So I haven't exactly fulfilled my commitment to blogging about our daily lives as a family of four. Here we are almost five months after Rachel was born. Natalie is turning two years old at the end of this month. I kept hoping to get back to this blog, but I think I was overwhelmed by my sense of shame at not having gotten to it right after Rachel was born. That and, I've been soooo busy. Busy like I didn't realize I could be before Rachel arrived.
Things are good. Rachel's birth story is in the previous post. I hope to get around to telling you about the months I've neglected to write about so far, but not tonight. I have 20 minutes, so here's where we are today:
RACHEL: 4 months, 3 weeks old (or so). She still has most of the full head of black hair she was born with, only now it's thinning in the back and more of a dark brown color. She has startled-looking round blue eyes, a tiny cute nose, gargantuan cheeks and an anime mouth - ah-ooo-ah! Either her mouth is wide open or tightly pursed.
She's sleeping about like Natalie did at this age--one long stretch, maybe 4 hours, followed by wakings every 1-1/2 hours or so. This time it's much easier because I can make myself go to bed when she does, and she sleeps with me in the bed, so she doesn't ever have to cry to wake me up. So I get woken up frequently for quick feedings, but then she drifts off again quickly, so I can, too.
Rachel naps much better than Natalie did, usually. She'll often overlap naps with Natalie (great for me!) Some days she'll take 30 minute naps. Other days she'll take up to a 3- or 4-hour nap. I'm sure part of the inconsistency is because she's at the mercy of everyone else's schedule, but I try to let her nap as much as I can. Being a second child, she doesn't get a noise- and light-free environment, or one-on-one attention until she's fast asleep. Makes me wonder if I needed to put so much effort into getting Natalie to nap as a baby, but what's done is done.
Rachel is still exclusively breastfed, but she is so jealous of the food we eat that I don't think I'll be able to hold her off the full six months to introduce baby food. She squawks impatiently every time she sees us eat.
Rache is cute and playful. Uncle Brian nicknamed her "Sug", and it fits. She started laughing almost as soon as she started smiling, at around 3-1/2 weeks, and she laughs and smiles a lot. These days she's interacting with Natalie more and more, which is such a delight. She can roll over both ways, though she usually rolls back-to-tummy, gets stuck, and squawks or cries to be picked up.
NATALIE: Natalie is almost two, and is still cuter all the time. People often ask me how she reacted to getting a sister at such a tender age--19 months. She has always been affectionate and playful towards Rachel, but there have been several tough moments in which she wanted my attention, or Rob's, and couldn't get it right away. I'm sure it hasn't been easy for her, but overall I think she's handling it beautifully. She has had the occasional unconsolable crying fit (tantrum? not sure whether to call it that). She wakes up with night terrors once in a while. Rob and I pretty much acknowledge what's going on and try to validate it, i.e. "I see that you're upset/angry/scared. That's okay. I'm here if you need me." And we wait it out until she's ready for physical contact (being hugged/carried). Often taking her outside on the back porch and pacing with her, humming, seems to help.
Natalie is extraordinarily verbal. She is already speaking in sentences, and very clearly. I lament that we haven't been able to record her more--she stops what she's doing as soon as she realizes we are trying to take a picture or video. Her "baby talk" days are quickly going away. Just today at HEB she said, "I lost the list," and sure enough, the shopping list was on the floor behind us. She recently learned how to say "I want/need", so we're hearing that a lot lately. She has a huge vocabulary and parrots things back to us, sometimes days after we said them, with eerie accuracy. She sings all the time, and lately makes up her own songs to familiar melodies, stringing together pieces of songs and books she's memorized, and phrases she hears all the time. She recently learned all the basic color words. She still says things like "wed" and "geen" for red and green, but it's very clear what she's trying to say.
She is terrified of men with facial hair, so we've had some unfortunate run-ins with her friends' daddies and grandpas. Otherwise, she's very sociable.
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