DJ's official first haircut

Last night, Steve suggested that we check out a hobby shop in PA and since it would be really close to my sister's, go visit her family, too. So this morning, we packed the kids in the car, and took the scenic route up into PA. I didn't go in the hobby shop because I needed to feed Elektra, but we didn't spend long there. We continued up the scenic route through Lancaster City and got to my sister's around 11:30.

When we arrived, she suggested we go to where her kids get their hair cut to get DJ's hair cut. Why? Because it was very long, it was getting in his eyes, and we have no idea where north of Baltimore City there is a place that cuts kids hair.

That said, we love DJ's hair. It's a beautiful color, and it has these awesome curls. We're afraid that cutting off the curls would mean the end of the curls forever, so we've been procrastinating getting his hair cut.

But it's long and in his face. So we agreed to the appointment. The place was full of flat screen TVs and PS3's with which to entertain the kids. We were offered a Baby Einstein video to try and keep DJ occupied while he got his hair cut. The beautician use a spray bottle to wet down his hair and used scissors the entire time as we asked for her to keep the hair relatively long. She took about half an inch off all over his head, and a little more on his bangs.

DJ wasn't happy about having someone futsing with him. Worse was when Steve held his head still. Oh the boo boo face he gave us for that! I pulled out the fruit snacks and that kept him busy and happy which allowed for the beautician to finish quickly.

It turns out that the curls seemed to stay, getting a little curlier because some of the weight was taken off. DJ looks a little more "girlie" because of the cut, but his hair is definitely out of his face now! My sister sent me pics of the event, so I'll try to get them posted.

And even though I have some locks from when I first cut his bangs in the bathtub, we got far more locks at this haircut.

Jealousy!

Yep, we think we saw our first official "I'm jealous!" tantrum from DJ yesterday.

We were all in the kitchen. Steve was making something on the stove, I was feeding DJ dinner in his high chair, and Elektra was in the bouncy seat on the table next to us. Elektra started to fuss, so Steve came over to pick her up. He picked her up, and DJ watched him like a hawk. When Steve turned his back to him and walk away with Elektra, DJ started to bawl. So Steve put Elektra back down, took DJ out of the high chair, and picked him up. Crying nearly insta-stopped. Meanwhile, I picked up Elektra, and DJ didn't even blink at me. ::sigh:: I see where I rank. ;-)

Pediatric Ophthalmologist

DJ went to see his pediatric ophthalmologist today. Without even dilating his eyes, she could tell that he wasn't crossing his eyes at all. I chose to have his eyes dilated anyway today so that she could check his refraction. Turns out that his farsightedness has been cut in half. Now he's only a +2.5, much more normal for a child of his age. Her comment was that his likelihood of needing glasses any time soon is nil. Yay! So she's asked to see him again in 2 years.

As for Elektra seeing her, since we aren't seeing any signs of a clogged tear duct, we don't anticipate her needing to see Dr. Collins unless we start to see signs of crossing.

Meanwhile, DJ walked all the way from the car to the doctor's office, holding my hand the ENTIRE way without wanting to pull away from me once. He did awesome in that sense! While his eyes were dilating, he wanted to wander the hallway, which he did happily. Apparently that wore him out because he wanted me to pick him up and he kept pointing to me where he wanted me to take him. Look out, here comes the Mommy Taxi! After we were done with the doctor's appointment, he walked all the way back out to the car, albeit slower than the walk in. He wasn't in his car seat 5 minutes when he fell asleep. He was pooped!

Our Little Snotnose update

DJ came down with a cold late last week and passed it on to the family. Over that weekend, he battled a pesky fever and was all in all quite the clingy (for Daddy) fuss. By Monday, the fever had broken for good, and he seemed much more himself, except for the river of snot running from his nose. Here we are, a week later, and his cough has broken up significantly but the snot remains. He's sneezing a lot less so he's kicking this cold out the door sure enough.

DJ, as all toddlers it seems, *hates* to have his nose wiped. You have to hide the tissue until the very last second when you snatch his nose in between your fingers and wipe else he'll turn his head away and/or run away from you to avoid it. The best case scenario for DJ to have his nose wiped is to wipe it on your shirt on his own terms. Oh yes, there is no fuss then!

Otherwise, DJ has been much more himself lately i.e. relatively happy, go-lucky. The meltdowns have been less frequent and last less time overall. The meltdowns we're seeing now are more in line with what we would expect of him as a toddler, so hopefully that means we've turned the corner with him regarding Elektra in his life (and ours for that matter).

This coming week will be fun for DJ... well, ok, not really. Tomorrow, he goes to see the pediatric ophthalmologist for his 6 month post-surgery check. At the same time, Dr. Collins will be looking to see if he's crossing his eyes (which I don't think he is) because he's more far sighted than the average toddler. Better to catch (and fix) something like that now than find it later!!

DJ will also be going for his 18 month check with the pediatrician on Thursday. I know, he's 19 months at this point, really, but the doctor couldn't see him when we took Elektra in for her 8 day appointment as he was squeezing her in that day. We'll be taking Elektra in, too, for her 1 month check. Yes, shots will be involved for both children, so I'm not going to this appointment alone. If Steve can't go, I'm recruiting my dad to help out with this one. Elektra will be fine; it's DJ that concerns me. In the past, he's done great with shots. But as he's gotten older, he's tolerated them less and less, so... yeah, this won't be pleasant. In fact, I remember his first shots at the pediatrician's office. When he started to bawl, it completely broke my heart; it felt like I was making him cry on purpose! But it's for your own good... that old cliche. Go figure.

Hmmm. Time for my flu shot, too. ::sigh:: At least I won't cry when it's administered. ;-)

Sharing

DJ has already learned to share. Well, I say that tongue and cheek, but he has shared his cold with Elektra. So at 3 weeks, Elektra has her first cold, light fever and all. DJ is coughing which Elektra isn't, but both are sniffling and sneezing. Break out the humidifiers and Tylenol (for DJ).

Steve's coming down with the cold now and how can I not get it being as sleep deprived as I am?? I haven't felt any symptoms yet, but I'm sure it'll hit me soon enough.

This has made for quite the crazy household. DJ has decided in the last few weeks that he's not interested in 2 naps a day anymore. This is really a disappointment for us as we could use the downtime but now that he's sick, HE could use the downtime.

Friday, we kept him home because he had a fever. He napped in the morning, but no afternoon nap and was in bed by 6:30pm.

He woke up his normal time on Saturday, still with a light fever, and took no naps. Oh that made for a rough day, especially for Steve, as DJ was very, very clingy with Steve. Despite the clinginess with Steve, I took DJ to the grocery store, for a car ride (to try and get him to nap... yeah that didn't work) and for a long stroller ride. Despite no nap, he was surprisingly easy going by the time dinner came, and was a really good when it came to going to bed.

Today, we heard DJ wake up at 7am, happily talking to himself. About 20 minutes later, when I went to go get him, I found him asleep again. He slept until after 9am. Clearly, that was his morning nap! By mid afternoon, DJ was quite clingy again, so I took him for a stroller ride down our street. About 20 yards from home, I found him asleep in the stroller, so I brought him inside and put him in his crib. He woke up in the transfer, but he's gone back to sleep since. He so needs the rest...

Of course every time I would take DJ to go do something, Elektra would wake up and want to be fed or held or something. She's been eating only about 2.5 ounces per feeding and sometimes, she's hungry 2 hours later and other times, she'll sleep the full 3 and I have to wake her up. Last night, despite the humidifier in our room, she was struggling to breathe, so I brought her into our bed and propped her up against our pillows to let her sinuses drain. That seemed to help her, and she settled down a little. I still didn't get more than 2 hours of sleep in one shot, but she didn't ask to eat again for 4 hours. She's actually been a lot easier today than she was yesterday, going right back to sleep after she eats instead of fussing for an hour or so then falling back to sleep.

Meanwhile, Steve and I are both happy for the peace and quiet. Steve's getting some rest on the couch while watching the football games, and I'm going to clean up DJ's toys and then lay down again myself.

::sigh:: Sharing colds. Of course it's the first thing we share as a family...

Meltdown

Holy meltdowns, Batman!

Poor DJ. I think he's stressing and it's coming out in the form of explosive meltdowns. On Monday and Tuesday, he melted down when he didn't get to do what he wanted, and was completely inconsolable until we put him to bed. In fact, we had to put him to bed early. Last night, he was fine - despite no nap! - until bed, but at 10pm, woke up in complete meltdown mode. It took rocking him back to sleep for him to calm down. He woke up again at 1:45am (this was brief), but the 4:45am meltdown was outright screaming for at least 10 minutes. I know he's sick with a cold so he's not feeling so hot, but he did this at day care, too. He woke up out of nowhere in complete meltdown mode and was completely inconsolable.

Between all the stress of Elektra showing up into his life + growing into a full blown toddler, we're going to have to find a way to help him cope. Poor guy....

It's Bottle Time

During Week 3 of DJ's life, my body couldn't take the lack of sleep anymore and I came down with a cold. This convinced Steve to go get a can of formula and start bottle feeding DJ until I had built up a supply of breastmilk that we could also bottle feed him. That couldn't have been a better move; DJ took to the bottle like a champ, wolfing down formula like it was going out of style. Lo and behold, he also started sleeping more than an hour at a time, too.

Here we are at Week 3 of Elektra's life and although I think I'm in better shape than I was with DJ, I have started bottle feeding Elektra. There's a learning curve to feeding for babies. It took a good number of days for her to figure out how to latch on to the breast, and so it's no surprise that it'll take her the equivalent number of days to learn how to take a bottle.

The upside to her taking a bottle is that now Steve (or anyone else) can feed her, too. The downside is that she doesn't fall asleep on the bottle so we have to take the time to help her fall asleep. This will cut into sleep time for me during the late night hours. Nevermind that I have to pump at every feeding. Today was teh first day I started this with her so my dilemma is: do I breast feed her during the late night hours or do I strictly bottle feed/pump instead?

There are other issues, too, like, what happens when she hits a growth spurt and I'm not making enough milk? Typically, if I were breastfeeding exclusively, she has a way of telling my body to make more. But if I'm pumping, my body won't get that message. Also, I have heard stories of babies not liking the bottles they were offered if they didn't transition to bottles until later. We have too much invested in these bottles to have her reject them!

So we'll see how this goes.

Currently, Elektra is a happy little girl sleeping on Daddy's chest, and Daddy is a happy man sleeping on the sofa. It's the way life should be. :-) Unfortunately for them, I'm going to have to wake up Elektra in about 25 minutes for her next feeding to stay on the 3 hour schedule... Sorry!!!

Elektra Update

Elektra went to see the pediatrician today for her 8 day checkup.

To recap: she was born 7 pounds, 15 ounces. When we left the hospital 2 days later, she had lost 5% of her birth weight, but we weren't told what that measurement was. So... if I've done the math correctly, when we left the hospital, Elektra was down to 7 pounds, 9 ounces.

Today, when we weighed her, she was 8 pounds 5 ounces. Wowzers, girlie! In what was effectively 6 days, she gained 12 ounces - 2 ounces a day!! I suppose that does explain the copious number of diapers we've seen, which has been at least 1, if not 2 per feeding. ;-)

The doctor was *very* pleased with this weight gain, and gave me the go-ahead to stretch night time feedings from the usual 3 hour interval to a 4 hour interval. YAY!! An extra hour of sleep for me!! He said to continue the 3 hour interval during the day to try and combat the day-night reversal newborns tend to go through.

It's 9:15pm right now, and she's hanging out on the couch, on her side - having put herself there as I laid her down on her back, wide awake, moving aorund and kicking and such. Good girl! We want you to sleep tonight!!

Anyway, the doctor found her to be healthy and thriving and all is good. She fussed at him when he looked at her ears, and he said, "Oh I know, such an invasive procedure." LOL

She had another blood test done, a repeat of what they did in the hospital, as a double check for a laundry list of things. They do this with all babies at least 8 days old. The assistant who usually takes care of DJ, Evonne, said, "Sorry, Elektra. This will be the first of many unpleasant experiences you'll have here." We laughed because she had told me at another appointment for DJ that one time, she called the name of a 10 year old boy to begin his appointment and at the mention of his name, he started bawling. Poor boy and poor her!

Her next appointment will be in 3 weeks for her 1 month appointment. DJ will be joining her for his 18 month appointment (though at that point, it'll be effectively his 19 month!). That should make for an interesting appointment....

Parents of 2

Talk about a challenge, and the challenges haven't even started yet.

The evening I got home from the hospital, Steve picked up DJ from day care, came home, cooked dinner for us while I fed DJ dinner, and of course when it was time for us to eat, it was time for DJ to play. So Steve ate while I watched DJ, we put him to bed, then it was time to feed Elektra, then I got to eat. Or something like that. The point being, the life of being parents of 2 young children is going to take some coordination. And we're going to have to figure this out in a hurry.

For one, we have a full fledged toddler testing his limits. I think he's done the worst of his teething which was messing with his mood, but that's definitely not the reason he's being, well, a toddler.

The food wars: how picky is he eating? Right now, fairly. Boy do I miss the days of when he was just turning a year old and he'd eat anything we'd give him and then some.

The throwing wars: he wants to throw his cup every time he drinks from it. He always wants to throw food that he "doesn't want". Sometimes he's doing it for the attention (which we try to not give him when he throws stuff), and sometimes he's doing it because he really doesn't want it. He's been throwing "throw-able" (i.e. not always balls) toys, not necessarily AT anything or anyone, just in general because he can.

The couch wars: His want to be on the couch is fine, in general. But we get nervous when he's on the couch and the dogs are on it, too. Usually we boot DJ from the couch and let the dogs be in their spot, but occassionally we have to do the opposite. This is more for the dogs' safety than for DJ's.

Toss in the fact that he seems to be moving away from having 2 naps a day to 1, and so we're battling a tired toddler all day, despite a long nap in the afternoon.

When I say "we", I don't mean just Steve and me. I also mean Miss Eleanor. She has the brunt of his antics day to day. Yikes.

Couple aaaaaaall of that with the relative demands of a newborn and ta-da!!! It's quite the zoo here. Generally, Elektra is very low maintenance. Yes, she eats every 3 hours but otherwise, right now, she's sleeping between meals. She's willing to just hang out in the bouncy seat while the world moves around her, and basically give us our hands free to handle DJ. Really, like DJ, she's been wonderful so far. :-)