Sleeping Baby

Since Andrew's such an easy sleeper (and I want to keep him that way!), I've been trying to follow more of a schedule with him. Yesterday evening, he'd fallen asleep around 6:30, and Caleb and I decided we should wake him up around 9 so he wouldn't take his long stretch of sleep during the evening instead of at night. Caleb carried him out into the living room, and that little guy slept right through a diaper change, so we jostled him, poked him, kissed him, bounced him, tried to nurse him, talked to him, kissed him some more, put him on the floor for some tummy time, put him on the floor leaning on the boppy, put him on the couch, tried to nurse some more, tickled his feet, gave him tummy time on mommy, and finally gave up and put him in his crib.

Firefighter Gracie

While Caleb was still off on his paternity leave, we took the kids down to the Museum of Natural Science and History. Most of it we skipped over, but Grace had a blast in the children's museum. She's a huge fan of fire trucks and garbage trucks right now, so this was a total hit.

Precious moments...

A couple days ago, I'd been having a difficult time getting Grace to come downstairs and eat lunch, and I'd been getting pretty frustrated with her. But totally out of the blue, Grace went over and leaned on her "big girl bed", clasped her hands together and started to thank God for "my bed, by babies", and a few other things I couldn't quite make out. I do love being her mama!

Andrew's getting bigger...

He'll be six weeks tomorrow, and he's a fast-growing little guy! He's still keeping his mama and daddy pretty tired, but overall he's quite the easy-going baby, and can sleep right through his big sister's loving kisses and happy shrieks (though we're working with her on that one...)

He's been working on holding his head up, though it's still awfully wobbly, and he only lasts a few seconds before he has to take a breather. When he's on his tummy on my chest though, he can squirm his way up till his head's right under my chin - to mama's delight.

Now that my life is being a mama anyways, it really doesn't seem that much more work adding in a second (though I think I got off easy so far!), and it's so enjoyable watching the two of them grow. And there's nothing quite so wonderful as snuggling on the couch with the two of them!

Our Little Grace is growing up

We have a baby! :-)

So I know we've been horribly remiss in posting these past few months, but man, they've been busy! We've moved to Dallas, bought our first house, and now we have our adorable little Andrew, and he's already three weeks old! It's been a really enjoyable three weeks getting to know our new little guy.

We had his two-week check-up last week, and he'd already grown from 6lb 15oz at birth to 8lb 10oz. When we brought him home, his newborn clothes were too big for him, and now he's already outgrowing them! It sure is fun watching babies grow-up though! Now that we've been through it once with Grace, it makes me even more look forward to seeing what kind of little boy our Andrew will grow up to be.
He's a pretty laid-back little guy right now - our nights are still a bit rough (as expected with a newborn!), but he's a good sleeper overall, and unlike his fiesty big sis, he stays asleep when you put him somewhere, which makes things surprisingly easier.
I've still never tried managing the two of them by myself; Caleb has some time off work, and both of our moms have been a huge help these past few weeks with watching Grace and bringing meals.




Grace has been handling all the transitions really well, though she has had a few melt-downs where she wanted Daddy to "nurse baby brother!" or put her baby dolls in the swing with him. I've felt really bad I haven't been able to play with her more like we used to since I got home from the hospital; I overdid it a bit the first week, and landed myself back in the bed for the second and it was really frustrating not being able to play with my little toddler like she wanted me to. We've had some fun snuggle times on the couch though!

It was so sweet when Grandma & Grandpa brought her to the hospital the morning after Andrew was born. She came in with her arms full with two of her dollies, and said "Mama! Daddy!". But as soon as she saw Baby Brother, she dumped the dollies on the bed and stretched up her arms saying "hold baby brother!". She sat up on the hospital bed with me, and we helped her hold him in her lap, and she started talking about how "baby brother come out of mama's tummy". She was so excited he was finally here, and still loves to hold and rock and sing to him.

We've had a few times where she wanted to wear his clothes or sleep in his bed or something, but overall she's been really good at understanding what things are too little for Gracie, and enjoying those that are too big for baby Andrew.

Baby Andrew is here!

 

Andrew was born a week ago today, August 20, at 2:15 in the morning. More photos and details as we have time! :-)