Wednesday, August 11, 2010

clover at 12 weeks

clover at 12 weeks:
**wakes up twice a night. for awhile she just woke once, but now she's waking twice again- she goes to bed between 730-830, wakes up around 1-3 and then around 4-6 and up for the day between 730-830. she has NOT ONCE CRIED at night. and she has not once been wide awake in the middle of the night! too incredible. she wakes cuz she's moving around [breaking an arm out of the miracle blanket] she grunts and roots, i feed her for a good 10 minutes and she's back to sleep.
**she's still in the packnplay next to us and i can't even picture how it's going to work when she shares a room with saylor. i will wait until she's waking up only once or not at all and probably until she's not swaddled anymore... bedtime will be easier than naps. mainly because this girl does not nap! she just takes many 10-40 minute naps throughout the day.. part of me feels like i need to start 'training' her to sleep, but most of me isn't worried about it for now. i didn't take notice of saylor's sleep patterns until he was 5 months or so- i don't think there really was a pattern until then.
**her favorite place in the world is the swing. loves loves loves it. sleeps in there, hangs out awake and watches us.. happy as a clam for hours. i keep putting her in there at the start of her bedtime but i don't want her dependent on the swing for sleep so i've been decreasing the setting so it moves slower and slower. ha! baby steps...
**she is 12 pounds, looking chunky yet petite at the same time. still not fitting in most of her 3mo outfits! she eats like a bird, polite and passive, as compared to saylors horse eating crazy chomping. rarely spits up but has still managed to spit up on like 3 people and i go 'oh my gosh she never spits up!' and they say 'you keep saying that but...'
**last week at 11 weeks and one day she laughed for the first time while we were viisiting our friend meredith [who just had baby marlo!] so of course all we've been doing since is trying to get the girl to laugh. she is very quick with a smile now and will give a huge dimply smile to anyone who says hi to her.
**so laid back, will let anyone hold her [of course at this age]. we can keep her in church and she'll just sit on our laps lookin' around though i don't expect that to last much longer, she's been cooing/talking more and more.
**our friend erin made us these little lovey blankets with tags on them, i put one in her lap all the time and she loves them. grabs them, clings to them, holds them to her faces and sucks all over them. she works so hard to get ahold of it and put it in her mouth! so cute.
**yesterday we really noticed she was trying really hard to reach out to touch a toy. their whole body moves around when they are working on something [smiling, talking, etc] it's so cute! her left arm seems to have more control than her right and that's the one she's trying to touch things with so i'm saying she's gonna be left handed :)
we got iphones! long overdue but it was hard to leave verizon.. my one concern is the reception at&t has, especially if colin starts traveling again. we know lots of guys who have had issues with that... argh. but we got the new ones so we have face2face so that will be fun to use. and i'm so in love with it it's crazy. i feel like i'm carrying around my mac! it's too cool.... i mean, i'm playing games of scrabble right now with friends on my phone. SOLD! haha. i'm very excited about having better quality pictures and storage of pictures and video.. still figuring it out but it's fun. not sure why this video is showing such a small screen... but yah, that's a little bit of her honky laugh.

on another note our community of friends and church have been hit with some intense pain and sadness as of late. it's been surreal.. brokenness and spiritual attack, cancer and sickness, parents sick and dying, marriages hurting and the like. everyone is working hard to love and give and help in what ways we can, but many things aren't fixable or controllable. we have to walk it out and it hurts. prayers are appreciated for my friends. thank you.



i swear saylor gets more attractive every day


she loves to lift those legs up! working on rolling over soon

Monday, August 2, 2010

2.5 kids

clover is going to be 11 weeks this week so i know i don't need to make a decision today. however, i keep thinking and wondering and trying to decide...should we have 3 kids? when she first arrived, it was so easy i was laughing and totally ready to have the 3rd. and now i'm unsure again. our plan is to just wait and see how strong the urge gets :) i know the feeling- your baby is 2, a toddler and you start to ache for a newborn..

PRO CON LIST FOR HAVING A 3RD BABY
PRO
i always wanted 4, scaled back to 3, NEVER wanted 2.
2 seems lonely to me, and also it's what 'everyone else' is doing and i tend to go against the flow :)
i'm still young, there's 'time' to have a 3rd.
another child to 'bounce off' of saylor and clover so they have more than just each other
a potential sister for clover [or brother for saylor], i want to give that to them.
able to give birth one more time!
able to be pregnant/feel a baby move inside me one more time
i love, love, love babies
3 feels more like a family in my mind, and i don't want to someday regret not having a 3rd just because i was too selfish or something
the idea of only 2 kids genuinely makes me a little sad

CON
have to be pregnant again [bluuuuurg]
have to raise a toddler again [exhausting to me]
would have to get a bigger car
harder to get a babysitter/harder to have parents watch all of them
house situation? i like our house, like having a housemate.. 3 kids would be harder for anyone to live with us, plus 3 kids sharing one room??
i like that we are still young and it's very appealing to think of being done having kids. i still feel 'free' and connected to the world.. i like the idea of say and clo growing up and 'hanging out' with us...going to shows and such
can travel easier with 2- take one with us, leave the other one. leave both with family.. or even taking both- easier than adding a 3rd child for sure.
we have 2 great kids, scary to toss the dice again... like the idea of being able to invest and connect more with them 2 and not frazzle/wear myself out.
the idea of 3 kids is exhausting and i feel like it will cement me as a 'mom' and i may 'lose myself'...

basically 2 and a half kids would be perfect. :) it all depends on what colin's doing, what we are feeling in the next couple years. i don't mind waiting a while and then just having one more although i was always saying 3 before 30... but i dunno! 2 sounds lovely.. i still kinda want 3... i'm thinking about this too much i need to somehow block it from my mind for a good year and a half or so!


chubby arms and smiles

serene