TERRIBLE Twos

Last night was a night to hopefully never repeat. Lily tested every ounce of patience I have. Which, with limited sleep, isn't much. She woke up at 2am and didn't want to go back to sleep. Joel sat with her for about 45 minutes and she was all quiet and presumably back to sleep. However while he was sitting with her Tyler woke up to eat. So I got up to feed him. Joel had snuck out of Lily's while I was feeding. He can't shut Lily's door because that would wake her up again.  Unfortunately when I was done feeding Tyler, Lily heard me leave his room and she started screaming again. I ignored it hoping she would calm down and go back to sleep. I told Joel to put in ear plugs and get some sleep. About this time Lily got out of bed and was standing at her door crying. I decided to try to let her cry it out. 45 minutes later (now 3:45am) she's still standing at her door screaming. So I give in and go in her room to sit with her. I sat there til 4am at which point she's snoring so I successfully sneak out. I go back to bed and finally fall asleep around 4:30. At 4:40 I hear Lily standing in the hall outside out room crying. At this point I lose it. I march her back to her bed and beg her to go to sleep.  She just cries. At 5am Joel must have heard both of us crying and comes in and tells me to go to bed. Of course there's little point because Tyler is going to wake up in 30 minutes to eat. But i go lay down and leave Joel to deal with Lily. Sure enough at 5:30 Tyler wakes up to eat so I get back up and Joel and Lily are not in Lily's room. They are watching TV in the living room. I guess Joel gave up trying to get her to sleep. So I had Joel take her to daycare at 6:30. She had been up since 2. I'm sure she was a real delight today.

I took her to the playground after I picked her up this afternoon for some one on one time so that was nice. But when we got home around 5:30 she went in to meltdown mode and then screamed for the next hour- right through dinner and right through her bath. Joel finally got her to calm down and the last hour was pleasant.  Joel's putting her to bed right now and I'm praying down on my hands and knees for a peaceful night. PLEASE please please let her sleep all night. Please.

This will get better. This will get better. This will get better. Before I'm 60.

3 Weeks Old

People have been asking me if it's easier or harder this time around.  The new baby part of the second child is definitely easier than when I was on maternity leave with Lily.  I don't think Tyler is an easier baby necessarily but I'm a more experienced mom and therefore more relaxed about things.  I definitely don't get worked up over every little thing.  Plus I KNOW that it gets better and that eventually I WILL get to sleep for more than 2 hours at a time! 

However, having two kids is most definitely harder than one! Lily does pretty good with Tyler but we do have to watch her pretty closely.  Otherwise Tyler could be fed grapes or fruit snacks or he could be "loved" a little too tightly or he might make a new friend named Dora or Ellie who happens to be hanging out on his face!

I don't think we're really seeing any jealousy issues cropping up with Lily. She had started throwing those tantrums before Tyler was born and I don't think they have gotten any worse. In some ways she's gotten a little better now that things are calming down around here and we're developing a new normal routine.  Lily definitely does better when there's a schedule/routine.  I'm heading to Evansville next week for the Fall Festival (can't miss that!!) and I hope that she doesn't get too off kilter such that we have to start all over again when we get back home.

Joel and I definitely have to divide and conquer in order to get all the bases covered (cooking dinners, baths, feedings, POTTY TRAINING, playing, laundry).  I am dreading the thought of doing all this and working full time. Thankfully I have 9 more weeks before I have to deal with that! I have a brand new appreciation for my Mom and the fact that she had a handicapped child plus 3 more ages 3 and under. She's good. She managed to raise all of us without going off the deep end AND none of us are too messed up!

Tyler - 3 weeks old already!

Eating habits:  about 7-8 times a day.  We seem to be sort of falling into a schedule but it definitely flexes up to an hour either way.  Especially because at least once a day, Tyler only makes it 2 hours between feedings.  But we revolve roughly around a 7am - 10am - 1pm - 4pm - 7pm - 10pm - 1am - 4am.  It's kind of nice having a rough schedule because it makes it easier for me to plan my day.  But I don't force the schedule at all.  I "demand" feed Tyler.  If he's hungry, he eats.  If he's sleeping, I generally don't wake him up to eat.

Sleeping habits: each day we seem to progress with a little more awake time.  He's napping pretty well and not doing too bad at night.  The biggest sleep challenge we have with him is after the ~10pm feeding, he sometimes doesn't want to sleep and then it's midnight before we get him back down. Joel and I have taken turns but it makes for a VERY short night when I don't get to bed til midnight and then Tyler's back up at 1 to eat again and then again at 4 and then Lily's up at 6:30 and it's time to start the day.

Prayers and Potty Victory!

Today Lily told us she had to potty and she took off running for the bathroom.  I chased after her and got her on the potty.  At first, she just sat there jabbering away about Dora.  She had a book with her which was hilarious!  I was beginning to think she was just interested in sitting on the Dora seat and reading her Dora book. 

But then, she grunted a couple times and BLOOP!

I started cheering and hollering and good jobbing and high fiv-ing and then Joel came in and he started in a round of high fives.

Lily was grinning from ear to ear and she said, "I did it!!"

She also had a victory one day last week at the day care but I forget to mention it.  Ms Christina said she's the only who's managed a #2 on the potty so far.  She's showing them boys how it's done!  Now if we can get her to pee on the potty.....  :)

Another fun Lily story....tonight at dinner, Lily was just jabbering away like she usually does.  Half the time, I have no idea what she's talking about and/or she's changing subjects so much that it's impossible to follow along.  Plus we're usually interrupting her to tell her to stop talking with her mouth full or to watch what's she's doing because she's getting yogurt everywhere or to ask her to use her fork/spoon instead of her hands or whatever.  You get the picture.

But tonight, I notice that as she's jabbering, she's folded her hands and she's saying grace!  I didn't catch all the words and it was pretty broken up but she was definitely praying.  It was so cute and so precious.  And then I felt like a schmuck because we didn't teach her that.  She learned it at daycare.  I'll have to find out what they pray so we can do it at home. 

 

2 Weeks Old

We made it through 2 weeks!

Eating Habits:  Breastfeeding about 7-8 times a day (roughly every 3-3.5 hours).  Tyler is a very different eater than Lily was.  Lily learned to latch immediately out of the womb (we're still working on Tyler's latch) and she would eat fast and furious for about 5 minutes (if that) and then she would slow way down and take her merry time.  It would easily take 20-25 minutes per side to feed her.  With Tyler, once I get him latched on good (may take a couple minutes), he goes to town and eats furiously until he's done - usually 10-15 minutes per side - at which point he spits me out.

Sleeping Habits:  Tyler's still sleeping at lot during the day and he's doing much better at night.  For the most part, he goes right back down now after I feed him.  Sometimes not, but he's content in the swing so I'll sometimes put him in there and go back to bed.  Not ideal, but I need my rest too.  Which brings me to another point.  I suck at sleeping.  I'm still only getting a couple hours a night but it's not because of Tyler.  I just can't sleep.  Boo.

Awake Time:  We're starting to get more smiles and facial expressions out of Tyler during his awake time. 

We are usually able to keep him awake for up to an hour after at least 2 of the day time feedings. We're lucky to keep him awake any time at all for most of the other day time feedings. We are trying to follow a pattern of:

1) Eat
2) Awake
3) Sleep

We did this with Lily and I think it really paid off as she got older.  For one thing, she never got used to needing to eat in order to fall asleep.  It's hard enough being a breastfeeding Mom and being the only one who can feed the baby.  It becomes even harder if you're also the only one who can put him to sleep too.  So anyway, this is the pattern I will keep working on while I'm on maternity leave.  We don't have a schedule....that might come a little later.  I was never really successful to have a schedule with Lily while I was on maternity leave.  We'll see if that changes with Tyler but it's too early to worry with it right now.

In Lily news, she's been doing somewhat better at going to bed at night.  Joel's been on bedtime duty because it usually falls around when Tyler's hungry.  Unfortunately, the last two nights, Lily got up during the night, crying for Mommy and Daddy.  Not sure why.  The first time, it took Joel over an hour and half to get her to go back to sleep.  Last night, it was only about 15 minutes. 

In the last two weeks, Lily's developed a new favorite word:  "MINES."  Everything is "mines."  The daycare teacher even made a note of it on her weekly report!  : )  Funny except when whatever it is that she claims is hers, is, in fact, NOT hers. 

1 Week Old (a little late)

We made it through the first week!

 

Eating Habits:  Breast-feeding about 8 times per day (roughly every 3 hours).  Breastfeeding is going well but working with Tyler on his latch.  It often takes 2-3 tries to get him to latch on properly, but once he's on, he's good to go!

Sleeping Habits:  He slept a lot during the first week.  Except at night.  Pretty typical.  He seems to be a good sleeper - not letting much get in the way of his shut eye.  Including his big sister grabbing him, trying to hold him or hold his hand.

I tried to think of other catergories to update on, but at this stage, all Tyler does is eat, sleep and mess himself (and I thought updates about messing himself might not be that interesting to people other than his parents who are counting dirty and wet diapers).

Lily loves to hold Tyler's hand while we're in the car.  SO cute.

Getting adjusted

We are slowly settling in to our new routines.  Although, my mom has been here doing all the hard work like cooking and cleaning and laundry, so it's not exactly how it will be going forward.

The biggest adjustment so far, really, is Lily.  She's been on a slight regression with respect to some things ever since we started her at daycare.  Some of those things are getting worse.  Like bed time.  She seems to be scared to sleep by herself now.  She says "Mommy sit."  "Daddy sit."  She wants someone to sit with her while she goes to sleep.  This process takes 20-30 minutes, at least.  And then, if you try to sneak away too soon and she sees you, you have to start all over.  We were so spoiled before with just being able to read her a story, sing a song and leave the room.  This is the hardest thing to deal with for sure because this is the point in the day where everyone is tired and everyone's patience is at it's lowest.  We'll get through it but it's HARD.

The other thing we've got going on with Lily is I've had to introduce "Time Out."  And in a serious way this time.  She has hit her brother on two occasions.  Both times, she hit and I told her that we don't hit and we have to be nice and gentle with the baby.  Both times, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, she hit again.

Time out!

She understands now what time out is.  She doesn't want to stay there.   So I stay there with her.  So then she wants me to hold her.  Which I won't do until she finishes time out for one minute (I need to get a timer so she can understand "one minute").  The whole time, I'm explaining why she's in time out.  Afterwards, I give her a hug, tell her I love her, and then try to get her to apologize to Tyler.  We haven't had a successful apology (with words) but she doesn't launch into another attack of her brother immediately.  Also, any time we get stern with Lily for any reason (like spitting out food or jumping on the couch or whatever minor infraction) she looks at me and says "Time out!"  Very funny.

But she does love her new baby brother and wants to "hold it" all the time.

 

Going Home Day!!

It's day 4 and we are going home (ready or not!). 

Going home day always seems to take forever.  You know you have to leave so you're just ready to get on with it but it seems to take forever to be officially discharged.  I have patience issues. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon at home, resting.  Meme and Papaw had taken Lily for the day so it was a nice and quiet arrival home.

When they dropped Lily off, they had Kjestine and Whitney with them, who were getting to meet their new cousin for the first time. 

That night, putting Lily to bed was a SERIOUS problem.  She threw probably one of the biggest tantrums I have ever seen.  Screaming her head off.  Crawling out of bed.  It lasted a couple hours when all was said and done.  Oh man.  What are we in for now?