We made it!

We successfully made it to our vacation destination, which included our first flight with both kids.  It was wonderful!  Frankie was SO EXCITED to go on an airplane. We gave him this cute little monkey suitcase as a surprise the night before we left, and he was very excited to carry it all by himself.  He was literally running up and down the terminal rolling his suitcase behind him.  The night before we left, Frank kept telling me that I had packed too much stuff and that there was no way we would be able to make it through the airport with both kids and all the stuff.  We were so nervous about it that we ended up drinking just a tad bit too much the night before while we were packing.  But, it was perfect.  We flew on one of those small planes with one single seat on the left side of the aisle and two seats on the right side.  We had planned for me to sit with Lily on the single side and for Frank and Frankie to sit together on the other side, but they would not allow us to do that, so it was me, Frankie, and Lily all on one side together.  I was very nervous when they made us switch, but Frankie was great on the plane as long as he had his ipad, coloring books, and a million snacks :)  Lily fought me, but she finally fell asleep after about an hour and slept the rest of the way.  We got into our rental car around 1:30 p.m., and both kids were super overtired and screaming on the car ride to the beach before they finally passed out.

Just a sampling of the random comments from strangers at the airport:

-He is just so BUSY (about Frankie as he ran up and down the terminal with his suitcase)
-She is your mini-me!  (about me and Lily)
-Your family is gorgeous (my favorite)
-I cannot believe she knows I am a stranger already (a random lady to me after she said "hi" to a smiling Lily and Lily burst into tears and would not stop crying for several minutes.  Thanks, Lady!)
-There's a baby on the belt! (when I put Lily in her carseat on the conveyer belt at security.  Whoops!)

Thankfully, there were a bunch of families with young kids on our flight, so everyone was understanding and super helpful.

Music man

Frankie has been very aware of music lately, whether it is on TV, coming from a toy, or playing on the radio.  He will frequently say, "Mom, do you hear the guitar (or drum, saxaphone, etc)?" when we are listening to music.  He always requests country music in the car, although he does tolerate "KISS FM."   The first song that he really liked was the "Boom Boom song," which is really Luke Bryan's "Drunk on you."  He started to sing that song and request to hear that song about a year ago.  Then, his next favorite was Taylor Swift's "Trouble."  I think he liked that one because there is a part in it where she says "trouble, trouble," and he definitely knows what it means to get in trouble!  Lately, he has been singing along to all of the songs on Mickey Mouse Club (I have the Minnie Mouse song "Welcome to my new bow-tique" constantly stuck in my head now...) and his new favorite radio song is "Crazy" by Hunter Hayes.  Except his version goes "I don't want crazy, let's get crazy, a little bit crazy, let's get crazy!"  Haha.   He was singing this verse over and over for the last couple of days, and then we finally heard "Crazy" on the radio last night, and he was so excited to hear the song he had been singing!  It is soooooo sweet to hear him sing these songs, and I want to treasure these memories forever. I wonder if we may have a little future musician on our hands?

Swing to crib transition = success!

After three days, I am officially declaring the swing-to-crib transition a success!  Last night Lily slept from 8:15 until 6:15 without waking up.  Wahoo!  She was STARVING when she woke up, which sucks because I had to give her the acid reflux medicine and then wait 30 minutes before giving her a bottle.  But, I don't remember that phase lasting long with Frankie, so hopefully she will get used to eating at 7:00, or whatever time we pick, and she won't have such a hard time with the 30-minute waiting period.

Swing to crib transition--night two

Well, night two was even better than night one!  Liliana slept in her crib from 8:15 until I woke her up at 7:30, only waking up once at 4:30 to eat.  She is doing fantastic, and I am so so proud of her!  I am struggling to figure out when I need to start waking her up every day.  Since she has been born, we have not really been on a schedule, so I usually just wake her up right before I take Frankie to day care, which can vary drastically from as early as 7:15 am to as late as 9:00 a.m.  It just depends on whether we let him sleep in or wake him up.  We need to decide whether Frank or I is going to be taking the kids to school in the morning, and what time we want to leave so that we can figure out what our morning routine will be and what time both kids need to wake up.  It was a lot easier with Frankie, because at the time it was just me and him!  I wish that I could take them to school, but I think with Frank's job it makes more sense for me to go into work early and leave early and for him to take the kids and leave later.  We just need to figure out who needs to get up when to do what :)

Lily sometimes screams for the 30 minutes before bedtime, even if she is not hungry, so I am thinking we may need to move her bedtime up from 8:30 to 8:00 so that we can avoid this screamfest.

Swing to crib transition--night one

Last night we put Liliana to bed in the crib for the first time in weeks.  She had been sleeping exclusively in the swing for the last several weeks, and she was usually sleeping at least 8 hours straight at night, and often sleeping all the way through the night.  I was very hesitant to move her, but we are going to be in Florida next week without a swing, so we wanted to try to get her used to sleeping in a crib before our trip.  We had tried putting her to sleep in her crib around the one-month point, and it was a disaster, with her waking up frequently and being incredibly difficult to console when she woke herself up.  I am extremely happy to report that she did great last night!  She slept from 8:30 to 7:00, only waking up one time around 12:30 to eat two ounces and immediately go back to sleep.  I am so thankful for how well she did, and I can only hope she continues to sleep well in there.  It is so funny watching her sleep on the monitor.  She spins around her crib just like Frankie did, and she is in a completely different position every time I wake up and catch a glimpse of her on the monitor.

She is getting to a really fun stage where she is super smiley, starting to laugh, and just generally very pleasant to be around.  Yesterday morning Frankie insisted that she wear this huge pink bow with her PJs when we took him to school.  Of course, everyone commented on how beautiful she looked!

Please pray that night two will go as well (or better!) than night one, and that we can successfully transition Liliana into her crib before we leave this weekend.

Staycation

Originally, our family and a group of friends and their families booked an awesome, huge house on Lake Granbury for this weekend.  However, a few weeks ago, we found out that the owners of the house were using our weekend to repair their roof that had been damaged in a tornado.  They conveniently did not let us know until it was too late to book anything else, so the Vestal family decided to come to Dallas for the weekend.  We had a cookout at our house on Friday night, and it somehow ballooned into a big gathering with 14 adults and 9 kids!  It was quite the adventure with so many little kids running around, but we survived without any major catastrophes.  We spent most of the rest of the weekend lounging by the Four Seasons pool and enjoying the unseasonably cool weather.  Frank played golf on Sunday, and I had a bit of a stressful time trying to put both kids down for naps that resulted in neither of them sleeping more than 20 minutes.  When Frank got home he was extremely sweet and he offered to watch Lily for a few hours while Frankie and I went up to the pool.  It was very nice to spend a few hours of quality time with my first baby.  We very rarely get alone time like that anymore, and I think he appreciated it too.  This weekend felt almost like being on vacation, and it makes me extremely excited for our vacation next week!  I am so ready for a week of beach, sun, and family time.

I want my body back!

The absolute worst part of pregnancy for me is the weight gain.  I have always worked out a lot, and fitness is super important to me.  With Frank, I worked really hard to maintain my fitness during my pregnancy, and I recall working out regularly until maybe the 37th or 38th week.  I gained about 32 pounds with that pregnancy, but I was still in pretty good shape everywhere but my stomach.  I lost about 25 pounds within the first three weeks, and I lost the rest of the weight within the next couple of months.  I was wearing my pre-pregnancy jeans (admittedly, with spanx underneath) by two months postpartum.  Somewhere between having Frank and getting pregnant with Lily I managed to gain back five of those pounds, so I started off heavier this pregnancy than last. I also gained more weight--37 pounds--this time, and I was terrible about working out, so when I gave birth, I was 42 pounds heavier than what I want to be, and I was also completely out of shape.  

I have had a much easier recovery this time around, and I started walking again at three weeks postpartum.  I started seriously exercising at four weeks, and I have been doing a Tracy Anderson post-partum DVD religiously for the last four weeks.  I have also been trying to eat much better and cut back seriously on sweets.  I have lost 30 of the 42 pounds I want to lose, but I am so anxious to lose the rest of the weight and get back into my pre-pregnancy clothes.  Having this extra weight seriously depresses me.  I know that it takes time to lose weight healthily, but I am so anxious to get my body back!  I feel like I never really got back into great shape after I had Frank, and I feel like if I don't do it now, I will never be fit again.  

I should be doing my workout DVD right now instead of writing this blog post, but it is so hard after a long, hard day with a fussy baby to motivate myself to workout!  Lily got her shots on Tuesday, and she was super, super sleepy the rest of Tuesday and all day yesterday, but today she has basically been wide awake all day, which makes for a loooong day for Mommy!  Hopefully tomorrow she will be back to her normal self.

Lily two-month stats

I took Liliana to the doctor today for her 2-month appointment, and she did great.  She is 10 lbs 7 ounces and 22.5 inches long, putting her in the 22nd percentile for weight and the 50th percentile for height.  The doctor was not concerned at all about Lily's weight and said that she is growing beautifully.  Baby girl had to get her two month shots at this appointment, and she did not like it one bit.      When the nurse gave her the shots, her face turned bright red and she SCREAMED.  But, after I picked her up and held her for a minute she was fine, and by the time we were leaving, she was smiling again.  She was a brave little girl!  I am so glad that she is growing and thriving.

Boys vs girls

Frank and I were talking last night about how we are starting to notice the subtle differences between Frank and Lily as babies, and we were wondering whether these differences are because he is a boy and she is a girl.  Obviously these traits are not inherent to either gender, but at least for our boy and girl, here are some of the big differences between the two of them:

(1) Lily is much more sensitive than Frank ever was.  Her skin is sensitive, and we now have to wash all of our clothes, towels, and sheets in special detergent.  Her tummy is sensitive, and we have to give her special hypoallergenic formula.  She is extremely crabby if she is overtired, and if she misses a nap, it can mess up her whole day.  She is also sensitive to loud noises, and she will get startled easily.

(2) Lily only eats when she wants to.  If you put a bottle in Frank's mouth, he drank it.  It did not matter how long it had been since he had last eaten, and he would often chug and chug and demand more, even if he had already eaten a ton that day.  Lily, on the other hand, only eats when she is hungry.  If I try to feed her early because we are going out to run an errand, she won't eat.  She will take one sip and  give me a look like I have just tried to give her the most disgusting thing in the world.  She also won't eat when she is about to poop, even if she is in the middle of a bottle.

(3) Lily is not very good at soothing herself.  When she gets tired, especially if she is overtired, she has trouble soothing herself to fall asleep.  She often needs us to rock her, shh her, sing to her, and to have one last sip of a bottle in order to calm herself down enough to fall asleep.  She will frantically suck on her hands and cry when she is overtired, and she gives almost the same cues as when she is hungry, so it is hard to distinguish the two sometimes.  Frankie on the other hand was always very good at soothing himself, and he did not need all of the rocking, shhh-ing, and extra milk to get him to fall asleep.

Maybe all of these things have nothing to do with the fact that Frankie is a boy and Lily is a girl...maybe Lily is just a little princess, and we will have to work a little harder to make her happy.

Here are a couple more pictures of my little diva from the last week:

The greatest show on Earth!

Today we took both kids to the circus!  When we learned that the circus was coming in town, we decided we wanted to take Frankie as a special treat for doing so well with his stars.  We implemented a stars reward system a few weeks ago when we were having some big problems with his not listening, having intentional potty accidents, and not taking naps.  Every day we give him stars as rewards for doing good with things like eating, taking a nap, taking a bath, and listening.  Then, at the end of the day, we let him count up all of his stars for the day.  He has been getting progressively better over the last couple of weeks, and I think having incentives really helps him.  I was a little apprehensive about bringing Lily to the circus, but both kids did fantastic!  The show was just about 20 minutes too long, but we made it to the very end without any major meltdowns.  Frankie loved the show, especially the elephants, tigers, and lions.  I haven't been to this type of circus in a long time, and I had forgotten how amazing it is!  We had a great time.  We also rode the DART train downtown, and Frankie loved it.  It was so easy to hop on the train near our house and ride it all the way to the AA center.  We had a great time, and I think Frankie really enjoyed his special treat!

Liliana is 2 months!

My sweet baby girl is two months old today.  We celebrated her two month birthday by going to the Burch twins' first birthday party!  Amy did an awesome job with the decorations and food, and it was great to see the girls and some good friends that we had not seen in a long time.  Frankie came home from school yesterday with a fever, and when he woke up this morning, the fever was above 103 degrees.  He has never had a fever that high!  He was also not acting like himself, but he didn't really have any other symptoms.  We took him up to the doctor this morning, and she said it must be a virus, because his ears and throat looked fine, and he tested negative for strep.  He seems to be feeling better this afternoon, and he no longer has a fever, so we'll see.  He always wants to give his baby sister hugs and kisses, and it is killing him that we are not letting him touch her until he gets better.

At two months, baby Lily is still in size 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers, but she is growing out of both and will probably move up to the next sizes soon.  She is usually sleeping through the night for 9-11 hours at a time, but sometimes she wakes up between 3:00 and 4:00 if she did not eat enough during the day and then goes back to sleep for the rest of the night.  She typically eats 5 times a day, and usually 4 ounces at a time, for a total somewhere around 20 ounces.  She is still having some fussy days where her reflux is acting up, but most days are good!  I took her off of the second medicine that the specialist put her on because I read some scary things about the potential side effects, and because it seemed to make her fussier than normal.  She has been virtually the same (minus the extra fussiness) since I stopped giving it to her, so I do not think it was helping much anyway.

Liliana is very smiley, and when she smiles her whole face lights up.  I think she looks so similar to Frankie when she smiles.  She loves when I (or Frankie) sing to her, when we play "this little piggy," and playing peek-a-boo.  She is starting to like baths better.  We are often stopped by ladies at the grocery store who tell us how pretty she is, and she usually rewards them with sweet smiles.  She has now been babysat twice, and both times her sitters reported she was a sweet angel.

I cannot believe that my maternity leave is already halfway over!  I love getting to spend this special time with my sweet girl.  Here are a couple more pictures from the last few days:

Thankful

Today, I am so very thankful for the following things:

(1) My sweet friends who help out whenever we need them, and sometimes, without even asking;

(2) My sweet husband for giving me a night off to go out to dinner;

(3) Professional opportunities that are exciting (this always happens when I am on maternity leave...);

(4) my four months of maternity leave that I get to bond with my sweet girl;

(5) VACATION in three weeks;

(6) healthy, snuggly, squishy babies;

(7) the lovely ladies at Supercuts yesterday who told me I looked great and couldn't believe I had just had a baby 8 weeks ago;

(8) my Keurig;

(9) Lily currently sleeping between 9 and 11 hours straight at night;

and (10) dark chocolate and skinny margaritas.

Happy Tuesday, happy baby!

This sweet little girl has been SO happy today! She has been settling into a pretty consistent routine the past couple of days, which Mama really likes.  She is sleeping between 7 and 10 hour stretches at night, and she is having less problems going down (or back down) to sleep.  She is taking three good naps a day, and usually one smaller cat nap.  She typically eats five times a day, approximately every 3-4 hours, minus the long stretch of sleep.  She is eating about 18-20 ounces a day.  She is really starting to like when I sing to her--this is what gets us the most big smiles.  After she eats a bottle, I will usually put her in her bouncy chair for 20-30 minutes to keep her upright, and she LOVES this thing.  She could sit in it all day I think.  Between that and her swing, I feel like we are really utilizing our baby equipment with her!  I am really enjoying spending these days at home with this sweet baby.  Here are some of the TONS of pictures I have taken of her in the last week: