Week two with BerlinBaby

Berlin is a magical baby :)  She is so sweet and calm and snuggly.  I love rubbing my face against her soft hair and breathing in her new baby smell.  This week I kept on with the feeding schedule- every three hours, with a couple of cluster feedings in the evening to keep her extra full for bed.  I took extra care to make sure she stayed awake for a full feeding every time.  She still struggled with going down by herself, and I have had to comfort her several times before she would either fall asleep or we'd abandon the nap altogether and wait until after the next feeding.  I wasn't too aggressive with the schedule though, and just focused on good feedings and making sure she felt secure and didn't cry too long.  At this point, if she does need to be rocked or fed to sleep I don't stress about it.  She has already fallen nicely into a good day/night pattern, and will go to bed at 9, sleep for 5 hours (I always set my alarm to make sure she doesn't go more than 5 hours without eating at night), eats at 1:30am (which is 5 hours from the 8:30pm feeding), and sleeps for another 3 hours before her next feeding.  Sometimes I break my rule and keep her in bed after the second feeding so that I can wake up and see her face next to mine :)  I'll make sure not to make this a habit though so that she doesn't feel like she needs to be next to me to fall asleep.  She had her 2-week appointment today and weighed 8lbs 5oz, which is 55% and is 21inches, which is 77%

Olivia is still so great with her.  She loves to hold her and will go put Berlin's paci back in her mouth when she is in her swing and starts to cry.  She likes to include Berlin in her play, and will ask to have her in the tub with her or outside when she is playing in the yard.  As soon as Olivia comes downstairs in the morning, she will look around and ask "baby?" she likes to always know where she is.

We've had to start implementing a form of 'time outs' this week with Liv.  The terrible twos have made their debut.  I don't think it has so much to do with the new baby as just that Olivia is getting older and more headstrong.  When she does something naughty right after I have specifically asked her not to, I will sit her on a stool and explain to her that we don't do those things and ask her to please not do it again.  She has been very good to sit and listen and says "Okay.  Okay mom" (which melts my heart) and, most of the time, will not do it again (for a while at least).  She is such a sweetheart, she just has a lot of energy and knows what she wants and doesn't want.  I have tried to, at least once a day, sit down and hold her and sing with her, or read books, just tell her how important she is.  I think it is helping her not get so impatient with Berlin's endless feedings that take my time away from her.

Also, I know Liv is more than ready to potty train.  When I have a little more time and leeway to keep a sharp eye on her, we'll bring out the little potty.  Honestly, I think she is more ready than I am to be done with diapers.  Not that I enjoy changing her, but she absolutely hates getting her diaper changed. She hates having to hold still that long.  She had her 2-year appointment this morning and is weighing in at 31lbs and is 35.5 inches tall, tall, tall!

Happy Father's Day

to the guy who makes our world go round. I'm so happy he chose us.

 We celebrated by dropping the girls off at my mom's and having brunch at Sundance

Week One

Today was Berlin's due date, and she is 9 days old.  Our first week together was great.  We had a fantastic hospital experience and were able to escape from the world for two days to get to know our new little family member.  I rocked and kissed my new girl endlessly, ordered room service from the hospital several times a day, and fed my obsession for 90s romantic comedies.

Olivia took to Berlin extremely well.  She wanted to hold her right away and kept saying "mine!" because I told her that it was my baby, and dad's baby, and Livi's baby.  She loves to hold and kiss her, and likes to put Baby Berlin's paci in her mouth when she cries.

I knew that I wanted to implement a sleeping/feeding schedule with Berlin, but mostly took the first week to just settle in with her.  I did start with the feedings though and made sure she ate every 2 1/2- 3 hours.  She was a very sleepy girl, but for some reason would be awake for 2 1/2 hours during the night!  Usually between the hours of 2 and 6.  I studied Babywise  more fully and realized that, because she was so sleepy, she probably wasn't getting full meals every time; which, since I am breastfeeding, means 15-20 minutes on each side.  She would usually fall asleep and I would just let her nap.  So then I worked on keeping her awake for full feedings.  Last night she was able to sleep for 5 hours, wake up to get a full feeding, and then went back to sleep for another three.  I'm hoping she keeps this pattern.

The next problem, which started this week, (week two), is that Berlin doesn't like to go down for naps while she is still awake (she takes naps in her crib in her room and sleeps at night in a bassinet in my room).  She likes to be fed to sleep.  I'm trying to get a cycle going of feed/awake time/naptime so that she learns to self-soothe and be able to go down for naps and bed independently, without help of feeding.  I don't believe in crying it out while she is so young, so I'll rock her, swaddle her, then lay her down (sometimes with a binky), but end up having to go in and comfort her multiple times and sometimes she never ends up taking her nap before the next feeding!  Which is crazy for how sleepy she was previously.  It just shows how badly she hates not being fed/rocked to sleep.  Luckily we are starting early though and hopefully she can get into some good habits easily and sleep well.  I have also been reading The Baby Whisperer and am getting good tips there too.  If you have any advice that could help me in making her more comfortable taking naps and going down for bed by herself, send them my way!

Our Baby Girl

Oakley Berlin Austin was born last Tuesday morning. She arrived only two hours after we got to the hospital, with a full head of dark hair and dark, slate grey eyes.  Momma, Daddy, and Olivia are head over heels for her.

shared from FB

"We are sitting at lunch one day when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family." "We're taking a survey," she says half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.

"I know," she says, "no more sleep...ing in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations."

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes.

I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking, "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her.

That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop a soufflé or her best crystal without a moments hesitation.

the journey.

Having a child is one of those rare things where the end result actually is better than the journey.  The journey sucks.  The last part of the journey is one of the worst parts.  No matter how often you hear that you are "almost there," you do not feel better.  You want to be there now.  The light at the end of the tunnel comes at a very high and tiring price.  You get texts 20 times a day saying "Any baby yet?" and strangers in stores say "you look like you are ready to pop!" and "looks like any day now!"  Everyone is kind, and other mothers commiserate, but it doesn't change the fact that you feel like there's a feral hormone-leopard in you, hiding too close to the surface, wanting to latch onto the face of anyone who dares mention the fact that you are still, in fact, pregnant.

I know I sound ridiculous because I'm still only two days shy of 39 weeks, but when your first child is 19 days early, and your doctor says you'll have the baby by the 30th of May and it is now the 3rd of June, things go downhill real fast.  Expectations can be extremely hard to let go of.  It's like waiting for Christmas and then having it get pushed ahead a week at a time....  and if Christmas made you feel like your pelvis was broken in 3 places.

Also, my doctor is going out of town on Wednesday until Sunday.  If I knew that she wasn't going to come while he was gone I could relax a little, but now I'm worried I'll have to use a different doctor again!  He was out of town when Olivia was born and it was fine, we liked the on-call doctor, but I would really like my own doctor this time because I might be switching up the birth plan a little.

That's all.  That's my rant for today.  I'm going to go try accessing a Zen place for a few minutes and focusing on positive things and how none of this will matter when she's in my arms.

in the meantime, please enjoy this photo of Olivia channeling Adolf Hitler after she found a tube of my mascara.  Is that offensive?  If so, pretend I said Charlie Chaplin to begin with.

Two! Two! Two!

On Tuesday Olivia turned her favorite number, two.  Here's what we did to celebrate our sweet girl:

She had one of her favorite breakfasts, oatmeal with blueberries

 She and I took a long, warm shower together where we sat in the bottom of the shower and played dinosaurs.  She loves for me to hold her and sing while the water lands on her back.  She then warmed up in my bed and asked for her balloons.  She was obsessed with the Tigger and Pooh balloon.

 After getting dressed Dad came down and it was time to open presents!  Olivia knew exactly what to do.  She brought each of her three gifts over, tore the wrapping off, examined them, and then asked Dad to open the packaging.  

 waiting patiently (where did those cheeks come from?!  The rest of her is thinning out the older she gets, but luckily the chipmunk cheeks are staying put a while longer)

 She loved her Winnie the Pooh figurines, Snow White doll, and Toy Story toys.  Her favorite is Buzz.

 The three of us took a trip to Target where Olivia got to pick out another toy.  She ended up getting three small ones because they were only a couple bucks each

After her nap we went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch.  Lucky girl got her own slice of cheesecake! (Okay, so I ate half of it.)  She even knew to blow out the candle on top!  I caught the moment with my phone:

We then met up with Jack's sister, Pam, and her family at the Living Planet Aquarium

 Olivia LOVED it.  She ran around with her cousin (and one of her best friends) Zac and gave us all some decent exercise.  Her favorites included: the concrete frog you could climb on, jellyfish, and a fish called a chub that looked like you could find in any pond nearby.  She was brave and pet the small shark there, but when the stingray flipped it's fin at her she let out a war cry in self-defense.

It was a wonderful day.  We are so grateful for our fun, adventurous Livi and are excited to see what this second year brings out in her amazing personality.