a little birthday

We baked up the birthday cake Guthrie and I had picked out when we were anticipating Laithe's arrival a few weeks ago for a little 1 week birthday party.
Didn't Gus do an awesome job with the frosting and sprinkles and candles??

We're slowly settling in - all four of us. Laithe is getting slightly less grumpy-old-man looking as the days go by although grumpy has turned into serious. He does what newborns do best- eat, poop and sleep. I'm still getting used to the possibility that I may, and usually will, get peed on at every diaper change. And that it will actually be aimed at me. He's a wonderful nurser. I'm feeling so lucky about that. We had about a month of challenges with Guthrie (which is probably one of the reasons I nursed so long with her - you don't give up something you've worked so hard for that easily!) and literally right out of the hatch Laithe has had no issues. I'm so glad there haven't been any middle of the night tears on my part because baby won't latch on or baby won't stay awake, etc. He will pull off and burp, without any help, sit for a second and then go back for more. And where it was a challenge to get Guthrie to wait for the nutrient rich 'hind milk' to come in Laithe seems to take it in stride. I'm crossing my fingers this keeps up.
We go in today for a weight check and all around newborn check. I'm interested to see how much weight he's gained and where he falls in the percentiles.
The other great thing - something I was so looking forward to- is that I've been able to wear Laithe in a couple of our slings now and he loves it. John wore him at the hospital when he was barely 24 hours old and he was pretty darn content then too. I love having him so close to me!

And big sister? She's doing as well as anyone could have hoped for. She still asks me not to leave her on a daily basis - which she's been doing since I came home from the hospital - and she's pretty emotionally needy right now. She's also thrilled to shower Laithe with kisses and hug and cuddles and is so proud of her baby brother - whom she sometimes calls Nathan. Whatever.

We've had a couple outings as a four person family and they've gone well. Exhausting, but well. I'm definitely still recovering and need to take it easy. It's hard when you are so used to being self-sufficient and all. I had to catch myself from putting Guthrie up onto the kitchen counter the other day when she asked. It's so second nature to just do what needs to be done. But, I'm trying to be careful. I go back to the Dr. tomorrow to check on my incision and hopefully get the go ahead to drive. There are some things that I'd forgotten about in the recovery process - one of which is a splitting headache from the spinal anesthesia that lasts for about a month. And given that I got a sort of double spinal this time because the first needle wasn't long enough- yuck- I'm betting this one lasts longer. It's so not cool. And then there's that whole, oh they shaved along the incision and now the hair is growing back thing. Under my steri-strips. Awesome. And since we've just discussed my hair down there we might as well go to this - I was at the store doing some shopping for uh, something to help the side effects of painkillers and discovered they sell chocolate flavored laxatives. Really? Who buys those? Seriously.

And John is exhausted. He has none of the new mom hormones to keep him going and is really feeling the lack of rest. He goes back to work next week and we're all a little anxious to get a routine going, but also not anxious at all to have him not here during the day. It's been a nice space for our family to grow into itself this past week.


Ugh, doesn't your heart just melt when you look at them? It's almost more than I can handle.

big girl bed

One of Gus' big birthday presents was a big girl bed from Gramma Carol.She hasn't had a bed in her room since we took down the crib a year or so ago. We finally admitted that really, the crib was just a large storage crate. And we weren't storing babies. And we finally admitted that we are happy co-sleepers whose child sometimes slept a few hours on her own mattress on the floor.
She also is getting bigger and bigger and we can tell that three people in a queen size bed is becoming less than thrilling for her too. Girl wants to stretch out! So...

Guthrie loves it! She told me that the headboard was pretty, which totally thrilled me given that all the other stuff I've made for her over the past couple months have been such non-hits! The headboard was inspired by some old-school, pre-Paige Trading Spaces and since then has been tutorialed on several blogs and websites. It was super easy. If I hadn't had an almost 2 year old telling me "Mama, NO!" about my use of the staple gun -- she's not a fan, go figure-- it would have taken probably 1/2 an hour. Our bed is next. She loves that the cats take turns sleeping on "Deeyah's" (her name for herself. we have no idea where it came from either) bed with her stuffed animals. She loves getting all tucked in and going to bed in it.

And before you get all, wow that transition was easy, she's already sleeping in her own bed all night? I will give you a little dose of reality.
Guthrie has never slept through a night.

IN HER ENTIRE LIFE.

She is two.

I'm sorry fellow parents. I know that is not what you wanted to hear. And for those of you whose child has been sleeping through the night since they were wee. Well, I just hope that you appreciate that every single night because it is a rare gift. When parents are really willing to be honest you find out that most have kids that wake up at least once a night. Sometimes they can put themselves back to sleep, sometimes not. The same goes for Guthrie.

I know, right? Two years. They never talk about that in the pregnancy books do they? (Before we get a bunch of suggestions, I promise we've tried it. We've tried what we're comfortable with and she still wakes up. Her mom and dad wake up several times a night too. As do her grandparents. It's possible we're just some poor sleepers.)

Anyways.
For the past week we have put her to bed in her bed. She sleeps for somewhere between 3 and 5 hours and then, upon waking, she gets taken back to our bed. I've been gearing up to start getting her back to sleep in her own bed when she wakes up. I decided that when I got over my cold I would start. Apparently, as I always forget because I've only been at this 2 years, things don't always happen on my timetable!
Saturday night Guthrie came to our bed around 1:00 and then at about 3:00 she wakes me up and asks to go back to her bed.
What??

So she did. I fell asleep with her because umm, it was 3:00 am and when I woke up I went back to my own bed and she stayed in her own bed.
So, I guess I don't get to wait until my cold is over.

I'll let you know how it goes. I will be pleasantly surprised if it's a smoother transition than anticipated, but I'm also betting we're in for some rough nights.

happy halloween!

Because we live in the weirdest town ever we went trick or treating last night.
It was kind of the quintessential Halloween experience. Perfect weather, crunchy leaves underfoot, kids running all over the neighborhood with their parents simultaneously cautioning them about cars and asking what kind of haul they made. Guthrie was fantastic. All week she had refused to wear her 'Maow' costume and then yesterday morning my mom came over and bargained with her- her car keys for the costume - and it worked! We repeated it in the evening and added another set of car keys to the deal and we were good to go!

We went up and down our street with Grandpa Dave and Grandma Vera (my family from Oregon), then to Gramma Carol's, and then Grammy Patty's who graciously hosted a dinner for everyone. Gus was completely worn out and slept like a rock last night.

This morning she doesn't really even remember that there is candy somewhere in the house. Which is probably good because mom and dad got all the good stuff taken out last night :)

Happy Halloween!!

little sleepy girl

There's a contest for a new bedroom set over at 5 Minutes for Mom so here is our entry!This is from a while ago, but rest assured she still looks exactly like this when she is out.

Down to the tongue sticking out.

I feel like the Lily Rose set would be awesome in Gus' room. Maybe awesome enough that she could start sleeping there??? Just a thought...

Thanks to my old roommate Kathleen (who has the cutest son ever)
for posting the contest on her blog!
You should enter too!

goodnight. sleep tight

my girl did something tonight she's never done before--
she fell asleep on her feet.

literally.

i think she might have been tired.

Morning Glory

I'm having one of those mornings. My BFF Melissa had one a few months ago. That it was a few months ago is no real shock to me -- or any other mom I'm sure. It's 8:30 and I'm post-shower, drinking coffee while my family is still asleep. It is quiet and lovely. I've got a monster to-do list. I know most people have such a list, but really it's so large I had to make an excel file. I think there are 65 things on it. Tomorrow Guthrie and I are accompanying our friend Jun-Nicole to the 2nd Annual Babywearing Conference in Chicago until Saturday and then the following week will be even busier for reasons we'll talk about later - stay tuned!

So, I'm gearing up for a long day. And it is nice and quiet and I'm reluctant to start it. I've already knocked out one thing on my list though, so one down 64 to go.

As I finished writing this a happy little girl crawled out of bed to join me! I'm so lucky! I can count on exactly 5 more minutes of sleepy peace :)

*her morning hair is just almost more than i can handle it's so cute and puffy!*