A memorable and productive week!

Our week started out with a spur of the moment decision on Monday morning to attend a local Memorial Day parade. So we packed everyone and everything up and headed out for Kate's first big adventure (besides church) and Anna's second parade. Kate did great, though she crashed after she ate ... too much stimulation for a baby, I guess :) Anna also did great. She LOVED all the balloons, flags, music, fire trucks, cars, clowns, etc. However, about an hour was all she could handle; by that point she was slumped against me sucking her thumb. So we cut out early, had lunch at McDonald's (Daddy's choice) and went home for naps.

Tuesday morning was my trial run for being at home alone with the girls; it went surprisingly well, but we'll definitely have some adjustments to make.

My mom came on Tuesday afternoon just before both Kate and Anna woke up from naps and then she stuck around until Friday to help out. I can't believe how much work we got done this past week! I won't go through the whole list, mainly because I can't remember it all, but a few of the highlights included cleaning, making rhubarb jam, mowing the lawn, making a bunch of freezer meals that I can just heat up in the future, and just playing around with the kids.

Here's a few photos of Anna helping with the rhubarb jam. She not only got to help pick the rhubarb with Grandma, but she also helped clean it, measure it out, and then pour it in the pot. What a good helper!


Kate seems to be adjusting fairly well to "life on the outside". Each day feels a little bit better and each evening has also gotten progressively calmer for her. It's hard to believe that she's only two weeks old; she seems so alert and attentive to the world around her already!



We're definitely aware that Kate is going to grow up in a much different world than Anna did in her early days and weeks. She certainly doesn't get as much one on one attention from us, but also hears a toddler's running commentary about the world around her.



Here's a picture of Kate in our wonderful "baby tent". She often has a good time just hanging out and absorbing the world around her in this handy contraption. I'm sure we'll continue to use it for a good portion of the summer :)




Next week will certainly be an interesting one for me, the first one just us girls. I'm sure we'll continue to have lots of transitions in the days and weeks to come, but this coming week will probably include most of the biggest ones.

Family

We realized yesterday that we hadn't yet gotten a good picture of the four of us and thought that church today would give us the perfect opportunity; we'd all be dressed up AND there'd be plenty of people around to take the picture! (FYI, I uploaded the picture at full size for anyone who wanted a copy.)


Surprisingly we managed to get to church early enough to deal with the 5-10 minutes of well-wishers on our way into the sanctuary (people at our church LOVE kids and they're all pretty much our second family so we figured it would take us a long time this morning). We all survived the service surprisingly well with Daddy taking "Anna duty" and Mommy taking "Kate duty". By the way, the matching dresses were a hit (thanks, Grandma!)

Our transitions are going fairly well as a family, with me having moments of "this can work" and other moments of "what did we get ourselves into?!". Hopefully the workable moments come more frequently.

Much to our dismay, Matt is going back to work on Tuesday; he has some training that would be really helpful for him to attend. My mom is coming down at about 3 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon so I'll get a trial run of what life may be like in the future. She's then going to stick around until Friday to help out and remind me to rest :) Hopefully, Matt will be able to take more FMLA time later this summer ... we'll just have to wait and see!

Terrifically Typical (almost) Twos

It's become very obvious to us that Anna is almost two years old. There are definitely huge advantages to this, as well as some interesting challenges.

First the good ... Anna is full of energy these days. She loves to run from place to place and is trying her hardest to jump, although she can't quite make it off the ground yet. She loves to investigate anything and everything, sometimes spending long periods of time watching bugs or taking apart and putting back together toys (sound like her Daddy?). She's picking up language like a sponge. It's really hard for us to remember that just a few short months ago Anna was only starting to repeat words. Now she doesn't really say anything that isn't a complete sentence.

Not only is Anna a parrot with what she says, but how she says it. She's gotten very adept at saying "Shadow, get down!" in a nice, commanding voice, when she sees Shadow up on a counter.

Also, Anna's developing a really silly sense of humor. For example, this morning she was getting dressed for church and kept saying "Daddy wear strawberry dress" and then giggling up a storm. Fun times.



Here's a very silly picture of her after she got to have some chocolate ice cream. Goofy kid!


Now the challenges ... We experienced our first all out public temper tantrum last week. Anna and I had our first special outting since Kate was born on Thursday afternoon. We got to go to the flower store and then to the grocery store to pick up some ice cream for Daddy. Anna really wanted to walk in the parking lot by herself, but our rule is that she must hold a hand. Well ... I got a lot of "Anna do it!" screams until she sat down, then lay down, on the asphalt in the handicapped space kicking and screaming. It took 5 minutes to get to the van, another 5 minutes to get her buckled in the van, and then she proceeded to scream and throw a tantrum the rest of the way home. Whew! So much for our special outting.

"Anna do it!" is definitely a favorite phrase right now; it just takes a lot of patience on our part to be there to help if she asks, but let her try when she wants. We're working on teaching her the phrase "I CAN do it." for when she gets frustrated with what she's trying. Sometimes it works :)

Kate's personality

We've already learned a few things about Kate's personality in her first week of life.


First of all, like her big sister Anna, she is definitely a "non-nutritive sucker" (for those of you who know parent lingo). In her first few days of life she was literally trying to suck air, to the point of swallowing enough air to make her wake up screaming with gas pains. So, we were not hesitant to introduce a pacifier ... she loves it ... very soothing. Maybe she'll find her hands/fingers/thumb like Anna did, too.

Secondly, Kate loves being outside. She has taken at least one nap outside almost every day of her life and thoroughly enjoys being in her "baby tent" while the rest of the family hangs out around her. Anna likes to come over, pull the musical toy in the tent, and then "set it down for Baby Kate" (in Anna's own words) so that it doesn't swing down and bonk baby Kate in the head.

Thirdly, big babies are STRONG! Holy cow! In terms of Kate's feeding and sleeping characteristics, she's probably at the point Anna was when Anna was about 6-8 weeks old (probably when Anna weighed close to 9 pounds).

What a little sweatheart we've added to our family!

Sisters

Anna seems to be taking to Kate (and all of the transitions so far) pretty well and I can already tell that Kate is enamoured with Anna. Anna likes to ask about baby Kate whenever she gets home with Daddy or when she wakes up. She's also pretty concerned when Kate cries (which can get pretty loud during diaper changes). Anna had to keep running into Kate's room to check on her while Matt was changing her diaper yesterday evening. She'd tell me "see baby Kate", run in there, and then come back to play with me.

We have tried not to push Anna with touching and holding Kate, just kind of letting Anna take the lead. One morning Anna mimicked Matt by stroking Kate's arm on her own initiative. She likes to bring Kate toys to look at or to lie down next to her on the floor. We have to watch them pretty closely, though, because Anna has NO sense of where her body is; Kate's already had a foot to the head :)

This morning I asked Anna if she'd like to hold Kate and she said "yeah" in her sweet voice. So here are the first, much anticipated pictures of Anna holding baby Kate.



I must say that after spending time with a newborn instead of a toddler over the weekend, I was shocked at how active and talkative Anna seems. She never stops moving or talking!

Okay ... baby calls ... enjoy the updates and pictures!

The adventure begins!

Things have been going surprisingly smoothly so far in our little family. Matt has been absolutely wonderful in doing everything so that I can tend to little Kate and get some rest. He even took Anna to the grocery store and music class on Monday morning and then to play group yesterday morning ... what a great Daddy! Now he's taking Anna for a bike ride to a park ... boy, was she excited about that!

Kate and I went to see Dr. Shearer on Monday for her 48 hour check. She was down to 8 lbs. 5 oz., which is completely within the range of normal, and was otherwise doing just fine. The outting pretty much wore me out, though, and I needed to crash for most of the afternoon.

A couple of things have made our transition home go extra smoothly. First, our church sets up meals three times a week for about a month after a baby is born so we've already had two tasty dinners dropped off. It's SO nice not having to think about food for the family!

Secondly, we've had a few days of gorgeous weather. That means that in the afternoon we can just go outside and hang out together. Yesterday Anna played in the sandbox with Matt while Kate ate and then watched the leaves.

And finally, Kate seems to be a pretty good sleeper (within reason). Each night so far she's had a couple hour feisty period, but otherwise sleeps really soundly for several hours at a stretch. Monday night was the hardest because her fussy time was between midnight and 3 a.m., but Sunday night and last night she was down for good by around 11 p.m. and only woke up once until 7 a.m. That didn't happen for months with Anna! Unfortunately, Mommy still doesn't sleep quite so soundly, but I'm sure that will come soon :)

Going home on Sunday?!

Some of the nurses commented on Saturday night that we may be able to go home on Sunday after Kate's 24 hour check instead of waiting until Monday morning. This really appealed to us since everything seemed to be going well and we were anxious to get home and start life here.

I got the okay from my doctor on Sunday morning and the nurses kept telling me that things were going well. Only the pediatrician was a little hesitant. His requirement was that if things continued to go well on Sunday, then he'd sign us out as long as we promised to have a check-up with our pediatrician sometime on Monday.


That got the ball rolling! Matt, Anna, Grandma and Grandpa came back for a bit on Sunday morning. Anna seemed to be right at home milling around in the hospital room, but still without too much interest in baby Kate. After the family left, I got to have a couple of nice naps plus a tasty lunch before I needed to fill out all of the paperwork necessary to go home.

We got the final 24 hour checks right at 4 p.m., Matt and Anna came to get me around 4:30 and we were home eating dinner by 5:30 ... yikes!

We were all ready to crash early, except for Kate. Once she finally got settled, though, she slept pretty well the remainder of the night.