Happy 3rd Birthday Gabriella!

Here we are, slightly past Gabriella's 3rd birthday, I can hardly believe it. But let me tell you she is every bit of a 3 year old when it comes to sass. OMG the sass - this child while absolutely hilarious and full of spunk, pushes me to my limits constantly. We celebrated her birthday this past weekend at the local children's museum. It was so much fun. She gots lots of very nice presents which she is ignoring for the sake of watching Little Einsteins and Swan Princess ad naueum.

Emilia is awesome. She is just a big baby full of happiness and squishiness. She is on the verge of crawling, which is totally appropriate given that she's on the brink of 8 months, but I'm just not ready - mentally nor is the house ready! Gabriella was a late crawler, 10.5 months, so I am just taken a-back by Emilia's advanceness in our household. I think she just wants to be with her big sister - who she just adores.

We are excited for the warm weather so we can start taking the girls to the local pool district. They both love water and so I'm sure they'll have a blast. Our Croatia trip is coming up soon, so that'll be a lot of fun (once the plane rides are over anyways).

Gabriella had her check up yesterday and she is 38.5lbs and 40 in, 95th and 97th percentile respectively. Her pedi said that she is of average size for a 4 year old, lol. We decided to weigh Emilia quickly and she is 21lbs and 2 or 3 oz (I can't remember) - so basically I have 2 little ox for children! Oh and Gabriella is fully potty trained. She has been for about 6 weeks or so. Its very nice to not have 2 children to change diapers for!

Ok, ok, I truly suck at blogging

3 months, wow, that is inexcusable! I have the same old excuses though, work plus 2 kids equals crazy busy-ness all the friggin time. I'll spare you an insignificant details and focus on the big stuff with the little ladies:

Gabriella

• Is fully potty trained now. She wore her underwear to daycare for the 1st time today. She still has her accidents - ESP if she's overly excited about something - as in not that she'll pee herself, but rather if she's too enthralled/busy with something she'll refuse to be bothered with going to the bathroom and using the potty. Last week she crapped behind my loveseat - fun times. I think we're past that point now, thankfully!
• Has been signed up for preschool this fall! EEEK! I can hardly believe it. And let me tell ya, she is so flippin excited to go. She asks me every day "mama, I go to school?" Lol, no honey, schools closed until September
• This child talks non-stop all day long. People would call her Gabby if I let them, lol.
• Dealing with some slight jealousy issues with Emilia so has been especially mommy needy lately. Its really exhausting

Emilia

• Started cereals then baby foods, at 4 months and 4 months and 3 weeks respectively. I have to say, she was very different than G when it came to 1st starting foods. G was all over it from the get go. Emilia not so much. It took her quite a few weeks to warm up to cereal and then a while to warm up to the way fruits and veggies taste. Now? She's an animal and can't get enough. She loves everything, but especially loves ALL veggies and bananas.
• Can roll from tummy to back and back to tummy. We had a rough patch for a few weeks where she'd roll onto her tummy for sleeping but then couldn't quite roll herself back over while sleepy. Hopefully we're past that now
• She usually takes 2 sizeable naps and sleeps about 11-12 hrs over night. She usually falls asleep between 6 and 6.30pm and then wakes and starts messing around in her crib about 5.30ish.
• Is the happiest and most joyful baby ever. I swear if someone told me when I was in the midst of colic hell that she would have turn into the most amazingly happy and exuberant baby I would have called them a liar ten times over.
• She days away from her 6 month appt and I can't wait to see how big she is!

I think that's the major stuff with double trouble. Emilia adores her sister and laughs at Gabriella's slightest chuckle. I'm looking forward to the day when Gabriella will reciprocate her sister's affection for her....sigh.

In terms of what's new with me....Chris and I started p90x about a month ago. I have lost about 3-4 lbs and a few inches. I am pleased with my progress but heck I have to say, with the amount I'm putting into this I wish I was seeing more. Alas, the program is only 1/3 of the way completed so hopefully I'll be more enamored soon. I am also really super close to landing myself an amazing job - fingers crossed!

Will post more soon - I swear! No more empty promises! I think by now I've probably lost all my usual blog readers! Which, by the way, just b/c I'm not posting doesn't mean I have been reading about all of you!

We're alive, I swear!

My my, its been so super long since I posted. I had written a post nearly too months ago that I never published, and did just now (see below). I never went back to finish it, so I'll just pick up here with updates.

1. I am back at work. Have been back since Emilia turned 12 weeks old. It was way easier to come back to work this time around than with Gabriella. I think having been through it before and knowing how things will be helps so much.
2. After about 2 months of sheer hell with Emilia, she is rapidly becoming one of the happiest babies ever. This child is smiling most of the time she is awake. She has an adorable husky laugh too!
3. Gabriella is almost fully potty trained and is getting eager to start interacting with her sister more now. Emilia loves giving her big sister smiles too! (although I must say, I get the most :))

I think that's pretty much the major stuff. The holidays were really nice. My family came in from CA and were able to spend a week with us which was lovely. Unfortunately they brought the stomach flu with them. It hit Gabriella first, then me, then simultaneously Chris, and both my ILs. See, they watched the kids while I was tied to the toilet and got it from Gabriella since her diarrhea lingered on for 5 days (it was beyond vile).

I have been working with Emilia on sleep training for over a month now. By sleep training I don't mean full on CIO - but just letting her fuss in intervals. There were days from 4-7 weeks where all she wanted to do was be held to sleep. It was a total nightmare. I would spend hours a day in a darkened room rocking her and holding her while she slept. It was absolutely miserable. I decided I couldn't live like that anymore (and it was exacerbating my PPD). So I started letting her do some very light CIO and she responded very well to it. We then moved her out of our room into her room. She was still sleeping in the bouncer till right before the new year, but I made the switch to her crib and she has been there ever since. Next step was weaning her off the swaddle. About the same time we moved her into her crib she started becoming extremely irritable with the swaddle, but she still needed it to sleep her long stretches. We finally just started weaning her off the swaddle about 4 days ago. So far so good.

I also let her CIO for bedtime now if needed, but she's really been doing quite well compared to before. She is definitely learning how to self soothe and if she is able to put herself to sleep, she sleeps long, better, and wakes up cooing and happy. My favorite kind of baby :)

About my PPD - I'm feeling great these days. I am on medication and it helped me so much. I feel normal and am enjoying my children.

In terms of the pumping, I decided to stop shortly after my post below. I was dumping so much milk b/c of my imbalance that I decided it wasn't worth it anymore. Emilia did ok on regular cows milk formula but since she was still extremely fussy we decided to switch to soy and she's done great on it. Thankfully I did not get mastitis this time around either.

So yeah - things are great here. We have our challenging moments no doubt, but overall life is good. Now that I've caught up with what's been going on I'll be posting more regularly. I need and want to chronicle all of Emilia's going on's too!

Here's my cupcake this morning!

Coming out of the fog - 12/3/11

It's been quite some time since my last post and I promise it hasn't been without good reason. Things have been pretty rough here in our house with Miss Emilia who has reflux and colic. Rather than draw out all the details, I'll just list out what's been going on:

• I stopped exclusively breastfeeding and started pumping after Emilia's reflux started really kicking in and her shortened feeding times caused a second foremilk-hindmilk imbalance. I have been pumping for 2 weeks now. Initially the pumping corrected the imbalance right away, but it came back as I am still producing too much foremilk for her little tummy. Right now the only remedy is to remove the foremilk once it separates out from the hindmilk. I don't know how long my supply will be able to keep up with her demand, but we'll plug away until we can't anymore. Probably about 6 more weeks or so.
• From 5 weeks to a little past 6 weeks, Emilia has been unbelievably difficult. Not sleeping well, screaming. OMG things have been better these past 2 days, but wow, I still can't believe I'm alive after all of it. I know we'll still have some bad days and moments, but I hope we are on the upswing and her sleeping is starting to regularize a bit.
• Emilia gave mama her 1st smile on Thanksgiving she also rolled over from tummy to back during tummy time at about 5 weeks. Hasn't done it since but it was amazing to see that so early, even if it was on accident.
• Gabriella has been a typical 2.5 yr old. Very bratty and very demanding of my attention since I've had my hands really full with Emilia. I hope that as Emilia outgrows her fussiness that I'll be able to spend more time with her. Right now I feel like all we do is put movies on for her and I hate that.
• I have post partum depression.