Two months

After Liam was born, I spent a week recovering from giving birth, another week recovering from mastitis, another week fighting thrush and horrendous nursing problems, one week being the sole caretaker for the kids because Joseph came down with a nasty cold, another week taking care of a sick Diana and recovering from the cold myself. So if you didn't hear from us for about five or six weeks after Liam was born, that was why! Things have only been really "normal" for a week or two. Here's what's been going on with the kiddos:

Liam looking around and waving his arms.

Liam loves his daddy.

Two month old Liam!

Liam

Liam and "Wondrous Sister" Diana

Liam continues to be an incredibly sweet and reasonable baby who just loves people. He's even started to replace the all-purpose crying with different vocalizations. Instead of crying, he'll do a little yell or two to indicate that he's awake and wants to be fed. He really loves looking at people and smiling and practicing his cooing and talking. He is already laughing. He likes just interacting with me so much that he'll stop nursing just so he can gaze up at me, practice his giant charming smiles and coo and babble at me. He resists when I try to put him back on- he'd rather be talking and smiling at each other instead! Liam is completely in awe of Diana. We call her "Wondrous Sister," because he is just so completely amazed by everything she is and does. He has some of his biggest and most immediate smiles for her when she comes close or notices him. I think she is a big part of the reason he is starting to vocalize earlier than she did.

Diana goes to bed at 8 and his bedtime is at 10, so I basically spend the last two hours before his bedtime nursing him, snuggling with him, giving him a bath, nursing him again, smiling and talking with him, nursing him again... no wonder he doesn't want to go to bed.

Despite Liam's Very Reasonable nature, we've begun sleep training. Liam still likes to spend a lot of time sleeping, but he'll only go to sleep if he swings to sleep or is nursed to sleep. We think it's important for babies to be able to soothe and comfort themselves. So at 10:00, all the lights go out, his fan goes on for white noise, and after making sure all his needs are met (he's completely fed, clean, and burped), we put him down in his bed. If he's yelling (which he usually does, since he doesn't like to be alone), we check on him every 15 minutes to burp and change him if he needs it. Usually this is daddy's job. Mommy means food and snuggles, daddy means business. When daddy gets Liam at night, he knows he'll be taken care of, but that it's not time for more nursing and snuggling. He has to wait for at least two hours (since night time is time for sleeping!) for his midnight feeding. He's welcome to yell for those two hours if he wants. After only a couple of nights, our very smart boy has already reduced his yelling when he's put down for bed. Mostly he complains for about 30 minutes and then falls asleep. Tonight, less than a week after we started sleep training, he started dozing off while nursing around 9:30, rubbed his adorable chubby face a few times after I put him down and fell very soundly asleep. YES.

Adorable Liam taking a break from eating.

Despite all the problems of only nine weeks ago, breastfeeding Liam has become a joy and is completely easy. Joseph has observed that I've moved to the next level: "ninja breastfeeding." I can stealthily nurse Liam in restaurants, in bed. I can walk around while feeding him or get Diana another bowl of applesauce. My mom often asks me, "Aren't you glad you stuck with it?" Yes! I have been through the valley of the shadow of quitting. I often wondered if the breastfeeding wasn't actually more painful than the childbirth itself. I personally believe that breastfeeding is best, but I absolutely wouldn't judge anyone who decided to formula feed their babies, because I was so, so close to deciding to do that too. But I was stubborn enough to stick with it and now it's wonderful (and convenient!). When Liam is very hungry, he snuffles around, gives a little roar, and uses his baby abs to hurl himself face-first at the right spot. When he first latches on, his mouth works wildly and his eyes roll around in his head like a little tyrannosaur, as if he's daring anyone to take away what he's rightfully gotten in his mouth. When the let-down comes, his eyelids flutter and his eyes roll back in his head dreamily. It's so funny and heartwarming to watch. He's such a little character. Very Cespedes-like. ;)

Diana

Diana is growing and learning so much. Excuse my stream of consciousness style, it's the only way I can remember it all: 

Charges various objects to be "careful." (Maybe I say it too much?) "Careful, cup. Careful, shoes. Careful, outside. Careful, man."

Has learned "booger" and "toots." Now enjoys saying "mommy toots" repeatedly, regardless of veracity. I'm so glad I taught her these things.

Very fond of saying "good job!" I was awarded full-tuition scholarships as well as some private scholarships, I completed undergraduate research in bioengineering and oceanography, I wrote and defended a thesis, I worked three jobs in college, I presented research at a major conference, I graduated college, I traveled the world, and the most significant achievement in my life currently is using the potty like a big girl, a feat which amazes my daughter and elicits a "good job, mama!"

Does well with identifying colors and is surprisingly good with recognizing numbers. For example, she can identify when there are two zebras in the book we're reading and can recognize the number 3. If I say "two," she will follow with "three," and if I say "six," she'll say "seven."

Silly girl just had to sleep with her sunglasses.

We've read all her board books dozens of times, so we're starting to move on. She enjoys  P.D. Eastman's books, like "Go, Dog, Go!" We've also started to visit the library regularly. It's like a wonderland to her. She runs around plucking out books at random. I feel like I should be leaving tips for the librarians to repay them for all the reshelving that needs to be done after Diana has made her rounds.

Beginning to add imagination to her play. She will put rocks on a chair and call them "food" and pretend to eat them. She also has a giant stuffed lion that she carries around. When she lays it down, it is taking a "nap" and she will even give it a blanket.

She wants to know names for everything! I can't even begin to estimate the number of times I hear "wha dat?" each day. After I tell her, she very carefully repeats the word, sometimes several times, until she has it almost exactly right. It's pretty adorable. She also wants to learn the names of people, and has a surprisingly good memory for faces and names. This will be useful to her as she has four grandparents, ten aunts, ten uncles, and ten cousins. That's assuming I didn't forget any. She also uses pronouns and possessives "my tummy," "my bag," "I'm here!" "I'm stuck," sometimes with a little bit of a British accent from watching too much Kipper.

Imitates things that we say, especially those that we don't realize we say very often. "Do you mind?" "I got it! (I can do it)" "Excuse me." "No no, Diana! Ohhhh, Diana..." She'll also imitate other people, which is why we have to officially stop watching grown-up shows around her. We like a variety of TV shows: The West Wing, The Office, Community, 30 Rock, and Parks and Recreation. Of all those, Parks and Rec seems to be the "friendliest," in that the characters are generally happy and don't spend most of the time yelling at each other in what might be a very unsettling way for a toddler to watch. So if mommy and daddy want to watch something around Diana that isn't Kipper (her favorite cartoon), we watch Parks and Rec ("Leslie show!"). However, this morning Diana stumbled over a toy and very softly but very definitely said "dammit." What a shock for a parent to hear from her precious little toddler! Especially since she's not exposed to swearing in our house or anywhere else that I can think of. The only thing I can imagine is that it came from TV, so we'll have to stop that while she's around.

She very much enjoys imitating our actions, especially mine. She knows that I put on makeup most days and wants to hold my "mas-cara" and dab it on her eyes. She'll use cylindrical blocks as lip balm, "like mama."

She loves to help. She carefully observes (and usually gets in the way of) everything we do, but the best way I've found to get Diana to stop being a nuisance is to get her involved. She helps me unload the dishwasher by handing me the silverware and some of the smaller plates. I'll fill up Nova's food bowl in the garage and let Diana carry it back inside the house. She helps me prune flowers, make pancakes, sweep, mop, change Liam's diaper, and anything else I'll allow her to do. I can expect a certain amount of mess whenever she helps, but she is just so thrilled whenever she's allowed to help me that it's definitely worth the time it takes to clean up.

Joseph's mom rightly observed that Diana was quite the naturalist. She loves being outside. It makes me feel bad that we don't go outside more often since we don't have a fenced-in yard. Our back yard is currently a giant exhibit of all the native weeds of western Oregon, so she mostly runs around in the front. She likes sunshine and running (and rolling) around in the grass, smelling and picking flowers, watching bees, and picking anything berry-like off plants. Parks are her favorite thing in the world, especially if they have playgrounds. She has, terrifyingly, learned to scale ladders to giant slides, so we need to keep a close eye on her. I can't believe that this is the same girl who was just learning to sit up a year ago!

We've begun potty training. We've begun potty training. I read a blog post by a woman who potty-trained her 18 month old in a week and used that as my inspiration. Admittedly, the toddler had an older brother who set an example for her, but I figured it still might work for us. Basically, she gathered as much potty-training material for her daughter as she could find at her local library, made her daughter familiar with the potty and what it was for, and stayed home for a week allowing her daughter to run around without a diaper. We've had mild success. When coupled with mommy enforcing potty time every 15 minutes or so, Diana can "hold it" long enough to do her business in the potty. (Hooray!) However, if I leave it completely up to her discretion, sometimes disaster results. Keep in mind that this method is already difficult because Diana's eczema is so bad that whenever she has bare legs, she will attack them and savagely scratch them until they bleed. I had to cut the toes off a pair of Joseph's soft dress socks and put them on her legs. Yesterday she came out with me to get the mail, a fashion plate in Joseph's dark dress socks and her too-big orange dress, and she made a slight detour to run around on the grass. She bent here to look at the grass, she squatted there to look at a bee...or so I thought. I told her it was time to come inside, she obediently ran to me and then completely nonchalantly dropped a pookie on our sidewalk, right there in front of me, the good Lord, and the whole world. I was speechless. So was she. I hesistatingly explained to her that she'd made a mess outside instead of in her potty and that pookies belonged in the potty. It didn't appear to really sink in. When I went outside to clean it up, it turned out the dog had helpfully slurped some up, making my day doubly gross. Things I never expected to deal with as a mother...

Overall, we have two fantastic and healthy kids and it is easier every day to be a family of four. I really need to get to bed, but next time I post, I'll include more about recovery, adjusting to motherhood, and our travel plans for the fall!