Fourth of July Fun

Happy Fourth of July weekend! We spent the actual day of the Fourth wrangling kids and generally wondering when the chaos ends and the carefree joy starts. There were so many times today when both children were screaming that Chris and I just looked at each other and either laughed, rolled our eyes or gave each other panicked looks. 

 We did manage to get out of the house to go to Home Depot ("I rode tractors! I rode tractors!"), the park and the koi pond store ("Fish! Big Fish!"). And by  "We", I mean that the entire family was in the car but only 50% managed to get out of the car. Lily slept the entire time so Mama stayed in the car with her, watching through the window as Jamisen and Daddy had fun. Thankfully, I had the iPhone and the Nook to keep me busy. 

Jamisen continues to want to be a great older brother but doesn't seem able to handle his potent emotions. He loves to hold her, to kiss her, to see her ("I wanna see Lily! SEE LILY!!!!") and hold her hand. He also has these little spurts of emotion where he doesn't know how to work them out so he hits her, or tries to bite Daddy (rarely Mama, knock on wood) or squeeze her hands or feet so hard that she cries. And today, I swear I saw him examining her bouncy chair for structural flaws to stage an "accident."

Jamisen is hilarious. We laugh so much with him and he is learning his shapes (and by "learning", I mean "guessing" when asked what a shape is). He is starting to sort of color (a bit). And, he is attempting to read books on his own. He shows no signs of wanting to potty train, despite promises of riches (yogurt covered pretzels), resists the concept of potty time. His favorite books are the copious amounts of potty training books that we have in the house. If we tell him he can choose 3 books to read before bed, he will often pick 1 potty training book and have me read it 3 times.

I am struggling with the lack of one-on-one time with Jamisen. I am constantly breastfeeding. CONSTANTLY. No really, all I do is breastfeed. Chris takes care of Jamisen 90% of the time and I take care of Lily 90% of the time. I look forward to that changing because I miss Jamisen and I worry about the ramifications, long term, of his Dad forming closer ties with him right now than I'm able to give.

Lily is a beautiful child, inside and out. She physically is delicate and adorable. Inside, she seems extremely positive with a very outspoken, fiercely impatient streak. She demonstrates this loud voice usually when she's hungry or upset about some affront to her being (here, she's upset about her first shower).

 Breastfeeding is going much better. The lactation consultant came last week and we did this interesting experiment; we weighed Lily before and after feeding and found that she only needed to eat around 4-5 minutes per breast (compared to the average 10-12 minutes for the average newborn) to drain each breast of milk. Learning this dramatically cut down on the stress, and the crying. I was trying to force her to feed for way longer than she wanted to - which just led to screaming. Now I know that if she eats for 10 minutes total that I just need to give her a pacifier, shove her up near my breast and let her nuzzle in with the binky, to keep her happy. She was FURIOUS when she got milk after she was done (but still wanted something to suck on) so this has solved so many problems. Thank God for lactation specialists that make house calls.

 Our garden continues to astound and confound. It is growing like crazy. So many experienced gardeners have come over and said that they've never seen anything like it. Our strawberries are like little trees. The chard and kale come up well past the knees. We make green juice daily and I'm already planning next year's garden (adding cucumber and garlic for sure). Jamisen loves to pick the berries and eat them, or at least malign them while pretending to eat them.

Jamisen is starting to be a picky eater. He still drinks his green drinks (good boy! Kale is for rock stars!) I've been making protein shakes and he's been refusing them. So, I froze one and gave it to him as a popsicle. Mission accomplished! He ate the entire thing and thought he was in heaven. Popsicles for breakfast, anyone?

The transition from 1 to 2 children has been a little rockier than I expected but overall, we remain thankful, happy and so committed to each other and our family unit. We both feel great about where our family is and is going and feel that we can trust the process. After all, millions of parent (including mine!) have transitioned from 1 to 2 before so I know we can navigate these waters too.