Splish Splash

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Elise

A couple days ago I gave Lydia her first (outside the hospital) in the bathtub bath. Alethea enjoyed helping by handing me the wash cloth and shampoo as they were requested. After the bath was over, I was so anxious to get Lydia dry, dressed and warm that I neglected to shut the bathroom door. Of course, Alethea seized the moment for a little bathroom exploration, so when I was done tending to Lydia, I was greeting with this sight:

Thus, Lydia’s ‘first bath’ milestone was also my first ‘toilet paper off the roll’ milestone of motherhood. Alethea was even so kind as to tear some of it up into little bits, just to make the moment unforgettable!

She must really have felt bad about it though, because she even sat still and let me take her picture afterward:

Thank you, my sweet Alethea, for making Lydia’s first bath one to remember!

Two Kids

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Elise

I’m finding that having two children means I have more things to blog about and less time to do the blogging. Other than not having free time anymore, everything here is going well though. Lydia continues to be an easy baby and generally a good sleeper, only waking up for 2 or 3 feeding a night, so that’s a plus. Alethea adores her sister and seems to have already forgotten that she ever was an only child. Thus, our adjustment from one to two seems to be going as well as we possibly could have hoped.

It sounds like Lydia is going to wake up from her morning nap, so my free time is about gone for the moment, but since this is neither a long nor terribly interesting post, I’ll leave you with a cute video of Alethea that my mom took when she was at their house last week. Alethea Margaret reads a book…

Portraits

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Elise

This morning was our big trip to Target Portrait studio for Lydia’s newborn pictures. I had high hopes leading up to the appointment. Alethea’s newborn pictures from Target turned out really great. The photographer used some creative poses and took a ton of pictures and we ended up having so many favorites that we just ordered the photo CD so that we could have them all! Not so with Lydia’s pictures. After waiting for half an hour past our appointment time (which is crazy since they open at 10am and we booked the 10:10 time slot), we ended up with a photographer who was clearly in a rush and only took 16 pictures (and that’s if you count the two where she got her hand in the foreground!)

What a bummer to spend all morning getting two kids plus ourselves photo ready and not end up with a decent shot of Lydia and Alethea or any pictures of me and Lydia or Peter and Lydia. Basically we just ended up with a couple good ones of Lydia, but it seems to me it doesn’t take a lot of skill to get nice pictures of a cute and happy little baby girl when you have a professional studio at your disposal.

Sigh… sorry for venting…

I did ease some of my frustration by coming home and taking a bazillion pictures of Lydia. Wanna see a couple?

And because this week has been busy, I finally got my 2 Weeks shot:

I’m sorry, Sweet Girl, that there won’t be as many newborn studio pictures around as there are of your sister. I promise you it’s not because we love you any less. Blame Target, not Mommy, okay?

One Week (Plus a Day)

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Elise

(Disclaimer: I totally stole the following picture idea from my friend Keity. Every month she takes a photo of her daughter with the same stuffed animal so that they can see how much her baby has grown. Unfortunately, her daughter is younger than Alethea, so I didn’t get to steal this idea for her, but now that Lydia is here, I am going to do the same thing.)

On to my post…

Yesterday was Lydia’s one week birthday. Happy birthday, Baby Girl!

My Sweet Girl, most of your first week was spent sleeping, eating, pooping and then sleeping some more. You pretty much slept all day long, every day. Nights were a little bit more hit or miss. For some reason several nights you objected to sleeping between the hours of 1:00 and 4:00am. Your father and I are a bit mystified by this, but are hoping that we can help you develop a more awake during the day/asleep at night kind of schedule soon.

Other than making a massive number of dirty diapers (I’d forgotten how many diapers newborns go through!) your biggest accomplishments were: 1) getting back to your birth weight plus two ounces in only five days, 2) losing your umbilical cord and 3) fitting in so well with our family that we already are having a hard time remembering what life was like before you got here.

Welcome to the family, Baby Lydia! We’re so glad you’ve arrived!

Good Day, Bad Night

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Elise

Yesterday was my first day being at home alone with both kids. I was sort of dreading it, but really it wasn’t bad. Lydia slept and ate on queue all morning, Alethea was in a good mood and a friend from church came to sit on our couch while Alethea took her nap and I took Lydia to her first appointment with the pediatrician in the afternoon.

The appointment went well. Turns out Lydia is already two ounces over her birth weight! That combined with the fact that she has great color, is feeding well and I’m a second time around mom, means we aren’t scheduled to be back at the doctor’s office until her 2 month check-up. So nice not to have more appointments than necessary!

Going to bed last night, I was pretty pumped. We had a great day and with Lydia’s sleep track record I was hoping for a decent night’s sleep. No dice…

I was up from 12:45-5:30am with a child who refused to go to sleep. She wasn’t too fussy, but she didn’t want to be put down, and she wouldn’t go to sleep for anything. I finally was so exhausted, I had to put her down, so I went in the basement to keep her from waking up Alethea with the crying that was sure to follow the being put down. Fortunately, she was so exhausted that the crying was actually short lived (thank goodness she’s not as stubborn as Alethea was at that age!)

This morning I resolved that Lydia must learn to go to sleep on her own, in her bassinet, even if it involves a little crying, but since it’s hard to let her cry even a little bit at night, I thought I’d start with naps. Wouldn’t you know it, she went down on her own without a peep every single time today and just slept and slept! But half an hour after Alethea went to bed, Lydia decided to wake up crying! Do you think she knows?!?!?!

Not sure what kind of a night we’re in for tonight, so I should probably get to bed while I can. Say a prayer for me!

Lots of Pictures

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Elise

Lydia loves to sleep. Sometimes we stop and check to see if she is still breathing, because she’ll not move for hours. I’m still expecting her to come out of her post-delivery coma and not want to sleep anymore, so I am trying to soak up every moment of holding a snugly sleeping baby that I can:

Sometimes when she’s sleeping, Lydia makes the funniest faces. I call this one ‘Daddy, I want a pony!’

Another cute thing Lydia does is sleep with one arm up by her face. It looks like she’s striking a pose, doesn’t it?

Of course, we all enjoy the moments when Lydia is actually awake. Today Alethea got to ‘hold’ her sister again and later she was very sweet and gave Lydia a hug, car seat and all.

Today at church, everyone said Lydia looks so much like Alethea. They certainly have the same mouth, but I think they look very different from each other.

What do you think?

Home at Last

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Elise

Peter picked Lydia and me up from the hospital and brought us home this afternoon. Alethea (who was being watched by Gramma and Aunt Leah) was thrilled to see me walk in the door and seemed a little surprised, but pleased that I’d brought the baby with me.

Just a few other observations from the day:

I found out Lydia has dimples! She ‘smiled’ in her sleep and I saw one on each cheek. I’m glad, dimples are so cute!

Alethea has been very sweet to her sister today, giving hugs and kisses and saying ‘gentle’ every time she goes to touch Lydia. I can see though that she is struggling a little bit with all the change, since she’s been testing the boundaries more than normal. She also screamed a few times, which is a new thing for her. It wasn’t directed at anyone in particular, but it was definitely a sound of frustration. We also had some tears when I left the room at bedtime, which isn’t entirely unheard of, but certainly not the norm. Over all though, I am extremely pleased with how well she is handling everything.

I mentioned to one of the nurses this morning that I had been scheduled to be induced, but that I had gone into labor on my own. She said it was probably a good thing because Wednesday night the ward was completely full, which means, it is quite likely they would have had to reschedule my induction. I know I would have been completely depressed if that had happened! Whew!

After having a bit of a rough night last night, Lydia has slept nearly all day long. I am wondering if that means we are in for another rough night, or if she’ll just keep sleeping. We’re about to find out because we’re all off to bed! Goodnight!

Sisters

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Elise

Mostly this post is about cute pictures of my little girls, but I just have to say while I’m thinking about it that Lydia currently has the coolest eyes you’ve ever seen. Today she opened them really big in the light and I saw that they are brown in the center and they fade out to a dark blue around the edges. I’ve never seen any eyes quite like them and they are so great! I don’t suppose there is much chance they’ll stay that way though. She’ll probably have all brown eyes, just like me, which is nice too.

So here are a few pictures from tonight of the first time Alethea (my blue eyed girl) got to “hold” Lydia (my blue/brown eyed girl).

Alethea thought it was important for Lydia to meet Dee

Turns out the baby has a nose, cheeks and eyes!

Sisters! Awwww!

An Update from the Hospital

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Elise

Elise here. Lydia Grace is sleeping right now and amazingly there aren’t any nurses in my room, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to write a post about our newest family member and her arrival into the world.

First off, I’d like to say thanks for all the prayers and words of encouragement. It was fun to read your comments on the blog while we were waiting for labor to progress yesterday. Speaking of labor, can I just say how much easier it was the second time around?!!?! I thought maybe I would try to do this one without drugs, but then after experiencing real contractions without an epidural for the first time, I decided that it was better for everyone involved if I just got the epidural after all. It did slow things down, which I was afraid it might, but then with a little pitocin things got moving again. At 1:08 they told me I could start pushing. They said they thought she’d come quickly. I said, “The last one took me three hours to push out. I’ll believe it when I see it.” At 1:15 our baby girl arrived in the world. Amazing!

For how much I was dreading labor, I have to say, it really wasn’t that bad the second time. And now I feel great! I’m actually more comfortable and mobile than I was at the end of my pregnancy! If it weren’t for the room service and free night time babysitting, I think I’d just check out of the hospital now.

But I know none of you stopped by today to hear about the delicious (or not) hospital food. You want to see baby pictures. Here’s one I took this morning:

Lydia has been a real champ. She’s feeding like a pro and sleeping great too. Our night did start out a little rough because she kept spitting up amniotic fluid and then choking. I was so afraid to fall asleep because I knew that after having been up for 40 hours straight, I was going to really be out once I did. After the fourth or fifth time getting up to help Lydia spit out the fluid, I sent her to the nursery so that she would be safe and I could get some rest. The nurses brought her back in the middle of the night so I could wake her up to feed her (which I didn’t do). Then we both slept until 5:30am when I did finally decide to wake her up so that I could to get some food into her stomach.

We had a relaxing morning together and then Peter and Alethea came by so we could spend some time as a family getting to know each other. Alethea likes ‘the baby’ and only seemed to get jealous of her when I was feeding Lydia. However, even wanting to be near her little sister hasn’t cured Alethea of her dislike of getting her picture taken:

Well, my lunch is here, so I’m going to eat, but I’ll write again (and post more pictures!) when I get a chance. If Lydia keeps sleeping so well, it might even be tonight!