Week 22: Happy 1st Valentine's Day, Sweet Angel!

This week was Chloe's first Valentine's Day! Marshall and Chloe's school had a Valentine's Day Party and I was able to make it for the party. It was kind've sad though because there weren't any other parents there, just the daycare workers and kids. I pulled Chloe out of her class and brought her over to Marshall's class for his party. Marshall was a little out of sorts with me there. He was so eager to show me his favorite toys in his class that he wouldn't sit in the table to eat his fun Valentine's Day treats.
Giving the baby kisses for Valentine's Day!

Super Baby!What a long day!

Week 21: Ah Sugar, Sugar!

Little Chloe is so precious. Sometimes I think of the Archies song when I'm rocking her to sleep:

Sugar, Oh, Honey Honey. You are my candy girl, and you got me wanting you. Honey, Oh, Sugar, Sugar. You are my candy girl and you got me wanting you. I just can't believe the loveliness of loving you. (I just can't believe it's true). I just can't believe the wonder of this feeling too. (I just can't believe it's true).

Chloe and Marshall love playing with each other. Look at how affectionate Marshall is to his baby sister.This week both kids have started to go down by 8pm at night. This is really great news for Chris and I - it has been a long time since we've had the evenings to ourselves. Maybe since before Marshall was born. Not every night is like this but it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully in the near future it will become permanent. Daddy gets pretty zonked too!

Hanging out on the front porch with Daddy!
Pushing herself up on her stomach.

Week 20: Chronicle of a Working Mom

The stress of a working mom is the daily struggle to juggle multiple priorities on a tight schedule. No moment of the day is left unaccounted for and I find myself wishing for more than 24 hours a day and the ability to function on little or no sleep. What does the daily juggle consist of? Success in career, commuting 80 miles a day, pumping and freezing milk, blogging, housework, married life, social life, getting kids dropped off and picked off at the right time and parenting two children under the age of two.

Even the amount of time spent commuting is time that is spent also pumping, thanks to commuting with Chris and a car adapter for my car. But Pumping is worth the sacrifice for the health of my baby and for those fleeting moments together in the evenings and weekends when we nurse together. I hope that she will know one day how special that time we spent together are and how much they mean to me. But pumping is not the same as nursing and it is a constant stressful battle to keep the milk supply up. It doesn't help having one of her teachers always pointing out how much less she is eating compared to the other 2 little girls born the same week as Chloe.

Any one of these issues has the potential to become a situation which throws off the balance as a whole. I find myself being a frazzled and nervous person now, but the only place I feel truly happy is when I am with my husband and kids. I am very thankful though for the love and support of my husband during this difficult time. So cuddos to the greatest man ever put on this earth. :-)

So what has Miss Chloe been up to this week? Oh this child has been such a joy and blessing to our life. Every week it is more of the same but every week brings more smiles and coos and sweet little gurgling sounds of joy. What's not to love about her? Even Marshall is not immune to her charm. He just loves his sister and he is never jealous of her. But I digress, she has a very predictable routine and a sweet temperament (shocker there I know!). She has a long attention span and sometimes will watch some of Marshall's Yo Gabba Gabba on the TV. In the evenings when we give her a bath with Marshall, we have started to use the Bumbo for her to sit up and play with the toys.

Speaking of toys! Chloe just loves Elmo!! When she plays with her other toys she is very coordinated and easily moves objects from hand to hand.

Week 19: Precious Moments

This week I started trying to be stricter about putting her down for naps in her bassinet rather than her bouncy so that it would make things easier for her at school. She has been resisting (only a little bit then she falls asleep) but her fussy cry is much quieter than Marshall. She has a sweet little cry - she kind've mutes it a little with her tongue (imagine her mouth being open and her tongue touching the top of mouth). Besides Mommy putting her down in she is a very happy baby when she's at home. I hardly see her cry and she is always eager to smile when we try to entertain her. But her laugh is the most precious sound I have ever heard. Too bad she won't do it for the camera though...

Here are some photos from the week of her hanging out at the house and playing with the best big brother in the entire world!!
Kisses from big brother.

Week 18: Our Little Lamb is Growing so fast.

Our Little Lamb is growing so fast - she is constantly soaking in everything that everybody in her surroundings is doing. Her little eyes soak up every detail and she just doesn't skip a beat. Here she is talking to her mobile. I love when babies start to become engaged with their environment. She seems eager to please and win over everybody including Marshall and her new teachers. It's probably pretty redundant to say this every week, but Marshall is the one person who she enjoys watching the most. He isn't jealous of her and loves to come up to her and say "Glowie," which just makes her day, then he runs of and plays, mostly impervious to her attempts to engage him. But when he does decide to participate, she is elated.

She seems to be trying to imitate some of the noises we make at her. She has been pulling and reaching for toys for some time now. But what she really loves is the Hug-Elmo MeMe and Grandpa bought for Marshall. She just gets so worked up about this toy to the point of exhaustion...
Chloe is such a cuddle-bunny. She's really starting to open up to snuggling with Daddy more (I've kind've hogged her more since she's b-fed, so Daddy is excited that she is starting to take more of an interest in him). She is doing really great this week at school she is starting to get used to her surroundings at school and is developing her little routine. Although I think she is still trying to get used to napping at school so she doesn't get very long naps. She prefers to fall asleep in her bouncy chair but when the teachers move her to the crib she wakes up. My bad...that would be my fault since I let her nap in bouncy chair when I was on Maternity Leave.

Pumping at work is still a stressful thing for me and if it doesn't increase soon I may start to supplement with formula but I really don't want to do that. I am having to take 4-5 breaks a day at work just to try to get the supply up, then feed her when I get home twice, put the baby down around 8:30 then pump at 9:30, feed the baby at 11. It is so exhausting. I am also trying to take this herbal supplement Fenugreek, which is supposed to help naturally increase milk supply, then drink 10 huge glasses of water a day.

Week 17: First Week of School

It goes without saying that this was a very busy and difficult week for me and the kids. After 4 months on Maternity leave it was time to return to business as usual. But luckily, we've done this little routine before, so we basically just picked up where we left off in September. The daycare facility is the same, the only difference is instead of Mommy and Daddy dropping off one little one, there are two little tykes.

Marshall seemed to remember the school and clung to me the moment we walked through the door and we sent him to his new classroom and teachers, while Chloe took over Marshall's old spot. As usual, we left Chloe full of smiles in her classroom; Marshall, full of screams. I'm not going to lie and sugar coat this - it was very very hard. I had numerous calls each day to both classrooms throughout this entire week to hear the difficulties the kids were having and to communicate with the teachers each child's likes/dislikes/feeding/napping schedules.

With Chloe, it was very different this time than last since she we were still nursing. So that meant that in all my free-time I had to make bottles to last each day and it takes time to train your body to switch from nursing to pumping, especially when you are stressed and hormonal. But despite each call in to check on her, she seemed to have taken the transition a little easier each day. There are two other little girls in her class that are all within a few days of Chloe's birthday, so she enjoyed getting to play with her little friends.

Chloe and Marshall playing.

Little Chick getting her Bath.
Feeling out her mouth!
Soaking in the tub with Marshall.This is how we do it.Naked baby!Snuggled up in a sleepy-sac.Aunt Emily is home from 6 months in Germany, with brown hair!As you can see from this photo...this week was quite traumatizing for Chloe:

Month Four Photos at Picture People

Chris and I have been pretty adamant at chronicling our kids growth each month of their first year with a professional photo (although we missed one month for Marshall). It is a bit of work and an investment, but they are only babies once. I love looking back at all of the photos that Chris' parents so painstakingly had done for their kids. I don't have very many photos of myself as a baby, so when I was pregnant I would look at Chris' photos over and over and try to compare them to our 3-D sonograms to try to guess which features my babies would have.
Plus I have so many coupons I use at the Picture People that the whole thing becomes quite a steal!

Here are Month 4's Photos: