kim through
   the looking glass

It’s funny. With Gwen, I found it so easy to carry her around everywhere in a ring sling or mei tai. With Gil, even wearing the mei tai was getting difficult! After attending a babywearing meeting last month, I was re-introduced to wraps - or simple pieces of cloth (SPOC). I tried out a friend’s Storchenwiege and was in LOVE with how comfy it was to carry Gil! I messaged her a few days later to ask her to send me some of the hot wrap deals on TheBabyWearer.com’s forums, since I am new to wraps and couldn’t wade through all the acronyms!

She promptly sent me a few wraps that were good deals and I hurried to get in touch with one lady who was selling a vintage Girasol wrap. I bought it a few days later and waited anxiously for it to be delivered! It came on Friday and is beautiful!

It’s so smooshy and soft and comfortable! What a difference a quality wrap makes for your back! I’ve yet to get uncomfortable wearing him in this!

And I figured out this weekend why it’s been so difficult to wear him and carry him around all day … my tub-a-lub is 18lbs! (Gwen was 17lbs 6oz at a year.) He’s wearing mostly 9-12 month clothes now, although the other day he wore an 18-month button-up shirt. The boy is a week shy of 4 months!

I know I ordered a chubby baby and all, but my goodness!

Gil was kind enough to wake only once overnight and allow me a good stretch of sleep last night! Thanks, son!

This morning we were all up by 7:00 and opted to head out for breakfast to a local restaurant where I received a rose.

Right now, I’m being treated to an in-arms nap by my beautiful boy while listening to my husband read to my delightful daughter.

It’s times like these when I recognize that I am blessed beyond belief. The day-in and day-out of being an at-home mom isn’t always easy, but my goodness, it truly is an amazing gift.

To my mama, thank you for being there for me - through my childhood, but especially now in supporting me as a mother. Although I have, perhaps, chosen a different parenting style than you, I think we’ve both realized how similar we really are I’m so happy that my children are able to get to know you - that they are comfortable with you and enjoy spending time with you. I can’t ask for anything more! I love you, Mom!

I can hardly believe it. And I thought time went by quick with just Gwen!

Gil is growing like crazy. At his two week appointment, he was 7lbs 8oz - up from 6lbs 4oz on day four … that’s 1lb 4 oz in 10 days! Go, Gil!

Then yesterday at his one month appointment, he weighed …

wait for it …

10lbs 8oz! That’s a weight gain of 3 lbs in 2 weeks - 3.5 oz per day. My midwife said in her 7 years of midwifery, she’s never seen a weight gain like that!!

He’s a long baby - already wearing 3-6 mo onesies, although 0-3 mo sleepers still fit him fine. I suppose his length is in his torso … even the 3-6 mo onesies look a bit like scoop-neck shirts

Gil has LONG awake periods - I’m talking 1.5 - 2 hours. He’s still nursing VERY frequently - every 45 minutes to an hour - but is at least giving me small breaks of awake time in between marathon feeds. He’s happier lately - not *quite* so fussy - which is lovely.

Nights are still rough - after a 3-3.5 hour stretch at the beginning of the night, he’s normally up every 1 - 1.5 hours. He’s also got a ridiculous habit of having lots of gas needing to poop sometime between 3 and 5AM and being very uncomfortable about it. Brad often takes him downstairs after he no longer wants to nurse and helps him work out the gas or poop. He’s often awake for 30 - 45 mins with me before Brad gets up with him, so that’s a long awake stretch in the middle of the night. Ah well. I just wish there was something that could help him work out the gas/poop *before* bed, as I suspect he’s waking so frequently due to discomfort.

Gwen’s doing well with everything - it’s definitely helped that it’s been nice and we’ve been able to spend our mornings at the park It breaks my heart, though, to not be able to “come!” with her wherever she wants to go. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of women there that she’s comfortable with - it’s nice o know that she’s securely attached enough to take the hand of one of my many mommy friends and drag them along with her I’m *definitely* looking forward to Gil having some happy and awake and not nursing times so he can hang out in the sling while I chase Gwen around. For now, if he’s not sleeping at the park, he’s nursing!

Well, it’s 3:56PM and my first day alone with two children is coming to a close. I’m considering it a success because both of my kids are still alive

A great friend came over for most of the day to help me out and it was a lifesaver! She came over in the morning and kept Gwen occupied while I attempted to take a nap with Gil … who woke up as soon as we laid down. She’s coming back shortly to bake cookies with me and distract me from the fact that I did NOT get an afternoon nap - Gil woke up at noon when we came in from a walk and was still awake at 2PM when Gwen needed a nap desperately, so I put her down and decided that it wasn’t worth laying down once Gil (finally) fell asleep (at 3:15PM) since the liklihood of him staying asleep AND Gwen staying asleep for an appreciable amount of time was slim-to-none. (Of course, it’s 4PM and she’s still sleeping. I should have gone down!)

I will admit that things got a bit difficult while trying to get Gwen down for her nap with a screaming newborn. I was maybe a bit harsh trying to get her to lay down and stay still. I may have emphatically told Gil that he sucked when I tried to lay down to sleep and he woke up … for the third time.

But overall? I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and Brad will be home in a few hours.

I can do this.

Gil is just over two weeks old. Although in some ways it feels like he’s fit right into our little family like he was never missing, in other ways, he is still very new, as are our experiences with him.

Gil has an almost constant need to nurse. Forget every 2 hours. Forget every hour. When this boy is awake, he is stuck like glue to my breast. When he sleeps, he sleeps hard - 1 or 2 hours at a time, minimum.

Gwen seems to be taking this in stride - most of the time, anyways. She seems to realize that “baby” needs mommy and needs to nurse. In fact, two days ago, Gwen was in my room with Gil and I while I was dressing for the day. Gil was propped up on a pillow on the bed looking around and Gwen was watching him. “Mommy. Baby.” She said. In Gwen speak, this means, ‘Mommy, I want you to hold Gil.’ I told her that just as soon as I was ready, I’d pick him up. “Mommy. Baby. Sling.” She said, again. I think I’ve got a novice babywearer on my hands! Read the rest of this entry »

… is about to get a whole lot more difficult!

The past two weeks, I’ve had some combination of Brad and my mom here with me. An extra set of hands to wrangle Gwen into her coat. A pair of hands to get a snack ready. Hands to hold Gil while Gwen and I enjoy our special time together snuggling down for her nap.

Sadly, I will be all alone tomorrow.

And I’m more than a little scared.

Gil is a very frequent nurser. As in, when he’s awake, he’s generally attached to the breast. The. Whole. Time. He’s hard to wear for extended periods because I’m frequently switching him from breast to breast. He’s very rarely awake and settled, happy to be carried around - his need to suck is great, and I’m happy to meet it. Unfortunately, that makes it hard to attend to Gwen’s needs as well!

I know I’ll survive - goodness knows other mothers have been met with more difficult challenges (ie. twins/triplets, two closer in age that mine, developmental disabilities, etc.) and survived - even thrived! Think of me while I find my way to mother another, would you please?

If you don’t frequent Hathor the Cow Goddess‘ comic site, check out the comic Extinction!

I love her comics … although this one’s a little bit scary!

I bought a Graco Soft Seat Potty Trainer a few weeks ago and have been sitting Gwen on it once or twice a day. Normally, she sits for a minute and then emphatically announces, “UP!” and then stares in it. And giggles.

(She’s really far too cute.)

Today, though, it had been almost 3 hours since she’d been changed, so we headed upstairs to change what I thought was going to be a SOAKED diaper. She was dry, so on the off chance something might happen, I plopped her on the potty and handed her a book. I was going to read it to her, but she pulled it out of my hand to look at the pictures and immediately peed!

YAY!

I know it doesn’t mean that she’s going to potty train even REMOTELY soon, but I was pretty excited that she peed on the potty. I think we’ve got a pretty smart cookie on our hands who will figure it out fairly quick once she puts her mind to it, and hopefully with a few more happy accidents like the one today, she’ll figure it out sooner rather than later!

So you know how I wrote a while back about being so disappointed in not being able to find a used Phil & Teds buggy?

Shortly after that post I noticed an aquaintence had an almost three-year-old and a Phil & Teds. So, being the crazy kook I am, I straight up asked if they were almost done with it and would they be willing to sell it to me?

They decided that they weren’t quite ready to live without a stroller as their daughter wasn’t terribly interested in walking everywhere and she accompanied them daily to drop their oldest at school.

So, after a good friend was able to trade her UPPAbaby Vista for a Phil & Teds for the upcoming arrival of her second baby, I thought to myself …

“Hmmm … I’ve got a Bertini in my basement that I was going to sell on Kijiji to put toward my Phil & Ted fund. Maybe I could offer to trade them?”

Followed closely by …

“Good gracious, my grandmother would have no idea what I meant with that sentence.”

So, I put the question out to them, brought the buggy over for them to view and it was a done deal!

Tonight, I became the proud (and terribly excited owner!) of an Apple Green Phil & Teds E3 Sport Buggy with storm cover and doubles kit.

YAY! I’m so excited, I want to go wake Gwen up and take her for a ride! Or maybe not! I think I can wait until morning I’ll take some pictures tomorrow.

I’ve been doing some reading on co-sleeping and found a great article called “The Con of Controlled Crying”. Here’s an excerpt:

Controlled crying and other similar regimes may indeed work to produce a self-soothing, solitary sleeping infant. However, the trade-off could be an anxious, clingy or hyper-vigilant child or even worse, a child whose trust is broken. Unfortunately, we can’t measure attributes such as trust and empathy which are the basic skills for forming all relationships. We can’t, for instance, give a child a trust quotient like we can give him an intelligence quotient. One of the saddest emails I have received was from a mother who did controlled crying with her one-year-old toddler.

After a week of controlled crying he slept, but he stopped talking (he was saying single words). For the past year, he has refused all physical contact from me. If he hurts himself, he goes to his older brother (a preschooler) for comfort. I feel devastated that I have betrayed my child. - Sonia

Can you imagine? I can’t. I’m so glad that I read this article - on the nights when it’s the hardest, I’ll be able to remember that quote.

For more articles on baby sleep, co-sleeping, baby training, etc. check out this page. Enjoy!