Big Boy Bed

Jamisen got a transitional big boy bed. It's not a full size twin; more like a crib that's on the floor without bars. He doesn't really like sleeping in it. He will usually slip in it for naps but prefers the crib. 

Dear Lily, in case you're ever curious, your hospital stay was $24,358. We're thankful to have solid medical care and insurance. =)

Jamisen and Oskar are fast becoming friends. Here, Oskar's Daddy Deron looks on as the boys run on the 'water blob' (two sheets of plastic taped together and filled with water). 

Of course, the aftermath on our lawn wasn't very pleasant. The water inside of the sheets heated up to a degree that it burned the lawn underneath it. Whoops. Thank goodness for understanding husbands, right?

Jamisen is fully riding his tricycle now, like a big boy. He says "Riding bike! Riding bike!" and he is proud of himself and his achievements.

Here, Uncle Erik prepares for having his own two-legged children. He's a great daddy to his four-legged kids and we can't wait to indoctrinate him into the life of two-legged children. No pressure. No pressure. 

Both sets of Grandparents remain extremely supportive. Grandpa and Grandma Faiola have been sanity-saving. Grandma has now spent three weeks of Lily's six weeks up in Bellingham, helping. Grandpa works a full week at work and then comes up on the Friday train. Chris and I feel blessed and Jamisen is over the moon happy when they visit and has requested that I call Grandpa for him multiple times this week. When he sings 'Happy Happy Home', he always starts with 'Grandpa' and moves quickly onto 'Grandma.'

Miss Beautiful Baby Lily comes to work with me every day. She dressed up a couple days ago - probably to make up for the horrific day we had the day before. It was so bad that I had some (lightweight) retail therapy to make up for the disaster that the work day turned out to be. Thank goodness for Chris; he came from his office to hold Lily for 90 minutes so I could review some legal documents that needed my full attention. I've already told Norman that when he gets back from his five week sabbatical that I'll be taking a week off just to sleep.

She does look like quite the little perfect princess when she sleeps. You can't see the temper on her when she's sleeping =)

Chris has taken to calling our little girl 'Bald Eagle' for obvious reasons. I try to comfort her by telling her that bald eagles are majestic, strong and proud but I'm not sure she grasps those concepts yet. 

Here she is being introduced to the water. Notice that she basically looks like she hates us and wishes she was born into another family. We decided to switch to showers and she does okay with those until the end. She seems to get tired of the showers around minute 3 or so but overall, a normal baby reaction.

Here Lily is with Mommy at the lawyer's office with Norman calling in from Europe (see the iPad with the face? That's Norm) and Rusty, our new business partner in a e-commerce web extension shop. I dressed her up in a ladylike dress for the occasion.  Our first work party for Meritage Technologies (new company) is this weekend. The developers are all flying in from all over the United States this weekend. It will be fun juggling everything. 

Overall, Chris and I are still sleep deprived and both still in the throes of transition for our family but remain thankful for our healthy children, our strong family unit, our commitment to each other and our extended family support. We are blessed.

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.

Lily is a Star

It turns out, bringing a baby to a political event is like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Here she is with Congresswoman Suzan DelBene. She performed like a champ and even got her Mama extra time to talk to the Congresswoman. Good job Lily!

Lily has been to two political events now and has already met with our Mayor. Everyone that meets her falls in love with her very gentle spirit (ha! they haven't seen her when she hasn't been fed for an hour!)

Jamisen continues his path towards big brotherhood. He got into her clothes this week and we think he makes a lovely girl. He certainly has the eyelashes for it!

Here he is, reading his new Potty book to his sister. He was so funny explaining the plot to her.

 

He wanted her to sit by him this morning. It went ... okay.

Here he is trying to help her put her binky back in. Am I the only one that sees the look of terror in her eyes?

We're hoping that Jamisen does not start to exhibit this type of behavior with his little sister. Maybe if we left him alone with her? Eeek!

Lily and I have been at work almost full time this entire week. I'm not terribly efficient (breastfeeding every 2 hours will make one highly inefficient) but it's good to be back even though I'm wickedly sleep deprived. I need Bramble Berry like I need to breathe. I love the energy there and I love the job that I'm lucky enough to do. Check out the soap I made this week:

Can you believe I get paid to do that stuff?! Amazeballs! Lily also had her first photo shoot at Bramble Berry.

It turned out genius ... of course. I mean, babies + soap = perfection.

Proud of Daddy!

We are all so proud of Daddy. He just finished his first triathlon! He decided to race just 2 weeks ago and did 3 trainings to prep. He did the Lake Padden Triathlon. He raced in the 'Competitive' category and we don't know how he did yet in terms of his overall finish but we do know how he did with his family: he's a winner with us! The race consisted of: Swim 1/2 mile, Bike 21 miles, Run 5.2 miles

Chris wasn't happy with his finish time (2:08) but his family absolutely disagrees. It was an admirable finish for his first triathlon. And, he had some technical difficulties ... his bike chain was off AND he got horrible cramps on the run. His next tri will be a slam dunk.

Big thanks to Uncle Erik for spending his morning with us, helping to wrangle children, find parking spaces and generally be all around awesome.

We had a super fun night with our friends Lisa, Deron and their son Oskar. It turns out that all 2 year old boys like water; or at least our two do!

The boys played extremely well together. Jamisen even mostly shared! He did push poor Oskar over a couple times but then helped him up again (?). It was a strange teamwork thing and Oskar really did amazing with this abuse. He is such an even tempered little guy. 

We really like his parents too so hopefully there will be many play dates in our future. We are so thankful for our yard and our home. It is perfect for hosting people and it's so easy to have a fun time outside.

Messy Father's Day Fun

I am the luckiest girl in the world with my family. I would choose my Dad over and over again if I had to build our family from the ground up. Many of the traits that have served me well in life, I received and learned (by example) from him. So Dad, I love you! Of course, there's not just my Dad for Father's Day now; my sweet husband Chris is an amazing Father. I'm so lucky that he wanted to marry me (!) and have little ones together. I feel blessed and loved every day because of the choice we made: to create a family together.  

We hosted a Father's Day Weekend at our house with a revolving door of guests. We were also celebrating my Mom's release from the hospital. She was admitted early this week with an antibiotic-resistant strain of ... something(!). The Doctors never were able to fully culture it so it's a mystery but either way, we were so happy to have her out of the hospital and home.  It was crazy stressful to have Mom in the hospital with a newborn at home because I couldn't be there as much as I would have normally. Cheriss and Erik to the rescue!

 

Erik was in the ER with Mom most of the time while I waited in the parking lot, eating food from the vending machine and watching Miss Lily Mt. Versuvius on me (actual picture of the vomit all over her face after 4 hours sitting in the car below). Erik also visited her for hours each day, brought her food, and got her all checked out of the hospital. Sister in Law Cheriss also spent hours with Mom at the hospital. We are all happy and relieved she is out.

 In addition to coming to Mom's rescue, we are quite proud of Erik for catching his Personal Best (that's PB for those of you in the know) this weekend. Check out his fish!!! And, we're a catch and release family so no, we didn't eat it. It's a Small Mouth Bass and Grandpa was there to catch the proud moment on camera.

Thanks to Pinterest, I had quite a few good ideas for how to keep our little toddler busy this weekend. I have 215 pins (!!) on my Toddler Fun Pinterest board right now. You can check 'em out or follow the board here.

   

This Water Blob tutorial was genius. The kids **loved** it; loved it! They were soooooo happy. And, besides a few small tears as the afternoon wore on, the water blob held up remarkably well and is still in tact today. 

 PS - No, that's not Lily all grown up already. That's Miss Ava, Jamisen's first love. They've held hands so we're already planning their nuptials.  

We had a hot dog (and for the vegetarians, faux dogs) and a marshmallow roast. It was Jamisen's first marshmallow and he was quite enamored with all the sugar and gooey and warm.  

We also made the Faiola Family Tradition cake (we really should pick easier traditions that don't take so many hours to make) - Butterscotch Butterscotch Cake. You can find the full recipe here. It's clearly a sign that we adore my Dad because we keep making this cake, over and over, for him. Sister in Law, Cheriss, was the hero this time. She made 80% of the cake and just let me swoop in for the final caramelizing (butterscotching!) the pecans and of course, the eating. 

I call this the "I'm kissing. I'm kissing. I'm smothering. I'm smothering." picture. Jamisen is still a little unsure of this interloper that has come into his family. Overall, I think the transition is going well though and I continue to be thankful for two happy, healthy children. We are blessed.

Lily's First Two Weeks

Baby Lily has proven herself to be a model baby. She eats constantly and sleeps the rest of the time. She is barely awake in between napping and eating. Actual feeding schedule from Thursday night.

 Nighttime ranges between really great (woo hoo! Feeding at 11, 2 and 5!) and horrible (boo hiss! feeding at 11, 12, 1, 3, and 5 or any combo in between).

She has developed a diaper rash, no matter how many times we change her diaper and try to keep her dry. We've done Gloves in a Bottle to lay down a protective silicone skin protector, Desitin, naked time (for the record, every single naked time has ended up with pooping or peeing on Mommy or the protective blankets). This is a typical baby thing; they have such sensitive skin. But, it's sad and stressful to see as a protective parent.

Her brother is in the middle of the 'Terrific Twos'. I swear, he has a temper tantrum about something almost every day. He doesn't want a bandaid on his bleeding toe. He doesn't want to say 'Please.' He is upset that we are making him not pour green juice all over the floor. You name it, he's flailed on about it. It's challenging on both Chris and I. We haven't figured out the best reaction - come down hard and discipline? Try to be patient? Diversion?

Grandma came up for an ENTIRE WEEK and saved my life. She did such an amazing job taking care of Jamisen, the garden, the house and ME. Jamisen asked for her several mornings after she left. He will be so happy when she arrives back next week to visit and help out for a few days. We are lucky to have her support (and all the Grandparents!).

He is rather hilarious about wanting to touch her. He loves to touch her, pat her head, touch her face, her hands, her feet. He has no idea how to be gentle with her so we don't leave him alone with her. He has taken to trying to "help" her eat. If she doesn't want to latch onto my breast for feeding, he will come by and shove her face into my breast, and command "Eat." Sometimes, he even puts a stern "NOW!" after that. "Eat Now!"

He loves our reading time. He really has turned into a voracious reader and adores reading time. He plops up onto my bed (that's right, it's my bed since Chris is sleeping on an air mattress on the floor, having been kicked out of bed by Little Miss Lily), and grabs 15 or so books, piling them onto the bed one by one, and then we read a few books. He tries to get one more book, "Just one more! One more!" before having to go to bed.

 We read every morning, before naptime and before bedtime.

I just ordered $100 worth of truck books (!!!) and am considering making them prizes for peeing and pooping in the toilet (10 stickers = 1 book?). Maybe little cars at 5 stickers and then 10 stickers gets a book?

I did have one mini setback this week with the c-section recovery and ended up on bed rest for two days. I will admit that day one of being stuck in bed was not a hard ship (having people bring me food AND change the baby? Yes, please!) but by day two, I was ready to be done! Today, we went to Farmer's Market and I've been out and about with no ill effects thus far. This is me after a little bit of blood loss - a little pale. And I know the baby looks like she is trying to suffocate herself, but really, I promise, she's fine.

We're looking forward to a great rest of the weekend. We have a play date today with our dear friend Sasha. His Mommy, Heather, helped plant our garden so we're going to send her home with lots of these amazing veggies. We have more than we could ever use! And, we like to share.