SHE trained US. I would try to rock her to sleep: no way, she was not having it. But set her down alone in her quiet room... sleeping in 5 minutes. In some ways it's nice because I know that I can just lay her down and she will sleep if she's tired. In other ways it's a little sad for me because I *liked* cuddling Mira and having that quiet time with her to sit and gaze into each other's eyes and sing softly in the dark and just be together, relaxed and intimate. I don't get much of that with Ellowyn, so I really relish those brief seconds when she will let me just hold her close.

Ellowyn has started babbling a lot! Lots of B and D sounds. Her favorite word is "blah", which she will say repeatedly and often. This is also something that we didn't experience really with Mira. Perhaps that's why Mira was a late talker, but she never babbled much at all. Not so with Ellowyn. All that time she used to spend "singing", now is spent babbling up a storm. It's ridiculously adorable.

She's still not quite sitting up yet on her own; she needs a little support on the back and sides. But she is moving all over! She rolls in both directions and even scoots along on her belly. Already, she's getting into things on the floor the way a crawler does because she can scoot all over the room!

As for her reflux... A couple weeks ago, I forgot to give her a couple doses of her reflux meds and she didn't seem bothered by it. So I just... stopped. She still spits up, but is unperturbed by it. Her reflux discomfort symptoms are few and far between, so I feel like it's worth it to not be medicating her any more since there is some evidence that Ranitidine (her reflux medication) inhibits calcium absorption.

And that brings us to: Eating! After Ellowyn had an allergic reaction to avocado (!!!), we have been very cautious in what she gets to eat and when. (She seems to just be very sensitive to environmental allergens: she had a bad reaction to HYPO-ALLERGENIC laundry detergent, too. It's a good thing she has an OCD mommy.) She has had baby oatmeal, acorn squash, carrot, pears, plums, and sweet potato... all with no allergic reaction. So that's good. And she LOVES to eat. She literally DIVES for the spoon. She whines if you can't shovel it in fast enough. She thinks eating is the best thing since nursing.

Staying cool

2011-07-14T09:25:00.000-05:00

Ellowyn playing in some water in the baby tub while Mira eats a popsicle. (The popsicle is homemade: when I made Ellowyn's baked peach baby food, I froze some of it with sticks in it for Mira.)

Gymnastics!

2011-07-11T10:01:00.002-05:00

On Friday, Mira started a gymnastics class! She really loves it. They do fun floor activities like playing with bubbles and scarves and bells and singing songs. And then they do a little tumbling: forward rolls, side rolls, donkey kicks, etc. And they also have a bunch of bars and beams and other typical gymnastics equipment and the kids get to hang and balance and swing and play on it all. It's a parent/tot class (they don't offer solo classes until the kids are at least 3 years old) so I'm following her around and spotting her on the equipment and doing the floor activities with her so it doubles as a light work out for me!

The teacher was really impressed with Mira's strength and how long she could hold on to the bars and hang from them. I told her it was from all the rough-housing she did with her daddy at home!

She was fearless on the balance beam. She climbed right up onto it and before I even noticed she was trying to stand up on it. Luckily I got to her in time to catch her as she almost pitched forward onto her face. The teacher quickly showed me how to spot her in such a way that she could still feel her own balance and then after that she wanted to walk both balance beams over and over.

So we've signed up for the next two months. I really like this gym because once she turns 3, they have other class options in addition to gymnastics: dance, sports, martial arts. So not only will she get to see those things going on at the gym, she'll also get to try them out if she is interested.

Ellowyn's first solid food

2011-07-02T09:57:00.001-05:00

A few of days ago, we decided to let Ellowyn try solids. Mira’s first food was avocado, and it seemed to work well for her since she’s quite the little foodie now, eating almost anything even at an age where most kids get picky. So we thought: hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So Ellowyn’s first food was also avocado.

I think it went over pretty well:

I was really pleased with how she seemed to be so into it, grabbing at the spoon, opening her mouth wide for more, easily swallowing with no tongue-thrust reflex. We’ve clearly picked a great time to start her on solids, developmentally speaking.

HOWEVER...

A day after she first tried avocado she developed this red spot next to her mouth, about the size of a quarter. After it had been there for 2 days and was still red, I decided I’d better have the pediatrician take a look at it. He thinks it’s hives: an allergic reaction. And we’re pretty certain it has to be from the avocado, since we were observing the 4-day rule and so hadn’t introduced any other foods yet. (And thank goodness we did it that way because if we’d tried other foods too then we wouldn’t know what to avoid.) The doctor said that even though avocado is a food that is very unlikely to produce an allergic reaction, babies can have a reaction to pretty much anything.

So after only two avocado feedings, we’ve now stopped solids and are back on exclusively breast milk until the hives clear up completely. At that point we’ll try some other food. Cereal would probably be safest, but I’m tempted to do some acorn squash or pears or something else foodie-ish.

Just like I did with Mira, I’m making all of Ellowyn’s baby foods from fresh produce (rather than buying jars of processed food) and I’ve already made a few batches that are in the freezer ready to go: pears, plums, and carrots. Next I plan to make squash and peas.

Anyway, I’m really hoping that the next thing we try goes better. It scares me to think that she could have a more severe allergic reaction to something and her airway could close up. But the doctor says that’s unlikely and thinks we could even try avocado again in a couple months. (Apparently, sometimes babies have a reaction to something when they are younger but then their body and digestive system matures and they no longer have that reaction any more.)

Ellowyn picture spam

2011-07-01T11:42:00.000-05:00

Here's Ellowyn in her exersaucer. She loves it, but she's a little too skinny/wobbly for it, so we have to stuff blankets around her in the seat to keep her stable.

Ice in a mesh feeder helps with teething. Also, it's just kinda fun.

Wearing her geektastic onesie. You can see that she's just devastated that her parents are dressing her in such embarrassing attire.

Mira is the Potty Master.

2011-06-30T22:13:00.000-05:00

Mira is the Potty Master.

We have not had a single accident since my last post.

So Mira had one intro day followed by two rough days, and then was completely potty trained by day 4. I am in awe.

We've even had multiple outings: to a friend's house for a playdate, to the doctor's office, to the swimming pool, to the store. No accidents.

At home, Mira is still mostly going bare-bottomed, but it's really just for convenience because she has been doing great wearing underwear and shorts/skirts. She has a few pairs of shorts/skirts that she can get down by herself so we've been wearing those whenever she needs to be dressed.

As of yesterday, she was still having a lot of "false alarms" where she'd try to go but nothing would happen. But today, the only false alarms happened while we were out of the house. At that point I wonder how much of that was really that she thought she had to go or whether she just wanted to check out the foreign bathroom.

We're still working on using a big toilet as opposed to her little floor potty. When we go out, the big toilets are her only option (unless we happen to be at a friend's house who has a toddler potty). As of yet, she has not been comfortable enough on them to use them. I've ordered a portable potty seat that will sit on the big toilet and adapt the opening to her size, but that also FOLDS UP so you can put it in your diaper bag. (21st century mommies have the coolest gadgets!) We'll see how she likes it once it gets delivered.

I also ordered one of those toilet seats that you put on your toilet in place of the existing seat, and it has two seat sizes built in, one little toddler sized one and one big one for adults and you just flip one seat up to use the other. The idea is that we'll install that on one of our toilets at home and then hopefully Mira will be able to use that at home instead of the floor potty. Cleaning the floor potty after every use is getting rather old.

The hardest part has been when Mira needs to go potty while I'm nursing Ellowyn. Mira can do all of it herself, except wiping. So she still needs me to come in when she's done and clean her up (and also clean her potty). If that happens while I'm nursing Ellowyn, then I have to interrupt Ellowyn's feeding to go take care of Mira and let me tell you: Ellowyn DOES NOT like her feedings to be interrupted. We basically listen to her scream until I can get back to nursing her. So that's why, as much as possible, I'm trying to get Mira to be able to use the potty independently. That's our next goal: being able to go without Mommy's help.

Mira's still in a diaper whenever she sleeps. I figure we'll wait to bed train until she is waking up with a dry diaper at least part of the time. Right now she always wakes up wet. But when she's awake she has complete control. She can even hold it, if required. Which reminds me... the other day I was nursing Ellowyn while Mira was eating lunch and Mira told me she needed to pee. I said, "I'm nursing Ellowyn right now. Can you hold it?" And she responded, "Holding this spoon, Mommy." (She had a spoon in her hand.) Lol.

Anyway... great stuff. Mira is awesome. The end.

Potty training for realz

2011-06-27T11:10:00.000-05:00

On Friday Mira started potty boot camp.

I found myself stuck at home again, unable to leave the house, partly because Ellowyn wanted to take multiple naps and partly because Mira said she wanted to stay home. I'm so tired of being stuck at home most days. But I figured that if I've gotta be here, I might as well accomplish something. So when Mira said she wanted to stay home, I responded with, "Ok then it's NO MORE DIAPER TIME!"

That was about 10am on Friday morning and ever since then Mira's been diaper-less when awake. That's the new rule: no diapers during waking hours. And for incentive, I'm rewarding any pees/poops in the potty with a chocolate chip or an M&M. I wanted to make the reward sufficiently small that I wouldn't mind if she had multiple in a single day. I was hesitant to use junk food as a reward (mostly because I worry about that creating unhealthy habits later in her life), but chocolate seems to be the only thing that she's really motivated for. (I've tried stickers and little toys and just a lot of praise as rewards for using the potty in the past, but nothing works as well as chocolate. shrug.)

She's spent most of the time since Friday morning either completely naked or wearing only a shirt. Although we have experimented with several different kinds of training pants, for now it's just easier for her to be bare-bottomed.

Friday was day 1. Throughout the day, I would ask her to try sitting on the potty regularly, and we'd read books while she sat on the potty. It went really well, with only one accident and multiple pees in the potty. But Mira did ask for her diaper back more times than I can count. In the past, I let her have her diaper back on whenever she'd ask for it, but now if she asks for it back, I say, "You're a big girl now, so we're going to work on using the potty. No more diapers when you're awake." And then if she starts to get upset about it, I remind her that she can earn M&Ms by going in the potty and that turns her around and gets her excited about it again.

On that first day, we even had to make a brief trip out of the house to go to the post office. We were gone about a half-hour and Mira wore cloth training pants while we were out. She did a really great job and the trainers stayed dry the entire time. At one point while we were at the post office, Mira said she needed to pee. I looked all over, but there was no public bathroom. So I told her I couldn't find a potty and I asked her if she thought she could hold it in the car till we got home. She said that she could. I asked her if she was sure and she said yes. And then she did just that: she held it all the way home and when we got home, she went inside and sat on the potty. (She didn't go pee right away, but I was still so proud of her.)

On Saturday (day 2) we had some set-backs. Maybe it was because Brian was doing a lot of the potty work with her that day and he was doing things differently than I was. Or maybe it was just because she hit some kind of hump where the novelty wore off and she was just not into it anymore. Whatever the reason, there were a lot of accidents on Saturday and very few successes. At one point, Brian gave up and put her diaper back on. Of course, when I walked in and saw that, I took the diaper right back off... and Mira pitched a fit. And then after that she thought that if she just had enough accidents then she would get her diaper back. So that was an uphill battle.

Sunday (day 3) started off a lot like Saturday. And I was getting really frustrated because she'd have an accident less than 5 minutes after I had just made her sit on the potty and try to go. And that's when I messed up. I waited until I was sure she needed to pee and then I sat her on the potty and told her she couldn't get up until she'd gone pee. BIG MISTAKE. It totally backfired on me and she sat there crying for over an hour and not a single drop in the potty. I felt terrible and I totally lost face with her because it wasn't an ultimatum that I could stick to. It was all wrong. And I know it was all wrong and so I at least can be sure to never do that again. But I felt (and still feel) embarrassed and guilty about the whole thing. Once she and I had both calmed down, I explained to her that I acted out of frustration and I shouldn't have done that and told her I was sorry. Sweet girl, she said "I'm sorry too mommy." I guess the best you can do when you screw up is to own up to it and apologize and learn from it. So if nothing else, I got the opportunity to model apologetic behavior to Mira.

Thankfully, I can say that I think a breakthrough came AFTER that incident, so it's possible that I have narrowly avoided traumatizing my daughter into wearing diapers for the rest of her life. Later that same day, she went to the potty all on her own, no one asked her if she needed to go, she just ran over to the potty and sat down and went.

Today, (day 4) has started off great. Two successes by 10am and no accidents. So maybe, just maybe the hard part is done. Also, today has yielded some great potty training Mira quotes: "There is pee inside my tummy, Mommy" and then, excitedly, "Pee is coming out of my butt! Pee is dripping out in the potty! Yay!"

Throughout this entire time, Mira has always consistently done her number two's in the potty. We've never had a poop accident. Which is really great because I hear often that the poops are more difficult for many kids to master. So we've gotten lucky in that respect.

The first goal is just to consistently use the potty when awake, with no accidents. And I feel like we might be getting close to that. She's using a little floor potty and mostly not wearing pants. So then the next steps would be to try to work on using a big potty (so that she is comfortable doing that when we are out of the house) and to start wearing pants and pulling them off/on when using the potty.

Some cute Mira videos

2011-06-26T09:51:00.000-05:00

Mira update.

2011-06-24T13:37:00.000-05:00

I am amazed every day by Mira. She is smart, gentle, sweet, respectful, beautiful, funny... and so much more.

Mira's language has just exploded lately. Looking at videos from even just a month ago, I'm shocked at how far she's come so quickly. She's now very regularly forming sentences with 6 or more words. And I'm talking full complete sentences with verb agreement and everything. And her pronunciation is so clear for a toddler; for the most part, people who've never heard her talk before can understand her without requiring the mommy-translator. Of course, she IS only two and so she has her share of false starts, word mix-ups, a few words that she pronounces strangely, etc.. Sometimes she'll get the word order mixed up in a sentence, which I actually think is ridiculously cute. Her frequent mix-ups are "not try to" instead of "try not to" and also "got for" instead of "forgot". Also, she's still working out the whole pronoun concept. She frequently refers to herself in the third person: "Mira wants to...", "Mira's going to...", using "Mira's" instead of "mine/my". I'm slowly working on correcting that for her, but I don't want to stop her and make her say it correctly every time because a) I don't want her to feel like I'm jumping down her throat every time she talks, b) I don't want to interrupt her train of thought, and c) I still just think it's so cool that she's talking as much as she is, I don't want her to get discouraged. So the pronouns are coming, but slowly. And I think that's pretty typical for toddler speech.

Mira continues to be very well behaved... about 98% of the time. She'll listen and follow directions, she's very good when we're out and about, she uses polite words (please, thank you, may I, etc), she's patient when I have to focus on Ellowyn. But every now and then she gets a little bit of that terrible-two fever and then it's "NO Mira not wants to!" (It tends to happen more when she's tired.) Usually, natural consequences are enough to bring her back in line. The other trick up my sleeve is "do it yourself or I'll make you do it". She'd much rather have control over herself than be forced to do anything. So much so that just the threat of me taking away that self-control is enough to bring her around. The common one is at diaper time: she can choose to come lay down and be still while I change her diaper or I can bodily force her to do it. All I have to say is, "Do you want to do it yourself or do I need to come make you do it?" And she'll usually jump up and run to comply.

Mira is getting along really well with Ellowyn. Now that her language and vocabulary are so useful, she tells me about what baby Ellowyn needs or is doing. Sometimes when Ellowyn is napping, Mira will hear Ellowyn crying before I do (especially if I'm doing the dishes or something else noisy) and then she'll come tell me that Ellowyn's awake. And when Ellowyn is playing on the floor or in her exersaucer, Mira will bring her toys or sing to her or give her hugs. Part of what makes Mira such a good big sister is just that she's such a sweet generous girl by nature. When she accidentally hurts someone or gets in the way, she apologizes: "Oops, sorry Mommy." She notices when someone is sad or hurt and asks them about it and offers hugs/kisses as needed. She shares easily when playing with friends.

And Mira is so smart. There's so much that I want to do with her and teach her and expose her to. She inspires me to be a better mother. She's really starting to show her creativity when playing; she likes to pretend a lot. I'm trying to keep things interesting at home right now because it's difficult for us to get out of the house these days. And sometimes I really wish we were getting out more, but then there are days where I ask Mira if she'd like to go to the park and she responds with "No, let's stay home Mommy." So I guess I must be doing a good job at keeping Mira entertained at home. I do wish that I had more attention to give to her in the way of one-on-one activities, but I guess that is probably the plight of any parent with more than one child.

Ellowyn is 5 months old (plus a little)

2011-06-21T21:11:00.000-05:00

I never posted a 4 month update for Ellowyn, so this post is going to include a bit of back info.

Anyway, Ellowyn is beautiful and healthy and it seems like the milestones are coming a mile a minute.

Physical Growth: We haven't had her measured since her 4 month checkup, but since I never posted that info, I'll go ahead now. At her 4 month checkup, she was 75th percentile for height (down from 85th at 2 mo), 25th percentile for weight (down from 50th at 2 mo). So just like her sister, she's continuing to be a slow grower in comparison to her peers. But she's still tall and skinny overall (as opposed to Mira, who was just little all over). AND just like her big sis, she's got a giant noggin: 90th percentile for head circumference.

Sleeping: For the most part, Ellowyn continues to be a good sleeper. She's usually only up once per night, although the timing of her night waking has been pretty random: one night she'll wake up at 11pm and the next night 4am, there's just no telling. And while she'd probably like to be taking two one-hour naps per day, I'm pushing her into a one-nap schedule by keeping her up in the mornings and not letting her nap until Mira's nap happens after lunch. The main reason I'm doing this is so that I don't have conflicting nap schedules that keep me trapped at home all day (if Ellowyn naps in the morning, then when she wakes up Mira is going down and then when Mira wakes up Ellowyn is going back down and then I'm stuck at home all day long with one child or another sleeping). She's proving to be very flexible in her sleep, luckily, so she's taking well to doing just one longer nap every day (she'll usually take one 3-hour nap per day which will at least partially overlap with Mira's nap). Also, I'm currently working on transitioning her out of her inclined bassinet (which she was sleeping in for her reflux) and into her crib. So far it's turned out to be surprisingly easy; Ellowyn is taking to her new bed really well. She may even be sleeping better in her crib than she was in her bassinet.

Eating: We're still exclusively breastfeeding. Ellowyn's still not quite ready for solids, according to the generally accepted guidelines: she can't sit up well yet and she hasn't doubled her birth weight (though since she's only 12 pounds and would need to get to 17 to double her birth weight, I don't think that's a milestone she is going to reach before she starts solids). She also seems to be getting plenty with breast milk alone; she doesn't act like she's still hungry after nursing. But she does show interest in our food and in watching us eat so we are thinking that we might start solids in the next couple of weeks, right around the time she turns 6 months, assuming her sitting abilities get better between now and then.

One thing that she has discovered that she can eat: her foot. She loves some toes.

Physical ability: As I mentioned, she is not quite able to sit up yet. She's so tall and lanky that I think it's difficult for her to control all of her height. But her head has gotten much less wobbly of late. Also, she's rolling in both directions (back to front and front to back). She's gotten really good at grasping and grabbing objects, even handling them and passing them back and forth between hands.

Reflux: Her reflux continues to be well-controlled with her medicine. I've tried on several occasions to wean her off of the medicine, but every time I try, her symptoms come back and she is clearly uncomfortable. She's still spitting up very frequently, but in gradually diminishing quantities. I've heard that the reflux should get much better once she is sitting up more. But now that the reflux is under control, she is beginning to actually enjoy tummy time.

Social: Ellowyn continues to be a very social baby. She loves looking at faces, and smiles any time anyone engages her. She also really loves to "sing", as I call it. She makes this "aaaaaaahhhhh" sound... repeatedly and loudly and often. Lately, she's also starting to throw in a few babbling sounds too; buh's and mah's are now in her vocabulary as well as blowing raspberries. You can hear her "sing" some in the video at the end of this post.

Her smiles are huge; her mouth takes up the entire lower half of her face.

Sister love: Mira continues to be a great big sis, and Ellowyn is so fascinated by her. Ellowyn watches everything Mira does with awe and fascination. And Mira sings Ellowyn songs, she shows her what she is doing, she hugs her and kisses her, she hands her toys, she helps me take care of her by fetching things for me when I ask or by keeping Ellowyn entertained while I focus on something else. Mira is incredible, as sisters go. And Ellowyn loves her so much; she lights up when Mira enters the room.

I'll leave you with a cute video of Ellowyn making faces at Brian. She does a little singing, too. Also, Mira makes an appearance at the end.

Easter

2011-06-20T14:48:00.000-05:00

If you're wondering why I'm posting Easter pics about 6 weeks late, you can get caught up here.

For Easter, my family was out of town, but we still had a great time. We had two Easter Egg Hunts: one with some of Mira's playgroup friends, and another with Brian's family.

Here's Mira on Easter morning, just after opening her Easter basket. Rather than buy one of those pre-packaged baskets, I had hand-picked what to put in her basket, so she had a magnifying glass, a necklace and bracelet, a coloring book, a stamp, a flower headband, a flower pot with some seeds to plant... and of course, some candy.

Here are some photos from our egg hunt with our playgroup friends. It was in our backyard. It was nice to have a hunt with a bunch of kids who are all the same age. There were 9 toddlers who participated.

We also had an egg hunt with Papa and Grandma Laurie (Brian's dad and step-mom) at their house. Here are a couple pictures from that.

Overall, a fun time. Last year, Mira didn't fully understand the egg hunt concept, but this year she totally got it. She was the egg hunt master. Although opening the eggs without spilling their contents proved somewhat more challenging.

It's not the end of the world after all.

2011-06-16T16:07:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged in over a month. It's crazy. I know what most of you out there were thinking: IS IT THE APOCALYPSE OR WHAT????? Nope. Just me being... uninspired is the wrong word because my girls give me plenty of inspiration every day... call it "in a funk".

Why have I been in this funk, you ask. Why have I left you so uninformed, so terribly cute-picture-less, so LOST, WHY OH WHY? So many things. I'll try to be brief...

Since last I blogged...

My grandfather passed away. We were very close. It was a hard thing for so many people in my family. The service was in Dallas (4 hours away) on a weekday, so Brian was unable to attend, leaving me to make the trip by myself with both girls. Luckily I had my sister's help, but it was still a stressful thing.

Also, my dog, Kronk, had a cancer relapse and I made the decision to have him euthanized. (You can read about what led up to this here and here.) In the end, he ended up with a lot of abdominal pain as the cancer grew back. We tried several different pain meds in various combinations and nothing could manage his pain well. He was either in pain or knocked out from the drugs, there was no in-between. I thought I had had enough time to prepare for it, but seeing him go was still really hard.

And then Mira asked a lot of questions afterward, as she tried to understand what was happening. And those were some hard questions for me to answer. Not because I didn't know what to say (I'm pretty happy with the conversations that we had about death and grieving) but just because, with these two deaths, I was an emotional wreck and it was hard for me to talk about it at all.

Plus (and here's the heart of the matter, if I'm being truthful about why I've not been motivated to blog), I've been struggling a bit with PPD. Nothing serious, no thoughts of hurting myself or the girls. But I've been feeling sorry for myself a lot, unmotivated, isolated, and just sad a lot. And I find myself undermining my own attempts to better my situation. It's been going on for several months now, so I know it's likely PPD. I've honestly been very hesitant to let anyone know about it. Partially, hiding my struggle is just another way that I'm undermining myself (and even as I'm writing this, I'm fighting the urge to just delete this whole paragraph). Partially, I have been reluctant to talk about it because I feel a need to hide these negative feelings from my children, lest I make my problem their problem. And the third "partially" is that I was hiding that I had PPD because I am embarrassed about it and I don't want people to make a huge fuss over me. I MADE IT TO THE END OF THAT PARAGRAPH WITHOUT PUSHING DELETE ONCE, SO DAMMIT, IT'S STAYING IN. (Sorry, just a note to myself so that I wouldn't delete the paragraph right before pressing the publish button. Oh passive-aggressive side, you thought you could trick me, but no!)

And we've just been really busy in general. During this past blog-less month, we've also gone on a 4-day family vacation, celebrated Brian's birthday, Mother's Day, my sister's graduation from high school, and Brian was best man in a friend's wedding. So lots of good stuff too, but it's all been a little overwhelming for me and I let a few things slide, the blog among them. But now I'm hoping that I'm getting back on the bloggy waggon, cuz that's where the FUN is. Plus I've got some catching up to do and my OCD side keeps asking me "WHAT ABOUT THOSE EASTER PICTURES???? One day in the distant future, you will be looking back through the blog and wondering what happened for Easter of 2011 and THERE WILL BE NO ANSWER! HOW WILL YOU SURVIVE IT?" Yes, these are the conversations I have with myself. Back away slowly.

Mira-isms

2011-04-27T13:45:00.000-05:00

And you thought you'd be getting an Easter post.... HA! (Ok, I have an Easter post coming, but it involves uploading some pictures and I'm being lazy.)

No, today's post is something I've been meaning to do for a while.

Mira's been saying tons of cute things lately and I've been sharing them on Facebook. But I wanted to put them here too because I have some blog followers who are not on Facebook and also because I feel like putting them here is a more permanent record.

If you follow me on Facebook, this post may be rather boring for you, though you may see some you missed and I added a few that were not posted to Facebook. Also, some are just as funny the second (and third) time you see them. ;-)

________________________

"Plaw-berry". That's Mira-speak for "probably".

"Tamp-treen." Mira-speak for "trampoline".

"Ock-paws". Mira-speak for "octopus".

‎"Goose-tight." Mira-speak for "gesundheit."

‎"Umm-blooooah". Mira-speak for "umbrella".

"Hoo-hoo". Mira-speak for "hula hoop".

"Blay-set". Mira-speak for "bracelet".

"Beh-beh-beh-beh pepper." Mira-speak for "red bell pepper".

"Bee-yah". Mira-speak for "banana".

"Teppin tool." Mira-speak for "stepping stool."

__________________________

The following are some cute/funny little things that Mira has said over the last 2 months or so:

While changing the baby's diaper....
Mira: "pull up baby pants"
Me: "I will but first I have to snap up her onesie"
Mira: (counting as I snap each snap) "onesie... twosie... threesie... yay did it!"

While driving in the car, Mira said, "Run people over, Mommy." I swear. You can't make this stuff up.

Finished reading Mira "Where the Wild Things Are". When we got done, she looked at me and said, "... weird."

While she was crying about having to leave a playdate, Mira said "Eyes watering, mommy... crying... water dripping out, mommy."

Mira: "Play hair. Play hair. Play hair, mommy. Play hair."
Me: "Mira stop talking for a little while, ok?"
8 seconds later (I know, I counted.)
Mira: "Play hair, mommy."

Ellowyn was crying and Mira said, "Don't cry, Baby Ellowyn. Give you hugs, Baby Sister." So sweet.

In the car, Mira started to take her shoes off so I said, "Mira, please leave your shoes on." Mira replied with, "No, Mommy, not say that. Not say that word, Mommy." It was made even cuter by the fact that, as she was expressing her disagreement verbally, she was putting her shoes back on.

Mira named her babies: Baby Pam, Baby Amanda, Baby Nancy, and Baby Gramma. That last one is a bit confounding for me.

After I told Mira about what our plans were for the day she replied with "Okay.... sounds great, Mommy." She sounded just like a little grown up.

Mira: "Baby Ellowyn loves Mira SOOO MUUUUCH!"
Me: "Yes, Ellowyn does love you."
Mira: "SOOOOO MUUUUCH!"
Me: "Yes, so much."

Mira saw some people walking by outside our house and said, "People walking... in Mira's outside."

Mira plays games.

2011-04-23T20:47:00.000-05:00

Mira dances like Aunt KK

2011-04-22T15:35:00.001-05:00

My little sister, Katelyn, is a dancer. Being a senior in high school, she is on the drill team and they just put on their annual spring show. Brian took Mira to see it and she had a blast watching her Aunt KK (Katelyn's nickname). Well, a few days later I had some music on and Mira started dancing. But it wasn't her usual dance moves (where she tucks her hands up by her armpits, sticks her elbows out and flaps her arms up and down like she's doing the chicken dance, all while jumping up and down). Instead she was extending her arms and bending down low. So I grabbed the video camera and turned it on. Here's what happened next:

It's really neat to me that just watching Katelyn dance had such an impact on the way Mira danced. It's making me think that maybe she's ready for some dance classes, though usually they don't start till age 3.

Mira's big girl bed

2011-04-19T14:20:00.000-05:00

First, some cute pictures:

Feel happier now? I know I do.

Ok. So.

I guess it was about 10 days ago when we decided that we'd convert Mira's crib into a toddler bed. Basically, all you do is take one side off the crib and, TA DA, toddler bed.

I had been delaying this transition because Mira was sleeping SO well in her crib and she hadn't shown any signs of trying to climb out. My attitude was: why mess with a good thing? What ultimately changed my mind was that we are starting to think seriously about potty training and I wanted Mira to have the ability to get herself to the potty if she woke up and needed to go. So I thought we should make the transition to the big girl bed before we go serious on the potty training.

So we did it on a Saturday morning so that Brian would be home with me to help if things got hairy. I suspected that maybe things would go smoothly, but mentally I was preparing myself for the worst. Most of Mira's friends have already moved to toddler beds and in some cases it was pretty rough: kids crying at the door, refusing to take naps altogether, up hours past bed time, finally falling asleep on the floor, etc. But I had hopes that Mira's transition would be easier for several reasons: 1) We weren't changing much: her routine was all still the same, her bedding was all still there, the only difference was that one side of her crib was gone and instead we had a gate at her bedroom door. 2) We had talked to Mira about it for a few days before doing the transition and we told her that big girls stayed in bed all night all by themselves, talking up the whole experience until she was really excited about it. I also explained the gate at her door, telling her it was there to keep her safe. And 3) Mira's personality is not typically one to push the boundaries much; she'll usually go along easily even in new situations.

On that Saturday morning, Brian took the side off Mira's crib, and Mira "helped". She wanted to sleep in it right away, but it wasn't nap time yet. So we enjoyed our morning and then at nap time, she was very excited to get in her bed, saying "Do it SELF!" Her nap was shorter than normal (one and a half hours instead of two), but otherwise went smoothly. She didn't get out of bed until we came to get her up. Even after she woke up, she didn't get out of bed until we came into her room and told her it was ok to get out of bed now.

And that's the way it's been ever since. It's been 10 days and her naps are a little shorter still, but her overnight sleep is about the same. She always stays in her bed, even if she's having a hard time falling asleep. She hasn't even fallen out of bed in her sleep, which I was a little worried about. And she often reminds us to put the gate up at her door as we're leaving her room ("Gate up please!"), so obviously she's comfortable with that. When I go to get her up in the morning, I often tell her how proud I am that she slept in her big girl bed all night. The most trouble she's given us is that now sometimes her baby doll falls out of the bed and if that happens, she whines really loudly until someone comes in to put her baby back in her bed (she won't get out of bed to get it herself and honestly I'm not too inclined to encourage her to do it herself because I'm afraid that could open a can of worms). But we've gotten around that by tucking the baby in under the covers and then tucking the covers into the side of the mattress to hold baby in.

I've heard that sometimes it takes a couple weeks for them to figure out that they can get out of bed when they're not supposed to and so you'll hit a hiccup at some point where you'll have to give them some direction for when they're up during the night. So I'm waiting for that shoe to drop, but so far it hasn't. If/when it does, I think I'll try something like what one of my mommy friends has done and tell her that it's ok to get a couple books off of her bookshelf and take those to her bed to read while she falls asleep.

But anyway, for now, it's going great and I'm so proud of her. Here's a picture of her first nap in her big girl bed.

Taking videos with a toddler

2011-04-14T18:15:00.000-05:00

You can see that she does everything possible to get into the video. Other antics include putting her hand in front of the lens and asking repeatedly, "see it?", which means that she's done recording the video and is ready to watch it back.

It's also dismaying that every time I think that Mira's doing something so cute and I should get a video of it, then as soon as I take out the video recorder, she stops whatever cute thing she was doing and fixates on the camera, repeatedly asking "see it?". So many cute moments go completely undocumented because of this predicament! I'm sure most kids are that way... does anyone happen to have any advice? I've tried being sneaky about it, but Mira has eyes like a hawkkkkkk!

ABCs and 123s

2011-04-13T13:42:00.000-05:00

Ellowyn is 3 months old today

2011-04-12T15:55:00.000-05:00

Today Ellowyn turns 3 months old. She's doing great!

Sleeping: At night, Ellowyn sleeps in her own room, in an inclined bassinet (for her reflux, see below). Overnight, she'll sleep for a 9-10 hour stretch, then be awake for 30 minutes to an hour, then sleep again for another 2-3 hours. I never knew babies could sleep so well at night. Naps are a little trickier for her; she naps wherever she can: the car seat, the moby wrap, in my bed, in my arms... but she only rarely naps longer than an hour. Some days she boycotts naps altogether. This could be a factor of her age or it could be because we don't really have a set nap routine for her yet. But as long as she continues to sleep so well at night, I can forgive the short naps during the day.

Eating: Ellowyn is a great nurser! It's her favorite thing to do. We are still exclusively breastfeeding and plan to continue for a good long time. She has completely rejected bottles now, and we've given up on trying to convince her to take one, so feeding Ellowyn is all me all the time. It's a pain to be chained to her that way, because it means I can't be separated from her for more than an hour during the day and that there are certain times of day that I must be there with her, but I got used to that when Mira and I were in the same situation so this time it's not such a big deal to me. I know this is just a brief blip in my parenting career, so I'm inclined to enjoy the positives about our breastfeeding relationship rather than fixate on the negatives.

Reflux: Most babies have some level of reflux; that's what causes spit ups. But in Ellowyn's case, she has fairly severe reflux which causes her esophageal pain. So we've chosen to put her on a mild antacid temporarily until she grows out of her reflux (most babies do outgrow it at around 4-6 months old). The medicine treats her reflux very well: she's clearly happier on it and miserable off of it. She recently had a few days where the reflux symptoms came back despite the medication (refusing to nurse long even when hungry, back arching during feedings, extreme distress before and after burping/spitting), so we had to up her dose: as she gets bigger, her gain in body mass means that she'll need more of the medicine to treat her effectively. But now that she's on the higher dose, she's back to her happy self again.

Communicating: Ellowyn has discovered her vocal chords and is spending every waking minute doing verbal play. Most of it is just her yelling happily at the top of her lungs. And she is quite social. She loves being talked to. It seems like every time someone engages with her, she is smiling like crazy.

Playing: Ellowyn is at that stage where everything she gets her hands on goes immediately to her mouth. The lips are a very sensitive part of the body with lots of nerve endings sending loads of sensory information to the brain, and she's definitely making the most of that fact. She also really likes to kick anything that's dangling over her feet.

And last, on Friday Ellowyn hit a milestone: she is now rolling from tummy to back. She'll do it repeatedly at each tummy-time session, so it's definitely a skill that she has a firm grasp on (rather than being something she did once on accident).

And the days go by...

2011-04-11T14:50:00.001-05:00

Note: this blog post is probably not terribly interesting for anyone but me, but it's something that I wanted to write down for my own memories. I will be following this one up with several that are more appealing to the masses. I haven't been keeping up with the blogging very well, but I've been taking videos and pictures, so I've got lots of material to share. So watch for that in the next few days.

I feel like I'm really getting the hang of this whole two kids situation. Most days, things go quite smoothly and we're all happy and healthy. Here's what a typical day looks like for us:

At night, Mira sleeps from about 8pm to about 8am. Ellowyn sleeps from about 8pm to about 5:30am (yes, a 9 to 10 hour stretch, I know exactly how lucky I am), is up for 30min to one hour nursing on and off, then goes back to sleep from about 6:30am to 9am (usually). So in the mornings, I'm up from 5:30am to 6:30am with Ellowyn in her room, nursing and rocking until she goes back to sleep (she sleeps in an inclined bassinet in her own room- the incline helps with her reflux as opposed to lying flat in a crib). Then from about 6:30am to 7:30am I can get a few more winks of sleep. Then I get up to get my shower before the girls are awake. By the time I'm dressed, Mira is usually stirring and I'll go in to get her.

Since Ellowyn is usually still asleep, I can spend some time alone with Mira over breakfast. After we eat breakfast we can play a bit together and I'll pack up the diaper bag so that it's ready for the day. Ellowyn wakes up around 9am and I'll nurse her and then is our time to be out of the house. We spend most weekday mornings at a playdate: either at the park or a friend's house or at one of the many cool kiddie places around Austin, spending time with some other wonderful stay-at-home-mommies and their children. (I'm so thankful for my mom's clubs; it's such a supportive network and it's so nice to have friends to spend the weekdays with.) Some mornings we'll run an errand too, but that depends on Ellowyn's mood.

Then it's lunch time. If Ellowyn has slept at the playdate (usually in my moby wrap while I chase Mira), then we can sometimes go get Daddy from work and take him to lunch. As long as Ellowyn has had a morning nap and I nurse her right before the meal, the girls are both very well behaved when we go out to eat lunch. If we eat lunch at home, I get lunch for Mira and once she's seated eating, I'll nurse Ellowyn down for her nap. Then Mira finishes lunch and I'm free to read books with her and then put her down for her nap. Somewhere in all that I grab a few bites of something for myself.

I'll usually have a few minutes to myself in the afternoon while the girls are napping. I can get some dishes done, catch up from the busy morning, eat lunch if I didn't get time to while the girls were eating, and take a break. Ellowyn usually wakes up before Mira and then I can have some quiet time with just Ellowyn: nursing, doing tummy time, cooing at each other, etc. Around 3 or 4pm, Mira wakes up from her nap. We can sometimes squeeze a quick errand in before rush hour, but usually we just spend the afternoon playing at home. We play in the backyard with the swings, slides, sandbox, chalk, or if it's warm enough I'll turn on the water hose for Mira. Or if the weather is not good, we play inside with crayons, play-doh, puzzles, baby dolls, or Mira will cook something for me or Ellowyn in her play kitchen.

The evening is the most demanding time of the day. Brian usually gets home from work at around 6:30pm, but in order to get the girls down for bed, we need to eat right as he walks in the door. So that leaves me juggling dinner, a toddler, and an infant. It's challenging, but as long as I plan ahead, it's usually ok. So that's another thing I'll usually do while the girls nap: figure out what's for dinner and do as much prep work as I can so that when it's time to make dinner, I just start up the stove/oven/grill and everything's ready to go. Brian gets home and we all have dinner together, with Ellowyn sitting in her bouncy chair at the table with us. (I think it's very important for the family to sit down to dinner together on a regular basis, so it's a juggling act for me to accomplish, but it means a lot to me so I make it work.)

Right after dinner, I take Ellowyn up for her bath, giving Mira a chance to play with her daddy for a bit. I give Ellowyn her bath and then nurse her down for the night (it's an epic feeding, easily lasting half an hour or more). While I'm nursing Ellowyn, Brian will bathe Mira, then read stories with her. Usually when I finish nursing Ellowyn, Brian and Mira are finishing up their bedtime stories and Brian and I can both tuck Mira in together. It's usually about 8pm when the girls are in bed, so then Brian and I can spend a couple hours together before going to bed ourselves.

It's all hard work, but it at least goes smoothly most of the time. Some days are harder, like when Mira is being needier than normal or when Ellowyn refuses to nap. On those days, I have a few tricks that I can pull out of my hat. A big one is nursing on the ground: me lying on my side on the floor, Ellowyn pulled in to my chest to nurse and Mira sitting up by my head so we can play with some toy together (or read a book or work a puzzle or color or whatever Mira wants to do with me). Another trick is baby-wearing. This works especially well on the days that Ellowyn is fussy/not napping. Technology is another great trick: I have apps on my phone for both girls: white noise for Ellowyn, games for Mira. And there's the old TV trick, though I use this as a last resort because I don't like Mira to get more than about 2-3 hours per week, Mira will always sit quietly through an hour of Sesame Street, which is nice when I just have to get some task done.

So, yeah, I'm feeling really good about my abilities as a mother and my coping mechanisms and the things my children are being exposed to and how much time I'm able to spend with each of them, separately and together. Now if only I could figure out how to do all that and also keep up with the chores... I'm starting to think maybe it's not possible.

Edit: I forgot to mention another of my tricks: dual diapering. Whenever Mira needs a diaper, I change Ellowyn's at the same time, laying the two girls down side-by-side, and changing one, then the other while they lay next to each other, keeping each other entertained with faces, talking, smiling, etc. Just before Ellowyn was born, Mira was in a toddlery stage of resisting diaper changes, but dual diapering solved that problem completely.

Ellowyn's 2-month checkup

2011-03-20T22:01:00.000-05:00

Ellowyn's doing great! Turns out she's a slow grower, like Mira. She's not gaining weight fast enough to keep up with the trend, so she's slipping down the weight charts. The same thing happened to Mira (Mira started at 60th percentile when she was born and now that she's 2 years old she's down to 7th percentile). But since Ellowyn started out on the bigger side and she's still gaining weight, we're not worried about it. Ellowyn was at I think 80th percentile for weight when she was born and now she's down to 50th.

But she continues to get taller, so she's still up at 85th percentile for length. She's a tall girl!

And her head seems to be growing faster than the rest of her body because it's up from 90th percentile to 95th percentile for head circumference. She has an even bigger noggin than Mira did (Mira's was only ever as big as 80th percentile)!

Ellowyn got her first round of vaccines at this checkup. She took them really well. She cried at the time, but calmed right down when I nursed her afterward. And then the rest of the day, she just seemed a little sleepier than normal. I remember some of those early vaccinations really making Mira temperamental, but not so much for Ellowyn. She's such a happy easy baby.

Ellowyn is still on Zantac, and her reflux is well controlled by it. When I told the pediatrician how well Ellowyn was doing on the Zantac, he said that we could consider raising her dose, since she's getting bigger, but as long as the lower dose keeps working, we'll just keep her at her same dose. But if at any time I feel like it's losing its effectiveness, he told me how much I could up her to.

Other than that, nothing really to report. She's doing great, growing slowly but well, a healthy happy girl.

She's still sleeping really well, although she does sometimes have difficulty getting down to sleep... hopefully that will work itself out as she gets older; I really dislike doing sleep training, I just find it so frustrating.

An interesting observation that I've made... Ellowyn's eyes are still blue. Looking back at Mira's baby pictures, I've realized that Mira's eyes had already turned brown by this age. So maybe Ellowyn's eyes will be blue or green or hazel... or maybe they're just taking their time about turning brown. I guess we'll see in time.

Like her big sister, Ellowyn has now completely rejected bottles. Probably it's something we're doing as parents. Or maybe it's just that my boobs are THAT GREAT. But either way, we seem to have no luck in the bottle department. She just cries the entire time and won't latch on. We've tried different nipples, different bottles, different people, different locations, different times of day... no love. So we're giving up on it. We could probably come to an understanding if we pushed the issue, but it's just not worth it for us. That does mean that I'll be tied to my baby again like I was with Mira, unable to be apart from her for any substantial length of time, but honestly I got pretty used to that with Mira, so it's a bit of a drag for me, but not terrible. Someday I'll look back and realize that Ellowyn has grown up too fast and then I'll wish that I was still forced to cradle her in my arms and hold her to my breast for 20 solid minutes a dozen times a day. There are certainly moments when I feel that way about Mira.

Mira's Balance Bike

2011-03-17T20:56:00.000-05:00

I decided a while back that I wanted Mira to have a balance bike (also called a pre-bike or a running bike) rather than one of the more traditional options of 1) a tricycle or 2) a bike with training wheels. A balance bike seems to me like a smarter option for so many reasons. It is much easier for little ones to control and more intuitive to use. It also facilitates learning to balance much more than a trike or training wheels.

We gave Mira her balance bike for her second birthday, which is a little on the young end, but still she took to it so quickly. I was so pleased. Here's a video of her first bike ride ever. She had a little trouble figuring out how to mount it, but once she was positioned on it, she knew instinctively what to do.

These next videos were taken a little over a month later. You can see, she's really getting the hang of it: the position of her hands on the handlebars is more natural, her steering is much better, and she's willing to sit on the seat, which shows that she's starting to trust the bike.

Since she has a more cautious nature, this bike is perfect for her because she can really feel completely in control the entire time. She's small, but the bike is so lightweight that even she can maneuver it on her own. Also, the seat and handlebars are very adjustable, able to accommodate kids as small as Mira all the way up to 5-year-olds. Anyway, Mira really likes her bike. Soon I'm sure she'll discover that she can pick up her feet on the downhill and then she'll really take off.

Mira's IRC Fan-club

2011-03-08T15:20:00.001-06:00

14:48 <@x^NamShub> Laura Drake
14:48 <@x^NamShub> While driving in the car today, Mira said, "Run people over, Mommy." I swear. You can't make this stuff up.
14:48 <@x^NamShub> Teehee!!!
14:49 < aramith> lolz
14:49 < aramith> mira is going to be such a smartass and/or sociopath
14:51 <@x^NamShub> These are both good options.
14:53 < aramith> YES THEY ARE
15:08 < Drakewolf> OMG I LOVE MY DAUGHTER
15:08 < aramith> Drakewolf: i was quite entertained by her when i visited
15:12 < aramith> especially since the first word i heard her say was "SHIT"*
15:15 < Drakewolf> aramith: Today at lunch, the hostess informed my wife that she was pointing staff members
toward our table to go see the "Cutest little girl" (re Mira)
15:15 <@clarkk> Mira FTW!
15:16 < aramith> heh
15:16 < aramith> she's cute, until she KILLS YOU
15:16 < aramith> AND THEN EATS YOUR SOUL (while feeding parts of it to anyone around)
15:16 < Drakewolf> aramith: with the epic eyelashes... of doom

* A disclaimer to clarify my parenting acumen: she was saying "SIT" imperiously and was mis-heard by the visitor who didn't understand sub-2year-toddler-speak.

Ellowyn's first smiles

2011-02-26T13:43:00.000-06:00

In the past week or two, Ellowyn has really started smiling a lot. And it's clearly in response to an external stimulus. She likes it when we talk to her, tickle her, make faces at her.

She also finds whistling to be pretty funny. I was whistling at her while I took these pictures.

My uterus has had enough.

2011-02-22T20:38:00.000-06:00

So, as many of you know, I've been on bed rest for the last month for a pretty severe prolapse of the uterus and bladder. I have to say... bed rest SUCKS. I don't like feeling as though I am being babysat in my own home. I don't like having to ask someone for everything that I need. And I really don't like not being able to be a mom and wife in every way that I'd like to be. It's been a very big test of my patience.

That said, I realize that I am lucky that I have a support system capable of carrying me through that. It would have been much more difficult if I hadn't had the help of family and friends keeping us stocked with prepared meals. My parents were especially generous, coming to stay with me every week day to help with the kids while Brian was at work.

The first two weeks or so of my bed rest went well and I felt like things were getting better down there. But then I got sick and spent the last two weeks of my bed rest with a bad cough. I was downing cough syrup and cough drops constantly to try to control the cough, but still the cough had a really negative effect on my prolapse, basically undoing almost all of the improvement that I had previously seen.

So when I saw my Ob/Gyn on Monday, it was no surprise to me when he told me that there was not very much improvement. It was a little better, but not enough better. So we discussed treatment options, which consist of a pessary or surgery... or both, as may be the case for me. He said that he wouldn't want to recommend surgery until after my normal menses had returned because that return to normal, non-pregnant hormones helps to tighten things up in the abdomen. So until that has happened we won't know for sure how much my body will repair itself on its own. In the mean time, he ordered me a pessary, which I am to use during the day and take out at night. One nice thing about that is it will provide support during the day when I'm active, so I won't have to be on bed rest any more. And it's possible that the pessary and some more time may be all that I need to fully recover. We will re-evaluate after my regular cycle has returned and decide at that time whether surgery is necessary.

One big issue that keeps coming up is retaining my fertility and whether I want any more children. Surgical correction of prolapse is not recommended in women who intend to have more children. The big reason is that a lot of the time, surgical correction involves a hysterectomy. But also, even if a hysterectomy is avoided, pregnancy will usually ruin the surgical repairs. And the fact of the matter is that uncorrected prolapse only gets worse with subsequent pregnancies. So if I were to have more children, afterward I would experience worse prolapse than what I'm already dealing with... and that idea is highly disturbing to me.

So Brian and I have decided that we are done having children. Brian has even scheduled his vasectomy. I thought that might be a difficult decision for me to make, but really I'm quite at peace with it. We have two beautiful daughters who are healthy and happy, and I feel very fortunate to have them. Wouldn't you feel lucky if these were yours?

Mira's First Haircut

2011-02-21T15:25:00.000-06:00

Mira got her first haircut! I took her to this really cute kids' salon called Pigtails and Crewcuts. They have barber chairs there that are shaped like automobiles. Mira chose to sit in the airplane to get her hair cut. She liked siting in the airplane, but then the stylist wanted to put the smock on her... That part was a little scary. Luckily Aunt KK (my sister) was there with us cuz she put the smock on herself and modeled it for Mira. After that, Mira decided the smock was ok. Then the stylist pointed out the TV on the wall playing Finding Nemo. It was all smooth sailing from there! And at the end, they told Mira she could pick out a lollipop and a sticker... but she was too excited about the lollipop to be bothered with picking a sticker. I was really pleased with the cut, too. I think it looks super cute and a little sassy. And now for the pics...

Before:

During:

After:

Reflux. Also I Rock.

2011-02-15T13:48:00.000-06:00

It's been too long since I've blogged... There's a lot going on.

Since Ellowyn was born, she's been really spitty. She spits up often and in great quantity. But at first it didn't seem to be bothering her. She was a "happy spitter", as our pediatrician put it. But over time, she seemed to be getting more and more irritated with it. It started with just being a 30 minute period every evening when she would be fussy. Then 30 minutes slowly turned into an hour... then longer... then it wasn't just fussing, but screaming... then it started happening in the morning too... finally it was so bad that she'd spend an hour in the morning being fussy and then THREE hours at night fussing or even screaming. But I had some clues about what was going on. The big one was that whenever she'd nurse, she'd latch and then shortly after I'd let down, she'd start crying and arching away. Also, she'd be fussy after eating and both before and after burping. I could also hear a lot of "wet burps" whenever she'd cry. All that indicated to me that her problems were related to her reflux. So we got in to see the pediatrician and he agreed with my assessment: her tummy was producing too much acid, causing her to have painful heartburn during and after eating. So he prescribed Zantac. Well... we got Ellowyn on the Zantac and it's like I have my baby back. For a few days there she was abducted by a screaming monster but now she's back and it's wonderful. I am so pleased with how well the reflux meds are working. I was actually gloating to Brian the other night: "I am such an awesome mommy. Ellowyn was having trouble with reflux and I figured it out and now problem solved. How cool am I?" And really, that's the best feeling a mom can have: something is wrong and mommy fixes it and then everyone is happier because of mommy.

Also, last weekend we gave Ellowyn her first bottle. (See pics below.) She took it really well. Her second bottle (the next day) she only drank half of and then wanted to nurse. So maybe it will take her some adjusting, but we wanted to wait to introduce a bottle in order to make sure that breastfeeding was really well established. And it is. So that's good.

And I can't believe how beautiful Mira is getting.... Isn't she gorgeous?

Here's how we're doing....

2011-02-01T18:59:00.000-06:00

Ellowyn is great. At risk of getting punched in the face by all my friends who have had difficult babies, I'm going to go ahead and say: I think we won the baby lottery again. She is a great sleeper, a great nurser, and she is generally happy and easy. She naps a lot during the day and at night she sleeps well, usually one long 4 hour stretch followed by two shorter two hour stretches. And when she is up at night, she just nurses and goes right back down easily. I sometimes don't even have to wait for her to fall asleep before I set her down, she'll often drift off on her own. I freely admit that I must be the luckiest mom alive.

So now for the less good part. I have been diagnosed with a prolapse of both the uterus and the bladder. It is every bit as disturbing as it sounds. Last week is when the problem started and I saw my Ob/Gyn about it immediately. In addition to prescribing lots of water and frequent Kegel exercises, he put me on bed rest for a month, saying that it's possible that the problem could correct itself given adequate time to recover from pregnancy and delivery. I'm supposed to stay sitting, reclined or laying down as much as possible and avoid heavy lifting, which means I'm not supposed to pick up Mira. As you can imagine, this is not the easiest prescription to follow. Brian was still on paternity leave for the first week of my bed rest and he was wonderful, doing all of my tasks with Mira and all of my chores in addition to his own. By the time he went back to work, he was so ready for a break. My family has been a big help ever since Brian went back to work. My parents are taking family medical leave to help me during the day and my sister is helping on the evenings and weekends when she can (she's still in high school, so daytime assistance is not an option for her). I don't know how I would manage without them. Because of my lifting requirements, I can't put Mira in or out of her booster chair, her crib, her carseat. And the bed rest means that I can't really play with her the way I normally would. Mira's actually had a much harder time adjusting to me being on bed rest than she had to being a sister. I've also had a lot of help from friends in the form of prepared meals. Which has been really nice because it means less dishes and cooking for Brian. I'm very lucky to have so many people around willing to help.

I've got 3 more weeks of bed rest, then my doctor wants to see me back to evaluate whether the prolapse is getting better or whether we need to intervene in some way. Unfortunately, the most effective intervention is surgery, so hopefully this bed rest will pay off and I can avoid a surgery with a long recovery. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Mira is an awesome big sister.

2011-01-21T16:43:00.000-06:00

Mira loves Ellowyn. I've been so impressed with Mira and her willingness to not only accept Ellowyn into our family, but to show compassion and caring for her new little sister.

The first time Mira saw Ellowyn, we were still at the birth center. And while Mira was completely enraptured by Ellowyn, I don't think she really understood that she was ours. The second time Mira saw Ellowyn, it was at home and the first thing Mira did was to walk up to the baby, hold out her arms, and say "Hold." (She wanted to hold the baby.) So we put her up on the sofa, and with Brian helping provide support, we put Ellowyn in Mira's lap. Mira watched Ellowyn, studied her, and then gently leaned down, wrapped her arms around her and gave her the sweetest little hug. Then Mira put her hand to her mouth, kissed it, and then put it up to Ellowyn's mouth, "blowing" Ellowyn a kiss. It was enough to bring tears to a hormonal mommy's eyes.

Mira loves to do all kinds of things with Ellowyn. She likes to help change her diaper; I think she finds it fascinating to see all of Ellowyn's little body parts: her feet, her belly, etc... She'll bring me the diaper supplies, watch me change her and point out Ellowyn's body parts, and when we're done she'll throw the dirty diaper away for me. She likes to watch while I nurse Ellowyn, getting up in my lap for a closer look at what's going on. And she talks about it: "baby eat mommy's milk" (although she still pronounces "milk" like "nupk"). She likes to take off Ellowyn's hat and brush her hair, and I actually feel comfortable letting her because she is soooo gentle. And one time, she decided that she wanted to read a book to Ellowyn. Here are some pics from that.

I've been really impressed by how well Mira is taking it: having to share Mommy. Maybe it's because Brian is home from work and is able to give Mira a lot of attention right now. But at least so far, Mira seems to be fine with the idea that Mommy has to spend a majority of her time holding the baby. I have been trying to preemptively give Mira extra attention in order to prevent any jealous feelings on Mira's part. When Mira comes home or enters the room, I greet her really warmly, offering hugs and asking about what she's been up to. I talk to her a lot, especially while I'm nursing Ellowyn. And I put Ellowyn down when at all possible in order to be able to more fully engage with Mira. And so far, Mira has occasionally shown an immediate need for some Mommy love, but usually seems content to share Mommy with her sister.

I have also been amazed at Mira's compassion and empathy. The first time Mira heard Ellowyn crying, she looked at me with TEARS in her eyes and said in the saddest little voice "baby cryyyy" and she nearly started crying herself. Since then, we've talked about the reasons why babies cry and how crying is their only way to communicate. And now she's less sensitive to it. Now when the baby cries, she comes to me and says matter-of-factly "baby hungry".

Ellowyn's birth story

2011-01-14T17:21:00.000-06:00

Note: This post really focuses on the specifics of my labor and delivery. If contractions and water breaking and babies crowning is not your cup of tea, then you might just skip this one.

I started having contractions at around 8:30pm on January 11th. Because of all the pre-labor I'd been experiencing over the last few weeks, I started out trying to just ignore it. But by about 10pm, I had to acknowledge them, so I let Brian know that I was having some contractions that felt serious and that I'd like to try a bath. Brian helped me draw a bath and get settled into the tub. In the water, the contractions were less intense, but their duration and frequency didn't change. When we timed them, they were about 3-4 minutes apart and took about 50 seconds from the start of the contraction to the peak (about another 30 seconds to come down off the peak). It seemed like they were coming on fast, but I'd had a recent bout of pre-labor with contractions that were about that spacing, so I wasn't letting myself get my hopes up yet. But I think Brian could tell by the way I was acting that this was going to be it. He brought be a drink and a snack to eat in the tub while he got things ready to go.

I got out of the tub at around 11pm and laid down in bed to try to relax. In pre-labor, relaxation after a bath often caused the contractions to lessen or stop. But this time they felt more intense. Brian helped me to relax my body, control my breathing, and coached me into deep relaxation. As I laid there, I was able to analyze the qualities of the contractions and I realized that these contractions felt different than my pre-labor contractions. During pre-labor, the contractions were tight and squeezy, like a corset around my middle. But these felt lower, more downward in direction. And also they were increasing in intensity and painfulness. So around 11:30pm, I relented and told Brian he'd better make the calls. He called my mom to come over and stay with Mira (already in bed for the night), and he called the on-call midwife to let her know that we were in labor but not yet ready to come into the birth center. The midwife talked to him and me a bit, asked all the normal questions, listened to a few of my contractions, then told me I was coping well with my breathing and relaxation and that I was probably in the middle of active labor. She told us to call back if the contractions got much stronger and closer, my water broke, or we decided to head into the birth center, whichever came first.

After that, the exact order of things are a little fuzzy for me. I was having to focus fully on laboring and not much outside of that was getting my attention. At some point, laying in my relaxation position felt no good anymore, so we moved downstairs so that I could try a sitting/reclining position. (That's about the time that my mom arrived.) But I pretty quickly figured out that sitting was ALL WRONG and standing was what I really needed. Brian would stand in front of me and I'd drape my arms over his shoulders, lean on him and rock side to side. That seemed to be the best thing. Brian was great and had my try several different positions to try to save my energy, but nothing worked like the standing and rocking. Somehow, he managed to be there for me to lean on in my contractions and also get the car packed in the 90 second intervals in between my contractions. I don't know how he did it, but he must've been busting his butt.

At around 2:30am, my contractions were getting much harder to cope with and my legs were getting tired, so we went back to the bath tub to try to give me a break. The tub did feel better mostly because I could rest my legs, but the contractions were still way strong and hard. (In hindsight, I was entering transition.) But because I was so exhausted, I was actually dozing off in between the contractions. Brian must've been exhausted too, because he told me that he needed to grab some coffee and that he'd be right back. He was probably only gone from my side for 10 minutes, but it felt like forever. Everything was worse without him there. I couldn't do another second without him and when he got back, I told him so. "I need help." "I need drugs." "It hurts so much." These are some of the things I remember saying to him. His response: "Time to GO." (And he called the midwife to meet us at the birth center.)

It took some convincing to get me out of the tub; I didn't want to move because anything seemed to only make it worse. And when I did move, I needed to do it in between contractions but because they were coming so fast, there was not much time between them in which to get moving. So it took a while to get from the tub to the car. But at some point along the way, I remember saying to Brian, "Umm... You're right, we need to GO." I was feeling rectal pressure as I was moving around and knew that it wouldn't be long before I needed to push.

The car ride was thankfully brief and easy. Brian drove smoothly and calmly but quickly. Being 3:30 in the morning, there was no traffic and all the lights turned green for us, so we didn't even need to stop once. We arrived at the birth center at 3:45am. The midwife was already there and waiting for us, which was good because things moved REALLY QUICKLY from that point on.

I had one contraction while standing in my room and I told the midwife I was having rectal pressure. She told me that she needed me to lay in the bed so she could check my cervix. I laid down on my side (and didn't move from that position until Ellowyn was born, a mere 20 minutes later!) She checked me and said my waters were still in tact and I was at dilated to 8 centimeters with a "VERY soft cervix". The very next contraction, I had a strong urge to push. I tried to fight it, knowing I was only at 8cm, but I couldn't stop myself from pushing just a little. And as soon as I did that littlest push, I felt my waters break. At that point my midwife said, "Now that your waters have broken, your contractions will probably get stronger and you'll dilate quickly." All I heard was "contractions get stronger" and I got scared, so scared. I couldn't DO any more. I was at my limit already. It couldn't get stronger. And I remember saying, "No no no" and gripping desperately for Brian, who was sitting on the bed in front of me as I laid on my side. And just then came my next contraction and it was STRONGER and I NEEDED to get the baby out NOW. But I still didn't think I could push. And I was scared and it hurt and so I SCREAMED. One scream. That was all. Because then that contraction ended and my midwife said "You may have just finished dilating in one contraction. Let me check again." Sure enough she said I could push on the next one. I think that scream caught Brian off guard and I think that was the first time that he felt at a loss as a labor coach. But luckily the midwife was with us now and she reminded him to coach me to put my chin on my chest and groan when pushing instead of letting me scream.

And with the next contraction we pushed. Brian held my top leg up with one hand, held my hand with the other. I squeezed his hand and his shoulder and he was my rock. I needed him. I needed him badly. Because I WAS HAVING A BABY. And I was FEELING EVERYTHING. And it was hard and it hurt and it burned and it couldn't be over fast enough. And Brian coached me to push and breathe and groan. And did I ever groan. I groaned so much my throat hurt afterwards. And in two contractions her head was crowning. And there's a reason they call that the "ring of fire", folks. And then two more contractions and her head was out. I expected it to feel better at that point, but it only seemed to increase the urgency in me to GET THIS BABY OUT. So then the midwife said that the shoulders were in good alignment and on the next contraction I could push the rest of her out. Well, good because I was going to push her out anyway, one way or another. And then that next contraction came and I pushed so hard because I was DONE with this now, thank you anyway. And out she came with a gush and a huge rush of relief.

We had arrived at the birth center at 3:45am and, just a handful of contractions later, Ellowyn was born at 4:16am. Brian timed that rather well, I'd say.

Everything after that was cake. Delivering the placenta, getting stitched up (I had a small tear as her shoulders came through), the rest of the contractions as my uterus shrunk.... all of that was nothing. I had my baby. I had FOUGHT for that baby and now I had her. It was hard. So hard. Mira's birth was nearly 3x longer, but not nearly as difficult. After Mira's birth, I almost felt like I cheated because the epidural removed me so much from the experience. But not this time. I EARNED every inch of that baby.

Ellowyn was born a healthy 8 pounds and 14 ounces (75th percentile), 21 inches long (90th percentile!!).

Welcome Ellowyn

2011-01-12T13:20:00.001-06:00

At 4:16am today, after the most physically challenging 8 hours of my life, Ellowyn was born, safe and happy, into the loving arms of her exhausted, but healthy parents. Her birth story will follow in a few days.

A child of the 21st century

2011-01-10T19:58:00.000-06:00

Daddy teaches Mira the joys of smart phones.

Christmas 2010

2011-01-09T21:19:00.000-06:00

Since my midwife advised me against travel, we spent Christmas in Austin this year. I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to see my extended family in Dallas, but it turned out to be a pretty great holiday anyway.

Christmas Eve, we had my mom, dad and sister over for dinner. After Mira was asleep, they helped Brian set up her gift from "Santa" (aka Grandma and Grandpa): a new play kitchen, complete with dishes and food! On Christmas morning, they came back over before Mira woke up and everyone got to see her reaction:

We ate breakfast then finished opening the rest of our gifts. I got a Fushigi (I call it the "David Bowie Ball", from his trick in "Labyrinth") and some more baby gear that I really needed, including my double stroller. Brian got some great new shirts and a really nice carry-on luggage piece for when he starts having to travel for his job. And Mira got some super cute boots from my sister, which she promptly decided were meant for dancing. But obviously, even super cute boots could not distract her from her awesome kitchen for long:

We spent the afternoon/evening of Christmas day with Brian's family. Mira got a little pony, a stuffed rabbit, and some sidewalk chalk from her aunts. And Brian's dad gave us a really great video monitor, which we have loved using to watch Mira go to sleep (we intend to use it to help us determine when she's starting to try to climb out of her crib and when we need to transition to a toddler bed).

A couple days later, my grandparents came in from Dallas and we had a nice visit with them. They got Mira a baby nursery set, with a swing, a highchair, a crib, and a stroller for her very own baby. Now Mira can do with her baby all the things that Mommy does with baby Ellowyn. Here she is "helping" Daddy with the assembly.

Pushing her baby in the swing.

Feeding her baby.

And best of all, Ellowyn decided to stay put in my belly through the end of the year. Now that the holidays are over, we're ready to welcome 2011 with a beautiful new addition to our little family. Any day!

Update on Kronk.

2011-01-06T14:07:00.000-06:00

Kronk is recovering from his surgery nicely now. When his pain patch wore off, we went through a rough period where his pain was not well managed and he stopped eating again. But we got that taken care of pretty quickly with some oral pain pills and he started feeding himself again, so we were able to stop force-feeding him. Once he was feeding himself, then we could also just hide his pills in some food instead of having to forcefully pill him by shoving them down his throat. Which was good because he was really starting to resist that approach. Shortly after he decided to eat on his own, he picked up dramatically. He was even feeling well enough to try to rip out his stitches, so he had to wear one of those silly collars for a couple of days until his stitches were ready to be removed, which the vet did yesterday. We've been able to back off of the pain meds almost completely, too. Now he seems to be back to his normal happy self. Maybe happier, even, since we're pampering him food-wise and feeding him canned food instead of his normal dry food. So short-term, he's much better. Which is great.

After consulting with a couple of oncologists, my vet was able to talk to me today about Kronk's long-term prognosis. His cancer is a stage 4 leiomyosarcoma, originating from the secum of the intestine. The "stage 4" means that it was very advanced, having spread to other organs; this is the most advanced stage of cancer rankings. So that means that his prognosis is rather poor. The specialists are giving him 6-9 months.

The two options for further treatment are both risky and expensive: chemotherapy or another surgery. The chemo is hit-or-miss and will make him feel nauseated, which will have to be controlled with anti-nausea medication, and will require vet trips 3 times a week to monitor dose levels, and may not even target his cancer well. Even if it does target his cancer, it would likely only buy him another year, max. And more surgery would be very hard on his body, recovery-wise. And even then, it's likely that because the cancer was so spread through his body, subsequent tumors would not be easily removed. So we've decided not to treat him further. And when I expressed that to my vet, she said that she thought that was the right choice, which I greatly appreciated hearing from her.

So basically all that is left to do is to watch him for signs of recurrence. Since his cancer is one of the GI tract, the most likely signs that it is growing back are reluctance to eat, weight loss, vomiting and dehydration. We'll monitor him closely for those things. Also, we will be watching for reluctance to move or signs of pain. To that end, the vet wants to see him once a month until he's gone, just to help us watch for early warning signs and make sure he's not suffering as he reaches the end of his life. Until that point, we'll just make him as comfortable and happy as possible so that he can enjoy what time he has left.

Once I was told his tumor was cancerous, I had a feeling that this would be the prognosis, so I've actually had some time to accept it. And I'm ok with it now. I'll get to have a few months to say goodbye to my boy, and that's something most pet owners don't get. We'll be able to really pamper him before he goes, and then we'll be able to confidently say that he knew he was well loved. And if he has to leave us, then that's the way I'd want it to be. So I guess we're lucky in that respect.

Pregnancy update - 38 weeks (and 5 days)

2011-01-06T13:28:00.000-06:00

Well, still no baby. I'm now 38 weeks and 5 days. I gave birth to Mira at 38 weeks and 6 days, so maybe tomorrow will be the day. I'm in a better place now emotionally and am feeling ready to have a baby again. At my last pre-natal appointment (yesterday) everything was looking good. My weight is good (gaining about a pound a week for the last couple weeks, total weight gain for the pregnancy is now up to 9 pounds). My blood pressure is back down. We actually opted not to do a pelvic exam, since we didn't feel that one was merited. The state of your cervix has very little to do with when you'll go into labor, so we didn't feel like it was important to know at this point.

On Monday I had another bout of serious pre-labor. I was having intense, painful contractions every 3-4 minutes for over 7 hours. There were a couple hours in there where I really thought, "Ok, this is going to be it." But then it stopped again. I'm finding the starting and stopping to be very tiresome, especially since it usually interferes with sleep. I wish my body would just decide to go or not go.

Also, now that my labor is imminent, I'm finding that I'm getting nervous about it. In my first labor, I ended up requesting an epidural right about the time that I entered transition (the hardest part of labor, just before pushing). So I didn't really fully experience much of transition or any of the pushing phase. And since I've chosen a birth center for my delivery, an epidural will not be an option this time. I've also been utterly exhausted lately, which I don't remember feeling at the end of my last pregnancy. So what if it's harder than I expect? What if I'm too tired? What if I'm not strong enough? What if it's too painful?

I expressed these concerns to Brian and, wonderful supportive labor coach that he is, he reassured me. He reminded me that, while I may not be able to bench press impressive amounts of weight, I have tons of endurance and super high tolerance of pain, both of which are more important in labor. He told me that my body was built for this and that he had complete confidence in my ability. And we're much better prepared for labor this time than last.

I'm so lucky to have Brian to tell me these things and to help me through the rough patches. He's going to be great in labor too, I know it. I'm sure that, after the baby has come, I'll be saying that the one person who I couldn't have done it without will be not a doctor or a nurse or a midwife, but my loving, protective, supportive husband. What a wonderful way to welcome our new baby!

I love my crappy dog.

2010-12-31T14:59:00.001-06:00

Monday morning, Kronk was fine. He ate his breakfast, was playing with Anna, and barked at the neighbor’s dog. But that night we went out to dinner and when we got back home, Kronk was most definitely not fine. He was obviously in a lot of pain, wouldn’t eat or even walk. Because things had gone downhill so quickly for him, we decided to take him in to the emergency vet clinic. Tests done there revealed a mass in his abdomen. The vet told me that it could be a cancerous tumor, a benign tumor, or a mass of cells caused by a perforated intestine. We wouldn’t know which until she could perform an exploratory surgery.

I decided to go ahead with the surgery because in two of those three possible scenarios, full recovery was likely after the mass had been removed. So Kronk went into surgery at 1:30am on Tuesday morning and wasn’t out until after 5am. The surgery was long and complicated.

There were actually 3 masses that they removed. The masses were not touching and didn’t look uniform, so they weren’t sure what they were, but there were two smaller ones and one large one. The big one was the trouble-maker, a tumor 3 inches in diameter. It had grown into a section of the intestine and a corner of the pancreas. To remove the tumor, the vet had to cut away part of the intestine and part of the pancreas, then resect the intestine to repair it. Kronk had to spend a couple days in ICU because of the severity of the surgery.

Kronk came home from ICU two nights ago and for now he is doing fine. He is continuing to recover at home. His pain is well managed, and though he’s reluctant to eat, he will swallow food when it’s force-fed via syringe. But his energy is coming up, he’s responding well, and we have confidence that soon he’ll be back to feeding himself.

Samples from all 3 of Kronk’s masses were sent for analysis by a pathologist. We were all hoping to hear that the tumor was benign, because that might mean a full recovery for Kronk. However, that was not the case. All 3 masses were related, 3 tumors from the same cancer: a leiomyosarcoma. The vet is going to consult with some oncologists and then get back to me about Kronk’s long term prognosis. His cancer is likely to recur, we just don’t know when or how. Hopefully, the vet will give us some idea of what to watch him for and how to know when it’s his time.

We’ve pretty much decided that we’re not going to do any more treatments. The two main possibilities are 1) chemotherapy very soon or 2) another surgery when the cancer grows back. We feel like, in either case, it’d just be putting Kronk through more sickness/pain than it’s worth. Putting a dog through chemotherapy seems questionable to me, and sarcoma has a reputation for not responding well to chemo, anyway. And more surgery would just be more than Kronk’s old body could take, I fear. So we’re trying our best to accept what will likely be inevitable. Hopefully, we’ve bought Kronk a decent amount of time, but really time will only tell.

This whole process has been a huge drain on me, both emotionally and physically. Physically, there are vet visits every day, sometimes twice a day, I have to help him and coax him when I need him to move around, I have to pill him and force feed him three times a day, and between the middle-of-the-night care and the worrying constantly going on in my head, I’m sleeping terribly. Emotionally, there’s the obvious struggle of knowing you’re slowly losing your dog. And I know, he’s just a dog, but I love him a lot, even though he’s just a crappy dog who doesn’t get along with other dogs and howls at kites and rolls in dead things. He’s also the dog who I trained to lay on my feet to keep them warm and who protects me when he perceives danger and who loves nothing more in the world than for me to hug him tight around his neck. Who wouldn’t love a crappy dog like that? But the other emotionally difficult thing about this has been that I’m second guessing every decision that I’ve made. Knowing now that he has a cancerous sarcoma, I wish that I’d not put him through the surgery. If we’d known then what we know now, I’d have had him euthanized that first night. How long will he have? How much pain will he be in? When the cancer comes back, how bad will that be for him? I just don’t feel like I’ve made the right choices for him and it hurts me to know that.

And on top of all this, there’s the constant threat of labor. I’m to the point of begging Ellowyn to stay in: I’ll walk around pleading to my belly, “Just one more week, ok? I just need you to stay in there for one more week.” Because hopefully by then Kronk will be better and I can’t fathom having to do all this care for Kronk and also have Mira AND ALSO have a newborn. Not to mention during labor. Kronk needs attention every two hours right now. Who will care for him if I go into labor right now? And then once we get home, will I be stuck in a perpetual rut of taking turns between caring for the baby and caring for the dog? And where does Mira come in to that? And it’s terrible that now the imminent arrival of my baby, something that should be exciting and that I should be overjoyed about and that I should be anxiously looking forward to, now that’s all turned into some lurking impending doom and just that fact makes my heart hurt a little more.

I guess you could say this has been a rough week for me. I hope you were all prepared to hear me pour my heart out.

Pregnancy update - 37 weeks

2010-12-30T10:48:00.000-06:00

Well, the pre-labor is going on and off and on. Nothing as intense as that first night, where the contractions were coming on at least every 10 minutes for over 12 hours, but still having contractions pretty frequently, though they're also not as ~~painful~~ intense. They'll start up, usually when I'm walking around, go every 8 minutes or so for maybe an hour, and then quit again. I saw my midwife again on Tuesday (I'm going weekly now), and after a pelvic exam, she told me that I was still dilated to 1cm, as I was last week before all the pre-labor. But now my cervix has moved around from a posterior position (where the cervix exists normally in most non-laboring women) to a more front-and-center position, the position needed for labor. Also, Ellowyn's head is down low, at a -2 station now. So all those contractions are moving things around, getting things lined up, softening the cervix, and bringing the baby into position. So really, this could happen any day. And now that I'm "full-term" at 37 weeks, I'd be comfortable delivering any time. So now for the waiting...

Pregnancy update - 36 weeks (also, I talk too much)

2010-12-21T14:17:00.001-06:00

My last pregnancy update was at 34 weeks, and I’ve actually had 2 prenatal appointments since then. And a lot has been going on with my body. Changes are definitely happening and I feel my body working up to labor.

Starting around the end of week 34, my Braxton-Hicks contractions really amped up the volume. They were really strong, very uncomfortable, and mildly crampy. I also started having them very frequently, several times in an hour. It was a few days after that, I was in the beginning of my 35th week, when I started having what I can only describe as sharp, popping pain... down there. These pains started worrying me because I remember having something similar a couple hours before going into labor with Mira. So I went ahead and scheduled an impromptu appointment with one of my midwives.

After the routine checks and a pelvic exam, the midwife informed me that my uterus was “stressed”, her words. It’s normal for women to have BH contractions, but not with the intensity and frequency that I was experiencing. (I had several during the appointment, so she got to witness them first hand.) And the sharp pains that I was having, she called “cervical twinges”. She said it was basically the cervix starting to loosen up, and could feel quite sharp and painful. The pelvic exam revealed that, at that time, I was not yet starting to dilate, but my cervix was softening in preparation for labor. Of course, that can happen minutes before labor or weeks before labor, but either way that’s what was causing my discomfort. She said that she didn’t see any signs that I was going into labor immediately though, so she sent me home with directions to get as much rest as possible, drink lots of water, take hot baths often, and come back in 1 week.

Well, de-stressing a uterus is not an easy thing when there’s a toddler involved but luckily I have family and friends to help me. I’ve had meals prepared for me, several times someone has come and taken Mira for me, and Brian has really stepped up on a lot of the chores that I normally would do. But despite all the help, the BH contractions continued to be pretty frequent and fairly intense. They were uncomfortable enough that if I was walking when I had one then I would have to stop and stand still. And when I had them while driving, I was always very tempted to pull over.

After that week, I went back in yesterday morning for my next checkup. The midwife made sure that the baby was still head down, took a swab to test for GBS, and did a pelvic exam. I had told her that I was planning to travel to Dallas for Christmas this coming weekend and asked her if she saw anything to indicate that I should do otherwise. Essentially, her response was that I should stay home, though she didn’t say it quite that directly. My blood pressure was slightly elevated above my normal (though still in a healthy range), probably from holiday stress. And in the past week I had dilated to 1 cm, probably as a result of all the BH contractions. The midwife told me that she would advise me to do whatever I could to make this holiday a restful one... which sounded a whole lot to me like “Don’t go to Dallas.”

So that was yesterday and I went about making all the calls and cancellations so that we could stay in Austin for the holidays. And it’s looking like it’s a good thing that I did...

Because last night my body decided to give this whole labor thing a test drive.

I started having contractions that felt a whole lot more like actual labor contractions, starting at about 4:30pm yesterday. They were very crampy and much stronger than the BH I was having, and while they didn’t seem to have a steady rhythm, they were coming on about every 5-10 minutes. I called Brian and let him know what was going on, but that I wasn’t sure it was labor, and we decided that he would finish out his work day and then come home. So Mira and I sat down in front of Sesame Street and I relaxed and drank water while Mira was entranced by puppets. By the time Brian got home, the contractions were still going and becoming more intense, but still no steady rhythm. So we ate dinner and I called my mom to give her an early warning that we might maybe possibly be starting labor or maybe it was nothing. She said she’d go ahead and come get Mira to spend the night at her house just in case it was labor and I needed to go to the birth center in the middle of the night. Which was great because it really let Brian and I focus on what was going on with me, and on getting ready in case it was the real deal. (I had so convinced myself that the baby wouldn’t come till after Christmas that I didn’t have a bag packed for the labor yet or even have the baby’s carseat installed in the car.) So while I was taking a bath, Brian packed a bag and got the car ready. I was still having contractions at least every 10 minutes, sometimes they’d come much faster (every 3 minutes) and sometimes they’d slow way down again. Brian took great care of me the whole evening. At about midnight, we decided that we’d both try to sleep. I was still having frequent contractions, but they were feeling milder now, so I was hopeful that I’d be able to sleep through them. And I did... some. I slept for one 2-hour stretch and then for little 30-minute snoozes for the rest of the night. Brian slept a little better because we agreed that he should sleep in a different room so that I wouldn’t disturb him unless I needed to. But by this morning, the contractions had pretty much stopped... when I was sitting or laying still. The minute I would get up onto my feet they would start up again and walking would lead to basically one continuous contraction that just came in waves, with no defined start or stop, just an ebbing and flowing.

So that’s where I am right now. Brian has decided to work from home today so that he can be close to me and help me when I need it. Mom brought Mira back home for her nap, but can take her back at a moment’s notice, since she’s off work till after Christmas. I’ve given up on actually being in real labor for right now (though I was never convinced that all those contractions were labor, since they never became steady and organized). And still now, if I’m sitting or laying, the contractions go away, but if I stand or walk they come on immediately and pretty strong. So we’re sort of in a play-it-by-ear situation.

The good news is that, being 36 weeks along, my midwives could deliver me at the birth center now. (Any earlier than 36 weeks and I would have had to go to the hospital because of the risks associated with babies born prematurely.) But still, I hope that Ellowyn manages to stay put a little bit longer. Mostly because the closer I am to full term when she is born, the healthier she is likely to be. But also because we didn’t really plan to have a newborn at Christmas, and I’m not sure how it would effect our celebration plans. Do I really want to take a days-old baby to a huge gathering of people? I dunno... We'll cross that bridge if we get there.

Mira counts

2010-12-20T15:07:00.000-06:00

About a month ago, Mira began to obsess... with counting. But she would only count to two. She would count everything... balls, toys, people, shoes, bubbles, cars... everything... in twos. "One, two," she would point and say. And if there were more than two of whatever she was counting, then she would just keep on pointing and repeat, "One, two, one, two, one, two..." until she had counted them all.

Well one day maybe about a week ago, she was counting something and... she just kept going. She counted right up to 10. Now she can count all the way up to 12, though she sometimes skips 9 or gets hung up and needs reminding of what comes next.

And it's not like it's just a series of things to say. Like three is just what you say after you say two. No. For her, there is meaning to counting. She knows that the numbers are an answer to the question "how many". What a smart little gal!

So here are some videos of her counting. I love the way she says "seven", especially. Also, "six" sounds rather vulgar, which I find pretty amusing.

In this one, she's counting while she spins.

In this one, she is counting her "guys" (that's what she calls her stuffed animals). She keeps coming back to the camera because she has learned that she can watch the videos of herself right after I record them, so she's a little anxious to see the recording.

And as you might expect with a toddler, not all videos go according to plan. In this one, I was trying to get her to count to 10 for the camera, but she was more interested in goofing off. I call this one the blooper scene.

Goodbye Mimic

2010-12-07T15:14:00.001-06:00

Yesterday afternoon, our cat (or really Brian's cat) Mimic passed away. We had noticed that he wasn't looking so good over the weekend: he was walking funny, had lost a lot of weight very rapidly, smelled funny, and just didn't look right (though we couldn't exactly pinpoint what was off about him, we just knew he didn't look good). So we watched him over the weekend and then first thing Monday morning I called the vet and made an appointment for that afternoon.

Mira and I took him in, and Mira was very interested in the whole process. She knew that there was a doctor for her and a doctor for Mommy, but now she was discovering that there was also a doctor for pets. On the way to the vet, with Mimic meowing from the carrier in the back, Mira kept saying "key ca" (kitty cat) and "dah ter" (doctor) and "moww" (meow). And when we got there, she insisted on being held up to the examination table so that she could see what was being done to Mimic and I explained everything as the nurse listened to Mimic's heart with a stethoscope and took his temperature and looked in his mouth. She was really interested in the whole process.

Well, anyway, then the vet came in and asked me to tell her what had been going on to prompt our visit and I tried to explain that Mimic just didn't look right, without really being able to pinpoint what didn't look right about him. He was still drinking and being affectionate, but he seemed to have lost interest in food, though he did keep approaching the food bowl, he would just sit there next to it instead of actually eating anything. After she got my version of what was wrong, she said that we were right to bring him in, he's very sick. She then pointed out what exactly looked wrong with him, which I had been unable to put words to: his eyes were sunken and his skin was pulled in to his bones because of dehydration. I told her that he has constant access to water and he was still drinking, so I didn't know how he would have become so dehydrated. She then told me that it could be kidney failure causing the dehydration.

As soon as she mentioned kidney failure I knew...

She felt around on his abdomen and said that she could feel that the kidneys were inflamed. She then said she'd like to do a quick blood test to confirm her suspicion. While we were waiting for the blood test results, I called Brian and warned him that it was not looking good. I asked him if he wanted to be present if it turned out that Mimic needed to be euthanized, and he said yes, so I told him he'd better come on in.

The test results came back and all confirmed renal failure. Mimic was rapidly building up toxins in his system as his kidneys shut down and failed to process them out through his urine. The vet explained that the toxins were probably causing him to feel pain and depression, that there was nothing we could have done to prevent this, and that there was no treatment that would help. I understood exactly what she was trying to gently get at and let her know that we would like to humanely end his suffering but asked if we could wait till Brian arrived so that he could say goodbye. They were very accommodating.

Brian arrived and he had some time with Mimic before he was euthanized. I thought about taking Mira out to the waiting room, but Brian asked that I stay with him, so Mira just played with the cat carrier in the corner while the procedure was done. It was very calm and serene. Brian was petting Mimic as he passed away and Mimic was purring right up to the end, because that's the kind of cat Mimic was.

Well, as we were leaving, Mira noticed that we weren't leaving with a cat. So she asked "key ca?" I had been so focused on Brian that I was a little caught off guard by the sudden realization that I now had to explain what was going on to Mira. As we were getting into the car, I told her, "Mira, the cat was old and sick. The doctor couldn't help him get better. He's gone now, he died." She immediately looked right at me and said, "Dead. Bye bye." And it absolutely broke my heart. That my not-even-two-year-old daughter, who still didn't even get the concept of when to say "me" versus when to say "you", whose spoken vocabulary didn't even yet include words like "fun" and "sing", who seems still so little and vulnerable to me... already she knew all about "dead". In that moment, I just wanted to hug her close to me and protect her from everything bad that would ever happen to her and never ever let her go.

And I did just that. For an entire, all-too-brief minute.

Pregnancy update - 34 weeks

2010-12-06T18:17:00.000-06:00

I've now hit the point that my midwives want to see me every two weeks instead of just once a month. So this morning I was back in their office. This time, Brian came along, which was really nice. He can't always make the appointments because he's busy at work, but I sure am glad when he can. Not only is he helpful in watching Mira while I'm talking to the midwife or getting examined, but also it's just nice to not be the only pregnant lady in the waiting room with a toddler instead of a husband sitting next to her. Something about the demographic of women who have chosen this birth center, they all seem to have husbands who are very involved, which is pretty cool. Probably has something to do with the fact that Bradley courses (husband-coached childbirth classes) are so strongly recommended by the midwives...

Anyway, so speaking of our Bradley course... We just have two weeks left in the course and now that we've been through a majority of it, we know a lot more about what we're going to need in our birth room, having done so much relaxation practice and labor rehearsal. So we wanted to revisit the birth rooms to remind ourselves what we would have available versus what we would need to bring (the main reason Brian came along for this appointment). As we were checking out the rooms again, I was reminded of one of the reasons I chose this birth center over a hospital. The rooms are so homey and relaxing compared to a hospital setting. There is no nursery, so the baby never leaves the room where you are. Everything that the midwives will need is right in the room. They assume that the laboring woman will be unmedicated and therefore provide certain tools (such as a birth ball and squatting stool) that are not provided by most hospitals, where a majority of women are immobilized by an epidural. Anyway, it's a really positive, supportive, relaxing environment and I'm happy to be delivering there.

So then after that it was the usual prenatal appointment: weight, blood pressure, urine, belly measurements, fetal heartbeat, etc. My blood pressure is staying good and low, right around 115/70. Baby's heartbeat was about 140 bpm, which is great. I actually lost weight again: in the two weeks since my last appointment, I lost one pound. (Making total weight gain this pregnancy 4 pounds, so far.) This actually makes sense to me, since I'm eating a lot less because it just won't fit in my tummy anymore. I feel full after just a few bites. Also, my reflux keeps me from eating normal sized portions; now that my stomach is so compressed, I start getting reflux not just after meals, but during. Which is not appetizing. And despite the fact that I'm eating so much less, I'm still just as physically active, since there's not much of a choice when there's a toddler involved. Plus also, we've been working on getting the nursery ready, and that's a lot of moving around. But the midwife seemed unconcerned that I'd lost more weight. She said she was happy with my weight and the way I was looking, especially since my belly grew 4 centimeters in the last 2 weeks (!!!). So that means the baby is growing and getting bigger, despite my weight loss.

By palpating my belly, she was able to tell me that the baby's head is down, as it was last time. She also said that the baby would almost certainly stay head down for the rest of the pregnancy. Especially since her head seemed to be jammed down into my pelvis. The midwife said that there wasn't much give down there because Ellowyn's head was so firmly settled into my pelvis. She said that happens sometimes with second pregnancies because everything is already loosened up for the baby's passage, especially when the pregnancies are close together as mine have been. Well, that totally explains all the pain I've been experiencing over the last week or more. My stomach and pelvis have been in almost constant pain, with certain activities making it worse. My stomach muscles have been really sore and I'll get sharp muscle pain; I think somewhat because of this cough that I've had for about 2 weeks as I'm getting over a cold. But also, my pelvis has been achy, like all the joints down there are painful and loose. I never hurt this much in my first pregnancy, so what the midwife said makes sense to me that it's because Ellowyn's head is so wedged in there.

Ellowyn is still just as active as ever, but the quality of her movements is changing as her space diminishes. It's much less like "banging around" and much more stretching and pushing. It's also getting much more uncomfortable when she moves, as something of mine is always stretched or squished.

I did end up talking to an eye doctor about my ocular migraines, as one midwife had recommended. She said exactly what I thought she would, that the ocular migraines I was having were due to hormones and stress and that I would likely continue to have them throughout the pregnancy but that they would likely stop after the baby was born. One thing she did say that I found kind of interesting: in addition to avoiding stress, I could help control them by drinking a little caffeine. She said that caffeine stimulates the "blood vessel wall" (whatever that means), and will help prevent or lessen the severity of the ocular migraines. She said to take in about 65mg per day of caffeine (about the amount in one soda or one small coffee), and to really maximize the effect, to nurse one caffeinated beverage over a long span of time. Like caffeine on continuous drip. I hadn't been drinking any caffeine really at all, so drinking one a day is kind of hard for me. But I have found that since I've started doing this I haven't had another ocular migraine (I've been at it for maybe a week). So maybe it's helping, which would be good news.

So there. Despite all the complaining, I managed to end the blog post on a positive note at least. Can you tell that I'm done with being pregnant? ;-P

Pregnancy update - 32 weeks

2010-11-24T11:51:00.000-06:00

I had another appointment with my birth center yesterday. Everything is still going pretty well. Baby's heart rate is good (140 bpm). My blood pressure is staying nice and low, which I am super happy about. I gained 3 pounds this month, which is a nice healthy amount. This makes my total weight gain for the pregnancy 5 pounds (since I lost so much weight in my first trimester due to morning sickness). When I was pregnant with Mira, this was the time of the pregnancy that I was putting on the most weight, so I'm feeling really good about my modest but healthy weight gain, especially right now. I'm eating a little healthier in this pregnancy than my previous one (substituting healthy, low fat, low sugar foods instead of giving in to every craving) and I'm also much more physically active in this pregnancy than I was in my last pregnancy (entirely due to the fact that I have to keep up with a toddler all day long instead of sit at a desk job). So those two things combined probably account for the more modest weight gain.

I am still having ocular migraines, but they are coming on much less frequently. I do seem to notice a correlation between them and getting stressed out. It seems like if I'm having "one of those days", then I am more likely to get an ocular migraine. Which is always a great addition to whatever I'm already dealing with, let me tell you. :-/ I have had one while I was driving, which is probably the worst possible time since I go almost completely blind. Luckily I was in a place where it was easy to pull over, so everything was fine. But as a result of that, we are having Brian do the driving for me when it is at all an option. I did talk to a midwife at the birth center about them, and she said it was likely due to the hormonal changes in my body but that I should get in to see an eye doctor just to make sure it isn't something else.

Now that I'm firmly into the third trimester, I am really starting to feel tired again. Looking back on the second trimester, I realize that I did have more energy, but it certainly didn't feel like it at the time. But by comparison, it was better because now I am plain exhausted. But I can't just go to sleep, oh no. I'm so uncomfortable at night, I'm tossing and turning and getting up every so often to pee. So there's really no relief of the constant lack of energy. And I wish that I could just let things go, sit and relax and not fret about whatever needs to be done, and I do sometimes, but other times all the things I need to do start rummaging around in my head and then I start getting anxious if I don't clean something or put something away or take Mira somewhere or run an errand. ("Stay at home mom" is really a misnomer.)

So when I talked to the midwife about all that, the ocular migraines associated with stress and having trouble sleeping yet feeling tired all the time, she said "Well it sounds like you're having trouble relaxing. You could try having a half glass of wine before bed every now and then." Oh really???? Well, I took her advice last night, but I don't think I drank enough to feel any different, it was just a few sips really, not even a half glass. And I drank it slowly, over the course of 2 hours, so I really didn't feel anything. But it was nice to just taste. I don't think I'm comfortable drinking more than a few sips at a time (I'm a little paranoid, despite recent evidence to the contrary), so I'm not sure I'll get the effects the midwife intended from this, but I have always liked the taste of wine, so I might try this again before the pregnancy is through.

Ellowyn continues to be quite the little athlete, despite the rapid decrease in available space. She often moves so vigorously that I am suddenly very uncomfortable, sometimes even causing me sharp pains in the ribs or pelvic bone. Despite the discomfort, it is kind of fun to sit and watch my belly twist and jump this way and that. I'm trying to enjoy it as much as possible, since we're not entirely sure that we'll want a third child, so it's possible that this will be my last pregnancy.

Mira knows some letters.

2010-11-22T20:20:00.000-06:00

Mira can now identify 15 letters (capitals only, not lowercase). If you point to a letter and ask her what the letter is she can say it or if you ask her where is the letter Y (or A or L or any of the other 15 letters she knows) she can point it out on a page of words.

Recently she's also started trying to write some letters. She's really good at writing M and I and O, but she also likes to try R and V and N.

I don't feel like I've really pushed her to learn the alphabet, she just seems really interested in it. We'll be reading a book and she'll start pointing to the letters and saying what they are; sometimes she seems more interested in the text than the pictures. And some of her favorite toys are letters, too. She has a set of tub toys that are letters that stick to the wall when wet and she also has a set of alphabet magnets that she puts on our front door. When she colors, she often brings me the crayons and asks me to draw certain letters.

I'm glad that she's shown so much interest in it. I wonder if it's because she loves to read so much and somehow she already knows that reading involves solving this whole letter "puzzle". In any case, she's making my goal of having her reading before entering kindergarten very attainable. ;-)

Mira knows her colors.

2010-11-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

Sometimes she mixes up blue and purple, but I know adults who still have a tough time with that distinction. ;-)

Interactive songs

2010-11-18T13:53:00.000-06:00

Ok, it's been long enough since I posted here. You're probably thinking I owe you a good one. Well, here it is, folks: not one, not two, but THREE Mira videos for your viewing pleasure. I know, I know... it may be too much cuteness for your hearts to take. Brace yourself.

Baby #2's name

2010-11-04T10:58:00.000-05:00

A couple months ago, Brian and I came up with a name for Baby #2. We thought we'd sit on it a while, let it roll around in our heads, and then decide if we still liked it. Well, it's been months now and every time one of us suggests a different name, we ultimately decide that we don't like it as well as the original. So I guess it might as well be official.

Baby #2 will be named Ellowyn Shanelle Drake.

On the name Ellowyn: This is a name that I made up. I've never heard it before anywhere. You may be thinking it's from "Lord of the Rings", but it's not. There was an Eowyn and an Arwen, but never an Ellowyn. Just like with Mira, we wanted a first name that would be original enough that there wouldn't be 3 kids in her class with the same name, but not so original that it couldn't be easily pronounced. As for nicknames, I don't intend to call her anything short of Ellowyn, though once she got old enough if she expressed a desire to be called something different, Ellie or Elle or Ella or Wyn or Wynnie, I would go along with her wishes.

On the name Shanelle: This name is a combination of two other names: the middle names of Brian's two birth sisters. One has the middle name Shanno, the other's middle name is Michelle. Combine the two and you get Shanelle. Again, this is a play on something we did with Mira's name: Mira's middle name is Lee, which just happens to be the middle name of both my mother and Brian's mother. So with both our girls, we managed to name them after two people with one name. What can I say? I'm a fan of consistency.

Mira is <..> this much a toddler

2010-11-03T14:53:00.000-05:00

I'm so lucky to have such a happy agreeable little girl. (Ok, I'm sure some of it has to do with my parenting style and the fact that I can be home with her, but I'm also convinced that part of it is her temperament, which is totally luck of the draw.) When I ask her a question, her default answer is the most adorable little "Yeah!". As opposed to many toddlers, who seem to know no words other than "no". Mira has to stop and check herself if she really wants to say "no" to something. She almost says "yeah" and then thinks twice and shakes her head "no". Now it's possible that it's only a matter of time before I eventually do have an obstinate, negative, yelling, tantrum-throwing toddler. But thankfully that day has not yet come. For the most part, Mira follows directions, she is polite and sweet, and she plays gently. She even says "thank you" (in sign) without being prompted every now and then. Mira is mostly a dream.

Except when she's not.

It's rare, but sometimes Mira does manage to wear on my nerves. Mostly this is in the form of whining. Her vocabulary is expanding so incredibly rapidly, but still she just doesn't have the words for every situation. And when she doesn't have the words, she will usually say "ah ah" or "ooo eee". And I'm totally ok with that. But it is also in those situations that she is more prone to get frustrated and then the "ah ah" becomes a more piercing whine. And I think I have been somewhat encouraging the whining because I will unthinkingly respond to her whines by addressing her needs. So now I'm starting to make a conscious effort to stop doing that. When she starts whining I (try to) just say "I don't like that sound" and do nothing else to help her. If she continues, then sometimes I say "I don't understand your whining; use words or show me what you want without whining." I've only been at it for a few days and it usually takes longer than that to change behavior, so we'll see if it helps over the next few weeks.

But all in all, I realize that I don't have much to complain about with Mira. She's awesome. Though I am a bit worried that maybe she's spoiled me... Ellowyn may end up being a shock to my senses.

Pregnancy update - 28 weeks

2010-10-29T11:30:00.000-05:00

Another fairly normal appointment with my birthing center. Nothing much to report on that front. Ellowyn's (yes, we've decided on her name) heart rate was about 150 bpm, very normal. My blood pressure was the same as always. The only thing of note really was that I gained 4 pounds this month, right on target. This means that I am finally back up to my pre-pregnancy weight. I lost 7 pounds in my first trimester and since then have gained back a total of 9 pounds, making my total weight gain for the pregnancy 2 pounds so far. I'm feeling pretty good about that.

I've been having a new and rather troublesome pregnancy symptom: ocular migraines. I had only had one when I last went in for a checkup, so I thought it was a fluke and didn't bring it up at the appointment. But since then, I'm wishing I had talked to the midwife about it because I've had two more, making it three in the space of a week. What happens is that without warning I start seeing flashes of light and then I see tracers swimming across my vision and then parts of my vision go fuzzy. Then I will get really dizzy and usually a headache will follow. The visual effects only last about 5 minutes or so, but the dizziness will go on for a half-hour or so and then the headache can last an hour or more. I wouldn't even know what it was except that I described it on Facebook and one of my mommy friends said that the same thing had happened to her during pregnancy and told me that her doctor had called them "ocular migraines". I did a little research online and, sure enough, my symptoms were described exactly by several different sources. (For further reading, you can check out this, this, and this.) Apparently, pregnant women sometimes get them and it is thought that they may be due to the hormonal changes associated with pregnancy. Luckily, I have not had one yet that was particularly problematic, but I keep dreading the day that I get one while driving or while I'm carrying Mira across the parking lot or I get so dizzy that I fall down and hurt myself. The first time it happened I had no idea what was going on, but by the third time it happened, I realized that I could recognize it coming on by the flashing lights and so I could get myself to a safe seated position to wait it out. Hopefully I will continue to be able to do that if they keep happening.

Brian and I started a Bradley childbirth preparation class. For anyone unfamiliar, it is a particular method that focuses on preparing women for natural unmedicated birth and on preparing their birth partner (usually the husband) to play an active role in aiding the laboring woman. I've read a number of books on Bradley method (my favorite of which was this one, BTW), so I feel like I'm pretty familiar with everything that's going on in the class, so far. We've covered the topics of what to expect in pregnancy, good nutrition, and some basic exercises to prepare your body for childbirth. But we're just starting to get to the good stuff like what the birth coach's role entails and some specific coping techniques for the first (dilation) stage and second (pushing) stage of labor. So I'm looking forward to seeing where the class goes. Plus I think the class has really helped to get Brian's head into the game. I think it's easy for him to feel a little detached from the pregnancy since it's not his body and Ellowyn doesn't demand his attention when she's still in utero. But part of the coach's role in Bradley method is to encourage/assist in preparing the woman's mind and body to cope with the demands of natural childbirth, and that includes daily routines and such that he does with me. So he's been much more involved in this pregnancy than he was when I was pregnant with Mira.

Ellowyn has been very active. She moves A LOT and not little slow stretchy movements. We're talking there-must-be-a-rock-band-in-my-belly type movements. It's very different from my experience with Mira's pregnancy. I remember Mira's movements being more subtle and gentle and slow. But with this pregnancy... well, I told Brian yesterday that I thought my belly was going to jump right off of my body. But I think Brian likes it. When I was pregnant with Mira, he'd have to wait really long and sit really still in order to feel the baby move. But with Ellowyn, he can practically see my belly jumping out of the corner of his eye from across the room. I'm guessing that this means that Ellowyn's personality is going to be very different from Mira's. Mira is very deliberate and cautious. I'm thinking Ellowyn will be more rambunctious and wild. That would actually be kind of nice because then the two girls can sort of balance each other out, with Mira reminding Ellowyn when things are not such a good idea and Ellowyn challenging Mira to push past her personal boundaries and take risks now and then.

Our long-term house guest

2010-10-22T15:58:00.000-05:00

For at least a month now, we have had a guest who has taken up residence on our back porch. She is about 2 inches long, has 8 legs, and every other night she builds a huge web right across the opening of our sliding glass door. Now, despite the fact that Brian has managed to walk through the web many many times on his way to take the garbage out (I'm a little shorter, so I usually miss it), this is actually a rather ingenious place for this spider to have chosen. At night, when she builds her web, the moths are all attracted to the door by the light coming through from our dining room. So pretty much any night she builds a web, she feasts. Which I think is really pretty awesome because, standing immediately on the other side of the glass, I have been able to watch her catch, poison, and entomb her prey and then drag it off to her hidey corner for consumption.

And as I watched, I always thought how cool it would be to show Mira. But because this spider only builds her web at night, I hadn't had an opportunity to show Mira... until earlier this week.

I have been preparing Mira for daylight savings time by slowly shifting her schedule later and later. And this one day, the spider decided to build her web a little earlier in the evening. The combination of the two meant that Mira finally got to see this thing in action. I held her up and showed her and explained what it was. Mira said "eat". Me: "You want the spider to eat?" Mira: "Yeah." So then we sent Daddy out onto the porch to try and catch a moth to throw into the spider's web so that Mira could see how she ate. Daddy made a very valiant effort, but he wasn't faster than nature. As he was trying to catch a moth, another one flew into the web on its own and Mira got to watch as the spider darted over and stung it and then wrapped it in silk. Mira thought that was pretty awesome and she held her hand out to the spider and pointed at her open palm with her other hand. Me: "You want to hold the spider?" Mira: "Yeah!!!" I then had to explain how we shouldn't touch the spider because we might hurt it or scare it since it was much littler than us. She seemed to accept that explanation, but there was no way she would let me put her down, she kept watching that spider for a good long time.

Anyway, here are some pics of our guest. You can tell from the quality that I'm not a talented photographer by any stretch. Oh well...

Oh also, I should mention that the day we first noticed this spider, I did some research to find out what kind of spider she is. I wanted to make sure she wasn't anything to worry about and she has some pretty distinctive markings so I was pretty sure I could confidently identify her. Turns out she's a brown orb weaver, specifically from the genus Neoscona. My research indicated that they are "reluctant to bite" and that if bitten, you'd basically get a little red irritated bump. And also, they are reputed to be excellent mosquito catchers. So we decided to let her stay as long as she wanted... turns out she must like the arrangement as well, since she's stuck around so long.

Rough housing

2010-10-20T14:24:00.000-05:00

Daddy likes to rough house with Mira. She says "down", but I think she secretly likes it. What do you think?

Language Developments

2010-10-19T09:21:00.000-05:00

Over the last month or so, Mira has had a language explosion. To try to list every word that she says would now be impossible. Which is totally great. I love that she can actually tell me about things instead of the other way around. When she gets upset about something, I can tell her to stop crying and use her words and she can.

One day, we were at the petting farm and she pointed up and said "moon". I thought she was saying "moo", so I was like "Cows say moo, but there aren't any cows here. Just goats. Goats say baaa." But she was adamant. "Moon moon moon." Silly me, I kept trying to tell her there was no cow. Finally, after we had gone back and forth for a while, I looked up to where she was pointing and saw the moon, clear as could be, out in the middle of the day. "The moon! Of course! I'm sorry it took me so long to figure out what you were telling me. You are right!" She looked very satisfied. It's so cool that she never doubted herself. She knew exactly what she was talking about, even if mom was pulling a "hurrr derp derp".

Mostly Mira's words are one syllable. Stuff like dog, cat, car, up, down, out, go, hole, bird, eat, read, and much much more. In addition to that she has a few two syllable words: mama and dada (of course), but also mommy and daddy (which she will use interchangeably with mama and dada), baby and apple and happy and bubble (all of which she says sooo clearly), I'm sure there are a few others, I'm just not thinking of them right now.

There are a few words that Mira says that only mom can translate. She says "buh" when she means "poop". Luckily she also uses the sign for "poop" when she says this one or else I might never have figured it out. I've tried getting her to say it more clearly: "Mira, say ppp ppp ppp poop." She responds with "ppp ppp ppp BUH". Lol. Also, she can count to "na". When counting she'll say "one... two... na!" When I say, "Mira, say three" she responds with "na!" I guess that "thr" sound is a hard one. Also, she says "nook" instead of "milk", but again, she also makes the sign for milk while she says that one.

She is also starting to say people's names. For quite some time she has been able to say "key-key" for my sister Katelyn, whose nick name has been kay-kay since she was a baby. That was the first name she was using. But just recently, she has started saying "co-ee" for our friend Cody and "day-ih" for our friend David. She also makes attempts at Becky, coming out like "bah-bee", and Jeff, which sounds like "hefff" all whispery (two of our other friends that we see regularly).

She also seems to have gotten past the phase where she didn't want to attempt new words vocally. If you tell her to say something, she will almost always try it if the word is two syllables or less. Unless she's feeling pressured to perform; sometimes she gets shy in front of a crowd. But she's so darn cute when she talks, how can I not try to show her off???

And now back to our regularly scheduled shenanigans.

2010-10-18T20:22:00.000-05:00

Remember Mira and the barrettes? Well...

On death and funerals

2010-10-12T13:33:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a while since I've written here, and I think most of you who read this know why. Last Wednesday, Brian's mother passed away unexpectedly. The past week has been full of dealing with the aftermath: planning and attending the funeral and wake, dealing with and planning for the division of the estate, making arrangements for the cremation and the subsequent interment, and of course grieving.

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the passing of my mother-in-law. Mostly, I'm filled with intense sadness and sympathy for Brian and his sisters. I can not imagine their loss. But I think that here, in this blog, I am going to keep my musings mostly on the topic of how this relates to Mira, since this blog is dedicated more to our children rather than being focused on Brian and me.

This is the first time in Mira's life that someone she knew has died. In my mind, it is both good and bad that this has happened at such a young age for her. Good because she doesn't comprehend the loss, so she has not needed to grieve; she won't carry a painful memory of this with her. Bad because she will likely have no memories of her paternal grandmother, and it's sad to think that she'll miss growing up in her presence. It really serves to reaffirm my appreciation for Mira's other grandparents.

Throughout the process of the funeral and grieving, Mira has been very removed from the experience. She's not been in the thick of any of it. At the hospital, as Brian's mom was passing, Brian and I both agreed that it would be better for me to stay with Mira and not to bring her to the hospital. The funeral itself occurred during Mira's afternoon nap, so she stayed with my family while Brian and I attended the services. She has even been pretty removed from our grieving process at home. I did tear up in her presence a couple of times, but for the most part she has not seen our grief, or anyone else's. Brian has had a few moments where he dropped his composure and really allowed himself to express his sorrow, but they were all when Mira was sleeping and only I was around. (I think he feels an obligation to remain outwardly stoic for the sake of those around him.) It wasn't really my intention to keep Mira out of what was going on. I wasn't trying to protect her from the emotions of others, per se. It is just more.... the way it ended up working out. And I'm not sure if it is a good thing or not. On one hand, she has pretty much gone on with her life happily and as though nothing happened. On the other hand, this could have been a learning experience for her about emotions and empathy. So I don't know if we did the right thing or not by unintentionally excluding her.

At one point, Mira saw me crying quietly and she came over, looking worried, and gave me a hug. At that point, and a couple other times, I did try to explain to her what had happened. But death is such a big concept, even for a secular family like ours. It seems impossible to explain in terms that a toddler will understand. I told her that death is what happens when someone's body stops working. And that lots of people were sad because her Grams had died, so we would never get to see her and play with her again. I told her that she didn't have to be sad, if she didn't want to, but that other people around her might be sad for a little while. But I have no idea how much she understood.

One thing that has really been illuminated for me by this experience is just how important it is to plan for and prearrange your own funeral. I have been to my share of funerals and experienced the death of those very close to me, but never have I been witness to the minutia and planning and details the way that I have this time. Not that I did much of the work, but I saw Brian and his sisters scrambling here and there, raising funds, planning and revising and WORKING. Hard. To make arrangements for their own mother's funeral. In a time when they should have been grieving, they had no time because everything had to come together just so and by a certain date and time and on a certain budget. And Brian's mom had done a lot to prepare for her death before she died. I mean A Lot. But even her careful documentation and preparedness was not enough to prevent Brian and his siblings from having to rush around and fret and worry whether things would come together on time. Seeing them go through that made me realize how much I Do Not Want that to burden my children when I'm gone. So I've actually started looking into and planning for my own funeral. And Brian's too, to some degree, though only he can specify his final wishes. But certainly, being privy to the behind-the-scenes elements of funeral planning has put some things about Mira's future into perspective for me.

Potty training update... or lack thereof

2010-09-30T09:34:00.000-05:00

Shortly after I posted my last blurb on potty training, Mira decided that she'd had enough. Every time I would ask her if she wanted to go potty, she would say "no". And I know better than to force her if she doesn't want to. So I've decided to back off of the potty training. Maybe she started getting discouraged or maybe she just got bored by the concept. I suspect the latter. Whatever her reasons, I'm happy to let her have them. I'm not surprised at all. I would have been stunned if she actually decided to potty train this early. Maybe we'll try again in another 6 months or so. Or if she shows renewed interest before that, then I'll take her lead. Until then, I've left her potty out where she can explore it anytime she wants, but she seems to mostly be ignoring it.

I'm very much of the opinion that children can not be forced to potty train. It is something that they have complete control over. Until they decide that it's the right time for them, all a parent can do is provide a supportive environment and an encouraging attitude. So that's where we stand.

Mira needed a barrette.

2010-09-29T14:27:00.000-05:00

Every now and then, Mira will bring me her bag of barrettes and insist that I put one after another into her hair until they are all crammed onto her head. Who can resist that face?

Pregnancy update - 24 weeks

2010-09-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had my 24 week prenatal checkup. In the past month I have gained 4 pounds, so I'm still 2 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. The midwife said that 4 pounds per month is about what she would expect to see from here on out, given that I am toward the end of my second trimester. At that rate, my total weight gain for this pregnancy will be right around 15 pounds, which would be great. I'm well on my way to meeting my goal of gaining less than 20 pounds. So that is good news.

More good news from my checkup: my blood pressure is down about 10 points, in both diastolic and systolic. So that's really great. Issues related to blood pressure are my biggest concern when it comes to having a healthy pregnancy and an intervention-free birth, so it's very much a relief to see those lower numbers.

Other than that, not much to say about the checkup, which is good. We did listen to the baby's heart with the doppler. It was good and strong at around 140 bpm. I had Mira along again, and just like last time, she watched interestedly and quietly the whole time.

As for how I'm feeling... pretty good. Only a few minor things that I can complain about. I get really tired in the evenings still. I have also been getting headaches, which I think I've figured out is from not eating enough protein. I'm supposed to be getting 80g a day of protein, and for me that's just really hard to do. I don't like really heavy meals, especially not during pregnancy when my reflux tends to act up. The thing I crave most when pregnant is salad, which has like 2 measly grams of protein or something ridiculously low. So I've started making myself a fruit smoothie with protein powder every day. I've also started keeping raw unsalted nuts to snack on. But it takes a lot of nuts to get to 80g. Er... yeah.

Gotta love the Muppets.

2010-09-27T13:42:00.000-05:00

First, a little "History of the Muppets" lesson, for any who are unfamiliar:

And this is what me and my uber geek friends taught Mira to do over the weekend.

I figure it's a baby-geek right-of-passage.

Mira's first night away from Mommy

2010-09-26T13:02:00.000-05:00

Last night, Mira had a sleepover at my parents' house. Before she left, as she was having a snack, we had this conversation:

I explained to her several times that she was going to play at Grandma and Grandpa's house and then she'd take a bath there and then go to sleep in a bed at Grandma and Grandpa's house and then when she woke up in the morning she would still be there and she could play some more before she came home to see me. The first time I explained it to her, she just stared at me with her jaw hanging open, looking like she was thinking very hard about this situation. The second time I explained it to her, she listened and then smiled at the end and nodded "yes". By the third time I had told her what was going to happen, she was smiling and nodding all the way through and when I asked her at the end if she thought that it might be fun to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa, she responded with an emphatic "Yeah!".

So I actually was fairly certain that she knew what was going to happen and felt comfortable with it. Which did a lot to convince me that she was ready to have a sleep over without me. The only thing I worried about at all was that she might have a hard time falling asleep or if she woke up in the night she might be upset about her unfamiliar surroundings.

That evening with her grandparents and aunt, she had a good dinner and made two trips to the park that backs up to my parents' house. She went to bed a little later than normal, but had no trouble falling asleep on her own. She slept all the way through the night and woke up at her normal time in the morning. My mom said that she seemed disoriented when she woke up, but she calmed down fairly quickly and when my mom offered her the option of either going home to see Mommy or going back to the park, Mira chose the park. Twice.

So Mira came home around lunch time. She was exhausted from all her playing and hungry because she was too busy having fun to stop for food. She had a big lunch and is now crashed out in her crib. While she was eating her lunch, I asked her if she had a fun time with Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Katelyn, and she said "yeah". I asked her if she liked spending the night there and got another "yeah". So I think she enjoyed herself and would be up for doing it again sometime in the future. She loves her grandparents and Aunt Katelyn so much. She asks about them all the time and can't wait to see them again. I've learned that, when we are going over to their house, I can't tell her more than about 20 minutes in advance because she just can't take the waiting if she knows we will be seeing them. (Literally, she will stand at the door saying "go go" and if I tell her it's not quite time yet, the tears start welling up in her sad little eyes. It's the definition of 'heartbreakingly cute'.)

I'm so glad that she loves them so much and feels so comfortable in their care. Especially since it's likely going to be necessary for her to spend the night with them when I go into labor. Knowing that she can spend the night with them takes a load off my mind.

As for how Brian and I enjoyed our time off: we had a leisurely dinner out with friends, all hanging out at our house afterward playing games and chatting. Then in the morning, Brian and I got to sleep in together, getting up whenever we felt like it. Something we haven't been able to both do together in nearly 2 years. It was wonderful. Did I miss Mira? Actually, not too much. But I was happy to have her home when she got here.