Two kids - a new normal

Caroline is almost a month old. This month has been great. She is really a pretty easy baby. I also think that it is easier the second time around. As a second time mom I do not stress about as many things as I did with Katherine.

Having two kids means that we are adjusting to a "new normal" around our house. I do not like to stay home and getting out is more challenging with two than with one. It has not stopped me, it is just more challenging. I felt bad last week when a car was waiting for my parking spot at the mall. I had my huge sit and stand double stroller loaded with both girls and all the gear needed for a day at the mall. I had the very closest parking spot and a minivan decided they wanted it when I left. It took me at least 5 minutes to unload everything and get everyone buckled in. I have not yet dared to take both kids on a grocery store run. That will be a challenge.

Katherine is having to adjust to a "new normal" as well. Katherine is doing a pretty good job adjusting to being a big sister. Every morning when she wakes up the first thing she says is, "Where is my baby sister?" We always take her into our bedroom where Caroline is sleeping in our bed so that she can see her baby sister. You can see that this often causes problems as she wants to touch Caroline and often wakes her up in the morning.
She always wants to help out. Her job is to hand me a wipe and a clean diaper when it is time for a diaper change. She has also decided that it is up to her to make sure Caroline has a blanket and toys at all times as well as a pacifier in her mouth. It is really sweet but as you can imagine Katherine's help is not always welcomed by Caroline.
Overall Katherine has done really well but there have been plenty of challenging situations as well. She is used to having all of my attention and now my attention is divided. That is hard for a two year old to understand. Nap time and bedtime are always difficult as well. We are having more potty accidents but so far it has not seemed intentional on her part. I think it is more due to the fact that I am not reminding her or taking her to the bathroom as often because my attention is divided.

I love having sisters. Katherine tells Caroline over and over that she loves her very, very much. She tells me all the time about all of the things that she is going to teach Caroline to do when she gets bigger. She asks me if she used to do the same things that Caroline did when she was a baby. It is so fun to see her loving and enjoying her baby sister so much.

The "new normal" may be challenging and frustrating at times but it is so worth it.

This post is a part of a group writing project at Mamablogga. Check it out to join in if you like.

Sleeping 9 to 5

Last night Caroline slept from 9pm to 5 am. That is 8 hours folks! unfortunately I did not get 8 hours of sleep since I was up watching the Olympics and on the computer until midnight but I did get 5 hours of sleep. She went back to sleep from 5:30 to 8 am so I was able to finish my sleep. Life is good. I hope she keeps it up.

First Bottle

Katherine never took a bottle. Technically she took three bottles but for all practical purposes she was not a bottle baby. I was very committed to breastfeeding and so I followed the suggestion in breastfeeding books by not introducing a bottle until 6 weeks. I think that we waited too long. Couple that with the fact that we (and especially Sam) could not stand to see Katherine cry, we were not too persistent or successful with bottles.Of course this really affected my first year and especially my first 6 months with Katherine. Because she did not take a bottle, I basically could not be away from her for more than 2-3 hours because she would need to eat. That was very restricting on my lifestyle! Once she started to eat solids things got a little easier but I still was pretty tied down. Don't get me wrong, I knew this was a choice I made and I would not change it.
Well, that is not totally true. With Caroline I am trying to change one aspect of our nursing/feeding relationship. If at all possible I plan for her to take a bottle. Our pediatrician said that she would introduce the bottle at 4 weeks instead of 6 weeks. So, yesterday we gave Caroline her first bottle. I actually was the one that gave it to her and she took it with no problems. Tonight she took a bottle from Sam easily as well. There will not be any reasons to leave her for long periods of time for awhile, but we need to be diligent to give her a bottle at least every 2-3 days. Hopefully she will continue to take the bottle and not boycott it later like her cousin Sophia did.

Sailboats

Today Katherine threw a fit in the car on the way home from playing at the mall with friends. It was because I would not take her on a sailboat on the ocean right now. Hmmmm there was no way I could give her that. I am not sure how she got fixated on the idea of sailing except that her outfit had sailboats on it.

I decided that since we could not go sailing on the ocean we would make our own sailboat and our own ocean so when she woke up from her nap I had it all ready. I had put a blue blanket on the den floor to be the ocean. I had cut a brown paper bag into "sails" and put them on a "mast". She decorated the sails with finger paint and then we attached it to her boat, a box. She thought it was great fun. Luckily, Caroline slept through it all so Katherine and I were able to have a fun afternoon playing pretend. She thought it was great.

Katherine sayings

Katherine is a funny girl who loves to talk ALL. THE. TIME. She is constantly cracking me up both by the funny things and by the fact that she imitates what we say but sometimes in the wrong context. Here are some of the funny things she has done and said in the past few week.

"I want my 'mote" - said after we told her that she could watch TV in 5 minutes. She wanted her remote to turn it on now.

"Mommy, I want to see the thunder." - said during a thunderstorm. She knew that whatever made that loud noise must be cool. This was the week after we saw fireworks.

"Let's get in the car" - We told her we were going to have a smoothie after dinner. She wanted to get in the car to go get it. We were planning to make them at home.

"Mommy, I go peepee by myself. You wait right here."
"Do you want me to come help?"
"No Thanks."
-Sure enough she did the entire thing all by herself, including dumping the contents of the little potty into the big potty and rinsing it out with water!

I love it when she is sweet. Tonight after playing outside she asked if she could have a snack. I gave her a package of Goldfish. 5 minutes later she came up to me and said, "mommy, thank you for the goldfish you gave me".

"Mommy, baby sister is hungry. She wants to drink your milk."

"When I's a baby did I . . ."

"Daddy, you have a monster in your ear, eat it!"

"I want fresh juice." Said after I took her sippy cup out of the fridge. It had juice in it from the morning and she wanted new, fresh juice.

"Something bad happened. I have a bug bite. Medicine helps it, or my new tooth brush." She has a new toothbrush that sings.

"Mommy, let me see your belly button. Your belly button is clean, Daddy's belly button is dirty." Really I don't think Sam's belly button is dirty. More likely his tummy is just hairy!

"Mommy, I hungry. My tummy needs food!"

"Baby sister doesn't have teeth yet. She can't eat food."

8-8-08 "Mommy, when I grow up I be a pwincess like when you grow up you be a pwincess too." Funny since we really don't have many books or movies about princesses. It is just a given that all little girls want to be a princess I guess.

8-8-08 "I need to eat babies. I hungry."

8-8-08 "I need money right now mommy!" Said after I got my change from Sonic.

8-8-08 "You not have Dr. Pepper mommy. Only have water." Pretty convicting when your 2 year old tells you that you need to drink water, not Dr. Pepper as you are in line at Sonic for Happy Hour drinks.

8-10-08 Nana: "Katherine, that is a pretty new dress. Where did you get it?"
Katherine: "In my closet."

8-11-08 Sam: "Katherine, do you know where raisins come from?"
Katherine: "Yes, the box."

8-11-08 "I eat a bugger from my nose." Icky!

Train up a child

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6

As parents we have a lot of responsibility. It is scary sometimes. One responsibility is to teach our children about God and His ways, trusting that at some point they will have a personal relationship with Him by their own decision.

I realize that in some areas I have dropped the ball. Katherine is so verbal and sharp. In the past month I have realized that she has a great memory as she is reciting songs and nursery rhymes. Yesterday she said all of "Jack and Jill" and we had only been reading that story for a week. She is a sponge. I realized that I have not even started to work on scripture memory with her. I have thought about it before but now that she seems to be memorizing so many other things I know she is capable. Here are 2 cute videos of Katherine showing off her great memory. (If you read this in a reader or email, you may have to go to the blog to see the video.)





I am at a loss though with how to even start. I have one music CD that is kids Bible memory but Katherine does not really like it. I have a book with note cards but that seems a little boring and over her head. Since she memorized about 8 nursery rhymes in less than a week by reading a book with fun pictures, I think that would be a great way to do Scripture memory. All of the kids Bible's we have though are just paraphrases and not the entire verses.

We also need to start some kind of family devotion or more structured Bible time. We read from her toddler Bible but I know there are so many other things out there.

So, what works for you? Have any of you found a way that works in helping your kids to learn Bible verses? Either something you have bought or something you have done. I would love to hear your ideas. Have you found any good family devotionals that are geared toward toddlers or preschoolers?

Monsters

Katherine has recently started talking about monsters a lot. I have no idea where she has picked up on monsters and being scared. Honestly the only exposure to monsters that she has had in my presence has been the Sesame Street monsters of Elmo, Zoe, Abby, Cookie Monster, etc. I think that these monsters are pretty cute, friendly and fun. Somehow though she knows that monsters are supposed to be scary.

If we had watched Monsters, Inc. or even read Where the Wild Things Are, I could understand that she would get this but I have no idea where she has learned that monsters are scary. Maybe it was at Mother's Day Out. There are older kids in her class and she has come home with a few other things she has learned from kids there.

Sometimes talking about monsters is a fun game. She tells me that they are in my ear and I need to eat them. Sometimes we have the tickle monster. Sometimes she hides and is scared of monsters. Yesterday in the car she was hiding under her blanket and said she was hiding from a monster. I told her that we should pray that God would make her not scared of the monsters and that they would go away. She did not want to pray but a few minutes later, on her own, this is what I heard.

"Dear Jesus, help the monsters go away so I not be scared anymore. Amen"

I know that monsters are pretend but they may be real and scary to her. I want her to know that she can go to God and ask him for anything. It was sweet to hear this prayer.

Another night last week Katherine woke up crying. When Sam went in she said that she had a scary dream. So far all of her dreams have been about the ABC's and they are dancing (I think she watches too much Sesame Street). She could not tell him what this dream was about but she was certainly scared.

I know that being scared of monsters and having nightmares is a normal developmental phase. I just hope that I handle it well. How do you handle your scared toddlers?

California comes to Texas!

This weekend my brother and his family came in to town from California to meet Caroline. We had a lot of fun hanging out, introducing Caroline and watching Katherine and Sophia play.

Uncle Will and Caroline

Sunday we went to my parents country club. We grew up going there in the summer to swim so it was fun taking the girls. They just finished a spay ground. Sophia and Katherine loved it.

Sophia was more aggressive than Katherine with the water. She had a ball.

Uncle Will enjoyed the spray ground too.

Daddy lifts Katherine into the "mushroom" sprinkler.

Katherine and Sophia in their matching outfits.

On Monday we went to story time at Barnes and Noble. Afterwards, Sophia and Katherine walked around the store holding hands. Sophia is 12 months younger than Katherine but she is at the top of the growth charts whereas Katherine is at the bottom so they are almost the same size. It was so fun this visit because they are now old enough that the one year difference does not seem as much as it has every other visit. They were able to play and interact with one another.
Notice the difference in coloring. Katherine looks pretty pale compared to Sophia's California tan.
After story time we went to the mall playground for some physical activity. It was tooooo hot to play outside. They both enjoyed climbing on the animal.
Monday night everyone came over to our house for dinner. The girls started first and look so grown up eating at the big table. They enjoyed playing the piano. It reminded me of when Will and I used to play duets.
This is the best picture of all three girls. You can see that 2 of the 3 are not happy. It is not easy to get a 2.5 year old, 1.5 year old and a newborn to all be happy and looking at the camera.

Cousins!

At the last minute we had a family get together with most of Sam's family. Grammy and Grandad had Ty and Nathan at their house for a few days and were bringing them back. I happened to have a Dr. appointment in that part of town so we all got together for lunch and some cousin time.

Grandad with all the cousins (but Caroline)

Carissa meets Caroline

All 6 cousins - there are some funny faces

Grammy and Caroline

A year ago

One year ago today we were on the plane headed to Oslo Norway for our 14 week adventure living abroad. That day of travel was long and tough! It is hard to believe it was a whole year ago. In some ways it seems like we just left but then so much has happened since we returned - new job, new baby!

At the airport with all of our luggage

It was a really great experience for us and I am so glad we went. We recommend taking such an opportunity if it ever presents itself to any of our friends. You really learn a lot about a country and a culture by living there instead of just visiting there. For us we also felt that we grew closer as a family because we were together so much and did not have the same distractions competing for time that we do at home.

I made some great friends while in Oslo. I told Sam today that when I think of that time I often get sad because I realize that we may never go back there and I may never see the friends that I made there. I hope that is not the case but you never know. I almost have a funny sense of homesickness.

Friday's Random Blog

I have a few random things for today.

First of all, it is summer and it is hot. We have all read about the tragic deaths of children who are left, usually by accident in a car. Two years ago, while Sam and I were watching the American Inventor on TV, we had an idea for a product that would help prevent this kind of accident from happening. We did not tell anyone about it but we did not make it either. Well, someone else did. In fact, the Child Minder is pretty much exactly what we had in mind. There is a sensor that you put under the pad of your child seat and then it has a partner on your key chain. If there is a baby in the carseat and the key chain travels more than 15 feet from the carseat than a reminder alarm sounds. Dang it, we got beat to the punch on this invention. What do you think about it? On one message board it was criticized a lot. On another blog I read an interesting take on the fact that parents can forget their children in a car, especially when a routine has changed like a different parent taking the child to day care. Didn't Mary and Joseph lose Jesus for 3 days? If the parents of GOD could have a miscommunication or forgetful episode, how much more could I?Second piece of randomness. A few posts ago I had photos of Caroline, some on a colorful blanket that I crocheted. Many of you commented on how impressed you were at my skills. Well, here is a photo of the blanket. Are you still impressed? Notice how the sides are not straight and it is not finished, thus the ball of yarn hanging off one end. I was just very strategic in how I wrapped it around Caroline to get the photo.Third, do you remember my new beautiful bathroom? Well, after reading how Holly has started to shower with Bree to save time and make things easier, I started having Katherine shower with me. While I am washing my hair, etc., she is playing with her letters and crayons until it is her turn to soap up. Doesn't my bathroom look lovely now?

7+ hours

Caroline fell asleep at about 3 today while I was at the computer. At about 3:30 I put her down on our bed and I stayed in the bedroom working. It is currently 10pm and she is still asleep in the same place. Because I put her on her tummy, one of us has been in the bedroom or checking in frequently all night. She sleeps better on her tummy but current recommendations are "back to sleep, tummy to play" due to SIDS. I know that we were all raised on our tummies and are just fine. So is an almost 3 week old supposed to sleep for 7 hour stretches? I am not complaining though I sure with it was from midnight - 7 am rather than 3-10 pm. Who knows what the rest of the night will be like.

A Super Day!

Wednesday was a great day by myself with both girls. We joined some friends for a free kids movie and saw Veggie Tales Jonah. Caroline slept through the entire thing and Katherine sat in her seat and was very well behaved. She even shared her popcorn with me. After the movie Sundee and I took Reece and Katherine to Chick-Fil-A. When we got home, Katherine amazingly went down for a nap an hour earlier than usual. Caroline, slept pretty much all day so I was not too positive about how things would go at night. I was sure she would be ready for a party. It took some effort to get her to sleep but then she only woke up once between 11 and 8 so I will take that.

Katherine and I had a lot of fun. Amazingly Caroline was asleep on the floor of the den while we played with blocks, animals, read books and had a tickle war. I have some great videos of Katherine spinning around and singing but I am having quite a time getting them posted so I will save them for another day.Today Katherine was so sweet to Caroline. I was busy trying to get breakfast ready and Katherine's bag ready for school. Caroline was on the floor crying. When I went to check on her Katherine was sitting on the floor reading her books and telling her that it was OK. She had also gone to get her bunny to make her feel better. Seeing Katherine being such a compassionate big sister really warms my heart.

Daddy's Little Girl

Sam is a great daddy for little girls. He loves to snuggle. One thing he was looking forward to about having a newborn again was when they fall asleep on your chest. Here are some pictures of Caroline sleeping on Sam. Her favorite place to sleep is not her bed, the pack and play or swing but in any one's arms. We all too often oblige her but sometimes we try to multitask. Daddy likes to try to work on the computer while she is sleeping on him. Please ignore the messy office. It actually is much improved since these photos were taken.


Here is a little awake time. Every day she is waking up a little bit more. It is fun unless that awake time is when we want to be asleep.

Much Improved Day!

Thanks for all of the encouraging comments on yesterday's post.

Today was much better. Katherine went to Mother's Day Out. Nana and I hung out. Today we decided to run errands. I made a list of all the places I needed to go, mainly to return or exchange things and then we set out. We went to the post office, Target, Sam's, Pottery Barn, Wild About Harry's (for lunch), A friends house to drop something off, Hobby Lobby, Target and then to my dad's office. Caroline slept through the entire thing. At two of the stops Nana stayed in the car with Caroline and she came in to the rest. Not only did I feel very productive but I was proud that I did all of that with a baby. I have not run that many errands with Katherine in a long time. It was fun to go to Pop's office to introduce Caroline to all of my co-workers (I work up there a little too). After the office I introduced Nana to Bubble Tea at Fat Straws.

When we got home, Nana and Katherine had a snack, played with animals and then Nana got Katherine down for a nap. That changes the entire tone of the day. She woke up in a great mood. We ate dinner, went for a walk as a family and had smoothies while watching Diego before bed.

I know that there will be good days and there will be bad days. I am thankful that today was good!

The easy one

Today was my first day on my own with two kids. Sam returned to work. I decided to take the day head on and get out of the house. For our first outing I did take it easy though, no running errands at Target or anything like that. I went to Janna's house so Katherine could play with Robert and Laurie Jane. That was easy enough and other than Katherine scratching Robert and refusing to clean up toys the day was uneventful. Caroline slept a little, ate a little and was awake and happy a little.

When we got home it was time for a nap. Yikes, how do I get Katherine down for a nap and take care of Caroline? With Sam home we would typically divide and conquer. Caroline was happy so I read to Katherine and snuggled up with her. She seemed to be headed toward sleep when I heard Caroline crying so I went to feed her. A few minutes later Katherine was out of her room and finding me. So, I put Caroline down (she was not happy about this) and went back to Katherine's room to try to get her asleep. Needless to say, it did not go well. Caroline fell asleep in her crib for almost 3 hours but Katherine never did fall asleep. The rest of the afternoon went downhill. Katherine was whiny, clingy and grumpy. She was not the only grumpy one by the time dad got home from work.

So, today the newborn was the easy one and the toddler kicked my tail.

So, for those of you with 2 kids, any suggestions on how to get that toddler to take their nap when you are caring for your baby? Katherine is in a big girl bed so there is no leaving her there. She can get out.

Licky and the monsters

Katherine is doing some funny things lately.

One is "Licky". Lately when we ask her if she will give us a kiss, she replies that she will give us a "licky". This is literally sticking out her tongue to lick our face. Here are some pictures of her trying (and succeeding) in giving me a licky. When Sam asked her if he could give her a licky she replied, "no daddy, that's gross".
Katherine has also started talking about monsters. We are trying to make it fun and not scary by reminding her that Elmo and the rest of the Sesame Street gang are monsters and that they are not scary. She tells us that there are monsters in our ear. A blue one in the right and a red one in the left. How do we get rid of them? We eat them. Another monster is the tickle monster. It lives under Daddy's baseball cap and when he takes his hat off, he turns into a tickle monster. The tickle monster is green and there are also purple ones. The pink monster is the one that sings.