Erin and Albert…

Elia turns 3 months! When you do a picture a day not having a picture means you can’t make the collage. Albert went to Copenhagen one day before Elia turned three months which meant that we couldn’t get the last picture into the collage until he got back.

We are finding that we are more careful with Elia. Whether that is because we didn’t know better with Curie or that Elia spent so much time in NICU, we don’t really know. If you look back at pictures, Curie was face-forward in the Baby Bjorn at this point, we are just getting Elia into the Baby Bjorn – and it is us not her! She is fully capable, in fact she doesn’t like to be held face in normally, her favorite position is holding her beneath her under arm pits faced forward. Easily a forward-facing Baby-Bjorn position.

This month Elia got eye lashes and eyebrows in earnest and in a picture or two looks like Curie did (we will post one soon that shows this). Where Curie liked to snuggle, she was sparing about giving smiles at three months, Elia likes to move, but smiles all the time. She began playing a game with Albert where she would spit out her pacifier and when Albert would put it back she would smile and spit it out again. At three months, that was pretty amazing, at least for her parents. She also pauses when you say “hungry,” but we don’t know if that is understanding or not.

Suephy, Jared, and Dylan came up to see their cousin and both boys held Elia. At first, Jared was concerned because Elia would cry when he held her, but in reality he held her last when she was tired. By the time they left, Elia slept in Jared’s arms. When we write about Curie, we will tell you the crazy things we did.

This month we also went to the zoo, our friends the Hoaglands gave us a membership this year. Elia had cradle cap, so we put olive oil in her hair to help it. An unintended consequence though is that she smells like old oil by the next day. Elia is putting on weight, went to size 1 diapers and  Cradle cap. Got chubbier. Baby bjorn, zoo, started size 1 diapers. and 0-3 clothes. Elia still is tiny, and looks much younger than she is.

It has gone faster. Maybe that is the reason we are being more careful – to try to relish the time, but it is a blink of an eye in comparison to when we had Curie. It is precisely that we have two kids that make the days go faster. Changing clothes, getting ready for school, baths, meals, the time disappears in the beauty of the domestic day. Sure there are times of frustration and moments of emotion – being on the edge of overwhelmed. There is work, and family, and life and… everything – but that everything is life, and every moment of perspective, challenge, and emotion reminds us to appreciate what we have, feel blessed that we have, and if we take a moment each day to consider, we can relish what is important.

Elia turns two months. At two months, Elia is 8 pounds 2.4 ounces, has begun to coo, rolls over from front to back, almost rolls over from back to front, and like her sister at two months, has learned to get out of a blanket if you throw one over her. Also like her sister at the same age, she started size one diapers, went to child care for the first time, and has begun to sleep longer. We have begun carrying her in the Baby Bjorn in addition to her stroller.

Elia is just coming into her own. If you look at the pictures, you can practically see it in her eyes. She smiles a lot and loves to be cuddled. She sleeps more than Curie did, but she is also younger at the same age. She will lie on her back unperturbed for long periods of time, she tracks when you hold her, and she has begun to self-soothe with her hand in her mouth (both girls are likely thumb suckers with orthodontic bills in the future).

If it seems that Curie seemed more alert in her pictures, it is because with one child it was easier to capture when she was alert. With Elia, we take the pictures we can and cherish the time we have with each of our kids.

Curie, like her parents, loves to hold Elia, though often in awkward ways, the other day Curie bent over and said “Mommy, I want to give Elia a piggy-back, put her on my back.” This month we all caught colds, and as a baby it takes longer to get over it, so she coughs and has to learn to breathe through her mouth. You would think that with our second baby we would be less at the doctor’s office at a drop of a hat, but we go anyway, including rashes and such, Dr. Dierks, our pediatrician is patient with us and reassures us. Curie has been fascinated with going to the doctor with Elia, though very protective; at the last visit, Curie told us not to take Elia since she was going to get shots.

This month  we visited the Air and Space museum twice, Erin’s parents came to visit, and Albert resumed racquetball; Erin gets ready to return to work and we gear up for a different routine. We get a little more sleep, but the weight of being on all the time does take its toll. The days go really fast and if you don’t take the time to appreciate it, carve the time to be a part of it, remember that this time is fleeting, you will miss too much. With work, obligations, family challenges, and the inexorable push of time, we are learning to appreciate every moment no matter how small and be grateful for what we have.

 

Happy One Month Birthday, Elia! 18 days in the NICU make it feel like this is our second week with Elia, not a full month – our due date was January 18th, Elia was born on December 19th.  As recounted in previous posts, the hardest part was seeing her only a couple of hours a day.

Elia was 4 pounds 8 ounces when she was born, and at her month’s doctor’s visit she will be around 6 pounds (5 pounds 14 ounces the week before). Elia has out-grown her preemie clothes and is wearing newborn outfits now. Our favorites are the Mickey and Eeyore ones (the Eeyore has a tail in the back).

Just like with Curie, we are posting monthly collages with every day for the first year – those of you interested can watch Elia grow with us. On our website we include a family picture, on Facebook we collected those at the end of the first year.

Before Elia was born, Albert would joke about the second child – that he would just reuse the pictures of Curie and tell Elia that it was her (actually Peter at Duck Chang started that joke), the reality is Albert has not stopped taking the picture a day – you can call it insanity or dedication (or “insanication”).

(Why does Elia’s collage only have an ultrasound in the beginning? Confession time: when Albert was putting together Curie’s first month collage he forgot the 18th day, he didn’t forget to take it, he just forgot to put it into the collage. You can count it, 32 slots, three taken up by pregnancy test, ultrasound, and monitor; September so 30 days, there had to be a missing picture. So here we have Elia’s, December so 31 days, that means only one free slot, hence just the ultrasound (though we have the other two). Why didn’t Albert ever fix it? If you have ever been to our house, he blew up a 24 x 36 of the collage which hangs in the stairwell, and it would be a lot of work to redo it. Now the truth is known.)

We are out of practice at being new parents, but we try and the sleep deprivation comes back like riding a bike – (wait, we meant parenting comes back). Elia is eating well both from bottle and breast, poops a lot, sleeps a lot, and burps a lot, all part of her job. Elia smiles a lot ,and did so  from the beginning – as early as the second day. There are a few hours of awake time where she loves being on her tummy (we burp her face down on our palm, so she probably associates face down with feeling good). When she is not doing tummy time, she is looking around with wonder at the world or looking into your eyes, sharing time.

It’s 3 AM, Elia has just been fed, Curie is sleeping quietly perpendicular to the bed, you can hear the ice maker in the refrigerator gurgle, lights are low and the baby makes mouth movements as she dreams of eating – a smile passes her lips. Warm baby breathing against your chest, you think to yourself, “I remember this, I remember what this was like.” What is this? This is happiness.