Good times!

Wow, Anna is changing so much everyday! At six weeks old, she is becoming so much more alert, and has actually started smiling in response to seeing our faces. She is also starting to coo, which is so sweet. She is sleeping 4-5 hours in a row at night, so I usually 'wake up" to feed her twice. Obviously, I'm defining "wake up" very loosely here. Usually the first time I feed her, I've got to be honest, I'm in a very hazy semiconsciousness, and then I wake up a few hours later with her sleeping beside me, wondering when and how much I fed her earlier, and I do a more complete feeding and diaper change. I'm so thankful that removing dairy from my diet seems to have almost totally alleviated her tummy troubles. We rarely have the colicky fits anymore, and they only last 30 minutes or so when we do have them. She's still a bit of a carseat screamer, which can make for some stressful driving. But I might have broken her of that with all the driving we did this weekend!

*Deep breath* Saturday, Claire, Anna, and I went to Coleman to eat lunch at Nana's house, as Uncle Danny, Aunt Neila, and Allie were in from Kansas City. Anna got to meet them and Uncle Mike, who also hadn't seen her yet. Claire got to play with Molly (they enjoyed screaming and running up and down Nana and Grandad's hallway while waving stuffed animals in the air) and Allie (they had crazy hair day, putting their hair in silly styles with Claire's ponytail and clippie bag in the bathroom for probably an hour). That afternoon, Claire got a nice carseat nap while I drove back home and changed clothes, nursed Anna, and then loaded her back up, and Jay and I drove to Sherman. We met our friends Seth and Kara there, and Jay and Seth took Claire to Red Lobster--Jay had a gift card and a major seafood craving, but Kara and I were in a hurry to get back to Durant for a play at Southeastern, so we ate at Chick Fil A. I never have a problem with that place! Then Kara and I hit Target quickly, and drove back to Calera, where we dropped off Anna, and then headed to SE to see Grease the musical. It was so cute! Danny Zuko was a Rob Pattinson lookalike, who was probably a much better dancer and singer than that celeb. White guys dancing slightly awkwardly is much more amusing to me than white guys who can dance perfectly--although I do enjoy that at times, too, as you know from my Dancing with the Stars obsession. While we were watching the play, Jay, Seth, and Claire were fighting the crowds at Chuck E. Cheese. It was finally time for Claire's reward trip there, after having an excellent week with on-time and fit-free naps and bedtimes.

Today after church, Anna and I bebopped out to Coleman again for James and Angel's baby shower. So excited for my cousin James, who is going to have twins McKenna and Kasen in three weeks or less!

Anyway, through all that driving this weekend, Anna did have a couple carseat fits, but also several totally peaceful rides, which is progress.

So obviously, such a newsy post as this indicates procrastination of something much more pressing, so I'd better try to grade some papers before one of my girls wakes up!

Getting into a routine

Midweek visit with Aunt Manda!

This is one of those perfect "Write your own caption" photos. How about, "Oh no you didn't!!" or "Uncle Kyle, what big lips you have!"

Blue Steele. Or is that Magnum? Either way, it's money, baby.

Starting to be mesmerized with toys.

Well, this entry's title is a little misleading. It seems like with two kids, every day is a totally new challenge! But I can definitely say I'm feeling more relaxed, more rested, more in control this week than I have so far. Anna's tummy is doing much better, and Claire's sleep habits are improving by leaps and bounds this week! No fits or super-late naps (after all the reading and delay tactics she can handle) at all. We are planning a trip to Chuck E. Cheese this weekend to reward her for her big-girl behavior. Now that I've said that, I've probably just jinxed us, and we'll have a mother of a meltdown tonight or tomorrow!

We had a very relaxing weekend, and have so far had a good week, except poor Jay has been down with a cold. He got a Z-pack Monday though, and is doing well enough to go to work, as much work as he can do with all this rain. He's got about 10 houses under contract to start building in the near future, but can't begin b/c it's been too wet.

The girls and I drove out to Wapanucka on Monday to see my little brother Tyler play basketball. My sister Amanda was down for two nights, so she was there, too. Claire LOVES Aunt Manda; here's how much. At Mamaw and Papaw's house, if I tell her Manda is coming over that afternoon, she will jump up and say, "I have to go bye-bye, Manda's coming on her way!" If she will willingly and immediately be ready to leave Mamaw and Papaw's, she must really be excited about something! We are very proud of Tyler, who worked hard during his game--he was playing on a team of only fourth-graders, so they only had six kids, so all the kids played a lot more than they're used to. He shot several times, played defense, and made some good passes (no points tonight though, so he was disappointed!).

After Ty's game, we had dinner and got to go visit Nana, Grandad, Dani, and Molly at Nana and Grandad's house, so that was fun, too. Molly loved patting Anna, and saying "bebe!" And Claire and Molly are both big fans of hide and seek (they will both actually go somewhere by themselves and stay quiet while someone looks for them), so they had a big time playing hide and seek with Manda and Tyler.

Tuesday after I went to class and got the girls home from Mamaw and Papaw's (at about noon), Manda came over to spend the afternoon and night at our house. We really know how to show a hip, intelligent grad student a good time, let me tell ya: holding Anna, playing hide and seek and dollhouse with Claire, and watching a movie with big sis on the couch after everyone else was asleep. We had a great time, and hope Manda can take advantage of her laid-back semester with more midweek trips to our house.

An attempt to get a family picture!

Anna's screaming and Claire's being a stinker!


Let's try getting Claire to hold Anna...nope, she's not going for that, either.

She does want to love on Baby Sister, but does NOT want to have her picture taken doing it...



Maybe next time! The bad thing is, there are so few times when we are all dressed up at the same time! Last night though, Jay and I got to have a Valentine's Day date! Paul and Diane kindly kept the girls, and Anna slept the entire time while Claire tromped them from the Polly room to the computer to the dress-up box. We went to Johnny Carino's and Starbucks. Yum! Claire spent the night at their house while Jay and I ate a yummy chocolate dessert and watched (500) Days of Summer, which I thought was an original, refreshing, well-acted and well-written film. Jay, however, was not so into it, mostly just because he couldn't separate Summer the character from the movie.

Meanwhile, Claire is still being more needy at bedtime than she was before Christmas. But I just have to cherish these times, when she asks to hold my hand while she goes to sleep, lets me stroke her hair, and then when I tell her I'm going to go, but will come back to check on her before I go to bed, and she says, "I'll just wait on you." I'm sure there will be times in coming years when I just wish she would let me do those things, but she won't let me!

Bathtime!

Three weeks old!


This is actually Anna's second bath; she got her first one during Claire's storytime, so no pics of it. As you can see, she's not a fan. Once I finished her face and head and got her paci in though, she was a much happier camper.



Claire was a good helper! Her job was to pour the warm water on Anna's belly.


After I got Anna out, Claire got Piglet and gave him a bath. I find Piglet buckled into Anna's carseat, strapped into her swing, or covered up in her Boppy. Claire has definitely become very into diapering and caring for her babies and Piglet since Anna came along.


Claire and Anna lounging on our bed one morning. Claire started picking Anna up yesterday! She's not allowed to do this when she's standing up, but Anna was in her swing, and Claire leaned over to love on her like she does, and I went about what I was doing in the kitchen. Then Claire said, "I picked her up, Mama!" Then I actually saw her doing this later--yikes! She leaned over into the swing, hugged Anna to her, and then stood up, holding her! Last night, Anna was sleeping in her Boppy on our bed, and she started fussing. Claire went in there to comfort her (we hoped that meant just giving her her paci), and when Jay went in there a couple minutes later, Claire was sitting on the edge of our bed, holding Anna on her own. Jay reacted a little too strongly, saying, "Claire, what are you doing? Put her down!" Claire reacted just as strongly, saying, "She had a bad dream!" Haha.

Saying she had a bad dream is Claire's new stalling tactic for going to bed. I'll hear her reading her books continuously, and then little footsteps, and she's in the living room, saying she had a bad dream. She doesn't seem to get that you have to be asleep to have a dream.

Trying to get a beauty shot of our baby doll, but she always seems to grimace when I point the camera at her! At least you can tell she has light hair in this picture. See any resemblance to her namesake daddy? We've gotten that comment more with her than we did with Claire, although I think she really looks a lot like Claire's baby pictures.


I was much more dogged in my photo sessions with Claire--cuter expression! But they look alike, I think!

New blog name?

Any catchy suggestions for a new blog name? I was trying to think of some play off of To Kill a Mockingbird, or something along the bird theme, b/c I love my template and poem so much. Hmmm....anyway, new blog name to come, and suggestions are welcome!

Anna update!

Happy B-day, Mama! Claire was significantly past naptime in this pic, so was being a stinker, but I thought it was still a good pic of the rest of us!


Anna got to spend some QT with Nana, Aunt Betty, and G-dad for Grandmom's B-day. She was so alert for Nana here, I had to get a pic!

I braved my first solo trip with both girls today, and do hereby deem it a success. Of course, I didn't have to be at Anna's doctor appointment until 9:30, and it was a very chill waiting room with a TV on Nick Jr. BUT I consider myself quite the conqueror still, since I was up with Anna last night from about 3 to 5:30--feeding and then a major tummy attack. Oh yeah, and I also chose that time to watch the 2-hour LOST premiere, which actually ran about 30 minutes past when Anna fell back asleep! Note to self: If this tummy problems continue (which I obviously hope they don't), keep DVR stocked with shows to watch in the middle of the night.

Anyway, I told Anna and Claire's pediatrician about these attacks, and that Mylicon and Gripe Water do nothing for them, and she gave some prescription drops for stomach pains, and recommended I try cutting out dairy. YIKES!! I've been tracking my diet and when she has these tummy attacks for the past couple days, and I seriously have milk, yogurt, cheese, or ice cream with or after EVERY MEAL!! I will at least try it for three or four days, and earnestly hope (I dare not pray over something so silly) that dairy is not my baby's problem!

Anna is now two weeks old and up to 8lbs 7oz and in otherwise great shape, according to the doc.

In other news, Claire has reverted to her baby sleep habits of needing Jay or me to stay with her until she is asleep or almost. I have been indulging this, knowing she is probably just needing some extra mommy and daddy touch time, but yesterday it was pretty chaotic when Anna had a tummy attack right at Claire's naptime, so Claire was stuck singing to her dollies and reading EVERY BOOK in her bedside book basket (I would say a good 25 books) for an hour plus while I stayed on the other end of the house trying to hold Anna in every position imaginable to give her some degree of comfort. I would have just let Claire get up after that, but by the time I got Anna to sleep, Claire was asleep too, and I felt in dire need of a nap of my own!! Speaking of which, I think I shall retire for some much-needed zzzzs. Any advice on how to get Claire back into her big-girl bedtime routine is welcome.