A Day in the Life…

Well, most of the day, anyway. It’s not that easy to take pictures every hour with two small kiddos. 😉 Here’s hoping for Spring to come soon so we have more motivation to get out and do more since we’re all getting bored due to the cold.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Pets and Kids…

It’s been a while since I really mentioned the cats, our fur “babies” (I say that only to make Josh gag), and thought I should give an update since for a while things were not going as well as one would hope.  We are still adjusting, but I think we’re all getting along much better now, or maybe it’s just my attitude that has changed since I haven’t been getting quite so irritable lately.  For a while Ziggy was continually crapping in places outside of the litter box downstairs – most often after Enzo had been down there with us, playing. We had decided when we moved that we’d keep the cats mostly downstairs, but allow them upstairs during the day, however, that changed for a while when Ziggy pooed in Enzo’s bedroom. Along with that we had Uzi yowling nonstop and constantly getting into trouble, and for a while I strongly considered rehoming them both… I figured they’d be happier if they were getting more attention, and we’d be happier not cleaning up crap.

A few days ago I decided to invite the cats back upstairs – Uzi took me up on the offer (Ziggy was hiding from the kids), and rather than putting them back downstairs before bed, I left the door open.  They were both really well behaved and we hung out, especially after Enzo went to bed and the past few days have been going pretty well.  We’ve let them sleep upstairs with us a couple of nights, and while Uzi still yowls for a bit when I lock them downstairs (they have a nice basement, don’t pity them), overall I think we’re all happier with each other.  Uzi is still naughty and has his frustrating moments like meowing enough to wake a sleeping child, but he hasn’t been chasing Ziggy as often and Ziggy even stayed in the same room as Enzo (hiding under the table counts). I’ve been trying to have Enzo be the main treat-giver as well, and while Ziggy isn’t ready to accept them from him yet, Uzi has been receptive to the idea as long as Enzo doesn’t squeal too much. He almost knocked Enzo over the other day by rubbing up against him, much to Enzo’s delight. 😉

Currently…

Reading

I’m currently re-reading The Dresden Files series… very slowly since I don’t get a whole lot of reading time in right now.  If anything, I read blogs when I have time since that doesn’t take much time.  I’ve been getting into more of a reading mood, it’s just not something that can be easily done while interacting with a baby and a crazy toddler.

Watching

Sooo excited that Downton Abbey is back!  There are not enough exclamation points.  If you already watch it, you know how exciting this is.  I’m a little bummed that so many characters from the first three seasons are gone, and I’m not entirely thrilled with the return of one character, but I’m looking forward to this season. Sure, I could just buy it and watch it all at once, but it’s nice to spread it out and force myself to wait each week for the next episode. I also just watched the first season of ‘The Taste’ on Hulu and I’m surprisingly into it and looking forward to this upcoming season.  The only problem with these shows is how hungry I end up getting and then despondent because I’ll never come up with anything half as creative or have the motivation to do so. :p  We also just started watching ‘Eureka’ thanks to my brother’s suggestion and now have to find time for all of the shows we’re enjoying. Ha ha.

As for movies… we’ve watched quite a handful lately thanks to Netflix and often feeling too unmotivated in the evening to do anything, but sit down and put our feet up, usually in bed with the baby in between us if she isn’t up eating. Most recently we watched ‘The World’s End’, which had a lot of funny moments, and gets thumbs up from us. Also ‘The Heat’, which was pretty entertaining as well.

Eating

Attempting to eat healthier… I’m getting back into a smoothie mood, and it makes it easier that Enzo also likes smoothies and it’s an easy way that I can sneak in some veggies since he hasn’t been enjoying them much lately.  I’m going to slowly add more and more green gradually so he doesn’t suspect, plus it’s good for me too. I picked up some chia seeds and with some luck I can start losing the linger baby weight pounds.  I did, however, get an ice cream maker… somewhat counterproductive in terms of losing weight, but hello the endless ice cream possibilities!!

Loving

It’s probably not a surprise that I’m going to say… Phoebe!  Ha ha.  I love my little Toots (as in Tootsie) aka Toots McGee, Lady and Ladybug. She’s such a happy little girl, and I could eat her up, especially when she tries to laugh.  It’s funny how  much more petite she is than Enzo… I wonder if she’ll always stay petite or not.  At this age, I think Enzo was an inch or two longer than her and a couple pounds heavier as well.

Thinking About

A lot, and probably worrying too much as well. First and foremost I want to motivate myself to lose the baby weight… the hardest part is finding time to work out with a full-time job and a toddler and a baby. I already get up at 5:00am and could maybe fit in a very short workout in that time, but it all depends on if the baby ate before that time or not.  I also don’t want to work out too late at night either… so I’ll have to figure something out. We also want to eat healthier, but that can also be tricky when we have so little time in the evenings to prepare meals and you have a toddler hanging off of you because he wants a “nack” and doesn’t want to wait for dinner even though he had a “nack” 30 minutes ago. Oh, the impatient toddler.

2 Months

Well… 2 months certainly snuck up on us, didn’t it?  Our little lady is officially 2 months old and now weighs 10 pounds 10 ounces and is 22.75 long. (She was 6 pounds 11 ounces when she was born and 20.5 inches long).  She got her shots on Monday and only cried for about a minute, so she’s a toughie.  We’re not sure if the experience stressed her out, though, or if she has a mild tummy bug because I got a call later from day care that she had projectile spit-up an entire bottle and didn’t want to eat again and was inconsolable.  Thankfully she was okay when we got her home and after we gave her some Tylenol, and she seems to be back to herself again.

 

We thought we got lucky with what an easy baby Enzo was, but I think this little girl might be even easier.  Sure, she’s a really slow eater and tends to fall asleep while doing so, so feedings take a while, but she is one of the happiest babies.  She doesn’t fuss all that often, and more often than not you can find her taking everything in and smiling as sweetly as can be when something delights her (and a lot seems to).  She likes music and fun lights, and soft things, though she isn’t sure yet what to make of the cats. While Enzo often gets the most smiles, she gives her Mama and Papa pretty big smiles as well and a chuckle now and then to boot!

 

So far we’re still attempting babywearing (as we did with Enzo), but like her brother she hasn’t been a fan of the ring sling or the Baby Bjorn. I still try and put her in now and then to get her used to the idea, but this girl likes to move and just fusses when I try and get her situated.  While she likes to be held, she more often than not would rather be laying down on a blanket or play mat so she can wriggle and move rather than being held or in a bouncy chair or swing.  I’m still hopeful we can get her to warm up to a carrier since that would make traveling so much easier… I guess we’ll see!

Big Brother

If the cold weather lately has shown me anything it’s that the adjustment phase of becoming a family of 4 is over.  For the majority of my maternity leave, Enzo was having some difficulty with the arrival of our little girl, and during that time it was so great that he had day care to go to during the day because there were A LOT of tantrums during those weeks.  While he was never angry at his sister, he would often act aggressively towards us and some of his tantrums were so intense they scared me. Being a toddler is hard and when you can’t communicate what you’re feeling… I can imagine the frustration.  He went from being our one and only to suddenly having our attention (especially mine) split and more focused on baby girl.

I can’t even tell you how many nights Josh ended up on the floor of Enzo’s room because he just wasn’t sleeping and would cry and cry if Josh didn’t stay in his room.  While things started calming down the closer I got to going back to work, I noticed a major change in him when I left Phoebe with Josh and went to pick Enzo up from day care – the first time in weeks.  He was beyond excited to see me when I got there, and I that really signaled to me that I wasn’t spending enough time with my kiddo.  We also really started to pay attention to how much sleep he was getting and make sure he gets to bed earlier on nights when a naps are short, but also try and focus on paying more attention to him.  Not just in play, but in learning how to better communicate with him and allow him to help out, and in turn avoid tantrums which can happen so easily as we enter the Terrible Twos.

Anyhoo, back to the cold weather – we kept the kids home on Monday and normally 3-day weekends can be tricky because Enzo is ready to go back to day care and stick to his routine, but this past Monday went great.  He was in a fantastic mood (we saw the return of Baby No-Pants) and is also slowly learning that sometimes Phoebe needs a bit extra attention, and has been playing by himself more often rather than constantly needing one of us to play with at all times.  This girl loves her big brother, though, and as you can see, he adores his baby sister.

I’m looking forward to seeing how these two continue to interact in the future, but in the meantime love to watch them now. Phoebe smiles when she hears Enzo in the room and Enzo gets just as excited about his BeeBee.  At day care they sometimes let him go say ‘Hi’ to her (they’re in separate rooms) and he likes to give her a big kiss good-bye most mornings, and usually before he goes to bed.  He may not give mama a kiss good-night, but you can almost guarantee that he’ll give one to Phoebe.  Parenting may be hard, but it’s the moments like this that make it all worthwhile.