A letter to my {second} daughter: The First Year

Miss Aleesia  -

My little peanut, you have been here for 365 days.  A year ago I was happily in labor (no, really) and so excited to meet you.  I think about that experience with such fond memories, it was an amazing day.

[photo credit: bella rose photography]

Since 8:28pm on February 1, 2013, you have been filling our house with your smiles, snuggles and funny personality.  You love snuggles, and I can’t complain about that one bit – it’s a little bit of calm in an otherwise crazy life!

There were so many days that felt long and hard – you continue keep us on our toes always.  We worked through your reflux, your kidney reflux, breastfeeding struggles, all of it together.  It wasn’t easy and sometimes scary, but we have worked through each challenge as it came our way.  You’re a strong girl – probably even stronger than either of us can imagine.

Sometimes the days feel so long, but time flies.  I was nervous about how life would change with you here – but for no reason.  You fit right in as if you have been here for so much longer than a year.  I never knew just how much I could love another child until I saw you for the first time – it was just instant love. 

But more than that, I never could have imagined the love that your sister would show you.  Watching the two of you grow together is what gets me through each day.  Your face lights up each time you hear each Gianna’s voice and it amazes me each time.

You are an amazing ONE YEAR OLD!

It’s been a busy busy first year for you – you celebrated Gianna’s birthday, had your first (hopefully only, fingers crossed) hospital visit, celebrated Aunt Krissy & Uncle Jimmy’s wedding, celebrated lots of important people’s birthdays, went to the beach, slept through Washington DC, celebrated every holiday and learned so many new things.

You love to push things around the house – anything that moves, you will push it.  Your favorite thing to play with is Gianna’s anywhere chair and to climb on and off of her bed! Although you enjoy dancing (so hilarious!), clapping, waving, playing with your little people, and doing anything Gianna is doing. You walk when you feel like it but crawling is still faster.  You love to eat and to be outside.  You don’t always love to sleep at night, but you do always love to snuggle.

You can say a a lot of words when you feel like it, but you regularly say hi, dadda, bye, this, more, sissy, mama, dog, cat.  But the most hilarious thing you do right now is say “tickle tickle tickle” and try to tickle daddy.  I’ll never tire of your giggles – they are pretty awesome.  You have at least 8 teeth (and aren’t great at teething, but that’s okay) with a few more on the way in.

Aleesia, you may be the second little girl in our family but you hold such a special place in our hearts with those big blue eyes and your huge smile.  I couldn’t have imagined loving you anymore than I do right now and I can’t imagine what life has in store for you.  My wish for you is that you always feel special, empowered, and that you always have that sparkle in those blue eyes and smile on your face.

I was laying with you and Gianna after your nap and a song I had never heard before came on – the lyrics of that song brought tears to my eyes.  Something  you have taught me is to always have faith, to always let that light shine bright, and to trust in Him.  I hope that I can teach you to walk in that same path – to make the  most of every chance and to look at each day with the same sense of wonder that you do today.

I can’t wait to see what joy the next year brings!

I love you, my little peanut. 

Mommy

Longer out than in

Holy COW!

I blinked and this little bitty baby

is now this little bitty grown up baby

She is NINE MONTHS and TWENTY DAYS OLD. It blows my mind.

Aleesia took her sweet time coming into her own, but she has decided that food is yummy, all the toys must be played with and smiling is her favorite.

Just in the past month or so she started to say dada, hi (with waves!), and just this week mama (finally! yay!), and bye.  She’s not always consistent, but she says them each with a purpose.

She started crawling weeks ago but is quickly picking up speed (there are barbie shoes to hung for, afterall).  A few weeks ago she pulled upon the couch, using her mouth for leverage, and hasn’t looked back since – she stands up on anything that could potentially be sturdy.

And last night? she actually played peek a boo with me and stood with no hands. And laughed hysterically!

And this morning? She cruised the length of the couch.

SLOW IT DOWN, my little friend.  No need to beat big sister in the insanely early walking category, I promise!

Speaking of her mouth, she has an unsymmetrical three bottom teeth to her four top ones. Teething is NOT her favorite. Or anyone else’s for that matter. But she’s cruising through those teeth so hopefully it will be over soonish (G had all her teeth by her 1st birthday!).

She naps fabulously for her Aunt Krissy in the afternoons and is doing better going to (& staying) sleep at night. Food really is her favorite – she loves the actual activity of eating and so far has liked everything we have given her except for green beans and broccoli.

Cheerios are her favorite snack. She’s still pretty small for her age (just over 15 pounds, 6 month clothes, lots of awesome hair), but I personally really like her portability!

And her thighs are getting some chunk on them – it’s pretty fabulous!

She generally tolerates Gianna’s regular attempts to carry (drag?) her around the house and loves nothing more than to be wherever her big sister is.

Nine months you were inside, which seemed like a relatively long time.  Nine months you have been outside which seems like an insanely quick blur.  But one thing is for sure, you are one special amazing girl whose smile makes me one happy mama!

From Scratch

Aleesia has been here for a little over a month and, generally speaking, I pretty much feel like I have never had a newborn living in my house before. 

Or possibly that it really doesn’t matter how many children you have or how close (or far apart) in age they are because they are each different and therefore each time is different.  Parenting from scratch, if you will.

I am doing a lot of things differently this time, but still, I feel like I am totally out of my element in so many ways.  But really, two pretty major things.

The Sleep Sitch

My little peanut has a serious dislike for sleeping in her own bed.  This is totally foreign to me because Gianna slept in her crib every single night from the day we came home from the hospital. Aleesia wants no part of that nonsense.  I put her in there for naps and she wakes up by the time my feet hit the next floor.  I try to put her in there for night time and she wakes up even faster.  So, right now she is sleeping in the rock & play (that thing is AWESOME!) next to our bed.

I’m not going to lie – it is really nice in the middle of the night, I can just reach over and calm her and/or feed her without much fuss. And without getting out of my warm bed.  But also, I feel pretty strongly that kids and parents need their own sleeping spaces.  Any tips on helping her to transition/adjust to sleeping in her own room? 

She likes to be cozy – so we either swaddle her (even though she MUST have her left arm out!) or put her in a sleep sack at night, so that’s all fine.  I have considered putting her rock & play in her room for now (she likes the snuggly-ness of it, plus the incline helps her reflux) but I don’t know if that will just end up being one more thing to “transition” her out of in the long run.  I know she’s still teeny and maybe I shouldn’t make a huge deal out of her still being in our room – but it will be a huge deal to me when I go back to work.   And also, she sleeps pretty well how things are right now – she goes anywhere from 2-5 hour stretches at night.  Obviously, I don’t want to mess THAT up either! I cherish anything over 3 consecutive hours of sleep!

She isn’t a huge fan of the nap (although, she has been doing pretty good today) probably because she doesn’t feel so hot a lot of days.  She seems to have pretty intense gas pains, hiccups a plenty and reflux to boot (thankfully, it is not NEARLY to the degree that Gianna’s was at this point so I am hoping we can manage this on our own without meds. but, we’ll see) all of which contribute to her inability to relax/nap.  She sometimes takes small cat naps with a longer stretch at some point during the day.  Almost always the longer stretch is laying on me, occasionally she’ll stay asleep in her swing for an hour or so.  Again, not a huge deal right now – but I’d LOVE for her to nap in her crib  (or in the swing, I guess) for Mike when I am at work!  I’m sure she’ll learn to appreciate the nap eventually.

The Breastfeeding Sitch

This is all new territory for me so I am obviously learning this from scratch.  Overall, it’s going well.  She gets kind of lazy with her latch, so we are working on that.  I am not used to the “schedule” or rather, lack of schedule, associated with breastfeeding.  Aleesia will feed from anywhere between 10 and 40  minutes at a time and go 1.5 – 4 hours (at night, mainly) between feedings.  I’m sure she is getting enough, but the Type A part of me feels this need to know EXACTLY how much she eats each time (mostly because I need to make sure I pump enough for her).  I did do a weight before/after feeding with her last week and she only ate about an ounce that time.  Who knows if that is normal for her.  I don’t LOVE it or anything – but it is working so far.  I have noticed her reflux and fussiness (and possibly some dermatitis) is a little worse if I eat raw dairy especially (milk/yogurt/cheese).  I am going to talk to the pediatrician about it tomorrow.

Pumping can totally suck it though – I already know if I am going to make it to six months (let alone a year) of pumping/feeding I am going to need a lot of support.  I finally got the right size shield for my pump so that helps – but oh my goodness what a pain!  I know it’s worth it – but it is hard for me to fit in a pumping session during the day.  Or maybe I’m just not making a ton of time for it so far.  I know I need to work on this because I do have things going on in the evenings this week and every other week until I go back to work that she will need to eat when I am not home!  Any magical tips to keeping up your supply/making pumping more bearable?

I’m sure I will have a whole post dedicated to this eventually.  I really do feel clueless and I (irrationally) worry she isn’t eating enough a lot of the time.  This is tricky!

 

Overall – I just feel like everything is SO new and SO different from “last time” that I need to forget about “last time”.  Aleesia is her own person, she is going to test us in new ways and do her own thing.  I should probably take the perspective that any similarity she has to her sister (that we know/remember how to manage) is a lucky break for us!  I have gotten pretty good at managing my (non-existent) expectations up until now, but these two things are really throwing me off. 

Welcome Home, Baby Sister

birth story parts 1 and 2

It was part of our birth plan to have Gianna be the first person to meet Aleesia – it was really important to us that she get that honor.

But you know what they say about plans…..

Have you heard how crazy the flu is right now? One of the things I was worried about was a visitor ban at the hospital that would keep Gianna from visiting.  And the hospital we delivered at had a very strictly enforced policy – no kids under 14. Period.

So, Mike & I had to come up with a new plan between contractions!  I was pretty upset at first, but it was out of my control.  We decided that she couldn’t find out that mommy was in the “hosbibal” or that sister was here yet.  Remember, she was already at Gram’s house.  We relied on my sisters to entertain her over the next few days & they did awesome. G had no clue what was going on, but she was sure mommy & daddy were picking her up after work! 

We came home at 11pm on Saturday night & my parents were bringing G home in the morning Sunday – Mike & I missed her so much, we could hardly stand it.  We were so anxious for her to be home!  My mom told G mommy & daddy might have a special surprise, to which she said something about how she already has a lot of toys!

So, I took Aleesia to her room to get changed & Mike set G’s big sister gift, with some special balloons, in the living room.  She saw Mike first & I heard her ask where I was. So, I walked into the living room with baby sister.

She looked at me, then the baby, then my stomach with serious concentration.  She said, is that baby sister??

So we checked her out – she was fascinated!

She checked out her big sister gift – to which she said thank you to baby sister.

I can’t believe the immediate love I saw between Gianna & Aleesia – it was pretty magical.

Gianna sang to her,  loved on her, held her, gave her some pets and then “called” her friends to tell them all about baby sister.  She was so proud.

She loves her baby sister & is so sweet to her.  Gianna is a great helper, she looks after her sister, she talks about all the things she wants to teach her.

We have our moments as far as how Gianna reacts to mommy & daddy – she is a threenager after all.  So, we are all adjusting to our new roles and can’t wait to see their relationship grow.