Nora 2 months

This sweet girl is 2 months old! 

I was much more timely with Lucy's monthly posts, and I attribute that

to staying home on maternity leave longer with Lucy and only having one baby to raise... give me grace y'all. #secondchildproblems. 

Nora loves going for walks, being cuddled, and staring/talking whale to her baby sister. 

Doesn't like: laying on her tummy (she for real just lays there and then cries), being in a room by herself (must have an audience present), or being awake/fed/put to sleep during the hours of 7-8pm. 

She is so easy going and happy most days and we just adore her! 

People say often how much her and Lucy look alike. (Their personalities are already so different!) 

Here is a side by side pic of her and Lucy both at 2 months old:

We are getting closer to sleeping through the night, which makes for a happy baby and momma...we can't wait to see what the next month brings! 

"Lucy, open your eyes so I can get a picture..." Nope. 

 

 

 

 

sweet summertime

While I know it's not officially summer yet, the temps are in the 80s and 90s so it counts for me. 

I've been wanting to make a "summer bucket list" but let's be honest my littlest is still not sleeping through the night (and neither am I) so we are practically living at the pool. 

Nora does a lot of snoozing while Lucy does a lot of fearless pool-jumping. 

We've also gotten spoiled enough to spend a lot of time with Lucy's Goldsboro cousins. 

#wherestony

Lucy is so in love with swimming at the pool that she wakes up every morning or every nap saying "I had a good nap, let's go to the POOL". 

We've had to improvise with a back deck pool (thanks Glamma) until the pool opens full time next week!

Happy almost summer to you! Do you have a summer bucket list? 

 

Welcome Nora and a Birth Story

Well this post is over a month late but life with 2 is crazy y'all! March 26th Nora Josephine joined our family and we couldn't be happier. Here is her birth story...

On March 26, 2015 at around midnight, I woke up 3 days before my due date, having to pee just like any 9 month pregnant lady.

I heard Lucy cry from her bedroom that she needed to "go potty" so I walked her to the bathroom to potty. After she went, she insisted she "needed to give daddy one more kiss" so I obliged, carrying her in our bedroom on my very pregnant belly, leaning down over him so she could give him a kiss. At that moment, I felt a small gush and told Jack "I think my water just broke!" He jumped out of bed, ran Lucy to her bedroom to put her back to sleep and ran back in our room. He asked me if I was sure, and to be honest, when your water breaks, you really aren't sure, and I was trying to decide if I had peed myself (pregnant lady problems) and then it happened again, another gush. I insisted this was for sure my water, and I called the doctor while he rounded up our stuff.

I started to have contractions while on the phone with my doctor, as my water kept gushing every 3-5 minutes, so he told me to go ahead and come to the hospital. We waited on my in-laws to come stay with Lucy and off we went. My contractions were much more manageable than they were with Lucy's back labor, and I had a few hours where I thought "I could do this without drugs."  I was 2 cm when they triaged me and by about 5 am I was 4-5 cm. I changed my mind with each contraction about "doing this without drugs" and decided it was epidural time.

My epidural didn't take quite as well as it did with Lucy but it definitely took the top of the pain off! At 11:30 it was time to push, and with just a contraction or 2 and about 4 pushes later she was out! She came into the world screaming; (very different than her sister who came into the world quietly) our hearts were instantly full of love for our newest family member, sweet Nora Josephine.

Lucy loves her little baby doll sister. She loves to help put her diaper on, bring me my nursing pillow, and to help pick out her clothes. She is very good at shhhhing, pushing strollers and showing her baby sister to the world.

I can't wait to see their relationship grow as Nora becomes more interactive! Welcome to our family sweet girl, we are so happy to have you complete our little family of 4.

2nd pregnancy

Everyone ask if this pregnancy has been like my first. And since we are having another baby girl, I would think it would be similar.

If pregnancy is any indication, I can already tell these girls are going to be different because my pregnancies have been very different!

I thought it would be fun to compare my 1st and 2nd pregnancies...Lord, I had no idea how good I had it with Lucy!

First trimester
First pregnancy: morning sickness. Feel bad, lay on the couch, take a break. Eat lots and lots of carby foods to feel better.

Second pregnancy: morning sickness. Feel really bad, put on cartoons to try and entertain toddler. Try to eat foods high in protein as toddler steals all of the food, thereby making my nausea worse. Chase toddler around the neighborhood, even though mommy just wants to lay down.

                

Second Trimester
First pregnancy: morning sickness subsides around 13 weeks, got a big surge of 2nd trimester energy, rested when I needed to and ate all of the food. Felt first baby kicks around 21 weeks (anterior placenta).

Second pregnancy: morning sickness subsides around 18 weeks, waited and waited for "big surge of energy", never came. Napping at Lucy's nap time essential to surviving the afternoon with toddler. Felt first baby kicks around 17 weeks (posterior placenta).

Third Trimester
First pregnancy: Swelling, swelling and more swelling. (It was one of the hottest summer's we've had in NC!) Counting down the days until baby's arrival. Putting the nursery together in a leisurely fashion. Nesting aka sewing all of the baby bibs, burp cloths and other random things for baby.

Second pregnancy: No swelling yet-hallelujia! Still wearing wedding rings at 36 weeks. Counting down the days until sweet baby girl's arrival, but also counting down the days of one-on-one time with our first born and trying to soak all of those moments in. (While navigating tantrums and the "I do-it's.") Nesting aka putting together Lucy's big girl room and the nursery in a non-leisurely fashion during Lucy's nap time and bed time.

Our second pregnancy has flown by! With just a few short weeks until baby girl #2 arrives, we are washing clothes, stocking diapers, and getting the carseat ready all while loving on Lucy in her last few weeks as a one and only. We can't wait to meet you baby girl, but if you take your time we don't mind a bit!

snow day!

We got a whole 2" or so of snow/ice in North Carolina which is always a huge deal and calls for a snow day. Schools were out, offices were clothes, and fun was had!

I also learned how fun it is to try to get dressed for the snow (in NC) when you are 34 weeks pregnant. Leggings and your husbands coat? That'll do. 

And of course no snow day is complete without hot cocoa (luke-warm for toddler lips)! 

Happy Valentines weekend!

We started our weekend off Friday night with a homemade heart-shaped Pizza with pepperoni hearts. 

And some goodies Saturday morning from the Dollar store. 

Fun Valentine's Suprises: stickers and a lollipop in her mailbox (from the Target dollar spot).

 

Whipped cream (and a cup of sprinkles ) for our pink heart pancakes. 

"Lucy look at me. Lucy smile at me like this..." Ok this will do. 

And we finished Love Day off with our annual fancy-dinner date at home, this year with steak (or "snake" if you ask Lucy) and potato skins from The Butchers Shop, followed by Finding Nemo, lollipops, sugar and more sugar.

 

Not pictured: 2 hours worth of crying and screaming about her socks, her shirt, her pants "not feeling good". (Maybe, just mayyyyybe it was from all of the sugar?)

We hope you had a fabulous Love Day! 

 

potty training...

We started potty training around September/October, and I am already forgetting so much about the process that I wanted to blog about what worked (and didn't) for us to help any other mamma's out there who need some tips, (and to remind myself what we did when we tackle it with #2 in a couple of years.)

Our Potty Training Must-haves: 

1. Potty Chair.  We have 2 bathrooms that are easily accessible to Lucy. We put a potty chair in one and a potty seat in the other, just to see which she preferred. (She seems to like both.)
2. Potty Seat. Lucy and I went to Target together and picked her seat and panties out so that she could play a big part in potty training.
3. Lots of Panties/Underwear. We probably started with about 20 pairs. In the beginning we would go through about 3-4 a day because of accidents; and then there are the accidents where there is no recovering said panties from...
4. M&M's as a reward {One for Pee and Two for Poo.} We used this reward system for 2-3 months, then stopped reminding her about her reward. If she still asked for one after she went, we would give her one, if not we let the reward fade away until she no longer needed it.
5. PiddlePad. We have a Chicco NextFit and it's not the easiest thing to take apart to clean. This PiddlePad saved us on a few occasions with an accident in the car. (It's not perfect though-we did have a couple of accidents that the PiddlePad didn't catch.)
6. Everyone Poops. We read many, many books while waiting for the magic to happen on the potty. Our favorite was (and still is) Everyone Poops. It's so silly and perfect for potty training! We also read A Potty For Me. 

What didn't work for us:

• In this motherhood journey so far, I've learned how individual each child is with the milestones they reach, and potty training is no different! We tried potty training around 18 months and it didn't work for us, and started again after she turned 2 because Lucy seemed ready, and I truly believe you have to watch your child to see when they are ready. We knew she was ready because:   

            *she could tell us when she Peed/Pooped in her diaper    
             *she could pull her pants up and down without a lot of assistance
             *she would go 1 or 2 times a day at daycare when they would take her

• The "Potty Train in 1 weekend" Idea. I started on a weekend when I had 3 uninterrupted days at home with her, but honestly it took 4-5 days before she would tell me she had to go on her own, and then lots of reinforcing in the days after.
• Pull-Up style diapers. These were great for practicing pulling pants up and down but otherwise she still treated it like a diaper. 

What worked for us:

• Running out of pull-ups. We used pull-ups (or the Target brand) during the day so she could practice pulling up/down her pants. When we tried potty training the first time I got so frustrated with the amount of pee and poop all over my house that I gave up and we just gave up and kept on using the pull ups. One weekend, I ran out, and decided if I didn't have any pull-ups to fall back on then maybe we could pull it off. And we did!
• Delaying Night-time potty training. I am pregnant, y'all. And I need my sleep. So we decided to hold off on night-time potty training until I have the energy. She wakes up dry sometimes after nap and never after going the whole night, so I took this as a sign that we weren't ready for that part yet. 
• Timing potty time with a timer the first 3 days. I used my iPhone timer and we would go every 30 minutes the first day, 45 minutes the 2nd day, 1 hour the 3rd and by the 4th day I waited for her to tell me (with me reminding her by asking "do you need to go potty?") 
• Patience. This is not a magical thing, y'all. After we had "successfully" potty trained, she still had poo accidents at school every day for about a month. We finally had to get her a special snowman PEZ dispenser that she would earn after she pooped in the potty at daycare. We reminded her about it every day, made a HUGE deal about it, and about 2 weeks later she was very proud when she had finally earned it! She has also had rare accidents outside playing or in the car, but patience has been the biggest life saver. Coming to terms with the fact that it is not a perfect science, and that accidents will (and can) happen has helped my sanity more than anything! 
• Carrying around an extra pair of pants/panties...just in case!

I hope this helps any of you mammas out there who are trying to tackle the potty-training beast! It is messy and crazy but so worth the pride your little one gets when they can do it themselves, and you know, the whole cost savings of not buying diapers...