Taking stock

 Things have been slow here on the blog lately.  I have had laptop issues.  As in, my laptop currently looks like this:

 I really need to drop it off at IT but there always seems to be just one more thing I need to finish before I drop it off.  So anyways, I haven't been bringing it home, and blogging from my phone or tablet is just not as easy.

We have all been sick at our house. We all assumed it was allergies but it turned out I had a sinus infection, and Ryan had bronchitis. Hannah was quite miserable for a few days and Isaac never slows down but he has gone through two boxes of tissues in his bedroom.

We finally finished up baseball season (cue Hallelujah chorus). 

Isaac's team only had two real wins during the seasons, but things starting clicking in the playoffs and they ended up advancing pretty far in the tournament.   Isaac ended up getting the game ball for their last game-- he had 2 hits, including a home run!  He has really enjoyed baseball this year, and, although it hasn't been my favorite, I think we will probably play next year. 

 

This little chubba wubba is still charming us all.  It's a good thing she is ridiculous cute and loveable during the day, because she has been HORRIBLE at night.  

Ryan's parents moved out, so we were able to move Hannah out of the pack and play in our bedroom and into a real crib in her own room.  I thought this would help her sleep better since the pack and play is very small and wobbly and it always felt like we were startling her awake moving about our bedroom in the evenings or in the mornings as I am getting ready for work.  

However, it has been the complete opposite!  She went from waking up once, sometimes twice a night to waking up 5-7 times a night.  She used to be fine if I popped the binky in her mouth and hopped back in bed, but now she screams until I pick her up and rock her.  I don't know if she is scared, or lonely, or what, but it is EXHAUSTING.   Multiple people at school have commented on how out of it I have been.  I need an IV line of diet coke to keep on. I am trying to muddle through till the end of the year (today is the last day with kids, and then I have a week of inservice time) and then I am going to do some sort of baby sleeping boot camp with Hannah.  I don't know what that will look like yet, but we have to get her on track.  Suggestions welcome.

Speaking of school I received this really nice letter from a former student of mine.  She wasn't one of my IEP kiddos, but she and the regular ed teacher really clashed. 

 

It meant a lot to me that she would write that to me this year.

That's about it for now.  Summer vacation is SO CLOSE I can taste it!

Sibling Milestone

On Sunday I heard the first, "Mom!  Hannah's bothering me!!!" while Isaac was trying to play on his iPad.  The first of many times I am sure I will hear that. 

Hannah's 5 Month Update

Oh Hannah Banana!  Stop growing!!!

 So as you can see from the picture, she has all of a sudden gotten HUGE.  At her well visit last month they said she weighs 17 lbs  which is 90th percentile and she is 96th percentile for height.  Suddenly carrying her in the carseat carrier is hard work and it seems like her fat rolls have fat rolls now.   She is wearing a lot of 6 months clothes and some of her 6 month sleepers are even getting to be too small.  She is in size 3 diapers also.  I bought a pack by mistake and then realized they probably fit her better than size 2 after all.

She is still a very happy and easy going baby.   She loves attention from anyone and still loves to cuddle.


Sleeping

Her sleeping is still hit or miss.  She is still up several times a night (boo, hiss) but we are working on having her fall asleep at night on her own initially by putting her down when she is sleepy but not asleep.  She is doing pretty well with it.  We are also working on keeping her in her bed all night.  I wish she would sleep for longer stretches.  This coming month we will (finally!) be getting her out of the pack and play and into a crib, so I am hoping that helps.  Her napping is feast or famine.  She will either take only brief catnaps or will sleep for three straight hours.

Eating
She is doing well with eating baby foods.

 Most of the foods she has tried so far are ones I have made for her.  It's so much cheaper.  She has liked pretty much everything she tried.  To date she has eaten:

• Pears
• Bananas
• Sweet Potatoes
• Peas
• Avocado
• Peaches- she was crazy about these.  Like, she grabbed the spoon with both hands and was cramming it into her mouth. 

Milestones

Her biggest accomplishment this month is sitting up.  She is still a bit wobbly but she can hold herself steady for longer and longer periods of time.  She suddenly looks like such a big girl sitting up and playing with toys.  Of course, all of the toys go straight to her mouth.

She is babbling all the time and really experimenting using her voice.  This month she started making an excited "Eeee!" noise.  I have even heard her throwing some consonants in the mix when she is babbling to herself.

She has no teeth yet and is still drooling like crazy.  Buckets and buckets of drool.  It is my biggest laundry challenge to keep enough bibs clean for her, because she goes through so many each day.

She is able to keep herself amused for longer periods now.  If the mood strikes her right she will keep herself busy in the excersaucer or on her playmat with toys for up to 20 minutes.

Likes

• Trying to sit and stand up whenever she can.
• Her jumper.  Especially now that Grandma replaced the batteries and it is very noisy again. 
• DADDY.  She gets so excited whenever she sees him.  When I have her in the bed with me and he is still sleeping she scoots herself up to him and bats at his face, trying to wake him up and get his attention.  She gets so excited when he comes home from work and she thinks everything he says or does is HILARIOUS.
• Her toes/feet.  She is always grabbing for them, pulling off her socks and has even stuffed her toes in her mouth.

Dislikes

• Being alone or thinking she is alone
• Reclining.  She will always try to sit up now when she is in the bouncing seat or if she is not strapped into her carrier.
• She was not too crazy about bubbles either.

Ryan's Birthday

Rain cancelled baseball Friday, so Isaac was able to meet up with my brother Joe at Arnold's Go Karts. He had inherited a gift card from a coworker. Isaac had a blast with him.  I was a bit lonely at home on a Friday night with no Isaac and no Ryan.  Isaac didn't come home until after 10 o'clock!  Miss Banana happened to be up, so Joe got to squeeze in some time with her.  He calls her a meatball, which is pretty apt these days.

Saturday Isaac had a baseball game.  My dad drove in to see it and to keep me company since Ryan was working.  It was a nice spring day and afterwards he was able to come back to the house for a bit to fix something of Isaac's.

Isaac then went to spend some time with his dad and Banana and I headed into the city to see my friend Becca and her baby Wolfie (and yes, our kids have normal names like Hannah and William and we just chose to refer to them by bizarre nicknames.)  Her neighborhood was hosting the Kinetic Derby (you can read about our adventures at the Derby last year here).  We missed the actual race but there was still live music, booths, and food trucks.  We did catch this one biking away.  There were pictures on the panels that created a mini-movie as the cylinder spun. 

Then Hannah and I were off to meet Ryan at the Phillies game.  Ryan had asked to go to a rock concert for his birthday, but I feel like I am too old to be on my feet all night, listening to screaming and elbowing my way through crowds of middle schoolers.  His second choice was a Phillies game.  Baseball games are usually my personal hell, but I did it for Ryan.  I felt bad going to a MLB game without Isaac, but they had a special promotion going that if you brought a canned good you got a voucher for a free ticket.  Ryan said that he will use the vouchers to take Isaac.  We had some interesting characters around us and in true Ryan fashion he had made friends with all of them by the end of the game.  This was my favorite photo of the night.

  

 

Total photobomb for our family selfie. I could see him in the view finder, hence my cracking up but I guess Ryan didn't see him.  The ushers took a special liking to Hannah.  They arranged for the Phanavision guy to put Hannah on the big screen.  He did a close up of her little round face.  A coworker of mine was at the game and texted me that she saw us.

As usual, Hannah was ridiculously good and seemed to love looking around at all of the action. 

The next day we did church, picked up Isaac and did a soccer scrimmage.    We rounded out the weekend with a cake and candles. 

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Happy Birthday Ryan!  We love you so much!

catch up

Hannah had her four month well visit.  She did great.  The doctor confirmed what we already knew-- she is a chubby wubby-- at 17 lbs she is 90th percentile for weight and 96% for length.  The doctor feels like she is strong and was impressed at how much she was babbling.

 

She is driving me crazy at night though.  She is up over and over.  I am not sure if it is a teething thing, if it has to do with the sniffles she has had the past few days, if it is because she is really outgrowing the pack and play, or a combination of everything. Whatever the reason, it is leaving me exhausted.

Friday night we went up to Dorney Park, a local amusement park.  Ryan had got us season passes as a Christmas present.  Isaac went on his first really intense rollercoaster:

and I got to hang with this cutie:

Saturday was nonstop running around.  We had Ryan's kids with us and Allison and Isaac both had baseball games.  We watched quite a bit of Isaac's game from under the shelter of an umbrella since we were caught in a terrible downpour. 

Sunday was a lovely Mother's Day.  All of the kids trekked out to my mom's house.  I wish I would have taken some more pictures.  She had bought trays and trays of plants and flowers and we all potted planters to take home. 

We also watched some basketball, tried out the new basketball hoop dad and Joe just installed, had a lovely meal and then finished off the night with The Great Dalmuti, a new card game mom and dad introduced us to.  It was a lot of fun and I am sad to see the weekend end.

What I Have Learned About Parenting Babies (So Far)

What I Have Learned About Parenting Babies (So Far)

1. You could spend a small fortune on things for your baby.  You honestly could.  But you really don't need to.  Babies (especially tiny ones) really don't need much.  True story, when I brought Isaac home from the hospital he slept next my bed on a pillow in a laundry basket.  What they do need, you can scrounge up.  Almost everything we needed/wanted for Hannah we have been able to secure for free from church swaps, facebook yard sale sites and tons of stuff from a coworker whose kids are older: two excersaucers, a jumparoo, a high chair, two bumbo chairs, a doorway jumper, bottles, feeding supplies, burp cloths, etc.   And of course, she likes the jankety swing we found on the side of the road with a "free" sign on it much better than the nearly 200 dollar swing handed down from the coworker.  She could care less that it swings multiple directions,  plays soothing womb noises and you can plug your ipod into it.  We never got around to getting a crib mobile but she loved staring at our ceiling fan.  It's easy to get carried away when you are pushing a cart around Babies R Us or pinning amazing nurseries. Keep it simple.

2. It's okay if you don't hear the angels singing the Hallelujah chorus when you first see your baby.  Maybe it's just me.  Labor and delivery is a really intense mix of anxiety and hormones and drugs and lack of sleep and the result of it may not be an instant rush of fierce motherly love for the screaming vernix encrusted little newborn they hold up to your face.  But it will be come.  From what I understand talking candidly to my girlfriends, it's also pretty normal at some point during that first day/night home with your newborn to think to yourself, "What on earth have I done?  I just want things to go back the way they were".

3.  Breastfeeding may be natural, but it's not easy.  Breast is best.  I know this. We all know this.  I have chronicled my painful attempt at breastfeeding Hannah on the blog (three weeks of agony-- literally the most painful thing I have ever experienced). It's not as easy as the baby opens her mouth and you jam your boob in-- there is pillows and propping and positioning and baby's tiny mouth and flailing arms and suction, cracking, bleeding, cramping, leaking and engorgement....   I called the nurses in more than once as baby and I were both in tears while she was rooting around in a panic with my nipple already inside her mouth. Aside from how physically hard it is, I personally found it terrifically overwhelming to be the only person who could feed the baby, especially once Ryan went back to work after two weeks.  Cut yourself some slack if breastfeeding is not the warm, glowy, easy experience the happy lactation consultants or your well meaning girlfriend described to you when you were pregnant.  Everyone's situation is different.

4.  Don't get too caught up in what you're "supposed" to do.  For example, Ryan and I were determined we would not give Hannah a pacifier.  Everything we read said it was supposed to impede on breastfeeding progress and I had nightmarish flashbacks to Isaac still using his at almost age 3. "Not going to happen this time around.  No plastic comfort object for our little princess," we said confidently.  When  Hannah came back from the hospital nursery with one inside her little isolette on our second night, we threw it in the trashcan in self righteous anger.  Flash forward 24 hours when I made Ryan fish it out, wash it off and give it to her.  We discovered that Hannah had a very, very strong need to suck to be comforted and since we weren't offering her a pacifier, I was becoming the pacifier (see number 3-- intense pain).  Whether it's trying to decide how to get your baby to sleep, or how to feed him, or any number of things, you will find that everyone has an opinion.  Don't get caught up comparing milestones and parenting styles, but trust your gut about what is best for you and your family.

5.   It's okay to want to go to work.  And it's okay if you don't want to, too.  I had a lot of different feelings both times I returned to work after having my babies.  With Isaac, I dropped him off at daycare and expected to feel crushing guilt and found that I had an odd sense of relief as I drove into campus for my first day back.  With Hannah, it was not that easy. There have been times when I have called the sitter to check on things and have heard baby crying in the background and it was a stab to the heart.   But I don't feel guilty saying I enjoy my job and I was excited to go back.  There is something about office life that appeals to the human need to accomplish things, a need which seems to never be fulfilled on maternity leave.  Jonny's IEP-- check, it's done.  Lesson plans for the week-- check, they are complete.  Parenting a newborn is the opposite of that.  It's endless circles of laundry, rocking the baby to sleep, diapering, feeding, bathing.  It's work that never really gets done, and, honestly, is a bit monotonous and isolating.  I was desperate to talk to grown-ups both times I was on maternity leave. But on the other hand, there is a real biological need to be with your baby when they are little.   I remember I would count down the days until it was Isaac's visitation weekend with his dad, when I could finally, finally get a break.  And then after about an hour or two I would miss him terribly.  Again, to work or not to work is one of those things that everyone has an opinion to share and there is plenty of guilt to go around.  Try to minimize contact with people who are not supportive of whatever decision you reach.

6.  Just because you've done it before, doesn't mean you remember any of it.  Ryan and I already had 4 kids between us when Hannah was born.  One time the nurse in the hospital made an offhanded remark about how she didn't need to go over bathing a newborn, since we had done it before.  Both of us were like "Please!  Review it with us!".  When Hannah started drooling like crazy and my mother in law suggested it could be teething.  Ryan and I both looked at each other and shrugged.  Record things.  Write stuff down.  Snap pictures.  Read the parenting articles.  You won't remember it later.


Linking up with Molly and Carly

Always on the go

So you know you are a grown up when your weekends and spare time are no longer spent planning fun things for you and your special someone to do, but instead shuttling your child(ren) from commitment to commitment.  It seems like all I do each weekend is watch Isaac play sports.  I have most everything in the calendar in my phone, which syncs to my email and to Ryan's calendar, but I have taken to posting this on the fridge each week to give all parties a quick visual of each day.

Our days are jam-packed and we are always on the go.   I honestly don't know how moms with multiple kids in various activities don't lose their minds. It's hard enough with just one.

Anyways, here are some highlights:

Isaac continues to enjoy baseball a lot.  He is mostly in the outfield or occasionally short stop.  He is getting better each week and really looks forward to practices and games with his team the Riverdogs.  He likes to chew sunflower seeds or Big League Chew gum in the dugout to make himself feel like a pro.

I'm not going to lie, I find Little League Baseball to be mind-numbingly boring.  I think Hannah does too.  She always looks around with an expression on her face like "Oh man, we're HERE again?  Let me fuss myself to sleep now." I like to watch Isaac, of course, but the games are so slow.  They tend to start late, and go long. Yesterday Uncle Joe joined us for a game, which definitely helped pass the time for me and meant a lot to Isaac.

game face

  

 Yesterday was also team pictures which was almost a mini-crisis when we could only find one of his uniform socks.  We ended up driving to Dick's Sporting Goods ten minutes before the picture and picking up another two pack of socks.  Hopefully it was money well spent as I seem to spend an inordinate of time before each game locating baseball socks.  Isaac talked me into buying a special baseball with his picture printed on it.   I can't wait to see how they turned out.

We have also been getting back into the swing of soccer which is definitely more exciting for spectators: action packed and time bound. He had tryouts for the new season of travel and last week participated in a 4 v 4 tournament.  His team took second.

 The Philadelphia Union were there which was exciting too.
 

In non-sports related happenings we have been able to spend some time with all of Ryan's kids. For a while there is seemed like we could never coordinate schedules to take them. We had a beautiful weekend day when we played in a local park and even had a random lady ask if they were ALL ours, which made me smile.  Allison and Gabby love Hannah and are so good with her.  We have them again this coming weekend and are hoping to take them all swimming with our family membership to the YMCA.

There has been a lot going on with Isaac at school too.  My dad was able to drive in to be with Isaac on grandparent's day.  They visited the book fair together and Isaac got two books, one that he picked out that was Star Wars related and one that my dad picked out about George Washington "one of Grandpa's heroes".  Dad e-mailed me this picture of Isaac and his homeroom teacher Miss Hoyle. 

I was also pleasantly surprised to check my e-mail and find this note which couldn't have made me any prouder:

This is Mr. Lamison, Isaac’s Social Studies Teacher.  I am writing to you today to tell you what an amazing job Isaac has been doing in my class.  He has been working with great focus and attention to detail.  I am very proud of Isaac, and I wanted to take a moment to let you know. 

Have a great day,

We also managed to get over to the Art Show one evening after baseball practice.  Isaac had several pieces in the show.  

We are starting to come down the home stretch of the final marking period of school.  Soon summer will be here!