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.