Life now, a little different

After a little break from blogging, I have decided to start up again.

Mainly because I blogged pretty regularly when Anna was little and I'm trying to stave off that 'neglected second child syndrome' that inevitably leads to having no records of significant milestones for any child other than the first! (And on that note, my goal is to have Levi's birth story done before he is a month old. Leaving me ... 3 days. Better get on that!)

My experience recovering and adjusting this time round has been WORLDS different from those first few weeks after Anna's birth. Physically, in terms of recovering from his delivery (no time for an epidural or episiotomy this time!), but also emotionally. I feel SO much more at ease this time, despite all of my pregnant fretting that I would fall apart with two children. I distinctly remember a point in time when Anna was three months old, when I realised that I did not feel overwhelmed by my life any more (yes - three MONTHS). This time, in Levi's second week of post-birth life when Mark went back to work, I think all three of us were out running errands every day of the week! Of course, not being in nursing school is a pretty significant improvement this time, which I'm sure has a lot to do with how much calmer everything feels.

And probably because I am feeling so much more relaxed, nursing Levi is looking VERY different from my breastfeeding experience with Anna. He regained his birth weight by two weeks (rather than nearly four with Anna), and by the time he turns a month old in a few days I will have four gallons of pumped milk in my deep-freeze! He is usually only getting up once in the night, around 3:00, for which I am very thankful. He has had the occasional bad day or bad night, but on the whole he is a pretty chilled little guy.


Anna is a spectacular big sister. She loves on Levi and calls him "my baby", and says multiple times a day "Aww.... he's so tiny I just want to take him home, Mama!" (To which I reply that we are in fact AT home, a detail that remains lost on her apparently!) She developed a little 'nursing routine' shortly after we got home from the hospital, of bringing me a little pile of books to read to her while I sit on the couch feeding Levi, and has so far seemed to adapt very well to her transition from only child to big sister.


Well, that's going to be it for now. Both kids are napping, and my bed is calling my name too! (Last night was not one of the better nights; he did space his feeding times seven hours apart, but fussed till after midnight - silly boy!)

Silly ... but cute, and we love him :)

Summer fun

Here are a few picture of what our summer has looked like so far - when we've been able to get out and about in temperatures consistently over 100 degrees! (And yes, that does mean lots of pool time!)

Ice cream picnic while we waited for the fireworks to begin on the 4th! Anna has been talking about watching fireworks ever since - good thing we kept a couple aside for the fall!

They both look pretty popsicle-drunk here - but at least they're happy drunks!!


Fun with our favourite Luu girls :) (It really is fun to see Anna making friends and specifically choosing which people she wants to hang out with!)

Mark has been SO busy since third year started - but he's gotten to sneak away for some fun now and then. Anna and I are usually at Mimi's pool on Tuesdays, and one week when Mark got an unexpected lunch break he came out and joined us for a half hour or so :) Which of course Anna loved - Dada has a little more energy for rough-and-tumble right now than I do! And he also got to spend the morning with us at the aquarium the day he switched over to working nights - love those family passes!

We celebrated our 6th anniversary in July, woohooo!! He booked the weekend off, and we found a cute little B&B to try out. I may have fallen in love with four-poster beds just a liiitttle...! (Not to mention the breakfast in bed part!)

So that's what we've been up to over the last few weeks this summer - I'm soo ready for fall to be here, but we're definitely enjoying soaking up the sun too. And I'm also trying to make the most of my last summer with only one child ... part of me wishes our kids would have been closer in age, but I am also loving getting all this time with just Anna. It's flown by and it's almost over ... and I know I will love this next chapter in our life too, but it will certainly be different!!

I am renaming my blog.

I know.

Not a very imaginative post title.

But in case any of you are like me and (sometimes) skim through your reading list without actually reading any more than post titles, I wanted you to see it and not be confused next time I post and a random blog pops up on your list!

I have been thinking about renaming this page for a little while, but until now haven't really had any inspiration. I started the blog to chronicle my pregnancy with Anna, but it's outlasted that stage of my life and a new name seems appropriate. And now that I have finally come up with one, here it is:

A Storehouse Full

This has a double meaning - first, my blog is turning into the place I store significant happenings in my life. I journal too, in a real live paper-&-pen journal, but it's sometimes quicker to just type. Even if I never end up publishing the post.
And secondly, these are lyrics to a song that I discovered a little while ago and listen to a lot. Storehouse, by Sandra Mccracken. I can't figure out how to embed an mp3 into Blogger, but here are the lyrics and you might be able to listen to the song here on Grooveshark ... maybe?! Ok, linking the URL isn't going to happen either I guess. You can look it up if you want to listen! (It's very worth the 10 seconds it will take to find it on Grooveshark.)


Storehouse

The first uninterrupted sleep since July
The first waves of wisdom swing like a wrecking ball
Oh, a child takes the throne, displacing us all in good time

And I give you all that I have to give
Give you all that I have to give
When I give you all that I have to give
I still have a storehouse full

This love is reciting me like a backwards rhyme
The more that you lose of yourself the more you find
Take me out of myself, and into
The Clothes of royalty
love has taken me...

And I give you all that I have to give...but I still have a storehouse full

And it's barely December and I can't remember before
So I pull back the curtains and fling open wide the doors

Oh I give you all that I have to give...
(give you all, give you all I have)
Give you all that I have to give..


She wrote the song about her son. And while I'm not advocating a parenting style that involves "a child taking the throne, displacing us all" (!), I love knowing that in those moments when I feel like I have run out of patience, love, energy, whatever ... in the arena of parenting or elsewhere in my life ... I haven't really run out. I have an infinite supply of everything I need for life and godliness, and I have the Holy Spirit prodding me to access it! Now, this is a work in progress. I'm not claiming to be good at 'life and godliness' ... just wanting to be good at it, and knowing that grace abounds in the times I'm not!

So that's where my new name comes from :)


In other news ...

• We passed a big potty-training landmark today: first day-trip in big-girl unders! And they stayed dry! We went to the aquarium, and I packed dipes just in case but Anna sat on the potty before leaving the house, went once while we were there and once when we got back, and not a drop in her unders! This is one proud mama.

• The big-girl bed is going well too. She will get out every once in a while, but so far it's only been once on any given occasion. She's been waking up earlier in the morning that when she was in her crib (or maybe it's just that in her crib she would wake up and just lay there, quietly trapped!), but I have been waking up early too the last week or so, so I don't mind much!
  

• Mark's car is in the shop. And will only come home to us after a few thousand dollars of maintenance :( The a/c had been making noises for a few weeks apparently, and then gave up the ghost a week or so ago. Which is more or less unacceptable when the high is over 105 every day these days...! And then a bunch of smaller stuff too; new water pump, belts, compressor... after eating through this much of our savings, this car had better make it through Armageddon and still be running!

• Our "tiny baby", as Anna has named it, is definitely going through a growth spurt. I had only gained under 10lbs total at my last OB appointment, but since then I have been eating pretty much the whole time I am awake. I can feel that my little kicks and punches and squirms are getting a lot stronger, and can see the baby moving really clearly under my skin. I haven't had my official GTT yet (the test for gestational diabetes), but I think I probably have it again. I have really been able to feel when my blood sugar is soaring and then crashing - especially after breakfast. And if I have a high-protein breakfast, I feel a lot better throughout the whole rest of the day. I am also a lot less comfortable than I was with Anna at this point. I think I just got bigger a lot faster, and my skin and back and general musculoskeletal structure are struggling to keep up! I had a little scare last week - it turned out to just be the heat and dehydration, but I had a couple hours of contractions that were every 7-10 minutes. Everything checked out fine on my NST and ultrasound the next day, but I am definitely taking things a little easier and drinking more on days that I do have to be out and about!

Well, that is it for me for now. It's 11:30 and bed is calling!