It’s hard to believe that 2014 is (almost) a quarter of the way finished. Spring is taking its sweet time arriving in our area. It’s been a rough winter!
And so an update on the family:
John and I
No one really wants to know about the adults… but it’s 7 AM on a Saturday morning and we are both showered, dressed, and ready to start the day… and yet, our small bosses children are sleeping the morning away. John is clicking away at his laptop, working on yet another grad school project and I’m sitting here with my ear pressed up to the baby monitor, desperately hoping to catch the moment when Ellie wakes up and realizes that Tessa spent the night in their room with her for the first time. Tessa has finally graduated from her pack n’ play-in-the-closet set up to her crib… but I digress. I’m talking about the adults, right? John’s at the point in his grad school that I was exactly one year ago. He’s tired (I’M tired) and feels like there is no end in sight. He’ll be finished in December and perhaps then we’ll have just a tiny bit of an ease in the chaos of life. Of course then I’ll probably get the itch to go back to school or I’ll take on some project that I really don’t have time for and we’ll be back to crazy. I think we kind of like it that way anyway. So John is grad-schooling and coaching and teaching…. and me? I’m kind of jealous. I just really need to go back to work.
Ellie
Our crazy (CRAZY) child has had another explosion of language growth. She’s already very verbal for her age, but now she’s connecting ideas and feelings, asking questions that are complex and interesting, and singing songs that are incredibly inappropriate for a two-and-a-half year old (totally my fault…….). She’s still a total klutz. My mom tries to tell me that she’s just too busy to really be careful where she is walking, but I’m fairly certain that she’s just the kind of athlete that I was…. not an athlete at all. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. She and I went out for a Mommy/Ellie date this week at Red Robin like we used to do before Tessa was born. We even got dessert. 🙂
Tessa
And then there is the peanut. She’s just about THREE months now. Suddenly, she’s very smiley and engaging. She’s making some other noises than crying. Her first noise was an “are you kidding me??” yelp. Now there are happy coos as well. Her physical progress is… progressing. In PT, we’re using some kinesio tape on her belly to help her build up strength in her core. She’s not able to lift her head up as well when she has it on, but I’ve been assured that she’s not regressing, she just has to re-learn to lift it using the correct muscles and posture. She also gets to start wearing “hip hugger” pants to keep her frog legs from turning into a long-term problem. We’ll see the developmental therapist next week, but I’m sure she will be happy to know that Tessa is smiling much more, maintaining eye contact (mostly with me), and when I move out of her vision, she looks for me. Small victories. And then there is speech. No progress to report here with Tessa. She’s still feeding in the side-lying position and doing well with that. I’m also more comfortable with it – and getting more comfortable letting other people feed her in that position. We were working on a transition to more upright, but she has had a cold for a few days and it’s hard enough to get the food in with a stuffy nose that we’re waiting until that clears up to experiment. For now, the focus is on holding her differently so that she gets used to being in a more upright position. We’re still doing some mouth-stimulating and working on the pacifier (though she has found her thumb and really likes it.
I made the mistake the other day of pulling out Ellie’s baby book and looking at what she was doing at 2-3 months. Well, I don’t know if it was a mistake, but it certainly hit me like a ton of bricks that Tessa is just going to take longer to do what her sister could. I’m wondering what this little girl is going to be like when she’s bigger!! Who will she be? What will she sound like? What will she do? Don’t we ask those questions about all of our children?? I’ve been forcing my way through the book Eat, Pray, Love for months (I have no idea why it’s taking me so long) and she wrote about these phrases that you chant through meditation to center yourself. I don’t meditate (do people really have time to do that??), but I do have my own phrase running through my head when I get frustrated: she will do it, in her own time. Sometimes I need to say it a lot, other times not at all. But it’s a reminder to me that we’ll get there. In her time.
Yo soy La Lay 
Tess reminds me of my Peanut. I guess it’s the tell-tale features…I love when you post pics of her, because she’s just a doll. At almost one month old, I’ve started getting smiles from Aisha, which, I gotta say, are devastatingly adorable.
Please know that I am celebrating Tessa’s achievements with you! 🙂
Thanks!! I can’t wait to hear more about Aisha, too. In the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying your new little girl… And that you’re taking care of YOU also. 🙂
Maggie, taking care of me is the hard part. Finding time to eat just one meal a day is SO difficult! 😀
Hi Maggie 🙂 Rob’s Liz here! I’ve been silently reading your blog for a bit now, but I just have to comment and say that I LOVE your mantra “She will do it, in her own time”. That’s just so perfect. “In her own way” might eventually be added on there too!! Both of your girls are so adorable, thanks for sharing the pictures!
Oh my gosh, Liz!! I had NO idea that this was you! 🙂 I had also forgotten that you work in speech therapy, which Rob reminded me at John’s b-day party. I may be picking your brain one of these days! 🙂
I love this! And I’m the same way. Ella was super advanced so David’s delays seem almost like back peddling. BUT, it’s such a treat to have a baby for longer than I was expecting. Ella was practically a toddler by this point so I am trying to enjoy every second with my ‘baby’.
I agree. It’s nice to enjoy the baby phase for a little longer… I wonder if I’ll feel the same about the terrible twos/threes?? 🙂
[…] is well documented on this blog (for example, here, here, and here), I often struggle with when Tessa will learn new skills. Lots of moms whose kiddos […]