Happy 4 Month Birthday G Love

January 22, 2009

You turn four months old today. Wow. Your first months here have absolutely flown by so quickly it definitely makes me a bit sad.

I am writing you this letter, and hopefully lots of future letters, to help you understand what you were like as a baby and child. My parents have some memories of me as a child but I think I would have liked to know more about my life as an infant. If my current memory is any example, I need to write this all down or you will never know what it was like to be you as a baby.

Where do I start? You came into this world very peacefully and you were absolutely gorgeous. You were fussier than I would have liked in your first month, especially in the first two weeks, but you were still a lot easier than your big sister and for that we were grateful. I will try to avoid making your letters a list of comparisons as to how you are different (and ultimately easier) than your sister, but since our only frame of reference was her, it's important to note that you have done almost absolutely nothing like your sister did.

Your grandmother, Marilou, who likes to be called Moma, came out to Colorado a few days after you were born and stayed for two weeks. She was amazing with you and helped me so much. I hope that you will get to spend lots of time with her as you get older because she is an amazing person. She nurtured you, rocked you, held the pacifier in your mouth and stayed up all night long with you to help me out. She really loves you and it warmed my heart to share you with her in those first few weeks. In fact, even though the first two weeks of your life were absolutely miserable for me on a physical level, I don't ever want to forget it because my mom and I were a team taking care of you. It brought us closer and her a lot closer to you. In retrospect it was a very special time.

You have also spent a fair amount of time with your dad's parents, Nana and Pop-pop. They came out to visit you pretty early in your life and we went to see them in California at Christmas. They love you so much and are amazing grandparents.

I had hoped that you would sleep in our bed or room for at least the first 3 months of your life, as I had this vision of you and I bonding over cuddles and sleeps. But you were content to be awake at all hours of the night so I had to sleep elsewhere with you in order to not keep everyone awake. And then at four weeks of age I hit my limit of only sleeping only a few hours a night and I had to put you in your bassinet and retreat to my room without you. To this day you are still a very noisy and restless sleeper and having me around you doesn't make it any easier on you. And once I get sleep it's much easier to be a good mommy to you all day long so I think we learned early on that you did best sleeping by yourself.

You struggled with nursing at first, and specifically with latching on, but eventually got the hang of it. You have always been a very efficient eater, although a lot of what you eat tends to come back out throughout the day. You are somewhat of a geyser in that you are always spitting up or drooling. You used to puke a lot too, but once I stopped feeding you on both sides that stopped, thankfully. Very often we both spend our day covered in your spit-up. I know it's not very glamorous or interesting, but you need to know that a lot of my job over the last few months has included finding ways to keep us both dry.

The most important thing I can tell you about your infant life is that you are generally a very happy and easy-going little boy. I am hoping this continues throughout your life because I think I needed a mellow second child to counteract the whirling dervish that I produced first (your loving big sister, Delaney). You love to smile and it is SO easy to get you to smile. It doesn't matter if it's me or someone at the grocery store, if someone is showing you a smile you almost always smile back. And your mouth gets huge when you smile, into this big round O and even the most Grinchiest of Grinches would have a hard time not being happy looking at you when you smile. I absolutely love that you smile so big and so much. And you even laugh this cute little noise that is almost like you're sucking back in your breath. But it's clear that it's a laugh.

Along the lines of laughing, you are extremely ticklish and sensitive to the touch. One of the easiest ways to get you to smile and laugh is to tickle your chest and belly. You seem to love it and I also love that you laughed this early. Your sister didn't laugh until she was almost a year old and it worried me to no end. But not you... my little happy guy.

And as far as the easy-going thing, well, the best way I can describe it is that you are always ready to "go with the flow". You had no problem being carted around anywhere and everywhere that your sister wanted to go, sleeping in the car, sleeping in your stroller, sleeping in your car seat even after we pulled it out of the car. Different faces and caretakers do not seem to phase you. Wet or poopy diapers don't bother you. Being left alone in your Gymini to kick and swing your arms is fine with you. I think one of my biggest challenges with you is going to be making sure you get enough attention since you don't call out for it very much. We'll need to have a talk with your sister about that one...

You seem to be a pretty good sleeper too as you take great naps during the day and are starting to put in very long stretches at night. A week ago you did your first 12-hour straight mark and I was thrilled. Good sleep for you, good sleep for me, and everyone's happy!

There are a couple of things that I really want to remember from your early days and they are so precious that it makes me cry to even think of them. Somehow, early on in your life, I got in the habit of holding hands with you when I am feeding you. Obviously not conventionally like adults do, but you will grab ahold of my thumb or second finger and grip it very hard during the whole meal. You wave your arm around but you still keep ahold of my hand very tightly. Now you will even reach for it as soon as I lay you down to nurse as I think it has become something of a habit for both of us. In the middle of the night your hands get very cold and I love that over the course of the 20 minutes I spend with you that I feel your little tiny hand warming up on mine. It's such a simple thing, I know, it probably sounds so inconsequential to you that I'm focusing so much on this little thing. But I love it. I look forward to it and it melts my heart every time we do it. I feel like a part of my soul is coming through my hands to you. A little bit of warmth, a little bit of love and a lot of comfort. I know that's dramatic, but I feel it and it's real. Maybe it's because babies are so helpless and very often they don't respond or communicate in many ways. Somehow I feel like this is how we have best communicated over the last four months. By holding hands.

One other thing is that you do this adorable, cute, and precious thing where you sigh these contented breaths when you are close to done nursing. It lets me know that you are almost done and also I can tell that you are content. It's peaceful, rhythmic and really really cute. It's one of those things that I didn't pay much attention to at first and probably didn't even notice for a while. But after a while I started noticing it and now I find myself looking forward to your sighs. It strikes me as an All Star Baby Noise, almost as good of a sound as your laugh.

And lastly, I love how you kick and swing your arms. It's not angry, or frustrated, or because you are frustrated that you couldn't be doing more. It's one of the ways you show your happiness. By kicking and waving your arms. You often do these little fun grunts while you are doing your exercises and I love that too.

There have been tough moments in your first months, like, a severe lack of sleep for me, gas pains for you, diaper blow-outs, puking, fevers, colds, ear infections (thanks Delaney!), times where you had to cry because I had to do something for your big sister, times where you had to be carted out in the Colorado cold to run an errand or visit the doc. But it has been an absolutely amazing first few months with you. I cherish every bit of time I spend with you and most days I do not feel overwhelmed at having to care for you (I have a tendency to feel overwhelmed, so that is why this is significant). Days pass so quickly when it's just you and I. I didn't even crave a break or escape to go work out (VERY unlike me). Taking care of you is an absolute joy. I feel thankful that you are here in my life and very, very blessed.

I have this little underlying suspicion that you and I are going to be very close. Certainly a different kind of closeness than I have with your big sis (not better or worse, just much different). I can already tell it will be different. But I think and hope that our relationship will be wonderful, warm, loving, and deep. At least if these first few months are any indication, it will be that way.

Here's to you Garrett. G love. Little G. Little brother. Little kicker. Spitty-up-ickus. I love you with every little piece of my heart.

Love,
Mom

Dear Delaney, Month 33

January 26, 2009

Dearest Delaney. Bug. Bugaboo. Little D. Laney. Laneyloo. Laner. Bugalicious.

You are 3 months away from your 3rd birthday. I haven't sat down to write you a letter since before your little brother was born and I thought this was long overdue.

Your brother was born about four months ago, and I am not going to lie to you, the transition was very rough on you. It was actually pretty rough on all of us, but you and I seemed to take it the worst. I think there is a definite link between you and I not taking it well. You were not happy about the disruption to your world and I could not give you the love and attention you needed which then made it worse. Your father stepped in and pretty much took over everything for you, from the start of your day until the end of it. I was not sleeping very much and I spent much of Garrett's first month feeding or pacifying. All of my waking energies went to him and keeping him happy and fed. There was pretty much nothing left over for you and I apologize for that. I knew that deep down it would be good for you to have another member of the family to share time with, but you were not happy in those first few weeks. There were a lot of tantrums, time-outs and tears. You were always loving and gracious towards Garrett, but your anger and frustrations with us were very obvious. Your dad, one of the most patient people I have ever met, was occasionally pushed to the very limit by your behavior.

Thankfully we seem to be past that and you are much happier, I am getting more sleep, and able to devote more time and energy to you. I am not going to go as far as saying that I can match your energy, but at least there is a little bit there to give you. Which brings me to your energy. You are one of the most energetic kids I have ever known. You never stop. Your only relaxation comes when you are sleeping or watching Sesame Street. Otherwise you are going, going, going. Not just moving, but aggressively moving through life. Some of your favorite things are bouncing on beds, dancing, hopping, running, and playing chase. Your father and I had an in depth discussion the other night because I had called you a "spaz". He disagreed because he though spaz meant "mindless" in some way. But to me a spaz is someone who has tons of energy and has trouble figuring out where to focus it. That's you. But I love it and I'm pretty sure that most of my smiling moments come from watching you zoom around our house. There are actual dirt marks on all accessible walls in our house from you literally bouncing off of them. It has been made VERY clear to us that you are going to need to be active in your youth. Me thinks there will be a lot of soccer and swimming in your future.

It needs to be noted that you have become an extremely helpful and loving big sister. You genuinely seem to like your brother despite the fact that he can't do very much with you. Every time I ask you get me a spit-up rag you gleefully find one for me. And if he needs a hat you will run and go get it without me even asking. The same with a blanket. You love climbing up onto his crib and peeking in on him. There have been a few times where you have climbed all the way in there so you could lay with him and hold his hand. It's beyond sweet and cute and just absolutely warms my heart to see you nurture and care for him. If he's crying you run over and tell him it will be ok and gently rock him in his seat or swing. You're so small and yet so much love can come out of you. It makes me shed a tear of happiness just thinking about it.

One of the things that seems to make you the most happy is when your father and I are happy. You are continually asking us if we are happy. It's sad and endearing all at the same time. Sad mostly because if you have to ask me I'm probably not doing a good enough job of showing you how happy I am. Or gosh, maybe you are astute enough at 3 years old to know that maybe I'm not really happy. And it's endearing because it seems like you have developed quite a sense for trying to please.

We will be driving in the car somewhere and it will be completely silent and you will say "are you happy mommy?" and I will say "yes, Delaney, I'm happy". And then you'll say "really, REALLY happy?" as if you don't believe my response. If you do something that upsets either one of us you will immediately ask if we are happy because you can see that our demeanor has changed. If I tell you no then you immediately try and fix the thing that is making me not so happy. Not a day has gone by in the last two months where you haven't asked one of us if we are happy. It just dawned on me that I haven't really asked YOU if you're happy. I'll try to do more of that.

Your diction and vocabulary continue to astound us. Just yesterday you went to Cost Co with your dad and when you came back our exchange went something like this:
Me: Delaney how was your trip to CostCo?
D: Good! I got a hot dog and a smoothie for lunch.
Me: Really? Great! What did Daddy buy there?
D: For lunch he had something different, but similar.

The fact that you even know "different but similar" amazes me. And the other day you said, in response to one of Ellie's loud meows, "boy is she demanding!" I'm pretty sure demanding is not in most 3-year old vocabularies.

Your father went on a business trip last week and it was the first time it seemed like you understood the passing of time and meaning of him being gone. Every night when we would get home an overwhelming sadness would come over you because your Dad was not there. After inquiring about it and finding out he would not be home that night, you would sulk. We were on an errand the other day and out of the blue you turned to me and said "Mommy I miss Daddy because I love him so much". I hugged you and told you that I missed him too, but that sometimes he would go away for work and we would get to have quality girl time. And when we called him on the phone the other night, you asked me to give the phone back to you so you could say one more thing. "Daddy, please come home tomorrow because I miss you." I can only imagine the melting that occurred on the other side of that phone line.

I have been trying to figure out for about a year now if you are going to be a "mommys girl" or a "daddy's girl". Sometimes it seems like you prefer him and sometimes you prefer me. I know you absolutely love the energy that he gives you and quite honestly there is no way that I can match it. And I suppose I don't want to because it's your thing with him. You are always being swung, tickled, tackled, flipped, and spun around by your dad and you LOVE it. I am not sure if there is an equivalent thing that I provide that he doesn't, but my guess it would be nurturing, books, and a general "providing". I think I like that you seem to prefer us equally and thrive in your own way around each one of us. And the thing I like best is that you are actually the most content when we are ALL together.

You are still learning a lot at your school and this pleases us immensely. You have become quite the yogi, practicing yoga twice a week with the older kids. And the teachers are helping you with numbers and the calendar. You can count to 20 pretty easily but often get hung up around 14. You can recognize about 10 letters with ease and are close to zeroing in on the other 16. You recognize most animals and your song repertoire grows every day, in part thanks to Amy and the music program at the Acorn.

Food seems to be a bit of an issue with you as you seem to prefer carbs over all other kinds of foods. There are plenty of meals where I am concerned to see that you have only had 3-4 bites of food and are content to call it quits. Everything I read tells me to just keep feeding you the food and you will come around. We try not to force things on you too much, but you have such a tiny niblet body that it worries me. So far I have not caved and started feeding you fried food or pasta every night.

The last thing I need to mention doesn't really involve you directly but it's very important. Last week our country swore in a new president. He is not just any president, though, and I want you to know a bit of history that occurred late in your second year. Barack Obama is our first African American president and I find him to be the most inspiring public figure that I have ever known. He is taking office at a generally tough time in America, to say the least. The economy is weak, almost crippled, we have been fighting a war for over five years, and in general people are discouraged. Homes are foreclosing, jobs are being lost and every day the death toll of our US soldiers grow. The news is very frequently depressing. But then came this man from Illinois who had the moxie and fortitude to try and change things. My sincere hope is that he can. They said that the moment when Barack Obama was inaugurated would be one of those "where were you when" moments. Like the Kennedy assassination or the Space Shuttle disaster. Since you will likely be too young to remember, I'd like to tell you that you were at your classmate Lucy's house which is just down the street from the Acorn school. You all walked there holding hands so you could watch it together. Your teachers said you were all very quiet and listened very intently. I was in class myself, doing my part to fulfill President Obama's wish that we all do our part to make this country a better place. I am going back to school so that I can help children learn and also to give me a schedule that allows me to be home when you are home. Both of those are things that will help this country and I'm proud to be doing my part.

My wish for you is that we build this country to be even better than before and you can fulfill your wishes and dreams here. I want only the best for you because you deserve. It seems like you will demand the best out of everything in life.

I love you Delaney bug. And when I am with you I am really, really happy.

Twelve beautiful hours

Garrett pulled one out on Saturday night. Twelve beautiful hours of uninterrupted sleep. He has a bit of a cold so I think some of his sleeping powers are attributed to him feeling under the weather, but now I know he can do it. I put him down to sleep at 7:15 and he did not stir to eat until 7:30 the next morning. Can you say AWESOME, BABY?!? I was in the best mood all day yesterday. That, combined with the fact that it's been spring in January here for the last 4 days, made for one happy Courtney all weekend.

Last night he pulled out 10 straight hours. So even though it wasn't a complete night, I am finally starting to get long straight blocks of sleep.

I love that little guy. He is absolutely the best.

Ugh.

I wish I had something clever to share with you all, but I just need to post an update that I am feeling extremely overwhelmed right now.

Last week I went back to work. This week I started school. And I am already so far behind and have no idea where I am going to get the hours in my day. I have underestimated my ability to multi-task by about 1000%.

Something will have to give I'm just not sure what. I was having all sorts of thoughts today about quitting school, quitting work, quitting both, you name it. I'm sure things will work itself out sooner rather than later but in the meantime I am struggling to even know where to start on my massive to do list.

Hopefully I will get back to regular programming shortly.

How did I get here AGAIN?

I know some of you are curious as to why I am actually back at my job, when I had roughly planned on not coming back after maternity leave.

Without revealing too much, I will just say that I made a proposal to them for what I wanted the job to be, and they wanted more. BUT... until they find a replacement I will be working in the arrangement that I proposed. So I guess it's a win-win for everyone.

But in the short term, it appears that I am a part time worker, full time student and full time mom of two young kids. Oh yeah, and a housekeeper, wife, and friend. Not sure how I'm going to juggle it all, but what the heck.

G Love

Little Garrett has acquired a few different nicknames. G man, G love, Bubba and little guy seem to be our favorites.

He had his first week of daycare this week and did amazingly well with the transition. It is just another thing that he has chosen to approach very differently than his sister did at this age. Her first week was awful. She didn't sleep, didn't eat and got sick. Garrett... well... he's been sleeping like a rock star, eating like a champ, and by all accounts the celebrity of the Acorn School this week. Deb, one of his "cuddlers" told me today that they still have yet to hear him cry even one peep. I get this feeling like they don't want me to take him home when I arrive there. A few other teachers have told me that they've come by to hold him and there has been a line of Garrett fans waiting for their turn.

He is, very simply, the best. It's pretty ridiculous how many times a day either Kevin or I says "he is so great", or "he is so cute", or "he is the best", or "he is so chill". It's almost embarassing how much we say those types of things.

Here's to you G love. For making the transition back to the real world easy on your tired old Mom.

A few photos from our Christmas trip...

Our holiday trip to California

We had an amazing and wonderful trip to San Diego for the holidays. We stayed with Jo and Bob, but we were able to visit my bro and his wife Janet. This meant we got to see Lucy and the new nephew Luke which was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. The weather cooperated nicely for our visit and Kevin and I were able to get out for a bunch of runs and even see a movie (Slumdog Millionaire).

Here are a few pics from our visit.



Being a little airplane in La Jolla.


Hugging the large inflatable Grinch outside Nana and Pop Pops.


Watching the Grinch with Nana and Pop Pop.




Cousins Luke and Garrett.


An amazing afternoon at Joe and Janets.


MOMA and Grandpa doing holding duty.


Cousins Lucy and Delaney at snack time... oh yeah... and the princesses too.


Chillin'

Burning down the house

Last night you may have seen on the news (or closer friends may have lived through it!) that Boulder was in jeopardy of being damaged by some raging wildfires. There were two fires raging very near Boulder, both started apparently by downed power lines. Why would a few power lines have toppled over, you might ask?!?

Because of the frickin Colorado winds. Ugh.



I could see smoke from our office building yesterday in the hills north of our house and just north of Boulder proper. I didn't think too much of it except that after I picked up the kids from daycare and we were driving home I could see orange glowing and flames on the mountain. Delaney, the thrill seeker that she is, really wanted to see it closer. So I half-heartedly obliged her and we drove a little north on Broadway to check it out. At a certain point I started to get a bit scared as I gaped in horror at what looked like lava all over the mountains, seemingly only a few hundred yards away. Fire trucks zoomed past our car and traffic came to a standstill. I turned the car around and decided that Delaney and I had had enough thrill-seeking for one evening.

As I am prone to do in these situations, I turn on the TV in anticipation of news coverage and information. Some local channels were covering it but at primetime everyone cut away to their favorite shows. I guess the news would have to be pretty dire in order to cut away from CSI, right?

Delaney then proceeded to show signs of a bad illness, Garrett needed a bath and we needed dinner. So we forgot about it until the 9 o'clock news. When we tuned in at that point the winds had died down and even though 11,000 homes had been evacuated, no one was talking about fear of homes being destroyed. I thought of all our friends in Dakota Ridge and how we looked at houses in that neighborhood. We worried about our friend Matt's new brewery that was a hundred yards from the flames. The newscasters said that if winds continued or increased, and the direction changed, that the news might then change. Even though we were a good two miles away from the heart of the fire I stopped the television and had a talk with Kevin about our plan if we had to evacuate.

Kevin of course thought I was nuts. And he wasn't really engaging me in my need for the details of the plan, going from room-to-room to see what we would grab if time permitted. But I did it anyway. And I made him set out an outfit should we get the call. I grabbed the 4-5 jewelry items that were really important to me and a few documents and put them in one easy place. We talked about what we would do if we had to immediately get out (just kids and pets, in our PJ's), if we had 10 minutes and if we had 30 minutes.

It's pretty amazing to evaluate your house and belongings in that sense. I realized that I didn't care too much about anything in my closet. I could probably find better stuff at the store right now anyway.

The fire thankfully did not destroy any homes within city limits, although I think a bunch of houses up in the mountains suffered damage.

The fire did remind us of a few things, however.

That when push comes to shove, all we want with us is our family.
That we need to check up on our fire insurance coverage to make sure it's VERY good.
That we need a safe in our basement that is flood and fireproof.
That I want to take a bunch of my photo negatives in to one of those places where they convert them to digital. Then I will load them up onto Shutterfly.

I am feeling very lucky that everyone is safe and sound today. Of course Delaney is really sick with what looks like an ear infection, and we got almost no sleep last night, but I am still feeling very blessed today.