A Bit on Having Two.... Our First Weeks as a Family of Four

The past few weeks have been amazing, to say the least. Incredibly trying, at times - but truly amazing. When planning our second child, I worried about being able to cope with having to go back to the itty bitty baby phase - changing diapers every hour, nursing on demand, fumbling over their tiny... everything (everything about a newborn is just TINY compared to a toddler), sleepless nights and copious amounts of pastel laundry.

...but none of that has been an issue. Not one little bit. What nobody told me about having our second child was... that you don't even have to worry about the second child... it's the first one.

I was well aware that this would be a huge adjustment for Penelope. I was expecting some sibling rivalry. Some tantrums, etc. ... but to have it be the most challenging aspect of going from three to four, was not what I was imagining.

Penelope has become very CRAZY active lately. She is constantly on the move - and she decided half way through my pregnancy that naps weren't anything she needed any more. Typical 2, almost 3 year old. She can be extremely challenging, but it just takes a lot of patience and having a good list of activities to keep her busy... and having the energy to execute them.
I gave myself a lot of mommy guilt during my 3rd trimester, wondering how on earth things were going to work, bringing another baby into this house and how it was going to effect Penelope.

The first few days after Olive was born was rough. We had a LOT of tantrums. Despite having two other adults in the house, Penelope refused to go to anyone but me. The worst of all things, though was how much she freaked out over me nursing Olive.
Penelope still nurses once a day, when she wakes up in the morning. I prepared her months ahead of time by talking with her about how, when baby Olive came, that she would need to share with her. That I would need to nurse both of them.
"Two babies nursing?! I like that."

We talked about it every day and I was pleased, thinking that she understood. Little did I know - her interpretation was that I would not just be nursing two babies (Penny and Olive) ... that I would be nursing them TOGETHER. Tandem. Ooofta.
So, needless to say, there were many tantrums. Every time she saw me nursing Olive because Penny wanted to nurse too, with her sister. I tried bribing her with special (organic coconut water) juice boxes as an alternative. I hid in another room when I needed to nurse Olive. But she just didn't adjust to it. Then I realized - she was crushed. I had unintentionally built her hopes up and was denying her something that she truly loved.
So I gave in. I let her nurse with her sister.... and this was, basically what I saw:

...but across my breast. Penelope was SO happy. She couldn't control her excitement. She couldn't stop smiling, she caressed Olives face and held her hand. Olive stared back at Penelope. Why was I fighting so hard to prevent this?
So, needless to say, things have become MUCH easier. Penelope is completely in love with Olive - which is another thing I hadn't expected. I knew that she would eventually like her... but did not foresee just how much she would adore her little sister from the get-go. And we all do.

Olive is such a blessing. She has been very easy going so far, we could not have asked for a better baby. So far there has only been one night where she was up the entire time - and she just wanted to nurse - not much crying, luckily. She's a "no fuss" kind of girl - only cries when she needs something (to be fed, changed or she's cold)... and usually it's just a few squawks and she done. She's an excellent sleeper - only wakes up twice in the night to be fed and changed, which is very good for a newborn.
She has a very wise and pensive look about her. She sleeps a good amount of the day still, but when she is awake, you hardly notice her. A lot of the time, I'll think she is still sleeping, but when I go to check on her, she's just laying, staring at the side of her bassinet quietly.

Penelope could not be sweeter with her new sister. She has still been her active self, but I have been keeping ahead of her by keeping a long list of activities to keep her occupied - which has kept tantrums at bay. We're ever so slowly getting back to our old schedule, which has been gone for quite some time. I started a lesson plan binder to organize our projects and activities to be sure that I have at least a handful of things planned for each day - and I have even been coming up with a loose pre-school curriculum for her.
New to the schedule, our morning routine now includes a required Penny/Olive snuggle time - after I am finished nursing them, Penny always asks to hold her sister.

Penny loves to help when she can - throwing dirty diapers into the diaper pail, holding Olive's hand while I change her diaper, helping to bathe her, patting her back to help her burp after eating... today I abandoned a basket of clean clothes to take care of Olive... when I came back, all of the clothes were in a pile on top of the coffee table. As I started to organize and fold them, Penny walked up and said, "HEY! I just folded those for you!" ... she was so proud of herself for "folding" the laundry for me - I told her I was sorry and asked if she could help me put them in the basket to put them away. And she did.

Seriously, could she get any sweeter?!

As much of a whirlwind as these past few weeks have been, Alan and I have been making sure to keep on top of taking the time to savor every little bit. It's definitely challenging, with an active toddler who is literally learning something every second of the day and a rapidly growing newborn who is experiencing all of her firsts these past few weeks.

Olive's 1st bath @ 10 days old. We chose not to have her vernix washed off after birth because of it's antibacterial properties. We waited for it to completely absorb into Olive's skin to give her a bath.

With so much attention on Olive, we made sure to have some special things lined up for Penelope too. The same day that Olive had her first bath - Penelope had her first bubble bath! With Penelope's eczema, I never wanted to give her one because pretty much all bubble bath solutions contain chemicals that could make her skin break out. We've been using chemical free soaps with her. They're a little bit more pricey than other kids soaps, just because I have to order them and pay for shipping - but I was willing to dump in half a bottle of her body wash to give her this luxury - and she LOVED it! 

We've also made sure to set aside some time play outside with just Penelope. We're very fortunate to have 3 adults in the house - so it's easy enough to have someone in the house to listen out for Olive while she is sleeping and someone can be playing with Penelope outside. We have been getting creative with different types of water and bubble play in the front yard: Fashioning different types of sprinklers, making our own bubble wands and "bubble snake makers", creating art with colored bubble solution, playing with water in different types of containers and, of course, playing in her pool!

By far, my favorite thing about these past few weeks are witnessing tender moments such as these:

Certain days can be extremely trying, as we work out our schedules to find out what works and adjusting to the chaos of having to care for two children while also taking care of ourselves... but our days have also been laced with incredibly sweet moments that instantly bring tears to my eyes. Nothing is sweeter than watching your children and partner fall in love with each other... or to feel yourself becoming just as smitten with them.

I never want to forget this time. Every little moment. There is not a second that slips away that I don't realize that I'll never get that second back. To tickle Olive's teeny tiny toes or to remember to memorize how sweet she is when she falls asleep on my chest. It's a tragedy that these kids grow so quickly - I am definitely aware how fast time is already going. Both of these girls change so much every day and I am extremely grateful to have the privileged to stay home with them every day.
Olive may be our last baby. Some day in the future, we may change our mind... but right now our goal is to provide the best for these two before we can even think about a third.

This is a sad realization: The last baby. The idea of it brings me to tears on a daily basis... or maybe it's the idea that someday, all too soon, my babies will no longer be babies. Have they developed a way to stunt a baby's growth yet? As excited as I am to see these two little ladies grow, I really just want. them. to. stop.

Right now.

Olive is only two weeks old, but she has already grown an entire inch since birth. AN ENTIRE INCH! I can't get enough of her and all of her sweetness. Even in the middle of the night, when I am dead tired - she will fall asleep while I burp her and I end up cuddling with her until I can't keep my eyes open any more. Every second I can get, I am cuddling this little love bug. Caressing her tiny tiny head and face. Holding her tiny hands and tickling her tiny feet. Smelling the back of her tiny neck and kissing every little inch of her tiny self. Trying to memorize every tiny bit of her.

I cherish every tiny bit of her.

Bless the both of them, I can't handle their cuteness!

Olive's Birth Story

Olive was due July 25th and she was born Friday, the 13th. 

We had our maternity shoot the day before she was born and I knew something was up - things were funky... and a black baby kitty crossed our path as we were walking. 

Penelope woke me up at her normal time - 8:00am, wanting to nurse. Before she even started nursing, I had felt a small contraction. As she nursed, I felt a few stronger ones - so I only let her nurse for 10 minutes and shooed her off to breakfast. I got dressed and told Alan that I thought it was time. Since Penelope had come so fast, and I had measured at 6 cm dilated the week prior, I didn't want to wait around too long. We got all of our things together and got ready to go. On the way to South Coast Midwifery's birth center though, my contractions stopped. I called my midwife, Lori Walker, to see what I should do - she encouraged me to still come in so that she could check me. When Lori checked me, I was at 8 cm but hadn't had a contraction for over an hour.

I had a belly binder put on and hubby and I walked around the shopping center for an hour to get labor going, but no dice. Lori wanted to leak my waters, but I was getting hungry - so I told her to finish up her afternoon appointments so I could get lunch. After a nice meal, still no contractions - so Lori leaked my waters at 1:00pm. By 1:30, I still wasn't in labor - so we tried the breast pump. I went into labor at 2:00. 

I only had 3 hours of labor - and spent most of the time in the tub. I only had two pushes - I actually tried to get her out in the first push, but Lori asked me to stop and relax - Olive's head was out and we got to watch her naturally turn to allow her shoulders to pass easier on the 2nd push (coolest thing I have seen to date). And she was here.

During my entire labor, I had my ipod on random play. As things were heating up, Gin and Juice by The Gourds had come on and I remember thinking how much I REALLY did not want Olive to be born with that song playing... but just as she was crowning, "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen came on!

We stayed at the birth center for 3 hours before going home. Penelope was in bed already, so we let her sleep because we knew it would be hell trying to get her back down. During my pregnancy, Penelope had taken care of a teddy bear that my Aunt had gifted us for Olive. It was kept in Olive's bassinet, by our bed and Penelope would check on it every morning. She had quite the surprise that morning

Olive Dot Primm

Born Friday July 13th 4:46 pm PST

6lbs 10oz, 19 in.

JUNE june JUNE

May-O

I have been realizing that I have been doing a terrible job of updating this blog about specific things about Penny and her development... and I really wish that I would do better at doing that.

Penelope has been growing into such a wonderful person. She has so much spirit and definitely makes our days interesting.
She has been turning into such a little kid lately, it's nuts. This can mostly be seen in her rise in activity level. Go go go. Always. Too busy for anything but play - she is always doing something. If you try to get her to do anything, she will even say, "Just a minute, mama - I'm busy. I'm too busy."

She has excellent manners. There have been a lot of pleases and thank yous... when she wants something, she asks, "may I?" ... there's a homeless man that sits outside of our library, reading with his dog (super sweet pair) and Penny stopped and was even polite enough to ask, "may I pet your dog please?"
She'll order her own meal at a restaurant and is always very polite to the waitresses.
She has been becoming more and more social. She use to just glare at EVERYONE, upon meeting, but now she'll wave and say, "hi" - if's a woman she's meeting, she still glares, but with men and children, she's very talkative. She LOVES men. There have been a lot of different guys coming in and out of the house lately to remodel the bathroom and replace the windows throughout the house and she is heavily infatuated with each and every one of them. We were at the park the other day and she even went up to a total stranger (the father of another child playing at the playground) and started leading him around the play set by the hand. Super cute, but scares the daylights out of me.

Penelope loves to sing and is quite the little actress - but don't be fooled, she does not do requests often. She's not that quick to appease. She's also not a huge dancer. I play music for her often and I dance like a maniac, trying to get her to join me... but to no avail. I learned by chance though, that Penelope has disco fever. Play some Bee Gees or Abba and you have a little dancing queen on your hands.







Penny freaks me out sometimes. She loves to cut things. I haven't gotten her a pair of real safety scissors yet so she can slice up paper, but she has a pair of play-doh scissors and has a few play knives that came with various food sets and she is obsessed. One of such sets in a sushi set - it comes with little, wooden pieces of sushi that velcro together and you can "cut" them apart with a giant, wooden cleaver. She loves that cleaver so much, she asks to sleep with it. She always asking to cut things and even asks if she can cut me. Little scary.

Penny loves to ride bike - both her on her trike, peddling around by herself or riding in her seat on the back of her daddy's bike.
She can count to 10 and knows her alphabet. She can even recognize all of the vowels (not that I planned it that way, those just happened to be the ones she recognizes).
She can draw circles and is hell bent on figuring out the square. She can recognize circles, squares, triangles and hearts.
Knows her colors, but rarely admits it. She thinks it's hilarious to say that everything is orange. Orange is her favorite color.

She eats her vegetables and she loves them. Raw or cooked - there are very few that she doesn't like. She has always been pretty good about trying new foods - we previously thought that she did not like mushrooms, but the other day, we were having stir fry and she stood up and picked them right out of the serving bowl and loved them.

Penelope can speak in full sentences - I love being able to have real conversations and discussions with her. Some are fun, but some are necessary to explain why she can't do certain things. Like why she can't drive or wear a bra yet. Why she can't cook dinner by herself on the stove and why she needs to sleep. I love being able to hear her perspective on things and love hearing her made-up, little stories even more.
She even makes up her own songs, which is the cutest thing of all. We paid a visit to my sister and her family in Arizona a few weeks ago - on the 6 hour car ride there, she started singing about boobies... went something like, " oooh Boobies! I like your milk! YUUUUUM!"

For quite a while now, she has liked to play with little animal toys - she has them walk around and talk to each other. This was something she developed pretty early, but she's expanded on it quite a bit in the past few months. We got her a doll house with a little doll family for Christmas this past year and she loves it.
She also likes to pretend to be certain characters from her books or movies or a certain animal. Often she is a baby kitty or a puppy. Both of these kinds of play are pretty advanced for her age level.

March Update

It amazes me every day, when I realize just how fast time goes by. I guess that happens when you're having fun, right? Did you also just realize that it's already half way through March? I'm shocked, this is just insane.

Penelope is now exactly 2 1/2 years old and I am 6 months pregnant with her baby sister, who we are calling Olive for now :)
It is crazy to think that in four very (veryveryveryveryveryveryvery) short months, we will be a family of four and our little Penelope will be turning 3 shortly afterward. As excited as I am to be going into this next chapter of our lives, I can't help but be a little sad for this one to be ending - having just one child and being able to have so much one on one time. I greatly hope that things continue to go well for us and that we continue to be able to remember to enjoy every little minute with BOTH of our girls, both together and separately. I have already caught myself calling them "the girls" on a few occasions and I feel that it's very important to remember to say "Penelope and Olive" more in order to keep them separate. They are unique individuals. Even today.
I can already tell that Olive is much different than Penelope, even though we haven't officially met yet. Her movements are so much different... and so much calmer. Not that Penelope is a complete maniac that can't sit still for 2 seconds, but she is active and is quite the busy body. In the womb, you knew when Penny was awake. I felt her stretches and wiggles all day... and it hasn't changed. You KNOW when Penny is awake and all day, she is always up to something. She is full of life and likes to let you know! Olive, on the other hand, has very subtle movements. I usually can't feel her unless I'm sitting down and being mindful of her. This is nice because it makes it easier to get things done around here. It will be interesting so see if Olive is as much the same as she was in the womb as Penelope was.

Penelope and I have been busy lately. Alan has been working for two months now and the two of us are sick of not having a routine - so we're busy working on creating one. We have attempted many times since moving here seven months ago (REALLY?! It was SEVEN months ago, that we moved here. INSANITY!) to join a local play group and have pretty much failed every time. Everyone wants you to pay money to join their group... and I have a hard time doing this. Why should I pay to be your friend? We just want to play!
We did join a MOPS group that is held every other Thursday at a local church, and like it. It is a bit pricey, but it includes breakfast, crafts and speakers - and the gave me a huge discount when the found out Alan was unemployed.
Recently, we joined a stroller fitness group called Stroller Strides that meets every Wednesday and has a playgroup afterward. We LOVE it! Only $25 a month and mommy gets to workout and Penny gets to play with her friends. Win/win.

I hope I'm not jinxing myself by mentioning it... but we have also been included with a weekly play group on Mondays as well. It's a group of moms in the area that meet up at local parks to play. Super awesome. Even more awesome is that they're my kind of ladies. Most of them delivered at the birth center that we will be having Olive at and are in to eating and living healthier lives, like Alan and I are. Not that these are things that I require to make friends with people, but it is awesome to have common interests and similar life styles. Some people are more laid back with it and others are complete granola moms... and I'm somewhere in the middle. Penelope gets along with their kids really well too. There's a lot of boys and she tags right along with them and even shows them a thing or two (that's my girl!).
We had first attended one of their play dates back in November, but was forgotten on their e-mail list. I asked once, but didn't want to be pushy. A few weeks ago, one of the moms finally remembered us and invited us again - we got an e-mail to join them next time too and am really looking forward to it! Fingers crossed that they keep us in the loop and we can keep coming and, eventually maybe even become good friends.
In moving to California, I hadn't anticipated that it would take so long to make friends. In Gleason, all of my friends were people I had grown up with - in Milwaukee, my friends were people that I had worked or gone to college with or, later, moms that I met through the hospital where we gave birth to Penelope. Here, though, I don't really have many places to meet potential playmates. People look at you funny when you approach them in the park and every playgroup I find online either wants you to pay to join or you have to be of a certain ethnicity. I keep reminding myself that we're still in a transitional phase and that things will slowly start to fall into place... and I can already see this happening, but I am very anxious for California to feel like home for us.

In other news, Penny is moving on up to a big girl bed! She has been crawling out of her crib for a few weeks now and it's time. Mary Ellen was very kind and purchased her a beautiful twin bed from Pottery Barn Kids for her - and Penelope is pretty smitten with it :)
 


Now that she has been in her twin bed for a bit, it's a little silly to see this picture of her in her crib - she looks way too big for it! We were very fortunate that she lasted as long as she did in her crib. I was a little weary of how the transition would go - we tried letting her sleep with the front rail off of her crib and put some pillows and a bean bag chair on the floor in case she fell out... which ended up happening a LOT, since the bed is so small. Penny was starting to resist bed time - so we made the plunge...



 

...and it was NO. BIG. DEAL.

I was afraid Penelope wouldn't like it and that she would wake up a million times in the night. But she LOVES her new bed. Bonus: it's big enough for her that we haven't had any issues with her falling out, which is Penelope's favorite part.

She's pretty stoked about her new, big girl bed :)