A case of the giggles

Last Saturday, Squonk got the day off to go play games with his buddies. This meant that I needed to juggle childcare needs for the whole day and evening, including bedtime.
Sometimes, I'm not so good at scheduling stuff. Sometimes one of the kids doesn't want to cooperate.

As I'm putting Alia to bed, Hannah decides she just doesn't want to sleep at that point.

So I bring Hannah into Alia's bed, and I read stories to both of them.
At the end of storytime, Alia asks to cuddle with Hannah. Hannah is now a lot less fragile (her four-month exam showed her at 14lbs 4oz (75%) and 26" (98%) - wow!!!) So I lay Hannah next to Alia.

Alia starts giggling.
Hannah starts giggling because Alia is giggling.

This continues for a number of minutes.

And I'm practically in tears because it's just so darn cute. (Not to mention, we got a repeat performance last night, for Squonk to witness.)

I haven't forgotten....

We've been pretty busy around here, actually.

I joined a gym-sponsored weight loss program at the beginning of April. (Yep, no excuse for nearly blog-less March). Unlike Weight Watchers and other programs, this one is fitness-based while still focusing on dietary intake. So each week, they award plastic bracelets for both weight loss and for workout "points" (5 points per min of cardio, 1 point per 100lbs of strength training). So far, I've gotten a pair of bracelets for Alia to drag around the house each week. They are adding to the mess, but I'm proud of them.

I decided to join, because I wasn't losing weight after Hannah the same way that I did after Alia. I wasn't going to wear maternity clothing for another whole summer, and I wasn't going to purchase new clothing ---and my "fat" pants started getting holes in the knees.
Couple all that with the idea that if I got some momentum on the weight-loss/exercise front, I might as well try to commit to losing that last 15 or so pounds that I have been wanting to lose since college. So that put me in a 35 pound loss target. :)
I'm down about 10 pounds since we started the whole thing. YAY!
I am *almost* fitting into some of the looser pants from my pre-pregnancy days. I figure I have another 3 weeks or so of my yoga pants with the hole at the bottom, that I really bought as maternity pants with the intent that they might be workout pants later.

All of this means that our morning routine looks something like this:
Wake up, shower, don gym clothes.
Convince Squonk to walk the dog, as I down my coffee while nursing Hannah. (Kudos to Squonk for getting up earlier to walk the dog)
Hit the gym, find parking if I'm lucky. Spend about 90 minutes there.
Come home, feed Hannah, eat lunch and get everyone (including me!) down for a much needed nap.
Wake up, feed Hannah, walk the dog, start dinner.
Squonk comes home.
We eat dinner (Hannah typically gets hungry here, so I wolf it down and feed her while Squonk tries to coerce Alia into eating something.
Squonk does the dishes.
We alternate putting Alia to bed. Usually a number of times, since she gets out of bed and does things like putting on her fairy wings or rainboots and then getting back in bed to sleep. Why are rainboots required for sleeping? I'm not sure...

As busy as it is, it's turning out pretty well.
One thing about the whole weight-loss deal: It's not a diet. It's a lifestyle change. If those extra pounds are going to come off, I'm going to have to maintain a lot of the changes I'm making now, over the long term.

I am, however, determined that I'm not going to be a gym-rat - one of those people who hangs out at the gym permanently. I need to find some sort of sport or activity that I both like, and which isn't strictly gym based. Hmmmm.

Hannah updates

Hannah got her first series of shots this morning, along with her 2-month exam. She's now 24.75" and 12lbs 1oz (WOW!!! 75th percentile for weight!) Alia was 12lbs 10oz at her 4-month exam. It's kind of nice to have a kid that the pediatrician has dubbed a "heavy baby" - I had/have spent so much time worrying about Alia's weight gain and eating habits, that it's rather nice to have one that's not so worrisome.

Alia still doesn't eat much - I'm starting to resort to the traditional "toddler foods" like hot dogs and spaghetti for lunch. Yesterday, I cut her sandwich into a heart shape for her, and then did it again when she lost interest in that (after about 3 bites). I don't want to coerce her into eating, but I'm having to physically hold food up for her to get her to take a few more bites, and chase her around the house with the food (she thinks its funny, so at least there's that.)
On the plus side, she really likes fruit and vegetables - they are often the only things she'll fully eat off her dinner plate. And she's always interested in grabbing handfuls of lettuce, and actually eats them (I'm lazy, and serve salads up directly from the costco-purchased box of organic spring mix).

Birthday cards

I'm notorious for showing up at birthday parties with our gift in a bag, no card included. Usually, it's because I've left the wrapping until the last minute, and didn't get off to purchasing a card to go with the gift. If the gift is in a bag, then the bag is nearly always "recycled" from a gift I've received.

So I can totally relate to this story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090310/ap_on_fe_st/odd_cheap_brothers

My kid's a GENIUS!

Ok, maybe the title goes a bit far... But Hannah rolled over front to back this afternoon.
She's 8.5 weeks old.
Hee hee!

In other news, I made sauerkraut 2 weeks ago, and then corned beef (the bag from costco, so not home-corned) The plan is to go purchase some rye bread at Trader Joe's tonight or tomorrow, and we'll be eating Rubens for lunch or dinner. I tried the sauerkraut last night in a "test eat" to make sure that it wasn't going to poison me. I had erred on the side of saltiness for fear of the little microbes that make sauerkraut sour. I'm not totally sure what I was worried about, seeing as I had built my own sourdough starter a few years ago and never had any qualms about sticking a clean finger in and tasting it raw --- it's largely the same sort of environmental bacteria that work in both treatments. Anyhow, neither Squonk or I have gotten ill yet. As one of my recipe sources points out, for most fermentation, as long as you've followed the basic instructions, if it smells and looks like something edible, go right ahead.

Sleep is good!

I figured that a new baby would mean months of getting up at 2am, then again at 5am, and again at 7am.

WRONG!

Hannah slept until 5 this morning, and Alia didn't join us in bed until just after 7am.

Unbelievable. I caught 6+ hours of sleep, then another 45 minutes or so after I nursed Hannah.

Whoo hooo!!

Kids update

We had our one-month pediatrician visit last Monday, and over the last two weeks, Hannah has gained 19oz - topping 10lbs 5oz now. It's pretty crazy on a number of levels. For one thing, if you consider the size of her stomach (about the size of her hand, which is about the side of a single, curled adult finger) - that's a lot of calories to process, not to mention to convert into weight gain. And those calories are all coming from me (conveniently, I've dropped a few pregnancy pounds). And not that I compare kids, but at Alia's one-month visit, she was a full pound less.
Hannah has also started smiling responsively, and is starting to engage with a few hanging toys.

Alia is doing OK with all the changes, but seems a lot crankier than usual on many days. I know I'm crankier too, so I think we're building off each other in that respect. A lot of the tantrums are because she's hearing the word "no" a lot. There are baby supplies around now, like the swings that she needs to stay out of - mostly so she doesn't hurt herself. There are some toys around that are designed for infants that aren't likely to hold up to certain types of toddler-abuse. I try to coach her on how she can play with them (put the baby doll in the swing, do this but not that with some toy), but if she has to be reminded a lot, then those things are put out-of-bounds, and Alia throws a fit. Additionally, she's learning to get into more things now - climbing furniture and jumping off it - today, she wanted to draw in the condensation on the window in her room. It's 4 1/2 feet up from the floor, so she climbed on some drawers and had her fun. I came back into her room and found her on top of them. Sigh. We left a closet door open where the special after-doggie-bath dog treats are, and she handed 5 of these to Xeno, who was in doggie heaven for a little while until we took the uneaten ones away. She also gets onto the toilet in the hall bath, and plays with the pump soap, enjoying a round of washing hands. And this morning, she'd seen me scrubbing the toilet for some weekend guests, and she decided that she'd clean the toilets too. Needless to say, it didn't make things that much cleaner.

Alia is, however, also helpful with Hannah as well. I had a late night with Hannah the other night, and while Squonk left for work late so I could sleep in, I was still exhausted. I planned a library outing badly, and didn't leave enough time for lunch, nursing Hannah and a naptime wind-down for Alia (I have to plan 3-4 hours ahead for almost every part of my day - Squonk relates this to his board games where you plan a number of moves ahead). So we missed Alia's nap window, and sat watching Sesame Street instead. I put Hannah into the swing, and let Alia watch TV. I took a short nap on the couch. When I woke up, Hannah had a blanket on her legs.

Shopping silliness

The local Trader Joe's is finally expanding.

Soon, I hope that the cart I push down the milk aisle won't actually stop the flow of shopper traffic through the whole store! Seriously, you pick up your cart, turn right past the bread and veggies, and then enter the milk section. You then either park said cart across from the refrigerator door you're about to open, such that the door covers half the aisle and the cart blocks the other half, or you park your cart so as to block the adjacent 2 doors.

And here's a little ditty to lighten your TJ's shopping experience: (av, sfw)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdB7GDZY3Pk

Hannah's first 3 weeks

Hannah is now 3 weeks and a day.

When we left the hospital on Thursday (1/8), she had gone from 8lbs 4 oz down to 7lbs 10 oz. It's typical that newborns lose weight initially, so this wasn't worrying. At her first pediatric appointment the following Tuesday (1/13), she was 8lbs 3oz. This was fantastic news, because it meant that my breastfeeding efforts were meeting with some success. She'd passed all of her meconium by day 3, which is the earliest that babies are expected to pass it - so this also meant that she was nursing well.

However, at her second appointment on 1/20, we learned that she'd only gained 3oz during the week. The target is 5-8oz. I was in a near-panic for about 2 days, thinking we might have a major issue and that I'd have to start introducing bottles and dealing with the resulting nipple confusion fallout.

I'd known that she wasn't nursing particularly well, since she was falling asleep really quickly after starting a nursing session. I was also not getting that nice feeling of a milk let-down, or feeling "empty" at the end of an hour long session.

Part of the issue was that I was trying to keep Alia feeling like she was getting attention, so Hannah was going for longer windows between feedings. It's difficult to make sure that both kids are getting the attention they need and deserve... Alia was (and still is) watching a LOT of television. I'm sticking to my strict rule of PBS-only (with the exception of Blue's Clues), so at least it's not complete brain candy, and at least she's not getting ritually exposed to tons of commercials trying to sell her toys and cruddy foods.

So this last week was spent focused on getting Hannah nursing. I started feeling some of those "success" signs that I was missing. And sure enough, when I took her back for a weigh-in at the pediatrician's yesterday afternoon, we got some fantastic news: 10oz in the last week! She's now 9lbs 2oz!!! Needless to say, I'm thrilled.

We're also starting to get out of the house a bit more now. We visited Squonk at work last Thursday, only 30 minutes late. Getting out is no easy feat - I have to time feedings, make sure the bags are packed and carriers are stowed in the car, and there is usually at least 3 diaper changes involved. Alia also needed a complete clothing change before we left, since she'd stomped around in the atrium and gotten her pants AND shirt wet. Sigh.

On Monday, we visited some neighbor friends knowing the kids had colds (I figured handwashing would prevent disease-sharing). We managed a Costco run yesterday, along with a doctor visit for me (5 min late) and the pediatric weigh-in for Hannah. Today, we made it to Library Storytime only 20 minutes late. Alia got to run around with her friend Gavin afterwards, in the orchard behind the library. She had a blast! I'm feeling much better about getting her out and playing with friends.

However, it looks like *I* caught the cold from the neighbor kids. :P

HFCS = bad

It's bad, and (possibly) not just because it's highly caloric. Creepy.