A little update

January 29, 2009: Casey turns 21 months old tomorrow. Casey's newest thing is "I do it myself". She's putting her socks on, tries to get her pants on, her boots on, her hat and mittens on. It is funny and definitely consistent with her strong, independent personality. Sometimes it is helpful when she can do something herself, but sometimes it just makes the process longer.

One thing I love about Casey is when she has woken up from a nap but is still sleepy she hooks her thumb into the edge of her blanket and rubs it on her other palm or her feet, arm, neck or cheek. It is very cute. She is in such a great time of her life. She can be a handful, but I worship her.

The fall season for her monkey business class ended last week. We decided not to sign up for the spring session and are going to try out a swim class instead. This morning we went to the first one and it was a riot. It is in a hotel pool and there are 4 other moms and daughters in the class. The teacher is great and sings songs and plays games with the kids that encourage them to put their faces in the water, blow bubbles, lay on their backs, etc. Casey seemed to really enjoy her self and so did I. We have a fun little weekly schedule set up right now. On Mondays and Wednesdays a group of moms at Taft bring our kids up to the gym and we put the kids in a squash court. We take turns working out and watching the kids, its fun for them and nice for us to get a chance to work out. Tuesdays the moms at Taft started a little music class. We figured why do we need to pay someone else to tell our toddlers to shake this, or sing itsy bitsy spider when we can do it. And now Thursdays we go to swim class.

Julia is doing well I guess. I cannot believe she is 12 weeks already. Colic is a tough time to go through. She really has very little routine and there is so little time in her cycles to get much interactions and developmental stuff in. I used to spend so much time with Casey hanging toys in front of her, doing tummy time and all sorts of things. With Julia it is just eating, sleeping, and crying (or trying to keep her from crying). There are getting to be more and more moments when she is happy so hopefully we are on some path towards the end of colic. I really think it will make things so much easier when she settles down and gets herself into some sort of routine. She is smiling a lot more and makes cute cooing sounds during her happy times. She is really into staring at her hands and also sucking on them. She has started raising her head up like she is doing crunches. She has started batting at the animals that swing above her head on the activity mat and will reach out to grab toys a little too. At my parents house she loved the floral print on the couch and would reach out and scratch the cushions. We spent the weekend in Greenwich because I was sick with mastitis and our heat was out on Saturday morning (a bad combo considering I was shaking to death b/c of my fever).
People always ask if she looks like Casey and I don't know the answer. I dug up a picture from when Casey was about 12 weeks. I see similarities but Julia definitely has her own look. You can decide for yourself...

2 Month Check Up

January 8, 2009: Julia had her two month check up today. She weighed 10 pounds 3 ounces. I didn't even get the chance to ask what percentile that is. Normally I might have called the office to ask them, but since I talked to them on the phone nearly everyday over Christmas break I felt I shouldn't call anymore :) Julia is doing fine, but we need to do more tummy time with her. He said her head is getting a teeny bit flat in the back. Not a problem yet, but that we need to watch for it. I could have seen that coming. Julia gets hardly any tummy time. She is so fussy all the time and she hates being on her belly, so with that combo it is hard to find an appropriate time to put her down.

A Crazy Month

January 7, 2008: Poor Julia, she is already a classic, neglected second child. She has practically no photos, video footage, no baby book, rarely gets a bath and no regular blog action. The Last month has been very rough. The girls have been sick constantly for 5 or 6 weeks now. It started on Nov 22nd with Casey vomiting/stomach bug for a week, then a cold, then pneumonia, then Julia got RSV, then Casey went back for a second round of stomach bug which was much worse because she became so weak. On Christmas morning she was like a drunk doe bumping into walls when she was walking on her weak little twig legs. Poor thing. Anyways, it is now 2009 and I think (fingers crossed) that we are healthy. Julia has a slight sniffle. If this were my first child I would probably be at the emergency room but now I don't even think twice about a little cold.
Julia has grown a lot. I will find out exactly how much tomorrow when she goes in for her 2 month check up. We have come to realize she is a colicky baby, which is just one more thing to throw into the mix of having two kids under two. Just when you get Casey down to bed at night and feel like you survived another day and get ready to put your feet up Julia kicks into high gear with crying. It peaked at Christmas with two full days of nearly inconsolable crying. We took her to the doctor in Boston to make sure nothing was wrong and thats when they uttered the word colic. Luckily it did seem to get a little better and most babies get rid of it by 3 months so hopefully only a few more weeks to go. She has gotten better though and has definitely increased her awake and content times. She has really started smiling and interacting with us which is great. I am constantly comparing her to Casey and she is not where Casey was developmentally at this stage. I think Casey rolled over for the first time at this age and Julia is not close to doing things like that. It is hard not to compare your kids but everyone is different and we just need to get used to that. Also Casey set the bar pretty high because she did do (and continues to do) a lot of things very early. Sleep has been so so with Julia. Some nights are great, she will go to sleep between 10-11pm and wake up between 4-5am, then go back down until 7 or 8. But some nights are not so good, she will wake at 2am to eat and then take an hour and a half to get back to sleep. Those nights are not fun. She still spits up quite a lot so I will have to ask the doctor about that tomorrow.

Casey is going thru a bit of a rough patch right now. I think it has been sort of a perfect storm of events on her life. With her continued sickness, Julia's arrival, being cooped up in the house due to Julia or the weather, and vacations disrupting her routine. She has been acting very cranky and I am nervous it is the start of the terrible two's. She whines a lot more than she used to. My parents keep telling me it is because she was sick for so long that it took a huge toll on her. So I am hoping they are right and this will go away soon. Besides a little more whininess, Casey is still a riot. She loves singing songs and seems to have an amazing ability to memorize lyrics. She knows her alphabet, twinkle twinkle, all the songs on this Raffi cd we have, row row row your boat, and a bunch more. She continues to be very nice to her sister.

We spent a week in Boston over Christmas, then a day in Greenwich. We came back to Taft while James did some recruiting for a few days and then headed to Florida for a few days. Florida was nice but Casey was still sick and cranky and not as fun as we would have hoped. Anyhow, we are back at Taft now and starting to get back into a routine. Now that Julia is two months old she can go out in public more (the first two months are crucial for keeping them well), so we have been to the dining hall for lunch. People are still bringing us dinners as baby gifts every other night so that has been helpful. As for me, I am hanging in there. I have moments where I can manage things well and moments where it is stressful and exhausting. The worst part for me is feeling like I can't give either girl enough of me. If I am paying attention to Casey and giving her what she wants (someone to play with constantly and romp around on the floor with) then I am ignoring Julia. But when Julia needs me, for instance this morning she was crying a lot and needed to be held a lot. I would start a game or book with Casey and need to say, 'sorry, I need to pick up your sister'. Julia does not get a fraction of the attention that Casey got at this age and that worries me as a mom, but as James says, you just have to do your best for them and let the chips fall as they may.

Here are a ton of pix from December, Christmas, Florida, etc.