It’s not that I haven’t had time to write, it’s more than I choose to spend my free time watching TV (since if Kate is awake we rarely even bother trying to watch our shows, can’t hear anything over her constant babble!), am usually holding a baby, and sometimes take a nap.

Ember is nearly 4 weeks old now and is still such a funny, weird personality, but at least I’m figuring her out a little bit. She grunts and growls and fusses a lot, and the reason for it can be any number of things. She is not nearly as black and white as Kate was, and is harder to figure out what she actually wants at any given time. I’ve realized that sometimes she just wants to be put down – it’s such a bizarre thing to me! But she likes her floor time, kicking and waving her arms around and staring at the ceiling fan and windows. Unfortunately with a 25lb toddler running around I can’t just put her down whenever she wants it. The past couple days she’s been fussier than usual, nursing constantly – a growth spurt, perhaps. She also is less content being put down to sleep, she keeps waking up and crying. Often she doesn’t even want to eat, she just wants a boob pillow to sleep on. But at least she has something that helps her feel calm! She still stubbornly feels that pacis are an insult and insists on gagging on them and screaming. I watched her use my breast as a pacifier and realized that she doesn’t like to suck nearly as much as Kate did (and still does!). Ember takes in very little of my nipple while comfort-nursing, and just kind of “kisses” me more than sucking. So I’m thinking the paci shape is just totally not her deal.

Normally she likes to sleep in the bouncer seat for naps and after trying several other options I realized she prefers it for night time, too. I tried swaddling and while I could convince her to tolerate it she didn’t sleep any better or longer than without it. She clearly does prefer to sleep with her arms free and her hands up by her face and she’d wake up by struggling to get her arms up just as often as she wakes from her startle reflex when not swaddled. I do bring her into bed with me in the middle of the night when I’m too tired to wait for her to nurse and fall asleep so I can move her back to her bed, but it’s more from my laziness than what she needs. Her sleeping next to me definitely helps her sleep longer in the mornings, though, which I highly, highly appreciate! She had a week or so of waking at 5am every morning and I have to say I will NEVER like early mornings. Now she’s sleeping in until we get up with Kate.

Kate continues to be so great! She’s still 2 years old and being frustrating in some ways, but when it comes to the baby she’s a fantastic big sister. She often climbs up on the couch next to me and holds out her arms and says, “Hold baby?” I still hold on to Ember, but lay her across Kate’s lap so Kate can put her arms around the baby. She’ll sit like that for some time watching TV but of course, 2 year old attention spans being what they are, it doesn’t take long before she’s pushing Ember away and climbing down to do something else. I’ve been talking a lot to Kate about what other people are doing and if they are happy/sad… I’m trying to instill some awareness of other peoples’ feelings. So now when she hears Ember crying she says, “Baby crying? Baby sad?” I don’t think she gets the concept yet, but it’s a start. I also underscore how people feel when Kate is acting up… if she hits me I tell her that it hurts mama, we don’t hit. Unfortunately she only partially understands because when she sees any hitting on TV she shouts “No hit!!” and then runs over and hits me. So still some work to do there.

One of the more annoying things Kate is doing is the eating thing. Feeding a 2 year old is such a challenge. She’s decided she no longer likes any fruit at all. Will pick them up and say “Yucky” and put it down. She doesn’t like the texture. Trying to convince her to try it only starts a fit. So she now gets all her fruit in smoothie form, which totally works. But other foods are just plain annoying. Sandwiches, for example. She likes them. She likes ham, she likes cheese, she likes chicken. But off her a bit of your sandwich and she first says, “No!” But after a while she’ll take fake bites and kind of lick it. (Yeah… I love it when she does that to my sandwich. Awesome.) And my gut reaction was to take the sandwich away, if she’s just going to fool around with it and not eat it. However if I don’t really say anything and let her keep the sandwich (or whatever it is) I’ve noticed she will sometimes progress to taking a bite or two. And then she realizes that she actually does like it and will eat a bunch of it. Just getting her to take that first bite and actually swallow is so drawn out and annoying!

I’ve gone out a couple times with both girls and while it’s a bit of juggling it can be done as long as I have a safe place to nurse and change Ember without Kate running off somewhere. But Den is still off work so mostly if we’re going somewhere with both girls there’s both of us going which works just fine. Ember has been great in my ring sling, she sleeps pretty good in it and it’s the quickest carrier I have in terms of getting the kiddo in and out. I have a k’tan I bought recently and it’s okay but it still doesn’t feel as secure and easy as the ringsling… plus it’s not adjustable. I like being able to tighten my carriers if I need to, and apparently I like to carry very high up, so even with the size small I feel like the k’tan is too loose, though Ember is okay with it.

Complicating matters, however, is the fact that my SUV needs some major repairs. It has a gas leak, a bunch of other leaks, and who knows what else but I know it’s not driving right at all. It’s 10 years old and almost 100k miles so now we’re waiting for Friday to find out how much it’s going to cost and if it’s worth putting that much into it. But we can’t really afford a second vehicle payment right now, we really need the SUV to last another 4-ish years until I get done with my degree and get a job. So fingers crossed it won’t be a ridiculous repair bill… but I’m bracing myself for the worst.