larger than life

i took elenora over to j.'s work yesterday so that his co-workers could meet her before he leaves. she was so sweet.

i stood back and watched j. taking her around and she looked so small in his arms. usually she is in my arms or so close to me that i don't really get that perspective. to me, her personality is so big that she seems a lot older than she looks when she's just a baby in someone's arms.

j.'s last day of work is friday. it's kind of weird to think about how everything will change. i'll be glad to have him around more. and it will be so nice for him to not be as stressed out all the time. he's got a lot of violin students and some gigs, and he's going to start some fee-for-service work at the North Shore Counseling Center. also, j. just started a class at G.C. to finish up his degree. so he's still pretty busy.

i'm feeling tired after watching two babies yesterday afternoon. it really causes me a lot of inner stress when both of them are crying at the same time. the problem is that usually it means they are both tired... but how do you put a baby to sleep with another baby screaming in the other room? you just end up with two really upset babies. i hope i get better at this. it's my least favorite part of the week. i'm glad we have a babysitter for two of the other days, and momB does mondays.

people with twins must go nuts.

ella at play

wellness checkup

today elenora had her four month checkup.

i dressed her all in pink this time with a soft pink blanket made by d.'s mother. there was no mistaking her as a boy.

ella was so alert when we got there, looking around at everyone. she was the only baby in the office so she got lots of attention and smiles. people were saying "how cute" and "how bright" and "how pretty."

elenora weighed in at 13 lbs 1 oz. she is 25 and a quarter inches long. it's amazing to me to think that everything she is physically has come from me.

she got tired and started crying about the time dr. T. wanted to look in her ears. she fell asleep in my arms by the time the nurses came in to give her immunizations. the poor little dear just wanted to sleep and the stuck her legs with the needles. she cried, but she was so brave and didn't cry as much as the last time. i nursed her right away and as i carried her out of the office one of the nurses stopped to say how beautiful elenora is and how she could "look at that face all day."

me too, i said.

elenora slept from two this afternoon until after seven. when she awoke she was so precious and smiling.



i can tell she understands what i'm saying to her now. the best example is that when she is laying on her back and i hold her fingers in my hands and i say "do you want to sit up?" she will pull on my fingers and lift her head and do a crunch and curl her knees in to help herself to sit up. how amazing that she understands to that extent.

four months old

elenora is biologically four months old as of friday. actually, that is the day she decided to learn to roll over come to think of it. she is also staying up for much longer periods of time with just a few short naps during the day and usually one long, good nap in the afternoon. today she had very little naptime (not for lack of trying on my part) and lots of playtime.

i'm exhausted, and still in my pajamas.


she continues to roll over every time i put her on her back. i have to get used to this quickly, because i set her on the floor on my makeshift diaper station while i got her bath ready tonight and she rolled over into the wall. then i nursed her off to sleep in my bed as always and three minutes after i left her there i heard her crying and went in to check on her and she'd rolled over onto her belly in my bed. which means it's time suddenly for her to learn to go to bed in her own crib at night since j. and i don't go to bed until about five or six hours after she does and we're not there to make sure she doesn't wake up and roll over onto her tummy and get in danger somehow.


so i took her into her room and rocked her with the pacifier and she went to sleep kind of easily and then i transfered her to her crib with the little lambie protector around her so she can't roll over during the night. i will probably bring her into our bed with me after her first night feeding, but i guess we'll see.







it will be kind of nice to have our bed back and to be able to go into our room with the light on in the evenings. my room is a disaster area because when she's awake i'm busy playing with her and when she's asleep she's in our bed and i can't go in and clean up because i'll wake her. we haven't done well at putting our stuff away at night because she's sleeping in there and we can't see anything as we tip-toe around with a flashlight, so today when i piled all of the clothes from the floor onto the bed the bed was covered with a three-foot-high stack!


i'm not proud of this. it's really pathetic and everytime anyone comes over i shamefacedly close my bedroom door.


of course, now that she's alseep in her crib i have no energy to pick up the room! agh. i should just get started already and it will get easier as i go.


she'll be crawling soon and pulling herself up on things. i really have to babyproof this place.

ella rolls

rolling over (tummy to back)

Elenora and Penelope

here are the two girls during their play time (ie. the forty minutes out of the four hours when they weren't both either sleeping or crying):

strides

elenora is amazing. yesterday afternoon she was on her tummy and she was pushing her arms up so her chest was off of the ground. i was talking with k. and suddenly elenora was flipped over on her back! she sort of looked at me with a surprised look. then she took it upon herself to figure out how to roll herself back over onto her tummy. then she did it again and again. today we went to j.'s folks' house and we put her on the rug on her back and she immediately flipped herself over to her tummy without a struggle at all. what a strong little girl. she'll be crawling in no time. i can't believe she's almost four months old.

this was elenora right after she rolled from her tummy to her back:

here she is on her belly... i think she looks like me here. funny how the chubbier she looks in a picture the more Me i see in her!

she's also talking in long strings of complicated sentences. her little tongue moves around her mouth and her inflection goes up and down as if she's trying it out and learning her vocal range. she's just incredible. she wakes up around 5:40 every morning and lies in bed jabbering. it's so cute i don't even mind being awakened then.


oh, and also she laughed again today!


i love her.


j. did indeed quit his job. he came home smiling and happy. we went to my ebscoland holiday party and it really felt like a celebration. it was so fun to be out together and to be able to be affectionate without listening for a baby to call me away from him. we danced and drank wine and ate shrimp and scallops wrapped in bacon and salmon and beef tenderloin... it was so much fun. i've trained so many people that i know a ton of people now. it was great to introduce j. to them all. he said he could tell how much they all love me.





j. also said that he gives me an A+ as a mother so far. i don't mind.

trust

j. is going to quit his job friday.

i think.

that's the plan, anyhow. it's been a long time coming. they treat him terribly. i feel okay about it. i trust him and i feel like we could go a couple months before we'd really feel it. and i don't think it would take that long for him to find a new job. he's really talented as a clinical therapist. he's been unhappy in his career for months now.

ella has been a blessing. she talks so much in what sounds like full sentences. she's so aware of everything around her, and she has been really pleasant and sleeping well. she goes to bed between six and eight now, so we really have our evenings back. i get up with her at six in the morning and she's so much fun then with all of her smiles. she's still trying really hard to roll over. she gets about 90% of the way there, and then rolls back.

e. and i have heard back from several college girls regarding our advertisement for a babysitter. i'm really excited to meet these girls and possibly lock in one of them as a babysitter.

we've been very blessed with having momB and k. watch the babies while we've gone to work. so far we've only had to do the ridiculous switching off one and a half days. it's been so nice to come home and take naps with elenora and read "east of eden."

ella and j. have really built a strong bond. she always smiles at him and is calmer when j. is around. i'm always happy when she's awake when he gets home, even if it's just for fifteen minutes.

i guess he'll be home a lot more now.

a working mother's lament

we're going to hire a babysitter.

it was too difficult to watch two babies at once. not because anything went wrong. in fact, it went as well as it could have. both girls slept a lot and cried minimally and had fun play time on the mat. but it was heartbreaking to have to split my attentions between the two. elenora is so used to getting someone's full attention the entire day, so it was really hard to not be able to really invest all of my energies in her. when she was pleasant (the time when i usually interact with her a lot with animated voices and tummy time and playing) i had to leave her to tend to penelope (diapering, rocking, feeding). poor elenora ended up all by herself at the times when i am usually so engaging. i started thinking about the impact on her development that this would have--ten hours a day of getting part of someone's attention. it made me so sad.

plus we had a january heat wave (fifties) but i couldn't take ella outside because i couldn't take them both. i started thinking about all of the activities ella would miss out on as the weather gets nice--trips to Russell Orchard to see the 1000 lb pig and the chickens, trips to crane beach in the summer, trips to Appleton Farm to see the cows, trips to rockport to see the ocean. how can i deprive my daughter of all these experiences?

i can't.

i talked with e. about it, and she understood as only a mother who tries to watch two children can. so we're going to hire a babysitter to watch both of the girls at my house for two days a week. splitting the cost of daycare makes it pretty inexpensive. mondays momB (who i will now start calling "saint grandma") will watch elenora, so that just leaves two days where i will have to drive ella over to e.'s house and then watch the two babies in the afternoons. that is definitely manageable.

i called l. to ask her if she knows any good babysitters. ironic, when you think that ten years ago i was a college kid watching her three children. makes me feel old.

we got the tanglewood flier in the mail two days ago. we're going to take elenora to see sarah chang play the Mendelssohn in July. i can't wait.

my favorite outfit of ella's

this little sweater outfit is so soft, i just love it. it has a matching hat that is so beautiful. it reminds me of my first baby doll, "Superbaby," who came with a pink knit sweater and hat.





i couldn't resist getting elenora this bird ("Silly Billy Blue Bird") the other day. he tweets like a real baby bird!



here she is standing on mommy's legs. she loves standing and looking around and will complain if you try to sit her for too long. "her" pillow is in the background.

she talks to it.



we are happy to have some toys that encourage her to spend more time on her tummy.



so beautiful!

Ella's three month self

happy new year

elenora is talking! i mean, not real words, but after three months of silent observation of the world around her she is now letting out very specific noises in a very precise, give-and-take, conversational style. three nights ago i was cooking in the kitchen while she was in the swing and i was babbling on and she suddenly started to say things. i just jumped up and down and clapped my hands and did everything i could to let her know how much it meant to me. when i got home from work the next day, momB (who was watching her) said "she was talking up a storm today." and ever since then she's been quite verbal. it's so great.




no laughing yet, though. she's still a bit too serious for that. though if you stand her on your legs and she sees something she wants, she will run in place and flail her arms and get really excited. it's so cute. she can also put one foot in front of the other to simulate walking. she smiles all the time and notices herself in the mirror and smiles at herself.






a couple times i've looked down at her in her swing or on her changing table and noticed that, when i wasn't looking at her face, she was smiling up at me.

she's getting better about sleeping, too. if she's nursed enough i'll just lay next to her without nursing and she might cry for a little bit, but she's usually pretty good about bringing herself back from "the ledge" and calming down and falling asleep. sometimes she'll even quietly look around the room for ten minutes as she drifts off to sleep.

last night j. and i had a date with a real babysitter. k. came over for a couple hours and j. and i made reservations at a new restaurant and got dressed up (i wore a non-nursing bra!) and it was so fun. we ordered a bottle of wine for the table, which was next to the fireplace in the restaurant. i had a baby arugula salad with pine nuts and goat cheese for an appetizer. j. had lobster bisque. then i had halibut with asparagus over risoto and surrounded by lobster bisque. oh my. it was amazingly good. and then to top it all off we had chocolate cake! brought k. home some tiramisu.

poor k. was hit by another car on her way home. and i feel partially responsible for it, since she was over babysitting our ella. luckily i have my grandma's car for three months so i loaned k. my car for as long as she needs it.

this monday is e.'s first day back at work. i met up with her on thursday to talk more about how this will work with the babies. it's going to be a major adjustment. i will have to drive elenora over to her house in the mornings and then drive back to work (which will take an hour total, i think, with all of the settling in and changing carseat cars). so i'll have to wake up really early to get us ready for that and me ready for work. then e. will bring the girls over to my house when i get out of work. so then it will be four hours of watching two babies.

i'm terrified.

and besides, i love giving her my full attention when i get home from work. i love playing with her and seeing all of her expressions and just pouring my love out onto her. it will be hard to split my attentions with another baby.