(Really late) 2 month update

I clearly suck at doing things in a timely manner. Here is the super late update on Marian.

Weight: A whopping 11lb 7oz, putting her in the 70th percentile. She weighs literally half as much as her big sister.

Height: 22 1/2 inches, which is the 75th percentile.

Diapers: She's outgrown most of the newborn cloth diapers, although the prefolds/covers still fit. We're still doing disposables at night.

Clothes: She's in a mix of 0-3 and 3-6 month clothes, which seems crazy to me because Ella is such a peanut. I finally gave in and packed away the newborn clothes, which makes me weepy. But I needed space in the closet (my girls seriously have too many clothes).

Sleep: Marian is starting to get into more of a schedule with her sleep. She takes two pretty decent naps during the day and then a whole lot of catnaps in the evening. Most of the time she doesn't settle down until 9pm or so, then wakes up for one more feeding around 10. Then we have one wake up in the night, normally around 4am, then she will sleep until 6:30am or so.

Feedings: Still nursing around every 2 hours during the day. Thankfully she seems to have outgrown whatever food sensitivity she had.

Milestones: Marian showed her disdain of tummy time by rolling over a few days shy of turning two months old. Jim still claims the time she rolled on the bed counts as her first time. Either way, she is now rolling.

Other fun stuff: It's been a lot of fun seeing her start to be aware of the world. She loves watching her big sister play and be crazy. She's started giving us a lot of huge gummy smiles and giggling at things. She is a big snuggle bug and likes nothing better than cuddling up on us. 

Morning story time

Reading together. 

Tummy time aka the worst. thing. ever

Hanging out on the boppy

Big gummy smile

Oh hi. Am I cute? I didn't realize. 

They love each other so much. And yes, Ella is in a Halloween costume.

Shaving cream fun

The past few days have been snowy and cold here. Well, snowy for Oklahoma. I'm not opposed to going out. Except that apparently our town has not heard of this magical thing called putting salt or sand down on icy roads, and most people here either drive ridiculously fast for the conditions or drive absurdly slow while taking up two lanes.

Okay, end rant.

Anyway, we are all getting a serious case of cabin fever. I had exhausted all my usual activities when I happened across an idea for shaving cream fun in Parents magazine.

Here's what you need:
-Shaving cream
-Food coloring
-A baking sheet
-Crazy toddler

Yep, that's seriously all you need

I plopped bits of shaving cream onto the baking sheet and added a few drops of food coloring to each. Ella then stirred them in.

It's very serious business

Then I let her go to town. She played with it for at least an hour.

The bigger the mess, the bigger the smiles

If you are really ambitious you can talk about what happens when you mix different colors together. 

If you are like me, you will take advantage of the time to have a few moments of peace and consider it learning by osmosis. 

Snow day photo dump

First snow day of the winter. Ella had a blast.

That face. You can tell she is up to no good. 

Parenting fail: when you try to get your toddler to catch a snowball and instead nail her in the face.

Jim put her to work already

Shoveling with Daddy

Warming up with some hot cocoa 

Christmas has come early

The 50th anniversary special of Doctor Who airs today! Literally, it is like Christmas has come early because normally we have to wait until the Christmas special before getting our Who-fix in between seasons. To say I am excited is an understatement. I may or may not be contemplating having us all get back in our Halloween costumes again. 

She's got her spot on the couch already

The many faces of Marian

I attempted to capture the elusive baby smile. This is what I got instead.

"Oh hi. You wanted me to smile? Fat chance, Mom." 

Showing off her many chins and chubby baby cheeks. I love chunky babies! 

"I'm working on a surprise for you."

"The surprise is poop."

Getting sleepy. 

Big baby yawn. 

Jim decided to make her play air guitar. Clearly she thinks her parents are nuts. 

Taking pictures was exhausting. 

The stank face I got when she woke up and realized I was still snapping photos of her. 

The moon incident

I have a special talent as a parent. It seems I have a knack for taking everyday items and turning them into objects of terror for my toddler. Like the moon.

The other evening, Ella started to show a lot of interest in the moon. I thought it was a great learning opportunity. I talked to her about it. We looked at pictures in an old issue of National Geographic. I let her watch some neat little video clips NASA had produced. As the grand finale to this little lesson, I took her outside to look at the moon. She went off to bed rattling off the facts she had learned. I was one proud mama.

Fast forward to 4:30am. We woke up to her screaming bloody murder. All Jim could get out of her was, "Moon up high. Moon very scary."

Yes, I somehow ruined the moon for my toddler. If anyone can explain to me how I managed to do this, I will buy you a drink.

One month update

I can't believe it's already been one month since's Marian's crazy wild birth. Here's a quick update on what she's been up to in the past month.

Weight: As of last Thursday, she was 9lb 3oz. If I had to take a guess, she is at least a few ounces more, if not closer to 10lbs.

Diapers: We are using a mix of cloth and disposable right now. She still needs to chunk up a little bit before fitting into the one-size CDs and I can't figure out a way of padding the newborn ones enough to keep her dry through her big stretches of sleep. Until then, she goes in a disposable at night.

Clothes: She has outgrown all of the newborn clothes and is firmly in 0-3 month clothes.

Sleep: For the most part, Marian is a really good little sleeper. Most nights she'll sleep for 5 hours at a stretch, sometimes 6. Depending on when we go off to bed, that translates into a wake-up around 3 or 4am. After that big stretch she is back to being up every few hours.

Feedings: During the day she nurses about every 2 hours, then cluster feeds in the evening. Marian is more sensitive to what I eat than Ella ever was, so I've had to cut some foods from my diet. I'm glad we figured this out fairly early because once we did, her sleep significantly improved.

Daily activities: Part of the beauty of being the second child is Marian has quite the busy social schedule already. She gets dragged along to music class, library story time, and various play groups throughout the week. Considering she sleeps through a lot of them, I don't know how much she is getting out of them, but I'm sure she will appreciate it more as she gets older.

Milestones: I got my first gummy smile from her at 8 days old. She also rolled over once from belly to back, but I'm pretty sure that was more to do with the fact that she was on the bed and Jim was sitting on it too, making it slightly inclined. For now I'm calling that a fluke thing rather than a true milestone, especially considering she hasn't done it since.

Personality: Marian seems to be a lot more laid back than her sister ever was. Most of the time when she is awake she is calm, quiet, and serious. She is curious about what is going on around her but is content to sit back and observe everything.

Just chilling with her buddy George

Mommy and her photo taking are not very interesting

Doing some tummy time

Getting pretty good at holding up her head