You Are Two

Dear Avonlea,

It's official: you are TWO years old. We celebrated on your actual birthday, which was on a Saturday this year, with a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party and your best friends.

I am amazed that you are two. It seemed like your first year was so long, and this year, time just flew by. I think it was faster because I was pregnant through a lot of it, but also because you are so much busier now!

You have grown by leaps and bounds this year. I look at pictures of you from April of last year, and look at you today, and it's just amazing to think of how much has changed. At this time last year, you were just barely walking. In fact, you took your first steps about 6 days after your first birthday, so you weren't really even walking at this time. In the picture on the left, we were at a farm a few days after your birthday, and I had to hold your hands to help you walk anywhere.

And NOW...well, now you are a champion walker and runner and climber!  You frequently amaze me with all you are able to accomplish, and all the places you are able to get to.

You are so smart. You can count objects, you know your colors, you know all the Disney characters and all the superheroes. You are able to do puzzles of a higher difficulty--ones without "helps". You got this one for your birthday (http://www.amazon.com/Frozen-28871-Floor-Puzzles-46-Piece/dp/B00J9S2SH2), and you were able to put the characters' pieces together, which just amazed Mommy (and Aunt Sunni!).

You're definitely starting to test limits. We are working on teaching you what obedience is--how it pleases God, and how it helps Mommy and Daddy keep you safe. It's going to be a long battle to learn! You are independent and bold and STUBBORN, so this is a hard lesson to learn.

You are super independent--you can play on your own for long periods of time. You're starting to do imaginative play more and more--you like your Little People sets, and you'll often have them act things out together. You have a Little People Little Mermaid set, and you have them recreate scenes from the movie. You LOVE water. You could stay in the bath all night. I bought a hard-sided baby pool for you to play in when it is warm out--you could stay in it for HOURS.  The first day we had the pool, you stayed in it so long that the water got cold and your lips turned purple! We had to come inside and change your clothes and wrap you up in a bunch of blankets to try to get you warmed up!

Because you are so independent, we do have some trouble with you not being concerned about where Mommy and Daddy are--you'll often wander off in the park, or in a store (where they don't have kid-containers, I mean CARTS), and not have any care about where we are. You also have trouble with obedience, so when you wander off, or climb to the top of a play structure and Mommy asks you to come back or get down, you choose not to listen. We're having to implement more and more consequences!  Mommy is doing research on how to manage negative consequences with positive consequences...being a Mommy is hard work sometimes!

You have some great friends--Wyatt is the one we play with the most. You love to boss him around, poor kid! We are working on being kind. Bossy is okay, as long as you are being kind!

You have some trouble when friends your age come over to our house--you haven't figured out how to share your toys with your friends with grace. You love older kids--you are constantly watching them when we are in the park, and you're always trying to do what they do. You love hanging out with Lily Neal (who is 12).

A lot of people have asked how you are doing with a new sister in the house. The truth is, you are doing a lot better than I thought you were going to do. When I was pregnant and I would hold a baby, you did NOT like it. You whined and cried and pulled on my pants leg. Another mom friend said I was in for some trouble because of how you behaved. But since Aria's arrival, you have done really well. We have had some moments here and there (including once in the hospital and our first day home), but for the most part, you have done really well having a little one invade our home and take half of Mommy and Daddy's attention. We are working hard to make sure you still feel loved and secure, and you have done a good job being a helper for Mommy. You like to get the baby's diapers, and you like to give her hugs. You have wanted to hold her once or twice, but for the most part, you leave her alone--Miss Independent at it again.

LOVES:

* music

* Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

* watching movies

* bubbles

* balloons

* going to the zoo

* playing on the playground

* puzzles

* painting with a brush

* Nemo

* climbing up on things

* pointing out things in the car, or when we're out and about

* water

* stickers

* opening packages and presents

* running

* playing with whatever someone else is playing with

* grapes, hot dogs, guacamole, rice, pasta, corn on the cob, "cake" (aka muffins), milk, food pouches, M&Ms

* mimicking words and phrases (which means we have to be careful now!)

* doing whatever you like whenever you like

* swallowing your toothpaste instead of brushing your teeth with it

* Aunt Sunni's house

* Aunt Attey and Uncle Bubby (ESPECIALLY Uncle Bubby)

* hiking

* cracking eggs

* wearing bows

DISLIKES:

* having your hands dirty/sticky/sandy, etc.

* fingerpainting (see above)

* going to bed

* loud noises

* bubble wrap

* brushing your teeth

* going down the slide and getting static-y

* eating things with weird texture, or a texture you aren't expecting

* wearing any shoes other than your Elsa shoes (thankfully they are gym shoes)

* being told what to do

* wearing headbands *sniff*

* riding in the seat in a shopping cart

* getting out of the bath

We have been singing this song a lot lately--I love looking at you in the rear-view mirror when we sing it together in the car. You get this grin on your face, and it makes me grin, too. You are the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world to me. 

Love you bunches,

Mommy

This Child Is Your Child...

...this child is MY child.

It's amazing how, even at 20 (almost 21!) months, Avonlea has so many similar traits to Nick and I! It is so true (and a little scary) how they adopt some of our behaviors and attributes, even at a young age. It makes be feel a deep sense of responsibility to be sure I am modeling good behavior for her.

I've started keeping a list, and I thought it would be fun to see them written out.

How Avonlea is like Nick:

* blonde hair
* skinny
* wakes up SO easily!
* likes spicy food and guacamole
* only sleeps in her bed
* loves being outdoors
* likes going on car rides
* loves the water

How Avonlea is like Me:

* brown eyes
* sings all the time
* loves Disney movies
* likes pasta and milk
* reads all the time
* takes super long naps
* needs food and naps to stay in a good mood

How Avonlea resembles BOTH of us:

* loves technology
* tall
* loves friends and being around people

I look forward to seeing how she will differ from both Nick and I, and develop bits of her own personality.

8 Week Update

(Originally written on June 27, 2014)

So, I have had a few weeks to process the news of our pregnancy. How do I feel about it now?

Well, still shocked, actually. I'm not sure if I'll ever "get over" the news. It really was so completely unexpected. It took us 3.5 years to get pregnant with Avonlea--I never imagined we wouldn't have trouble again.  I am a little happier now--still not completely so, but not angry anymore, at least.

We had our 8-week appointment and ultrasound on Monday--steady little 140 bpm. Because of this, and the measurement (around 7mm), the doctor thinks I might be a week off of my calculations--which, wouldn't be surprising, since I had NO idea when I ovulated/had my period last. But, because the kid is still SO small, they aren't entirely sure (it's really easy to be off a millimeter doing an ultrasound). We'll wait another month, do another ultrasound, and get a better measurement.

So far, I've started to have nausea again (oh, yay), which only seems to be cured by constant eating of Mexican food.  I've also had shortness of breath (which I forgot to ask the doctor about...oops).

As it is, here we are at our appointment with....our little Biscuit!

Right now, we're looking at a February 1st due date, but I'll update that if it changes at all.

"What a Big Brain You Have!"

It really feels like one day I had a baby, who only observed and sat by as things happened around her or to her, and then the next day I had a little girl who interacts and develops more every day.

I keep meaning to write, but life just gets in the way. I need to stop apologizing for it, after all, I'm not making money on this blog--it's just for me. I keep documenting our lives in photos, so that's an important thing.

Avonlea just gets more and more interesting. It always surprises me whenever she exhibits some new skill, or shows me new things that she has learned.

I mean, she is pointing at things when we read!  I know it's something little, but it's just seeing those brain connections that didn't exist prior, and are now getting stronger and stronger.  I read a lot of books with her. She used to have no attention span whatsoever, and now she goes to the book box and picks a book out and brings it back to me to read. She'll sit on my lap, turn all the pages, and point to pictures as I ask her questions. She can identify "ball", "balloons", "zebra", "fish", "eyes", "mouth", "elephant", "Elmo", "Cookie", and "monkey". I love asking her, "Where is the monkey?" and waiting while she scans the page and then makes a quick point at the monkey on the page. Today, she gave me an additional highlight: when I asked her where the monkey was, before pointing to it, she said, "ooh ooh ooh!"

The other day, Nick was blowing bubbles inside, and just for fun I said, "Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere!" a line from one of Avonlea's favorite stories. She toddled away from the bubbles, over to the book box, and grabbed the bubble book and brought it back to me to read.

She's not saying too many identifiable phrases, but she talks all the time and uses lots of inflection when she speaks. You can tell she is asking for certain things. She loves to drink out of my water bottle, and loves to munch on whatever I am eating--she'll point at my bottle or my plate and say, "oissssh?" She's also good at saying goodbye when people are leaving. It's really funny to look up in the window and see the top of her little head and her eyes peeking over the ledge, with her little arm pumping up and down in a wave. :) She also loves to wave at Waldo in the window.

As she gets more independent, we're also dealing with more temperament and strong-willed issues. Tonight we had a particularly cranky fight about leaving her bib on while she eats. She's been trying to pull them off each meal (velcro--urgh), and I haven't been letting her. Well, tonight that really made her mad. She threw a fit, and kept fighting me on it, but I tried to be calm and collected but continue to stand my ground.  Nick observed and said I did a good job riding the storm, which was nice of him to notice.

Avonlea also loves to go places and do things by herself. She doesn't like to hold my hand--she likes to walk around by herself and explore things on her own. Today that meant finding her several steps into the kitchen in the Asian restaurant we were in. Thankfully the staff thought it was funny instead of annoying, but I have to keep a closer eye on her now.

She also likes to eat by herself. If I put any food in her mouth, even if it's something she likes, she will spit it into her hand and then put it into her mouth herself. She also takes spoons away from me to put things into her mouth herself. Basically I have to make sure that whatever is in the spoon won't fall out--I really only do avocado--otherwise I spear things with forks for her or mash them into a pouch or let her pick them up with her hands.

She's becoming crazy-obsessed with her stuffed Boo. She already loved Boo--but now, she wants to carry Boo wherever we go, and she is always asking for him. I think I'm going to have to put the kabosh on that--Boo is already a little worse for wear, and he hasn't left her bedroom (except when we traveled to Ohio).

She's also better at playing with her friends. I noticed her sharing with her friend Ava today, and while I know that won't always be the case, it was nice to see her interacting with kids around her own age, since she's been mostly ignoring them up until now.

She is starting to recognize humor. She laughs at videos of herself doing funny things, and at puppets doing silly dances. She also does things to make us laugh. She blows these amazing raspberries that always make us giggle.

I also love watching her figure things out. We have a shape sorter, and she'll try the shapes out in the different openings, trying to see which one it will go in. She'll manipulate the piece in multiple angles now, instead of just trying to force it in a certain hole without moving it around.

Easter was a great example of her burgeoning cognitive abilities. She totally "got" the Easter egg hunt idea!

I love watching her grow. It's to the point now where pictures don't do her justice. My memory card on my phone is filling up much quicker now, because I'm taking videos all the time!

On Turning One

We celebrated Avonlea's birthday yesterday. She turned one on Friday. It is really surreal to look back at this year and to see how much she has changed--and how much she has changed me.

Many people shed tears on the first birthday, but I didn't. To be honest, I am glad she is one. I am glad she is getting older. I really didn't do well with her as a baby. Many people pine for the babies, and say, "Oh, I wish my baby was teeny tiny again!" I might smile at those people, but on the inside, I am thinking, "You are crazy. Do you REMEMBER what it was like with a newborn baby?"

Babies are No. Fun. As a mom, you're sleep-deprived, you're totally confused as to what you should be doing, you're paralyzingly lonely while simultaneously surrounded by people wanting to help you, sometimes you're in extreme pain from surgery, other times in extreme pain from pushing a child through your lady bits. The kid you've waited so long for is all wrinkly and kinda deformed-looking. When you look back at baby pictures later, you think, "I really thought *that thing* was cute?" because honestly, 99.9% of newborns are uhg-ly.  And yes, mine is included in that. Avonlea had weird tufts of hair, and super skinny legs and arms, and terrible baby acne for the first several weeks that made strangers ask what was wrong with her.  I, of course, was so hopped up on drugs and natural love-inducing hormones that I thought she was the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen.

I took this kinda weird-looking newborn home, and spent the next 4 months trying to figure out why it wouldn't stop crying non-stop. Or throwing up non-stop. Or pooping out of these ridiculously expensive diapers that are meant to hold poop.  (I mean, seriously. It's the diaper's ONLY JOB. We can send people to the moon, but we can't figure out how to contain baby poop in a diaper? Someone figure this out already!)

All of this to say, I was thrilled when she grew out of her incessant crying. That shark was making me cray-cray. I was overjoyed when she figured out how to stop throwing up everything she ate. I breathed sighs of relief when she could hold her head up by herself, so I didn't feel like I was going to snap off her head all the time. I loved the day she could follow a toy around with her eyes, and then the day when I could sit her down under a play mat and do something without holding her for 10 minutes. The day that she sat up on her own, I had a dance party for myself. (No, really, I did. I danced to Disney music. It was great.)  When I realized she could go 3 hours between feedings instead of an hour and a half, I rejoiced.

Basically, she went from a baby I could barely tolerate, to a baby I could figure out and truly appreciate. Believe me, it's not that I didn't love my baby. It might sound that way, but that is not the case at all. I just don't do well in situations where I have no control--and having a newborn baby is precisely that kind of situation. So I didn't do well.

But over the last few months, we have really come into our own, and I am really enjoying her. And as she gets older, and starts to be able to communicate even more, it will just get better. I love the stage she is in right now, and I don't wish to go back at all.

Now, I might not want to go forward after this...but that's another blog. :)

Growing Up and Moving On

Four weeks ago, I couldn't breastfeed away from the house without it being a major production.

Avonlea was stuck using the nipple shield. I couldn't feed without using my Brest Friend, or a pillow. The thought of getting on a plane was terrifying. TERRIFYING, I tell you!

Thank God for His help. I mean, seriously.

We went to Ohio, and I was determined not to use the shield while we were there. Do you know how immensely frustrating that dumb thing is??  

First, it took a specific technique to get it on. Then, Avonlea has her hands in front of her face all the time, so she would hit it off. If I was lucky, it would land on my lap, but most of the time it went on the floor, so I would have to wash it (or, just blow on it to get the dog hair off--let's be real here, if the baby is screaming to eat, I'm just going to do whatever gets the job done the fastest).  She took forever to eat with it, because the milk doesn't come out fast enough. It was MESSY. The thing would leak down underneath and soak my bra (which would then soak the shirt I was wearing), and I'm thinking, "my precious liquid gold is soaking my cheap shirt!"  After she was done eating, I would have to clean her up and myself, and then wash the dumb shield.  More recently, I would also have to wash it again before using it, because it would cloud up and have some weird filmy substance on it. GRR. ARGH.

So, I determined not to use it. And the entire time I was in Ohio, we didn't use it once. I had them packed with me, just in case, and once I actually had it in my hand once during a feeding, but I never had to put it on, and I haven't used it since.  *cue Hallelujah Chorus*

It's amazing the things that Avonlea is learning and growing out of.  She only "feral cat cries" when she's crazy tired or crazy hungry now.  I don't need the Brest Friend to feed her (in fact, since coming back from Ohio, I have only used it twice).  I packed up all her newborn and 0-3month clothes. Today we moved from size 1 diapers to size 2.  And she is growing out of the swaddle, too. The first couple of days back from Ohio, she fought her way out of it repeatedly (but didn't sleep well).

Then today, she kept fussing during her nap, and I went in and undid the swaddle. I had a crazy need to go to the bathroom right then, so I left her in the pack-n-play, and she fell asleep with her arms out.

To be completely honest, I am so glad. Yes, I know I should be sad that she will never be super little again, and I should be sad I won't have my little newborn anymore.  And there's a small part of me that is sad (a very small part).  But that phase of her life was SO. HARD.  I didn't really enjoy much of it, and I'm glad we're moving on from it.  I love that she's reactive to me. I love that I understand all of her cues (or, at least most of them). I love that she's needing less and less "stuff" when she's sleeping. I love that I feel more on top of things, at least for the moment.  I'm not constantly worrying and questioning and fearing. I am feeling more confident, and that I am able to give Avonlea the best of me instead of what is left over.

1 Month Checkup

We went for our 1-month checkup today, and can I just take a step back and say, holy cow she's one month old already?  I really do feel like I just got her--it definitely does not seem like a month.

Here's her stats:
She weighs 9lbs, 5oz, and is in the 50th percentile.
She is 21 1/2" long, and is in the 75th percentile.
Her head is 15" in diameter, in the 90th percentile.

Because we had to go to the doctor last week for her eye infection (which the medicine has cleared up nicely), she was weighed last week--and hasn't gained any weight since then (she actually went down an ounce and a half).  The doctor is concerned as to why she hasn't gained any weight, so he wants to see us back in 2 weeks to make sure she is gaining weight. He wants to see at least a 10oz weight gain by next time.

Of course, this makes me worry about feeding. I am feeding her every 2 hours during the day (unless she takes one of her marathon naps), and every 4 hours at night. She seems to eat like a champ, but maybe she isn't, since she didn't gain any weight? The doctor said to watch her to make sure she is swallowing. I'm hoping that feeding her with the nipple shield isn't causing any trouble. She has a really hard time eating without it.

I don't need anything else to worry about!!