kim through
   the looking glass

On my last post, I mentioned that naptime is now the easiest part of my day! Lisa commented:

“I wish Michael could go to sleep on his own. Is there anything you did to help her with this?”

I want to say firstly that although I love that naptime is easy, I miss snuggling with my little girl.

A lot.

Beginning in my pregnancy, Gwen stopped nursing to sleep at night. Still did it for naps, but started wanting to snuggle with daddy for sleep. Since she was so good at doing it for nighttime, I began to encourage her to snuggle with me to fall asleep about halfway through the pregnancy. We would nurse until she was sleepy, and then we would snuggle in the rocking chair and I’d rock her to sleep. Read the rest of this entry »

I know it’s totally cliche, but it’s true. Mere weeks after the birthday letter I wrote, Gwen has changed so much!

• She is completely potty trained (!!)  and is almost toilet independent - only needs help with wiping and pulling up underwear/shorts/pants. She only wears a cloth diaper to bed, mostly because she spends part of the night with us and we don’t want to be covered in pee. However, she wakes up dry about 90% of the time these days - generally waking us in the night to pee if needed.
• Her sentences and vocabulary are growing by leaps and bounds! She has started saying “pease” and “pank you” with regularity and has picked up on my “oh geez!” when something’s happened A couple of days ago she said, “Oopsies! Train fall down - I crash it!”
• Naptime has become a 5 minute affair - after lunch around 12:30 or 1 PM, we go upstairs, go pee, get changed (if needed), turn on the fan, hop into bed with boy, have a kiss and hug, and then I leave the room and she falls asleep by herself. It’s both amazing and sad all at the same time.
• She can jump! With both feet off the ground at once! So fun!
• She is starting to understand the concept of numbers and counting - when I begin counting and pointing at something, she picks it up and continues, “two … three … nine.” Four and five are currently a mystery

I never knew how intense being a mother could be until I experienced being solely responsible for two kids under two for 8+ hours per day. It’s intense! Most days are good … although I still don’t feel like I’ve got a “rhythm” yet. When Gwen was a wee babe, I’d found my stride by now, but two is completely different!

Look at this little guy’s rolls! Read the rest of this entry »

Time is a-flyin’!

And boy, is he cute!! At his 6 week appointment, he was 12lb 4oz - he’s gained a full 6lb since he was born! Read the rest of this entry »

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!

Today, I ventured out to the park! I called around and made sure that a friend or two would be there first and then bit the bullet … and it went much better than I could have anticipated! Thankfully, it appears that when you’ve got a newborn, other people really help out with the toddler

I’m falling more and more in love with Gil - all the while acknowledging that the newborn phase is not my favourite! Saying that out loud and being okay with it is allowing me to move past that guilt and move into a space of being with him more fully and more intentionally enjoying this time. 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?

I recently borrowed Ingrid Bauer’s Diaper Free from my local library and was inspired, after a number of days of Gwen refusing to go near the potty, to just take off her diaper and let her run around. I know that she’s able to get herself on and off the potty just fine and I know that when she has to go, she tells me (ie. when she’s naked after a bath or after a diaper change), so I figured, “Why not?”

The first day, she pooped on the ground once. The rest of the day, she’d exclaim “Pee!” and run to the potty to relieve herself.

The second day, she took herself to the potty every time throughout the day. We even went to a friend’s house and she told me she had to pee while we were there (I had put her in a pair of training pants to go out in). She even woke up from her nap dry.

Today, the third day, we had a few misses - she once peed on the floor right in front of the potty (she was wearing a skirt and I don’t think she could figure out how to sit down without sitting on it!), and she peed once on me (I was giving her a sip of my tea … warm in, warm out?).

I think, though, that the miss that will go down in history is this one: Brad took Gwen up to the bathroom with him and she was playing with some toys. He looked up as she kinda made a grunting noise and asked if she needed to pee. She nodded, so Brad put her on the toilet to pee.

As she peed, she pointed and said, “Duck!”

Brad looked over at the duck and said, “Oh. Duck.”

Gwen giggled, put her hand on her head and said “Hat!”

“Yeah. Hat.” Brad said as he opened the door to call me up, explaining that Gwen had had a bit of an accident.

“Okaaaaaay … do you need my help?” I asked from the kitchen and headed to the stairs.

“Kinda. She pooed on her duck. And called it a hat.”

At that, I burst into laughter and tromped up the stairs. Sure enough, on the floor of the bathroom, her beloved duckie was wearing a poo hat. And Gwen was still giggling and pointing.

Man, I love my kid!

Man, that was so much more entertaining than changing a dirty diaper!

(We will forever be puzzled as to how, precisely, the poo got to be in that exact position.)

Of my baby and her doll.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve totally been a blog slacker. I’ve realized in the last week or so that the reason I’m a blog slacker is because I no longer have either a) a baby sleeping in my arms with nothing better to do than go on the computer or b) a baby who takes two 1.5 naps per day. Read the rest of this entry »