Family of Four

 

Nora is 10 weeks old already, and summer is nearly over. Since the last blog post, we’ve been consumed with working through fussiness – what started out looking like classic colic extended into screaming immediately after every feeding. Eventually she could only be soothed by vigorous bouncing on the exercise ball, in the Moby baby carrier, with a pacifier. For hours a day.

 
The worst days were nothing but sleeping, eating, and screaming. Eliminating dairy and wheat didn’t help. Zantac for reflux had no effect. She was diagnosed with a posterior tongue tie and mild lip tie… I resisted having anything done about it for a few weeks, but finally gave up and went to Portland to have the ties released by Dr. Ghaheri. That seems to have helped – she hasn’t screamed at night since the release, and there are no more clicking sounds when she nurses. Improvement in fussiness otherwise has been slow but steady – just in the last week, she’s had several days when she only cried for fixable reasons. BLISS!

 

She lets herself be soothed more easily now, and even by other people (Grammie is having some success above; the Richmond Royers visited at the beginning of August). It also seems that she may be sensitive to eggs (after eliminating them for three weeks and reintroducing), so those are out of my diet for at least another month. All of this work, and/or Nora getting older, means we’re finally getting to meet the sweet, happy baby under all the sleeping and screaming of the last two months. We like her.

 

She’s smiling now, bopping things with her fists (probably on purpose at least part of the time), stuffing fingers and fists in her mouth, shaking things when we stick them in her hands, tracking moving objects, and cooing with vowels and “g” sounds. Totally cute, and it induces adults to make silly sounds back to her. She loves her musical owl and her bird mobile. But she’s not all sugar – Toby better watch out once this baby gets coordinated.

 

Seriously, she’s producing a great array of expressions these days.

Also she’s a girl, and girl clothes are GREAT. If I included all the cute pictures I took just because her dresses and onesies are irresistible, the blog post would never be done. Here we are wearing pants for the first time (okay, for me it’s just the first time wearing REAL pants in many months, but it’s her very first time).

 

Toby has been managing the crying better than I thought he might. There have been a few car trips where they both wailed, and he sometimes talks about how Nora cries a lot, or here’s where Mama always stops the car to put Nora’s binky back in… but he can also talk right through her fits, telling me about the construction equipment in his favorite Richard Scarry book, or the splash pad he went to with his class. He’s definitely getting used to having his sister around. For a long time after she was born, he was still very interested in my belly. At the end of the pregnancy, he was always uncovering it, poking the belly button, and saying it had popped. He would tell me my belly was too big for things (the house, the grocery store, the bed… I mostly agreed). He liked to snuggle against it; we developed a wonderful pregnant hug, where he sat back on his heels with his knees on either side of my belly and snuggled right up against me with his head under my chin. Sometimes he got kicked. I wondered if he would miss it. He never said he did, but it took about five weeks for us to figure out how to snuggle really well again. He still asked to see my belly for a while, but less and less often… now I can’t remember the last time he did.

He continues to develop into a fantastic big brother. He has loved holding her from the very beginning (and it’s hard to hit when your hands are full), but for a few weeks he was prohibited from any other contact with her – I had to put up a baby gate for nursing, diaper changes, and naps to keep them apart. We still have to keep an eye out for aggressive behavior, but now he only smacks or falls on her (that’s the new favorite thing) a few times a week. The baby gate is only up for naps, to prevent him from sneaking in, picking her up upside down and backwards, and squeezing. That may have happened a couple of times. Rather than preventing smacks, I spend more time now asking him to give her space. He likes to squish her head, give her kisses when she’s nursing, or pull her pacifier out and put it back in repeatedly. Sometimes they already play – my favorite is when he sets up her pink musical owl for her to knock over repeatedly. It makes him giggle every time. And he’s already teaching her how to do nose kisses and butterfly kisses (in fact he started it the first week), which makes me melt.

Becoming a big brother seems to have stimulated an emotional growth spurt for Toby. We ask him to control his behavior more than before, and of course there are more frustrating situations for him than there used to be. Matt and I have been learning how to help Toby process his feelings productively instead of just punishing him (which is a very fine and ever-moving line), and it’s paying off. Now we see him consider hitting and change his mind, choose to bang on acceptable things instead of people, and even give himself breaks – running to his room when he’s upset and coming out a few minutes later to announce that he feels better and is ready to play. When I occasionally feel guilty about what Toby lost when we chose to have a second child, I try to remember that this kind of emotional intelligence is already something substantial he’s gained. (Not that he’s not learning other skills, too – like cutting with scissors!!)

 

Of course, he’s still three, and we still have challenges. He never loved the word “no” as a toddler, but now he SCREAMS it (and not with happiness). Transitions, even to a beloved activity, are often difficult. He’s even started being a picky eater – while he is sometimes willing to eat a variety of things, he doesn’t like them mixed and generally prefers pale carbs. Sigh. At least he still loves fruit. And fresh corn on the cob from our farm share (he’s no fool).

 Bedtime is always an interesting challenge, and one I like to write about because otherwise I would never believe how much and fast it changes. We had finally settled back into a fairly good routine again before Nora arrived, with a few months of Toby falling asleep alone in his own bed after I sang him “Dream a Little Dream of Me” (which he calls “the Star Song”). This was even achieved using a rational discussion with the not-quite-3-year-old. But bedtime slowly disintegrated after Baby Sister was born, hand-in-hand with the increase in fussiness. Now he will fall asleep in his bed about 75% of the time, as long as Matt falls asleep there too… and sometimes as late as 10 or 11pm! The rest of the time he crashes out on the mattress next to our bed. But am I worried about it? No. I’ve finally realized, deep in my heart, that nothing lasts. Eventually Nora will have a bedtime routine beyond screaming and bouncing, and then we’ll have the energy to troubleshoot Toby’s too. Or maybe he’ll finish dropping the nap completely and nod off at 8pm effortlessly, instead of skipping every other nap on weekends and sneaking off to his bed at dinnertime to fall asleep! Stay tuned. In the meantime, I actually enjoy those nights when we all fall asleep in one room (with the cat on top of Matt), and I can hear all of my favorite creatures breathing deeply next to me. It’s exhausting, but it’s also pretty nice.

On the language front, Toby continues to be the funniest thing ever. He’s had a long-running obsession with “lots,” since at least April. Try offering him some, a few, or a bit, and hear the protestations! He needs a LOT! Offer the same quantity and tell him it’s a lot, and he will be satisfied. Another current favorite is “ver-ver” for “very very,” which gets used a great deal. And he’s been doing more blatant imitation, like heading off to work, pumping milk for Nora, or congratulating me on my accomplishments (e.g. “Mama, you peed in the potty – good job!”). He’s started telling simple stories, too. Last weekend when we went to visit our friends Tom and Rachel in Portland, Toby informed me that Tom isn’t in Portland, but he’s very smaller than me and has a blue racecar. He’s still obsessed with vehicles, but music is currently a close second. The budding one-man-band likes to organize trios with Matt and me. We play his real instruments (piano, xylophone, ukulele, drums, slide whistle) as well as many imaginary ones (favorites are trombone, saxophone, and mandolin). He’s an exacting manager.

 

Toby gets some of his own adventures, like going to the park with Daddy and starting to coast on his Scuut bike, but increasingly we’re having all-four-of-us adventures. Being a little sister has some advantages; Nora gets out a lot more than Toby did at this age. I try to make sure we have a family outing at least once a weekend. Our first one was to the local library, but since then we’ve branched out. One of the earliest was a picnic and visit to the local splash pad with other young families in my department (including our favorite little Charlie, pictured below). I forgot Toby’s swimsuit, but our friend Gabrielle saved the day by producing an extra skirt he could wear.

Next we headed to Corvallis on the fourth of July for Toby’s very first parade! The llamas, floats, and fire trucks were cool, but the candy was the most exciting part. It took him a while to realize that’s what people were throwing. He’d certainly never had so much candy in one day before. After that we visited a bounce house, got to climb in a fire truck, and had a hamburger at the Sky-High Brewpub (our first time in a restaurant with Nora).

On another weekend, we went to the potluck for the farm our weekly share (CSA) comes from, Pitchfork and Crow. Farmer Jeff let Toby get on the tractor, turn it on, and move the bucket up and down. Just as heavenly as it sounds. And Toby got to pick his very own apple from a tree. The CSA has been fantastic in every way, giving Toby a chance to get to know really fresh produce even though we don’t have time for a big garden right now.

 

We followed up the CSA potluck with a trip to a U-Pick blueberry farm. The Toblerone is a great picker, and a slightly better eater – net loss from our buckets, no accumulation in his. According to the Royer-Millers, we can expect this to reverse around age 5. We were content with the 17 pounds we managed to keep out of his mouth long enough to get them home.

There are lots of fun festivals in the local parks all summer, and so far our favorite has been the art fair. Toby’s YMCA class made tie-dyed shirts and marched in the children’s parade – teacher Sara is in the front and teacher Elizabeth is in the back pushing a stroller. Later in the weekend we caught a concert with our friends Ramona, Tyler, and lil’ Charlie; at the end of the festival we watched the local bagpipe band. This picture gives you a sense of how snuggling works when everyone wants Mama – most of the time, it works pretty well!

We were also lucky to have baby showers from both my work colleagues and Matt’s. Toby enjoyed unpacking all the clothes, but he may have gotten the best gift of all – a hand-me-down wooden train set from Gabrielle and her daughters. It’s now set up on his bedroom floor, a constantly changing track. An expansion of his obsession with all vehicles (this week he wants to hear us tell him about the exhaust system over and over – it’s Matt’s fault.) There’s still some amazing chocolate cake in the freezer, waiting for the next time I test Nora’s egg sensitivity. Don't tell Toby.

At the beginning of August Toby was invited to his classmate Emily’s birthday party at the local carousel. He rode it three times, and was pretty sure that wasn’t enough. We’re looking forward to weekend play dates with his YMCA friends after he moves on to the Montessori school next month. Just one example of how Toby is getting us out in the world meeting nice people – we even made friends with neighbors we met at the playground last week. Amazing.

I’ve started back to work (15 hours a week; full time by the beginning of October), and Nora’s nanny Elizabeth came to our house for three days last week. So far so good, although it makes me miss Joelyn. On our own, we’re getting better at taking care of two kiddos and ourselves – a work in progress. Here’s Matt reading them a story together for the first time. I have high hopes for years of this. When will they be old enough for Winnie the Pooh, Little House on the Prairie, or The Chronicles of Narnia? It’s going to be great.

Welcome, baby Nora!

We’ve been busy! Eleanor Claire arrived on June 6^th, the day after her due date and a week before her big brother’s birthday. MommaSue came the Sunday before, giving us a much-appreciated mellow week. Toby got used to having her run his routine, and I relaxed enough that my back was feeling better than it had in months by the time I went into labor (although that pulled muscle in my hip from Toby’s bedtime routine was still sore!). Here I am with a week to go.

I had a prenatal appointment scheduled for the due date. MommaSue drove me there, and our doula Hannah met us and went in with me. Dr. Samawi (my favorite) saw me, and he told us he’d be on call the next day. I seem to have good luck with that sort of thing (having willed Toby’s delivery by my favorite midwife in Michigan), but was still surprised when I woke up at 2am with regular contractions. Since I’d had perceptible contractions starting late in the first trimester with this second pregnancy, and even fairly sharp ones for the last three weeks, I didn’t believe it at first. At 2:45 I finally gave up, got out of bed, and started timing them. By 3am I woke up Matt, and we decided after another ~15 minutes that it made sense to call Hannah and my mom (thanks to the time change, this wasn’t a totally cruel thing to do to poor Noni, who immediately started working on getting a flight to Portland).

Contractions were already 4-7 minutes apart and fairly strong. Hannah arrived by 3:45, and less than an hour later we decided to head to the hospital (partly because Toby often wakes up around 5am, and labor was advanced enough that having him awake didn’t sound fun to me). I figured this was the second baby, I’d probably be holding her by lunchtime! But, of course, these things are unpredictable…

We checked in a little before 5am, 5 cm dilated. Dr. Samawi didn’t come on his shift until 7:30, so I spent the first three hours on continuous fetal monitoring. They SAY you can walk around and get in the tub with those strips strapped around your pregnant abdomen, but in reality that causes them to slip, making the Doc say “let’s just do 15 more minutes…” for THREE HOURS. The only way it really worked was if I was laying on my back in the bed, which slowed the contractions down and made them more painful. Even when Dr. Samawi showed up and let me off, he insisted I do it for 15 minutes every hour, which meant 45 minutes of working up to good contractions only to lay down and have them slow again. (This is why women choose home births, people!) Here I am at 7 cm in full fashion, ready to walk the halls with Matt.

So it took a while – 18 hours of active labor, dilating about half a centimeter an hour. On the upside, slowing it down may have kept it mellow – this labor never reached the intensity that I experienced with Toby. I felt like myself between contractions right up until the end. I sat in the tub, we walked the halls, I did squats and lunges, I even napped a little … Matt was right with me nearly the whole time. We kept waiting for the water to break, knowing things would probably speed up then. We had an amazing nurse for the first 12 hours, Shelley – she used to be a practicing nurse midwife, and was super supportive and knowledgeable about natural birth. We found out after Nora was born that the rate of unmedicated vaginal births at this hospital is 3%, so having staff with experience was something special. She and Dr. Samawi were encouraging, and kept saying I was doing great and we were in no hurry. But as the sun was setting I started feeling tired, and by 8:30ish I decided to have my progress checked again and have the amniotic sac ruptured if things were still moving at the same rate – I couldn’t see doing another four hours of this work when there was a simple way to speed it up. At 9pm I was at 8-8.5 cm, and asked Dr. Samawi to break my water. He and Hannah both warned me things might go quickly after that, and I was like “Yeah, yeah, whatever!” I remembered with Toby, things got more intense but it was still several hours of hard work. If I had been more aware (less in laboring-woman-haze) I would have noticed that there was a bustling, more people in the room, and Dr. Samawi was making sure everything was set up before he ruptured the sac. He waited for me to say the latest contraction was over, and then he reached in and I felt that tremendous warm gush of amniotic fluid.

A moment later I felt the pressure of the baby’s head on my cervix, and almost immediately an incredible contraction. After a break barely long enough to draw a breath, a second contraction hit along with an irresistible urge to PUSH like nothing I’d ever felt before, and I yelled “I wanna push I wanna push I wanna push!!” Dr. Samawi had me pant through the third contraction to resist the urge to push, and then (10 minutes after the water broke) I was fully dilated. Pushing Nora out felt almost like one rolling contraction (and felt great), although it was probably three. I could tell she was moving down fast, and there was a lot of movement and chatter in the room (which had been so quiet all day), with the doctor yelling for things and working to minimize tearing. Still, I was surprised to feel her head emerge so quickly. A fast end to a very long day: after five minutes of pushing, our little girl was born.

 

Well, she was relatively little, arriving at 8 lbs 12 oz (13oz heavier than Toby at birth, big enough that they had to give her extra heel pricks to test her blood sugar.) They handed her to me right away, covered in vernix and quickly turning from purple to pink. We could already see that she had fat cheeks and lots of dark hair. Matt and I cuddled close to her, and she nursed enthusiastically in the first half hour (she takes after her brother that way). She was delightfully alert. The staff didn’t take her out of my arms for the first two hours. Here she is saying hello to Doula Hannah for the first time.

Toby came to visit the next morning with MommaSue and Noni. He was so excited to finally meet Nora. He wanted to hold her right away, and then use all the interesting equipment in the hospital room to “test” her. Matt and I were surprised to see how BIG Toby was the first time we saw him after Nora’s birth. When I was pregnant with her, I heard about a recent study showing that mothers underestimate the size of their youngest child. I experienced this acutely; for maybe the first week after we brought the new baby home, Toby would alternately seem enormous and still very small – sometimes it was almost as if he was changing in front of me. It was disorienting, and thankfully it gradually settled down.

 

 Over the next couple of days, we got to know Nora better. Her nose and toes are like Toby’s, but her red skin and longer dark hair are all her own – the grandmas even suspect this hair might not fall out! (Normal for a Royer baby, but highly unusual for a Schultz – as of four weeks she’s lost a little in the very front.) Her fat cheeks (see the next picture) turned out to be mostly fluid, so her overall face shape is more similar to Toby’s than we initially though, and her deflating eyelids revealed beautiful long eyelashes (Toby was born without any) and dark slaty eyes that quickly turned to a fairly convincing brown. For all her bruiser size, she’s not as strong as Toby was – more in the normal range for a newborn.

 My milk started coming in two days after the birth, when we headed home from the hospital. Engorgement was manageable this time, probably largely because I was already comfortable with the breast pump and understood from experience with Toby that it would soon pass. I pumped off ~8oz on the third and fourth days postpartum and then things settled down – minimal pain and trouble, and 16oz of milk already in the freezer! I’m still making more than I need, but comfortable again. In fact, overproduction is my normal state, so we’re working through the problems that engenders just like we did with Toby.

 

Nora is sweet. Like Toby as a baby in a lot of ways – both snuggly, both generally easy to nurse, and she makes the same sleep happy face when she’s done that he did – tilting the head way back, pursing the lips and somehow squeezing the cheeks out to maximum chub.

 

But different too, of course. And although she shares her brothers’ enthusiasm for and skill at nursing, her style is different – where Toby nursed super efficiently for ten minutes every hour, she nurses on and off in 2-4 bouts over 30-45 minutes, and then doesn’t need to eat again for another 2-3 hours.

This makes for the only difference I would say is a definite improvement – sleeping! I’m only up 2-3 times a night with Nora, and once the diaper is changed and the feeding is done, she usually falls asleep. I remember being up for hours with Toby. For the first week, part of it, I’ll admit, is that I gave up on not keeping her next to me. Toby might have been every bit as easy if I’d not been constantly trying to get him to sleep 18 inches away from me, instead of next to me where we could feel each other’s warmth and our hearts could beat back and forth to each other. I sleep more peacefully this way too – I remember waking regularly to reach over and be sure Toby was still breathing. Plus I’m so much better at nursing that we started side nursing as soon as she came home – that means I only sat up when a diaper had to be changed, so nursing was less tiring and falling asleep again was easier. I even figured out how to burp her without sitting up, but leaning her against my side. This made me feel like a SuperMama (but eventually had to end with the beginning of fussiness). For the first couple of weeks I was still tired, but not quite as tired as I was with Toby.

 

After that, Nora got increasingly fussy. At first I thought it must be the onset of sensitivity to milk in my diet, which showed up at about the same time with Toby. I eliminated dairy, and the fussing got WORSE. Then I eliminated wheat. Now we’re trying block feeding and reclined nursing to combat oversupply issues, using gripe water, giving her probiotics, holding her upright for at least 10 minutes after feedings in case it’s reflux… and hoping something works. Things have gotten a little better (less green poo!), but she still fusses each night for 1-3 hours, and sometimes for an hour in the early morning as well. So now I’m pretty tired! On the upside, she’s gaining weight well, and although she cries a lot, she’s not inconsolable – she just requires a new entertainment every few minutes (currently in rotation: pacifier, bouncing on the exercise ball, rocking in the chair, dancing around – all more challenging at 4am than 7pm, but each offering respite from the howls). So thanks again for those great rocking chair cushions, Nana! (But we don’t take pictures of her fussing, so here’s one with Noni where Nora demonstrates how you can fit that much baby in one small lady. And yes, Toby has already asked when she’s going back in – as MommaSue explained, that train has left the station…)

We still feel like we’re up to dealing with things most of the time, and definitely feel more confident about all of the parenting skills we perfected on Toby – feeding, burping, diapering, soothing, nonchalantly disregarding any number of weird rashes. This is good, because we need all of the energy we can muster for the new challenge of having two children. Toby is 90% sweet, but most interactions over 30 seconds long end in a smack, pulling a leg or arm, or - new last weekend – head-butting! This is still a little scary for me, but we’re trying our best to nip it in the bud, and I’m appreciating that a newborn is more robust than I’d realized (since I never let anyway slap or yank on Toby, I didn’t have a chance to figure this out before). Even when he’s not kissing/admiring/hugging/smacking Nora, our big 3-year-old is incredibly busy. Usually doing wonderful things, but occasionally and unpredictably doing naughty things like chasing the cat, pouring water on the floor, and ripping up the tomato plant that was just starting to flower. I wasn’t good at keeping up when I was pregnant, and postpartum felt a tiny bit harder (I’m just lucky the birth was as easy as it was). Fortunately my healing has kept pace with the departure of help and Matt’s gradual return to work. And no surprises – we have enough friends with multiple children that we knew what we were getting into, and we’re grateful to have our own chance at the exhaustion and befuddlement of raising siblings.

 One thing that isn’t any different the second time is the incredible emotional experience of birth and bonding. Crazy hormones and processing the absolute miracle of having another baby… there are moments of completely absorbed bliss, staring at Nora and memorizing her every feature, trying to fathom how ephemeral this precious newborn period is. There is mourning for the quick passing of time, as well as eager anticipation of the next stage. I will be so sad when she’s no longer my nursing, snoozing nugget! I’ll be so happy when she can make eye contact, reach for things, giggle! It helps to look at Toby, remember how much I love him as a three-year-old, and how much more slowly he changes now than he did when he was tiny. Then I have faith it will go that way with Nora too. 

 

In the weeks leading up to the birth, we still had a few more only-child adventures in store for Toby. Our first Oregon wine-tasting was one: a picnic at a local winery with my old high school friends Tom and Rachel Graves and their 4-year-old Eli. Toby thought Eli was AMAZING, and followed him joyfully around for several hours on the sunny lawn. They played with trucks and balls, and went rolling and running up and down the hill in front of the winery. It was the first time I had seen Toby really play with another child, and it was enchanting.

We followed that up with a wedding on Mount Hood, in the iconic Timberlake Lodge; my college friend Juliette and her now-husband love snowboarding, and usually there is powder year-round up there (not this year, but it was still beautiful). Toby made it through the whole ceremony (a first, with the help of markers and stickers), and had a blast on the dance floor. Our usually shy boy was walking up to total strangers and asking them to dance with him, and when we finally left (pushing 10 pm) we had to drag him kicking and screaming. Literally. It was also fun for me to catch up with old college friends Katrina (with a 3-month-old) and Abbie (6 months pregnant). Having babies in your 30’s is all the rage.

The Willamette Valley is having an unusually warm summer already, so we’ve broken out the shorts. I looked back at old photos and confirmed that some of the ones Toby is wearing are seeing their third summer with him! They still fit beautifully – I think it’s a combination of losing the extra padding of diapers and growing longer without growing broader. Pretty sure this is the last summer for these fun plaids, though.

 

In the months before his sister was born, Toby got interested in unpacking drawers and laying things out all over the floor. Usually in tidy patterns, sometimes turning his entire bedroom floor into a tetris of shirts and shorts. Maybe a way of dealing with uncertainty? I found it fascinating and funny, except that he wasn’t generally interested in putting things away again. (Not that I didn’t do the twice-as-much-work of having him do it anyway sometimes).

 Right after Nora’s arrival he had some trouble with hitting, pushing, and over-eager hugging at the YMCA. This sad mama even got a phone call from Teacher Elizabeth about bad behavior. But happily, that seems to have settled down the last couple of weeks. He still talks a lot about his favorite friend Drake (they are usually the ones hitting each other), supporting my contention that he hits Nora because he likes her.

Toby’s birthday this year was a special affair, since it fell on a Saturday, he had his new sister, AND three of his grandparents were in attendance. I made a chocolate cake (his request) from scratch with vanilla buttercream frosting, and decorated it with a yellow Jeep Wrangler (also his request, and a strong contender for his favorite vehicle, although it does change from day to day!). He was excited about all of his presents – including a drum set, raincoat, racecars on a semi, sandbox, and cuckoo clock. The clock is safely ensconced out of reach in his bedroom, but he runs in multiple times a day to catch it cuckoo-ing. When he sneaks into our bedroom in the night, I can hear him say “Bye cuckoo clock, I’ll see you in the morning!”

 

The car obsession continues, and he’s now learned more brands than I can recognize. Toyota, Honda, and Subaru were the first (most common in the YMCA lot), but now he also calls out Acuras, BMWs, Volvos, Jeeps, and of course P.T. Cruisers on the fly. It’s baffling. And he’s no-nonsense; a few days ago I told him I’d get him home in a jiffy, and he said, “It’s not a Jiffy, Mama, it’s a Toyota.” We may be reading him too much Amelia Bedelia.

Because including random Toby quotes is jolly, here are a few other highlights from the last few weeks. “I drawed a telescope with toothpaste for studying the MOOOON.” And... me: “Toby, are you a speed turtle?” T: “No, I’m just a little boy, because I took a shower.” Me: “So, if you hadn’t taken a shower, would you be a speed turtle?” T: “Yes, I would.” (Also, he is good at putting on his underwear and pants now – backwards.)

The other things he’s been enjoying the most lately include playing in the sandbox, drumming on EVERYTHING, squishing the latest fresh batch of playdough, blowing bubbles, dancing, and drawing. (He’s a very, very busy 3.) Daddy showed him how to draw cars, so that’s his current favorite – a half circle with two wheels, sometimes mysteriously driving perpendicular to a road he’s drawn. When it’s not cars, he likes to make spirals, letters, and wild scribbles. And going to new playgrounds is always exciting, of course.

Nora likes it too.

While she definitely doesn’t get as much attention as Toby did at her age, we do notice that Nora is changing too. Now that she’s almost a month old, she is slowly starting to be awake more. When she’s not busy fussing or trying to escape firehose milk let-down, she likes to read her books, lift up her head, track objects side to side, and say “aaaah!”

She’s also an expert at sneezing cutely, which often happens in multiples and ends in an additional aaah. So far, she’s good in the car, likes the Moby (when it’s not too hot out), and thinks her brother is cool (she turns her head toward him when he talks). Once she figures out he’s the one hitting her, this might change. When she’s sleeping, she now often prefers to be swaddled and put down rather than carried or snuggled up next to me (a big and convenient difference from Toby, who would only sleep in arms for MONTHS – although I admit I enjoyed that.) We’re keeping our eyes peeled for the first social smile, which will probably be featured in the next post!