My parents were visiting for the past two weeks, which was a fabulous treat for all of us. Ember had more hands to hold her, Kate had someone’s attention at all times, and I actually got to run errands without children! We are all very sad they had to leave. Kate is getting to an age where she is understanding who people are… and that they were here a few days ago and now are gone. I am sad that she gets such a brief time with her grandoarents, due to the distance, but it was really wonderful to see her getting to know them and her excitement every morning when she woke up and found them still here. Hopefully soon she will be able to hold conversations with them on pbone and skype.

My parents remarked on what a big difference they saw inEmber’s social behavior over the span of their visit. At 6 weeks old she was starting to smile a little bit but was still having those fussy awake times where it seemed even she didn’t know what she wanted. At 8 weeks today she is a very smily baby! She smiles pretty much any time someone looks at her. She maintains eye contact, follows people across the room, reacts to facial expressions and happy voices. She seems to especially like daddy’s voice.

She is also easier to keep happy now that she is interested in interaction and the world around her. She has discovered her hands in the past two weeks and spends long stretches of time staring at them and turning them this way and that. She also spends a lot of time trying to get her thumb in her mouth but thus far it remains frustratingly trapped in her fist. She does slobber all over her hands and fingers though. She has also just in the last couple days realized that she has feet and legs. In the bath she was kicking and pausing to feel the water reaction. Today I put white socks on her and she went nuts kicking her legs and staring at her feet as they moved. It is pretty funny.

One thing she does that isnt new nor do I think it’s a concious thing – she pulls her hair. Since she had long hair at birth (it’s about an inch and a half long) she can grab a fistful. It seems to be a comfort thing she does, grabbing at her ear and hair when she is tired. She has lost quite a bit of her hair just from rubbing and such, she has a balding ring like an old man, and sometimes I worry that she is going to yank out a bunch more! I can’t imagine it feels good to yank on your hair that hard, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

She’s now soending half the night in the rock and olay I bought used – it is great, a nice angle for sleeping but without scrunching her up like the bouncer and swing do. I didn’t think I would need it to rock but it is extremely helpful. She doesn’t have to be fully asleep when I put her down at night, just sleepy.. I rock her and she’s out. Then I get to sleep for a few hours on my own before she wakes up. She’s been waking a few times a night to nurse, but falls right back asleep. I do change her diaper though because she was leaking..  the kid pees a lot.

I took her to the dr the other day because she has what is apparently a granuloma on her belly button – a piece of tissue still attached. The dr applied silver nitrate so hopefully that will take care of it. Oh and she weighed in at 11lbs 1oz at 7 1/2 weeks old. She is definitely a solid baby!

This morning while the kids were quiet and mostly occupied I made some calls with my phone. I set it on the table when I was done. Soon after it was time for Kate’s nap, so I walked her to her room and put her in bed.

We watched TV for the couple hours that Kate as asleep. Usually I have my phone next to me, but I didn’t this time and didn’t bother getting up to grab it.

When Kate woke up I was in the middle of nursing Ember so I let her wait for a few minutes. I heard her talking in her room, then thumping on her door, and I heard a heavy thump of some object hitting the floor. Ember still wasn’t done yet so my dad got up and opened Kate’s door to let her out. She walked out… and held out my phone. How the hell did she get it in her room without me noticing? And when?? Did I seriously put her to bed while she held my phone in her hands? Jeez.

::

It is almost midnight. I am laying in bed typing this post on my phone while Ember nurses. (I am a great nursing multi-tasker.) Ember is fidgeting… I look down and in the glow from my screen I see two bright eyes staring up at me. Apparently I am distracting her from that sleep thing… though today has not held much sleep for her to start with. Guess it is time to turn off the screen and try to convince her to close her eyes.

Last week after a long night of several wake-ups by both kids I was exhausted by morning. Ember fell asleep in the swing so I cuddled with Kate on the couch while she watched her TV shows. I really love that she does that now, it’s so comfy and sweet to wrap my arms around her and doze off while she tells me what is going on. (“Run! Fast! Up and down!”) She wasn’t very tired that particular morning, just chilling with me, but I fell asleep. I woke up when her show ended and she had discovered that the drawer to my filing cabinet was unlocked. Now I can only assume what other kids would do with that kind of knowledge, but it brings to mind images of mayhem. My kid? Had taken out all of the spare pens from the top drawer and lined them up on the floor. I watched her for a while as she carefully put them side by side. She did try drawing in a book but I said “No-no” and she stopped. Then she put the pens all back in the drawer where she found them, shut the drawer, and moved on to playing with her books. I have an odd child.

::

Kate has discovered the word “No!” in a whole other context. She’s been saying no for a while, but only in response to questions. “Do you want a banana?” “No….” Always polite. Always informative. Unfortunately now she has grasped its use as an exclamation – a statement of rebellion! “It’s time for bed.” “NO!” But then most of the time she usually ignores what she just said and goes along with me anyways. It’s actually kind of funny to watch her trying to stake out her independence and throw down the gauntlet with all the defiance she can muster. It’s not much. (Yet.)

Another way she is asserting herself is by throwing things. I know the throwing is developmental and normal, but it’s her repeatedly saying “No throwing!” while doing it that has me puzzled. Does she misunderstand what that means? Is she making a statement that she knows what I want her to do and she is going to do the opposite anyways? I just don’t know. Either way she is very chipper about the whole thing.

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There’s a little local beach at a lake near here and today some mommy friends were going to be there with their kids. I decided to stop over there briefly to let Kate play in the water. What a mistake! First I got stuck in construction traffic both on the way there and the way home, and Ember was fussy so she ended up screaming hysterically while we were stuck not moving for over 10 minutes. And then we get there and I wondered what on earth I was thinking going to the beach with a 1 month old? Yes there was a sun umbrella and she hung out on a blanket for a bit, but it was hot and she was fussy. And then of course Kate wanted me to go in the water with her. She wanted to go swimming, but of course she cannot swim on her own, even with her floatie swimsuit. The older kids were holding her hand and helping her out at least.

But then the worst thing of all: SAND. Why I forget this every year I don’t know. I hate sand. Hate. It gets on your blankets, it sticks to your body. And that’s even without taking into consideration the toddler that wants to go in the water, tromp through the sand, and then stomp over your blanket and touch you all over. Sand. Everywhere. I didn’t even bother attempting to put Kate back in clothes when we left, just put a diaper on her and threw her in the truck. Ugh.

I had tried to plan out the best course of action for when we got home and I realized that there was no way around it, I had to give Kate a shower before putting her down for a nap… which meant Ember had to just sit tight for a couple minutes, even though she was pretty upset. I guess that’s one of those second-child problems…. sometimes they just have to wait their turn. Once Kate was clean and had something to drink I then was able to deal with Ember. Thankfully she loves baths! I put her in the baby bath tub – the one Kate hated as a baby – and that did a lot to calm her down. Then I got her dressed and nursed her… oh the magic of boobies, I keep saying it.

The bonus was that I had two sleeping children for an hour.

::

My parents are visiting, which is fabulous. Kate is thrilled to have an audience all day long, and I feel like I have a second pair of hands. I am not spending much time on the computer while they are here though! I’m trying to think of fun things to do but with the temperature in the 90’s every day no one is too keen on leaving the air conditioned house with two small children.

Ember has been fighting sleep pretty bad all day – I suspect a bit of tummy troubles, since she wants to comfort nurse all day long but doesn’t seem to want the milk (fusses and spits it out during letdown). Instead of just passing out at bedtime she was yet again nursing and I, being bored, was trying to read some stuff on my phone. Unfortunately this kiddo is light-sensitive at night. Kate, as long as she was up next to me, would sleep through anything; I believe I used my laptop in bed on a few occasions, Kate asleep on my chest or snuggled up against my arm or leg. Ember is nosy. If it’s dark she’ll fall asleep. If I have a small light on, say from my phone, then her eyes keep popping open to stare at it. Even when she’s sound asleep she’ll start stirring. I’ve hid under the covers to read at night, yes I have. But then I can get her to sleep and then leave her there and come use my computer – something I could never do with Kate!

As I was laying there in the dark, done nursing, I rested my forehead against Embers and rubbed the back of her head until she fell asleep. I was thinking about how unsettled I’ve been by this very different relationship I have with Ember, but it occurred to me that it was just that – a relationship, a two-way street. Kate and I needed each other. She was my anchor against anxiety after loss, my distrust in the tangible. And I was her anchor in this big new world, calming her and organizing her brain and emotions. Now I believe that it was in large part just her personality, her genetics, just as much as my anxiety existed from the start… but I’m sure we fed into each other. Hearing her frantic screams at being put down certainly did not make me feel any better about ever letting her go; my avoidance of putting her down to sleep probably didn’t help her learn to sleep on her own. It took us a long time to adapt and adjust, to take small steps to individuality. I feel that she and I functioned as a unit for a very long time.

Ember and I have a much more relaxed, mellow relationship. She seems so much more secure with herself in this outside world, inquisitive and accepting without needing a lot of help. And I am 4 years down the road from my loss of Devin, 2 years into parenting Kate… I am much more confident in myself as a mother to a living child. And I’m sure that we are feeding off of each other, too.

Sometimes I feel guilty that I am not “doing enough,” but I keep reminding myself that my parenting philosophy has always been to listen to the child. I’m not doing it “wrong” if my child is happy, even if it feels kind of bizarre. My goal are happy, well-adjusted children… and so far that has worked out pretty darn well for me.

So somehow Ember is 1 month old. How did that happen?

I have been quiet because I’ve been struggling a little to adjust to how different it is the second time around. With Kate I was just so enthralled to have a living child. I had a lot of anxiety when I wasn’t holding her so I held her pretty much all the time. I’ve mentioned before, too, how my love for her grows as she does, falling in love with who she is and all the things she does – it’s amazing and overwhelming. Now I have another little person who is mine, but I don’t know who she is yet. I love her, I want to protect her and take care of her, but I don’t know her. I’ve spent a lot of time the past few weeks just staring at her face, wondering who she’s going to be, wondering what kind of personality she’s going to have. I’m okay with putting her down to sleep and with other people holding her, I don’t have that anxiety that I did with Kate. I suppose this is far more “normal,” but it feels weird to me considering how different it is from my last experience.

Kate was a high-needs baby and she very quickly became attached to us in particular, crying when other people held her (because they held her “wrong” according to her rulebook), screaming when put down, needing to be worn and held and cuddled and nursed. It was stressful, yes, but it was also very rewarding, knowing that she needed me, that I was her mommy and only I could make everything okay again. Ember is a far more mellow baby and just doesn’t need me in that same desperate way. I can put her down and she sleeps fine, I can pass her off and she doesn’t mind. For a little while I felt a bit at a loss, especially coming from her NICU stay where I didn’t really feel like a mom to a newborn at all. (But then I do have the boobs, and while they may not recognize people they most certainly recognize boobs!)

She’s starting to smile and coo now, and that really sparked something in me. I know her preferences now, and I start to see hints at her personality and who she is. She is definitely so very different from Kate, and I think that’s a good thing. I look forward to falling in love with all the pieces of her as they are revealed.

::

One major way Ember differs from infant Kate is her sleep preferences. They are the same in that neither one cared to be swaddled, but Ember actually likes being on her back. Kate was a tummy sleeper – I didn’t let her unsupervised, but it was clear that’s what she wanted. She slept on her belly on our chests, she slept on her belly on her playmat, and at night she slept on her side belly-to-belly with me (or is that belly-to-boob?). She hated being on her back, even in a bathtub, or playtime on the floor, and especially to sleep. If you held her in a cradle hold in your arms she would get upset. (That was the mistake most people made.) She wanted to be held against your chest. So of course my instinct is to hold Ember the same way. Many times I have been trying to soothe and cuddle her against my chest, rocking in the chair or walking her around, and she keeps turning her head side to side fitfully and whining. I get perplexed, of course, and start wondering if it is her diaper, or a gas bubble? But then she slides down to the crook of my arm, resting on her back, face-up… and she immediately relaxes and falls asleep. After that happens I just kind of stare at her in shock and then have to mentally shake myself: she is not Kate!

She continues to sleep in the bouncer, but we recently tried the papasan swing and oh. my. word. The girl LOVES it. 3 hour naps. No fussing at all, no whimpers, no jostling her to sleep and gingerly setting her down. Whenever I think she’s sleepy I make sure she has a clean diaper and is nursed, I strap her in and zonk, she’s out. Middle of the living room, Kate playing (and crashing and yelling) all around. Ember is a happy little girl in there.

At night I am trying to move her into her cosleeper after she’s asleep, but that has varying degrees of success. One night she slept 4 hours, another 3, but some nights she won’t sleep longer than an hour… and it gets progressively worse as the night continues. I know she prefers movement of some sort, whether it’s sleeping on me on the rocking chair, in the car, in the swing, or the vibration of the bouncer chair. I don’t really want to sleep on the couch in the living room with her in the swing, so I just keep trying with the cosleeper. She invariably ends up sleeping in my bed in my arms. But here’s where that whole “unexpected” thing comes into play: she pushes me away from her. Kate always wanted me as close as possible – she wanted to be on me, or in my arms, or pressed up against my side. When she was older and I’d try shuffling away from her at night she would shuffle right up against me every time. This will clearly not be my problem with Ember. After she nurses she turns her head and fidgets for a little bit. Then she starts pushing with her arms trying to roll onto her back. When this started I would sit up to try to figure out what was bothering her, only to have Ember throw her arms over her head, sigh happily, and fall fast asleep. So now every night after the cosleeper has been tried and Ember is happily asleep on my side of the bed I end up squashed in the middle against Denis, afraid to move and unable to roll over or stretch out. Ember slept a 5 hour stretch last night. I did not.

In the car as long as she’s not hungry or wet/dirty she just falls asleep. She doesn’t care a whole lot for the car seat, so she’ll fuss when I put her in it (so I try to wait until right as we’re leaving), but soon as the car is moving she’s out. If she’s deeply asleep we can bring her inside and let her continue sleeping, but once she’s awake and realizes she’s not in the car and isn’t moving she is unhappy and wants out of the carseat. Den doesn’t mind carrying the carseat around but it is heavy even without taking into consideration a 10lb baby inside it. Once it’s just me with the two kids I really doubt I’ll be lugging it anywhere unless I specifically want the carseat for something. I’ve been using my ring sling a lot, she is happy to sleep in that and it’s easy to get her in and out of. I have a k’tan carrier I bought this time but I have to admit I am not a huge fan of it. It’s okay, but I should have purchased a smaller size; even though the small fits me I prefer to carry higher and tighter.

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.

I realized I haven’t posted any new pictures since Ember came home from the hospital. So here you go! It’s amazing how much they change in the first few weeks.

When I run out of disposable diapers for Kate and decide that she’s already had 2 poops today so it’s safe to put her in a cloth diaper for a few hours, what are the chances she’ll have a third, increasingly massive poop? Pretty good in this house.

::

Kate still has a habit of taking her shoes off when she’s in the carseat or the stroller. The other day she removed them while hanging out in the stroller, so we just didn’t bother putting them back on. Halfway home in the car Kate just out of nowhere bursts out crying and says, “Shoes!!!”

::

Kate is putting words together a lot now, and repeats pretty much anything you say. She pointed at some weird stuffed animal in a book and said, “a-dog!” I looked at it and said, “It’s a cat… I think.” She repeated, “A-cat I-think!” And yes, she puts “a” at the front of just about every word.

A common phrase around here, when she slings her purse (or mine) over her shoulder, is “Bye-bye! See soon!” as she walks down the hall. It makes me laugh every time.

She’s also getting a better understanding of how things work. She asked for milk and I told her she had no more. She said to me, “Mo’ maak! [More milk!] Over dere! In da fridge!” And she pointed clearly at the kitchen as if to say Duh, mom, just go get more!

She’s also been acting things out, such as hopping around the living room saying, “Fwog! [Frog!] Wibbit! Hop! Hop!” She’s really loving fingerplays right now, asking for “Spider” (Itsy Bitsy Spider) and patty cake over and over again.

She is saying a lot less random toddler babble, I noticed. She talks just as much, but now it’s pretty much all attempted english. She talks slower now because she’s trying to get the words right, she purses her lips and frowns a little when she is trying to speak clearly to me. A lot of what I do is guessing based on context. Sometimes I get really stumped, like when we were watching Sesame Street today and she was saying what sounded like pumpkin but there was absolutely no pumpkin anywhere in the house or on TV… until 60 seconds later when Abby Cadabby made a pumpkin magically appear. That’s what of those “She watches too much TV” moments.

Also, they really weren’t kidding – once they start stringing words together they just never stop.

Ember is 2 weeks old though she seems so much older to me! I don’t know why, I really thought I’d be all “aahhhh, tiny newborn!” compared to my toddler, but instead I just keep staring at her and thinking how big and awake she seems for only 2 weeks old. Maybe it’s because she’s bigger than Kate was as a newborn, maybe it’s something about her personality, or maybe my memory is just not all that good. Not sure.

She’s certainly an easier baby than Kate was. I’m still stunned than I can put her down at all, it may take me a while to get used to that. No wonder people looked at me like I was crazy when talking about Kate’s personality as an infant, if they had a baby like Ember that they could put down for naps I certainly would have sounded off my nut. I do have to wait until she’s asleep before I put her down, but she’ll semi-rouse and then sigh and go back to sleep. I don’t even turn on the vibrate on the bouncer. Last night she slept 5 hours in the cosleeper after we finally got her to fall asleep (it was a long evening of fussing). Even awake I can put her down on the boppy or floor mat and she kicks her legs and grunts and looks around at everything.

Unfortunately she’s been having more tummy troubles, which I fully blame on my overactive letdown. She’s sucking in a lot of air while nursing, and by the end of a very short nursing session (they are usually max 5 minutes long) she’s kicking her feet and scrunching up her face and I have to hold her upright for a while and pat her back until she lets out some huge burps. The problem is that when she’s upset for some reason – diaper, woke up prematurely, sore belly – she wants to nurse. But if she continues to nurse she gets a sore belly, which makes her very unhappy. So I end up with a crying, rooting baby who wants to nurse to calm down, but that just makes it worse! Yesterday I got her to take a Tommy Tippee pacifier for a little while, which calmed her down, but she normally refuses any pacififers. This has us at a bit of a loss, especially when I had to go out for a couple hours without her. She had already nursed and didn’t want more milk, so she wasn’t too fond of the bottle Denis gave her, but she was cranky and cried almost the entire time until I got home with my boobs! Poor kiddo… and poor daddy.

Kate is still being pretty good but is acting out here and there. It’s still just an extension of what she’s been doing before, the throwing and hitting while laughing, looking for attention, looking for a reaction. It gets more difficult when there is a small baby in the house, however. Poor Ember is going to have to be a tough kid, she’s already gotten inadvertently shoved a few times by big sis, not to mention the times that Kate is trying to be nice giving kisses but doesn’t do it all too gently. Ember will just scrunch up her face and let out a squawk of indignation, and then just goes back to whatever she’s doing. I think watching Kate like a hawk and supervising every single interaction they have is the most tiring part of having two kids. The waking at night, getting up early, giving attention to two… those are all fine. It’s having to stay on guard the entire time I’m nursing Ember, constantly saying, “Kate, gentle!” and watching my toddler walk off with my nursing pad/water bottle/lunch for the tenth time while I can’t get up that is getting to me.

Mostly I think I’m just waiting for a routine to settle in. Ember has been getting very sleepy at around 8 or 9pm and though I do nothing different at that time than any other nap she tends to fall asleep and not want to rouse except to nurse and go back to sleep, so I think that’s going to end up being her bedtime. Which works out great for me because Kate goes to bed at 9, which means we then have the evening to ourselves! I did not expect that to happen, especially not this early! Of course yesterday did not happen like that, she was fussy and crying until midnight. The morning is just up for grabs… some mornings she’s up with the sun, but if we had a bad night then she’ll fall back asleep in my arms for hours. She is often taking a nap the same time as Kate does, which again is very nice! The downside of that however is that then both girls are awake at the same time, both wanting/needing me.

But more than that I think I just need a bit more time to get used to juggling them and figuring out how to handle it. I’m doing fine for a few hour stretches, but I still haven’t attempted to bring both girls out in public. Taking just the baby? Easy peasy! I either carry her, wear her, or put her in the stroller asleep. She’s been awesome – much easier than chasing a toddler down the aisles. (Which is precisely why I’m nervous to take them both out together, lol.)

Well one thing is clear: Ember is a very different baby than Kate! I fall into the habit of thinking in terms of extremes, so in my mind I was wondering if this baby was going to be a really easy-going laid back baby or maybe a colicky baby. She is of course neither but is somewhere in the middle… just a different middle than Kate was. Ember is noisy. She grunts, squeaks, growls, whines, and of course cries. She really doesn’t scream at all so far, though she definitely scrunches up her face and kicks her legs and cries when something is wrong. She just works up to it with a lot of other sounds. She seems kind of fussy to me thus far, and I know part of that is gassiness from my overactive letdown/oversupply. She also is a frequent pooper… combined with the cluster feeding she does when awake that leads to a lot of diaper changes; she’ll be awake for an hour and nurse and need diaper changes about 3 times. So she’ll be happy nursing and then laying in my arms, but then I need to burp her. She loves sitting up to burp, I hold one hand under her chest with her slumped over and pat her back with my other hand. I swear she will just zone out and even fall asleep like that. But then she’ll rouse a few minutes later grunting and growling and I have to go through everything to figure out what it is this time. (I don’t think it’s reflux, for what it’s worth. She’s randomly fussy but sleeps just fine when laying down. And I can get her calmed down with some burping, changing and/or nursing.)

Like I said, she’s cluster feeding. She does nurse quite well, but she only wants little snacks during the day. She’ll sleep for 2-3 hours, but then nurse four times in an hour. Granted I don’t know how much of that is hunger and how much of that is “I’m pissed you just stripped me down and changed my diaper, I want a booby to calm down!” She took a paci in the hospital, grudgingly, but ever since she got home she has refused them. In fact when we try cajoling her with a paci she gives us the most disgusted look ever. She’s already found her hands and sucks on them a lot, but not enough to calm her down entirely. She’s definitely a booby baby. She’s a great nurser and other than sensitive nipples for the first week and the pain of engorgement I have had no problems at all. With Kate I was in serious pain for a good 3 weeks, as she had a small mouth and very strong suck needs – she squashed my nipples flat and they hurt so bad! This one is much gentler on me. Both girls were very fast nursers, though, and I think that’s my oversupply. They don’t need long to get a full feed.

Ember’s sleep seems much different from Kate, too. Ember is not sleeping as much or as long – I remember Kate was just always sleeping for the first few weeks, she was an exceedingly sleepy baby and only woke up to be changed and nurse and would pass right out again in my arms. However Ember is okay with being put down. Yes! I can put this baby down! She’s taking daytime naps in the bouncer (which is inside the pack’n’play, so Kate can’t just grab her), and spends the first stretch at night swaddled in the cosleeper next to my bed. The other half of the night she’s in bed with me because I really like my sleep and that’s the best way to get it. But even sleeping in my arms she’s waking up at 5:30 in the morning! Yes she goes back down eventually, but she’ll just lay there wide-eyed staring at the window for quite some time. During the day, too… when she wakes up she stares at everything and does not want to be cuddled into a little ball against my chest (she growls when I try it).

It’s good that I am able to put her down, because as much as I love cuddling sleeping babies (and I LOVE it), I really enjoy being able to cuddle Kate, too. We are doing our best to give Kate a ton of attention. So even when I’m breastfeeding I’m talking to Kate, asking her questions, watching her jump. Den is home too so he spends a lot of time getting food for her, changing her, and of course playing with her. He’s clearly the fun guy. :) She still needs her mama, though. The other night she had a nightmare or something and was calling out for mama. Den got up but brought her in to our bed for a hug. Kate has been doing really really good. Like super good. She has not shown any issue with me holding and nursing the baby very frequently. She loves the baby and checks on her first thing in the morning to make sure she’s still here. She loves to sit next to me on the couch and pet the baby, and now she loves holding the baby too. I hold on too, of course, but she opens her arms wide and gently holds her little sister while watching TV, leaning down to give a kiss or two. It is the sweetest damn thing ever. The hardest part is that Kate is still just 2 and she doesn’t understand how rough she can be – she likes to jump on the couch, give huge dive-hugs to me, and she’s still experimenting with hitting and throwing. None of it is malicious but she just doesn’t understand. So we keep repeating “Gentle!” and showing her how to touch nicely and at times when she’s repeatedly not listening we put her in time out before we lose our patience. The hard line for me is trying to keep her from being too rough on the baby without constantly correcting her and making the baby seem like a bad thing in her mind. I definitely try to keep it all very positive and happy. Kate gets a ton of positive attention when she’s being gentle.

Ember has been home a week tonight and I’m feeling really good about everything in general. It was a little strange at first, not being new to having a baby but not knowing this particular baby at all. I’m getting more of a feel for her moods and needs now and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. I’ve spent a few hours alone with both girls, and that went fine. I’m still intimidated by the idea of taking both out of the house in public, but I took them to my SIL’s without an issue (other than Kate tantruming the entire way home for some unknown reason). As long as it’s a safe place like someone’s house or yard where Kate is okay not to be watched every second then it’s fine. But what I’m not sure about is when it’s not a closed location and I have to nurse or change a diaper. Kate is pretty good, but she’s still a toddler who doesn’t always listen! I can wear Ember, and I have done so twice now on test runs, but I can’t be climbing playground equipment!

As for me I’m pretty much feeling fine now. The first week I was sore and had to take it easy, but now I feel pretty much normal. My belly has shrunk a ton, I’ve lost 19 of the 36 pounds I put on, I have energy and I’m very pleased that I can now bend over without a basketball squashing me. Moodwise I’m even fine, which is weird because I remember crying off and on for a few weeks after I had Kate, hormones going a little crazy. This time I just feel pretty mellow and happy that my girls are home with me.