Cha-cha-cha-changes!

Okay, so this two kids as opposed to one thing is a lot harder than I thought it would be.  That being said, I didn't really give it that much thought to begin with--half because I was too busy and half because what's the use in worrying about the future if you can't do much to influence it?

Both girls have been relatively great.  Nina is a happy baby who loves to nurse and sleep--she is more of a sipper, though, meaning she snacks more than she feeds right now.  Lots of snacks.  And she loves to be held.  Funny how babies sense that--she sleeps the most solidly and for the longest periods of time snuggled next to me or on me.  Put her in the bassinet sound asleep and she is up 10 minutes later.

Elena has been... okay?  I suppose.  Not the picture of perfect big sister, but certainly adapting nicely in that she shows love to Nina and has been doing really well adjusting to having much more Daddy time and less Mommy time.  But she's not sleeping well, which makes her cranky, and she is still learning to share.  We've also seen a new side to her in the past couple of days--more a new pattern of speech in which she expresses her frustration.  The overall pattern is (with furrowed brow and stuck out bottom lip), "I. don't. like. SOMETHING."  Very staccato with an emphasis of distain on the last word which she purports not liking.  My favorite from yesterday was, "I. don't. like BIDEOS."  She has the whole Spanish "v" pronounced as a "b" thing going on.  She also expressed dislike for both Josh and myself yesterday at various points.  Oh well, I guess that is to be expected.  At least she hasn't said that about Nina (yet).

Like Nina, Elena has also been a snuggler from day 1, which was further ingrained through co-sleeping.  Since getting her new room and new bed, she's been doing okay.  She doesn't like sleeping alone, and will toddle into our room in the middle of the night holding her puppy and sometimes a blanket.  Depending on how we felt in the past, we'd either lead her back to bed or just let her stay with us.  Now with Nina in our bed, Josh has been taking her back to her room, but then passing out with her until they both toddle back to the family bed around 5:30.  So Nina and I are solo in the big bed, which has been working out okay because she's so easy to put back to sleep after nursing (provided that we are touching).  Maybe that's why I struggled so much with Elena?  Because I'd try to put her back to sleep in the bassinet?  Who knows.  Practice makes perfect, I suppose, so maybe we should have a third and hope to get things right.

As for me, the naps have been winning out big time.  One of my main goals was to make quiche for dinner last night, and that didn't happen.  My other goal was to drop off a gift in a given time frame.  Another fail. I had showered and gotten dressed in real clothes and everything.  Oh well.  It's a good thing I have low expectations of myself in some regards.

I've been less of an ugly mommy in the past few days than I had been some days in the preceding months.  I'm trying my best to be patient with Elena and give her the special time she needs to know that my love for her hasn't changed.  It's hard, though.  Josh has been doing the majority of Elena entertaining, and he's been a little.... snippy.  Quick to hand out the time outs.  It's kind of nice to have him dealing with the frustrations that I've had on all those weekends with him on call, just to see that my reactions weren't unusual.  I try to intervene if Nina is at a pausing point for nursing, but like I said before, she loves to be held.  So if anyone wants to do something fun and air conditioned this week, let us know--Elena is on vacation from school and is quickly getting bored in the house.  In the meantime, it's been a nice change to have Elena whining for Daddy, and to see her cling to his neck to be carried to the kitchen to make breakfast.

On a more superficial note, I'm hoping that my after birth cramping has stopped--apparently these pains get worse with subsequent pregnancies as the uterus becomes more and more distended.  I didn't have any with Elena, so when pains so severe that I considered again taking my hands and knees butt-sway position hit, it was a little bit of a surprise.  My postpartum bible said they "rarely" last beyond 72 hours, so when I was still feeling them yesterday evening and last night, I was annoyed.  They're lessening, though.  Patience!

Also in the change department, I could be a triple X model with the size of my chest right now.  *Sigh*  I know many women welcome the boost that pregnancy and lactation offer, but not me.  That's all I'll say about that, except that if you see me in the next few months, try not to stare.  It's just not polite.

Today was Nina's big photo shoot with my yoga pal Dan.  Hopefully some of her cross-eyed photos came out well.  We were thrilled with the pregnancy batch, so these should be a nice compliment.  Since I am discussing changes, I will take this opportunity to say that I wore a pair of pre-pregnancy jeans for the shoot this morning.  Don't hate me--they were snug with a tiny rim of muffin top, and I really just wanted to see if they'd fit, thinking more that it would be seeing how far I needed to go to fit back into them.  Given my ridiculous top heavy look, I'm glad that this time around I was blessed with a rapidly shrinking waistline as consolation.

So that is the story from Sunny Drive.  We are hanging in there, but need to be hanging out of the house a bit more to keep Elena happy and from smothering Nina with too much love.  Ideas?