Spin art and jello before a snowday

On the eve of one of the biggest predicted snowstorms for the winter season, Gi and I tackled spin art and jello jigglers. What? Were you expecting me to tell you we had fun trying to find all our old candles and flashlights or making a trip to the store for ice and other necessities? Nah! We have to have FUN before the lights go out, right?

Oh, also all four of us have had a nasty cold for the past three days and lack of sleep, lack of preschool and lack of energy had me feeling like a zombie. I figured I could put a smile on at least one kids' face with paint, glitter and some good old fashioned jello. And, I was right!

Opening the bottle herself.
  
 

Gi is getting rather good at taking pictures too!
  
   

Get ready for fun!!

Gi had a blast using our (very expensive...so I cringed a little on the inside while I let her do this) salad spinner, some paper plates and LOTS of tempera paint. Some of the paint was washable, some wasn't but it all came off the salad spinner in the end. Breathe a secret sigh of relief here. Anyway, being three years old is all about making choices and doing it "all by myself" so this was a great activity for her. She chose the paper plates, the color paint, squeezed them "all by myself" which in most cases emptied the bottles of their contents entirely, put the top on the spinner, pressed the lever, pressed the stop button, repeat again and again and then dusted her final oeuvres with sparkly silver "princess" glitter--by the way, did you know the word princess is actually an adjective? Not many sentences are void of that special 8-letter word in our house these days. Thank God we're going to Disneyland Paris soon!

Press handle down, stop, repeat, FUN!

These will make a cool mobile
for her playroom ceiling!

So, after our dizzying array of spin art plates were finished we took a break for lunch and then my foresight really paid off. Earlier this morning I managed to get Gi to make jello with me, poured it into a shallow pan and let it set up in the fridge knowing we would be able to use our cool cookie cutters and make jello jigglers later today. Later was much sooner than I thought because Gi doesn't miss a beat. Right after finishing her pretzels and cheese she asked, "Mommy, can I see the jello now please?" But we all know what she really wanted to do was dig her fingers into that jiggly mess and cut out shapes she could eat while she was at it. Thankfully, it doesn't actually take the 3 hours recommended on the package to set up and we were digging into it for dessert after lunch. Yum!



 

 

 

Want to know the best part of all this? When we were finished she helped me clean up and then told me she was TIRED! Well, that's all it took for me to whisk her off to read a book and lay her down in bed and now here I am, one load of laundry done, dishes put away, kitchen cleaned and two kids napping leaving me to update you on my blog. Aaaah...sweet motherhood success!  I heart jello and tempera paint and also my husband who doesn't care if I don't make dinner tonight because of all the fun we had this morning instead. Now I really can relax and enjoy the snow storm.

First tastes

We had Noa's 4-month doctor's appointment yesterday and she's growing well at 14lbs. 14oz. and 26.5 inches. But she has slowed down putting on the pounds and is about a pound smaller than Gi was at the same appointment. I attribute the slow month of growth to my diminished milk supply. It's not terrible and she's not starving but there are times she would definitely eat more and days when she doesn't get enough to eat. Unfortunately, she will not accept a bottle of formula so the doctor gave us the green light to begin giving her tastes of solids if she seems to want them. The first night, I gave her a tiny taste of sweet potato mash and that was quickly rejected. Last night Ben was eating a banana and she grabbed for it (well, she grabs for anything that is in her reach) and here's what happened next:




Of course all this happened the day after a medical study made the news linking the early introduction of solid food to infant obesity! Thankfully the correlation seems to only be positive for babies who are formula-fed. Take a gander at the article:http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/peds.2010-0740v1

Can you pack light with kids?

This question, though I've googled it extensively, keeps me awake at night searching for the answer. My worst travel nightmare is to have a large bag packed, teetering on the scale at the check-in counter and two more to be weighed while we juggle a drooling baby and tantruming toddler--or maybe the sight of us all trying to squeeze into a Parisian taxi. Yes, definitely making it my mission to pair down the luggage this time around.

So, I've set out to find the most space-saving, kid-conscious way of packing for our upcoming trip. Wouldn't you know the internet has some pretty wonderful ideas to help out. The one that caught my eye and that I think I'm going to try this time is "bundle packing". Yes, like the stereotypical image of a woman with a cloth bundle carried upon her head. Who knew it would also be the most favored approach to eliminating wrinkles and creases from over-packed, heavy suitcases of clothing? Check out the description of it here: http://www.onebag.com/pack.html

I know one thing for sure, with our last three nights in France spent in a 4th floor Parisian walk-up apartment, my husband at least, will be thankful for a reduced load! Now, maybe I can persuade him that if I really want to pack light I'll be needing to buy a new Victorinox bag...hmmm...honey? That electric blue one would really bring out the color of his eyes.

And if any of you frequent travelers with children have some tips for us on how to pack everything we need but use basically only one checked bag, please leave me your ideas in a comment here.

Roll over baby!

Noa caught me by surprise about a week ago by rolling over from her back to her stomach (the more difficult of the two directions one can roll). I knew it was a fluke. I was hoping it would take another month for her to figure this particular milestone out. Instead it took one week! And I caught the act on video. I'm not quite sure who I'm more proud of, her for performing on cue or me for just sensing this would be her moment and catching it on camera.





If we can learn anything from Gi's experience, this whole rolling over thing can only mean one thing: babyhood is going to be a thing of the past very, very soon. Gi rolled over back to front at 4.5 months. She was crawling at 6 months and by 7 months she was FAST. She went on to walk early at 10 months. It looks like if Noa follows her big sister's lead, all our best intentions of getting to France before she crawls are in vain. We are set to travel there a little after she turns 6 months old. Here's hoping we won't have to corral a crawling baby on the floors of a dirty airplane! And let me just pause here to sniff and wipe a little tear off my cheek. I know this year of milestones is going to go by so fast now that she's mobile. It sure hits home when you know you are watching the very last baby you'll ever have start to take her first baby steps to independence. Motherhood is just filled with these odd mixtures of happy and sad, pride and terror all bundled together.

Gi and Noa 3 month comparison

Noa at 3 months

Gi at 3 months

Noa is Three Months Old!

Noa turns three months old on Jan. 7th. The holidays made this last month just disappear in a blink of an eye.

She has accomplished a few new developmental milestones such as, putting her hands together and clasping them, reaching out and grasping toys, turning her head and smiling at the sound of a familiar voice, distance vision, cooing that quickly reaches screeching decibels just for the fun of it and full-blown laughter (my favorite of her firsts!). She even laughs in her sleep. She loves looking in mirrors, playing with crinkle fabric, talking to us, and though she's not fond of tummy time she is strong enough that she is beginning to rock herself onto her side and it won't be long now before she's rolling herself over.

On the topic of sleep, she's still quite an easy baby. She has yet to awaken for anything but milk and as soon as her feeding is over she's right back to sleep and easily transferred to her bassinet. On a good night she is only up twice before 8am. With the cold season we've been dealing with she's been waking up a little more frequently but they are shorter in duration. She's a breeze during the day too. She just settled into a napping schedule that was perfectly in tune with our daily rhythms and has had it for the last two months. She takes one morning nap around 8:30 or 9:30 which lasts 45 minutes. Then, she takes an afternoon nap with Gianna between 12:30 and 1:30 and stays asleep for about 3 hours. Then, she takes another evening nap around 5 or 5:30 for another 45 minutes. She's in bed for the night around 8 or 8:30 just like Gianna. She's even been putting herself to sleep at night! This kid is crazy, in the best sense. I'm dumbfounded at our luck. Now the test is not to screw it up!


It's difficult to say what her physical growth has been this month without a visit to the doctor but if clothing is any evidence, she's a monster! Yesterday I had Ben bring up the 0-3 month bin of clothes and the 6-12 month one too. She's barely 3 months old but she wears 6-month-sized clothes now and I had to put everything I had taken out before she was born back into the bins! I guesstimate she weighs about 14-15lbs.

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011!

The years have been going by faster and faster since Gi was born in 2008 but this year in particular seems to have just flown by. It's probably because the pregnancy meant my body and outlook and then day-to-day life was changing with each month since January when I found out we were expecting again. Any year you bring a new life into being is bound to seem more important and more special, at least it is to me.

In 2010 we have seen our property complete an entire four seasons and we have decided we love it best in spring, full of blooming apple trees, buzzing bees and ripe blackberries perfect for staining our fingers purple and quite delightful made into jam. Gi underwent an adenoidectomy and ear tube surgery after many months of persistent ear infections and high fevers. We found out we were expecting our second child. We took our first family vacation to Hawaii and showed Gi the joys of hang loose beach life and shaved ice. We took many trips to the bay area to visit friends and family over the summer, alternately visiting the grand redwoods of Muir Woods, the picturesque coast near Pescadero, treating Gi to her first thrill rides at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and listening to the sounds of the animal kingdom at the San Francisco zoo. By the end of the summer we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our baby girl and in the first week of October she made her entrance to this world! We enjoyed a long visit with Ben's parents from France and took Gi trick-or-treating for the first time in the neighborhood. She still loves to parade around the house in her orange butterfly costume that her grandma helped make. The usual whirlwind of family and friends at Thanksgiving followed by a splendid first glimpse of snow at the house, a harbinger of the cold winter that greeted us as we counted down the days to Christmas. This year, Gi didn't cry when she saw Santa and even summoned the courage to talk to him a little, making sure to ask for lots of presents, so content with that she didn't think she needed to tell him what kind.

There are so many things to be thankful for this year. A new life. A growing, healthy family. All our family and friends who make such a special effort to stay in touch and visit often. But most of all, what I'm thankful for about 2010 is that my children, especially Gi after her surgery, have had no illness a little tlc and tylenol couldn't cure and we have every reason to believe 2011 will bring more of the same. Little Gi had a wonderful year. A first year of only minor colds and no trips to the doctor! That's all a mother could wish for.

Here's wishing you a healthy, happy new year in 2011. From our family to yours!

And now, here's a memoriam to 2010 in pictures:

Gi's 2nd Birthday!

Easter with Bon Papa and Macalou

Hanauma Bay, HI

Scott's Flat Lake day trip

Gi's first swim lesson!

Santa Cruz Boardwalk in July

San Gregorio SB with Becks

SF Zoo after a giraffe feeding in front of us.

August under an apple tree at the property.

September: The Draft Horse Classic and start of preschool!

9 months and still hiking in the Tahoe Forest.

Welcome Noa Gabrielle!

Bishop's Pumpkin Patch with the grandparents.

Missy piggy and Bon Papa

The cutest orange butterfly there is!

My two beautiful girls.

Noa: One month old

Little bear about two months old.

First snow of the season at the property.

Playing with Papa in the first snow.

Gi's first pony ride!

Gi talks to Santa. No tears!

Lots and lots of Christmas baking!

Noa's Two Month Birthday!

We went to the doctor to do Noa's checkup for her 2 month birthday and it turns out she's even bigger than her sister was! Amazing little monsters we have here. They both like to rock the 95% for height and weight--although in Gi's case it only lasted through infancy.

Noa is now 12lbs. 11oz. and 23" long. She's wearing 3-6month clothes and eating us out of house and home. Okay, really she's still just nursing but apparently that's all she needs to set the growth chart records! Her new favorite game is batting at her black and white hanging toys on her activity mat and her eyesight has improved to about 4 feet. All this means that I can now place her on her mat and expect to have at least 10 minutes of quiet free time but if I walk within an arm's length of said mat she knows it and won't let me escape unnoticed!

And some new photos of us picking out our Christmas tree and decorating it at home! Stay tuned for this year's shot of Gianna meeting Santa!

Noa's One Month Birthday!

Time is flying by us now and Noa turned one month old this week. Friends had warned us that the second one goes through the usual physical milestones much faster but I didn't think it would happen this fast.

Noa is now SMILING! When we coo to her or make funny faces at her she rewards us with her own goofy grin. I'm sure Gi didn't give us smiles until she was at least 8 weeks old and the first predictable and big ones came a month after that. Maybe we just have a happy-go-lucky baby on our hands this time. She certainly is a better sleeper and less easily startled kid. For one thing, she can be crying in her car seat but as soon as we hit the rode it's like a magic "off" switch appears and she's out for the duration of the ride. Many of you will recall how stressed out we were as parents of a newborn Gi who not only refused to nap in her car seat but would scream bloody murder until her face became splotched with angry red hives. She was like that on any length trip and just getting to the grocery store 5 miles away was a painful lesson in endurance. But not for Noa! I finally understand what all those other parents were telling me: "just put her in the car and go for a ride if you need some sleep", "she'll eat when she's hungry," "give her a bottle and go out for some mommy time alone". I CAN DO ALL THIS AND MORE! I feel like I have done my penance for whatever sins I committed in a past life and now God has rewarded me with the Easy Baby. Hallelujah! It's enough to make me want to start going to church again.

And here's your reward for reading this celebratory post, a video of our bundle of cuteness!

Cookies, Pies, Cupcakes and more!

It turns out my mother-in-law is the perfect enabler when it comes to my lack of self-control with butter, eggs and sugar. Since I've been home from the hospital (approx. 2.5 weeks now) I have led a crusade for baked goods in my house and none of our creations have had much of a shelf-life. The average time from a full-batch-out-of-the-oven to a full-batch-in-my-stomach is about 1.5 days. I consider this quite impressive and think medals should be given to anyone who can keep up with the amount of creativity it takes to think of new things to bake and the unprecedented speed with which I can put away said baked goods.

Thankfully, my mother-in-law received a cupcake cookbook of Martha Stewart designs from my husband and I as a thank-you-for-changing-all-those-newborn-poopy-diapers and for-putting-up-with-my-hormonal-weepy-self. She glanced through all the pictures and decided on an aptly Halloween-inspired confection, our most polished and blog-worthy.

I should also note that this over-indulgence in all things sweet and homemade is directly a result of my 9-month long self-deprivation of sugar. It didn't in fact help me create a less than gigantic baby but it did help me appreciate and feel absolutely worthy of 2.5 weeks worth of non-stop baking! Thank God for breastfeeding because despite my unapologetic, blatant display of gluttony, I continue to watch the scale point to weight loss (only 6lbs left to lose) having effectively transferred all the buttery goodness to the simply scrumptious buttery thighs of my newborn. Those dimples are much cuter on her butt anyway!

Cheers to a season of baking to come! Now I have a chocolate pecan pie and French gaufres to bake!

The 2 Week Meltdown

Well, here we are at the two week mark and our cuddly, cute, sleepy newborn has entered that familiar stage of colicky crankiness. It happens to most infants but most parents may be too sleep-deprived to recognize the pattern. At approximately two weeks old, most babies go through a period where they cry for long periods and seem to never sleep. Noa is true to form, good ole girl that she is, and has gone from sleeping approximately 20 hours a day to sleeping about 10. Now, I'm lucky that my mother-in-law is still here with us and I can take a break once in awhile but in another week I'll have to face the music and figure it all out on my own. I imagine much hair pulling and tears on my part, and just when Gi was getting into a rhythm of her own.

Big sister Gi has had a rough go of it from the start. We had to leave her for much longer than we had planned due to the long labor and then my extended hospital stay and she was passed around a bit for those days. Yet, after about 10 days at home with her new sister it was obvious she was doing much better. She gives hugs and kisses to her baby sister all the time, plays with her and sings songs to her too. She still misses her one-on-one mommy time but I keep assuring her that I'll be able to pick her up and spend more time with her once my "big boo-boo" heals and Noa is a little older. Unfortunately, I know all too well that we're looking at at least another 4 months before Noa will be less needy and I have another 4 weeks before any heavy lifting won't leave me sore or worse.

I didn't think it would be this heart-wrenching to watch my first-born adjust to having another child in the house and having to accept my divided attention as good enough. Mommy guilt over here is in full swing.

P.S. Noa's stats at 2 weeks: 9lbs. 14oz. 21 inches. She put on a full pound in one week!

Noa's Birth Story

It all started around 5pm on the 5th. I was getting pretty good contractions at pretty regular intervals though the timing kept changing (8min, 10 min., 5min.). I thought to myself that this was going to be the night and I told Ben too. We did our normal thing and went to bed around 10:30 but I couldn't sleep. The contractions never let up and were getting stronger. By 12:30 I was so uncomfortable I needed Ben to help me get through them with breathing. I waited them out until about 2:30 then took a bath to help ease them. I wanted to call Chrissie--my aunt--to come over but I didn't want to call her at that hour in the morning so we waited until 4:30. I started to get my last minute things packed for the hospital and took a hot shower. We left the house a little after 5am and got to the hospital at 6. The contractions were strong but still not regular, I just knew transition wasn't far off. As I got checked in at the hospital they told me I was at 6cm and I felt very happy to have gotten there when we did. My water still hadn't broken though and I was wondering if/when that would happen. My doula showed up at 7am and the doc came to see me at 10. I was still at 6cm and she offered to break my water but the baby was still floating really high and I was worried about her descending posterior like Gi had so I told her I would wait. I labored to a 7cm and at 4pm I finally let her break my water since my strength was waning and I knew I had a long way to go. After my water was broken all hell broke loose and I went through wicked contractions that left me feeling like I had when they had given me pitocin with Gi. After an hour of that I had them check me and when they said I was at 8cm I was so relieved. Progress! And I had made it past where I had ended making progress with Gi. But I was in serious pain and needed rest so I begged for an epidural and QUICK! It was about 7pm by that point--a full 26 hours into labor--but I finally got some relief. I was tired, hungry, shaking and catching about 15min. of sleep at a time on the epidural. I was thinking a c-section would be inevitable because of my previous experience with the epi and Gi turning posterior but this time, the baby stayed in good position and I kept dilating. They checked me at 10:30 and said I was completely dilated!! You cannot imagine how excited I was! At 11pm the nurses had me start pushing but I really couldn't get it together. The epidural was wearing off but even so the pushing didn't come naturally to me, probably because Noa was still pretty high, only at a zero station. 2 hours of pushing later, the epi had completely worn off and I was back in horrible pain. Each pushing contraction was excruciating and the nurses were getting more and more invasive and aggressive about maneuvering the head and trying to keep it coming down. My efforts were finally paying off and we could see hair and the molding of her head but she just wouldn't descend. By 3:30 I was begging the staff to turn the epi back on and was just screaming through each urge to bear down. Finally my doc arrived, put both her hands inside to see if she could manipulate the baby into a better position (her head was a little asynclitic) but even with that and a good long push on my part, she didn't budge. I just looked at the doc who said, "well.." and I was like, "C-SECTION!".  I was just done. The anesthesiologist came back in, put some meds in my line but it took 3 more agonizing pushing contractions before it stopped the pain. I couldn't do anything but grunt and push even though I knew it wouldn't make the pain go away. That was terrible but at the same time, those last few pushes were the ones that gave me the greatest sense of urgency and completeness about what it is to give birth. Now I understand! I can imagine the rest entirely and leave it to all the other moms of the world!

The whole c-section experience was totally different this time too. There was no pain for one, and it all happened in such a way that I could experience it. Noa was just a stronger baby than Gi was. She cried immediately after birth at 4:14am on the 7th and never let up. She was pink and her apgars were 9 and 9. They cleaned her up 6ft from where I was. My arms were never strapped down and I got to marvel at her for a few minutes before they took her to be cleaned up and weighed and measured. I didn't have to be knocked out so the rest of the surgery didn't take long and as soon as they wheeled me into the recovery room they put Noa on my chest naked and she army crawled to my boob and latched on all by herself! I mean, this is the stuff of natural births not c-sections!

I was and am just so incredibly grateful for having gone through this experience. It was a healing journey even if it was incredibly long and painful. The recovery has been smooth and though more painful in some ways because my perineum was stretched and I had pushed for so long (but no tears), it is less painful in the incision area and I am able to walk and move about, get out of bed etc. with much less pain than I had with Gi. I love knowing I gave it my all, I never let things get out of my control, I called all the shots, (including a little battle over my hep lock not becoming an IV straight away when I arrived) and Ben was the most supportive, most encouraging partner I could have asked for. It really brought us closer to have gone through this together and to have seen what is possible when you're prepared to have the birth you want.

It may not have been a successful VBAC but you cannot control everything and it was the best birth experience for ME under those conditions. I even asked my doc about a third pregnancy and the state of my uterus a day after going through all that! She says there were no areas of thinning in my uterus, not a lot of scarring and she would happily okay me for a third. We'll see about all that of course a LOT later.

Here are some more first photos: