imagination

Conversation between Jonathan and Daddy...

Jonathan: Daddy, throw a fish at me!

Daddy: (looking around for a toy fish and finding none) A pretend fish?

Jonathan: (nodding) YES!!

Daddy: (pretends to throw a fish) Whap!

Jonathan: (bursts into tears and looks accusingly at Daddy) I need a kiss!

Daddy: What happened?

Jonathan: (between sobs) You hit me in the face with a fish!

remaining calm

The thing about parenting is that it consistently throws you into situations for which you are wholly unprepared but about which you now must act quickly and decisively for the well being of someone you love more than life itself.  And when you are staying home, the only job you have is to take care of these little ones.  So when something goes wrong, it isn't hard to blame yourself and feel like a failure.

For example, over the past week Jonathan has developed a stutter and started saying "dammit" with alarming frequency.  And Zoë has demonstrated that she is completely unwilling to drink from a bottle.  I am not a speech therapist or a psychologist and we never had a problem introducing Jonathan to the bottle.  I suspect that the stutter and the swearing are both related to the stress of the life changes that have recently befallen our little man- and that the best course of action is to remind him that swearing is rude, but to generally ignore them, pile on the TLC, and that this phase will naturally run its course.  But there is a little voice in my head telling me that stutters can be lifelong, debilitating conditions and that my improper handling of it now could ruin Jonathan's life.  I don't know what to do about the bottle issue, except to remain calm, warm, and loving, and to keep practicing and trying new bottles.  But the little voice in my head keeps telling me that if I don't get this figured out, Zoë will starve to death when I go back to work.

I think the trick is to hold the potential seriousness of situations in mind while remaining calm and taking everything with a grain of salt.  Yes, things need to be dealt with in a thoughtful manner with an eye to the future.  But everything is a phase.  And most things sort themselves out with time and patience.  Or at least that is what I keep telling myself.

Beach

After a month of staying with us and being helpful in too many ways to count, my mom flew back to Minnesota this week.  She's only been gone a few days and I miss her so much that it hurts.  Not just for the practical help that she was- from staying up late to hold Zoë and let us get some sleep, to going grocery shopping, to playing silly games with Jonathan, etc- but also for the company.  I love that my mom and I can stay up late talking about nothing and everything every night for a month and it never gets old.  My relationship with her is something I cherish more than just about anything.  And I seriously hope that I am able to be the kind of mother to Zoë that my mother is to me.

The last week that my mom was here, my dad also flew in and we all packed up for a trip to the beach!  As stressful as it is to travel with small children (and despite some questionable weather), it was a wonderful and relaxing few days with family.

Thanks Mom and Dad!  You guys are fantastic grandparents and the best parents a girl could have.  I hope we can be half the parents that you guys are!  Love you and miss you tons!!

Zoë- 1 Month

So Zoë was one month old yesterday!  I can't believe how time flies!!  At the ripe old age of 1 month, the things that charaterize her experience (and ours) are eating, sleeping, crying and pooping.  So here is the long and short of how that is going so far:

At 10.2 lbs, she is growing like crazy!!  Having no other baby experience, I can't help but characterize her by comparing her to big brother.  In my opinion, there is quite a family resemblance.

Newborn Jonathan

Newborn Zoë 

But despite their looks, they have completely different philosophies about eating.  If left to his own choices, Jonathan might starve to death because he is just to distracted to stop and eat.  It took him a week after birth to learn how to nurse and he never had the patience to do so for more than 5 minutes.  Zoë loves eating.  Within 10 minutes of birth she had figured out how to nurse like a pro and did so for half an hour.  She over-eats every time and then spits all the excess back up in sneaky gushes as soon as she sees the burp-cloth has slipped.  We have started calling her Miss Vesuvius.

While she is by no stretch of the imagination sleeping through the night, she seems to have her days and nights sorted out and a natural bedtime of 8pm.  Whether this is because by 8 Jonathan is asleep and the chaos around here subsides is hard to say, but it is fantastic for us.  After her 8ish nursing, she usually is pretty easy to rock to sleep and will stay asleep once we lay her down in her bed (Fisher Price is genius.  If only we'd had this for big brother).  And from then until around 6am Zoë sleeps, waking up to nurse, but then going right back to sleep.  Amazing.

Daytime sleep is something else, though.  She fights naps a like a champ and, unlike her big brother, isn't lulled to sleep by nursing.  So she is awake happily for about an hour after she eats, but then is overtired but can't put herself to sleep yet.  So we end up rocking, bouncing, singing, walking, patting, shh-shhing, and watching her eyes blink slower and slower until they finally flutter shut.  For about 5 minutes.  Then they POP open and we are back to square one.  And heaven forbid you set her down after she has fallen asleep.