Pediatrician visit!

Elise is a month old! And yesterday we went to the pediatrician to celebrate.

The day before I spent almost entirely trying to get Elise to nap, having been promised by all the reputable sleep books that her life would be ruined (and so would ours) if she became overtired. Based on her sleeping patterns that day, we're all doomed. The night wasn't so great either.

Yesterday, however, Elise decided to make up for it by taking the awesomest nap during Kalina's naptime. That I woke her from so we could make it to the doctor's office in time. That I maybe could've napped during. She fell back to sleep in her carseat.

We easily arrived 10 minutes early at the doctor's office and I recalled the early days with Kalina when I was perpetually rushed. I like being a second-time mom.

The receptionist signed us in without so much as asking for Elise's still non-existant insurance card, and we were shown into the exam room at lightning speed.

I had to wake poor Elise up to take off her clothes, adding injury to insult with how cold it was in the exam room. Accordingly, she was not happy on the scale, in true Odegaard Baby form. However, Mommy was happy, as the scale read 7 lbs., 15 ounces--Elise is gaining almost an ounce a day and not running anyone ragged in the process. And no wonder she's just about out of some of her newborn clothes! *sob*

We headed back to the exam room, where Elise fell back asleep within the 5-second wait we had for the doctor to enter.

The doctor and I discussed reflux (Elise may have some reflux issues) and sleeping (apparently, she's very normal with her 5-minute naps, and she'll be fine despite what the sleep books say). Then we woke Elise up yet again for her examination. Here's what we found:

The baby is 20 3/4 inches long. Her height is the 30th percentile, and her weight is in the 20th. Her head circumference, however, is in the 5th. Everything is fine and normal.

As for her heart, the doctor couldn't hear the murmur! However, he admitted to not being very good at hearing the smallest heart murmurs, which Elise's is. At her last visit, he told me, the murmur was ranked a 1 on a size scale of 1-6. We'll find out on Thursday whether or not it's completely gone.

Elise promptly fell asleep in my arms again as I picked her up, and I finished chatting with the doctor. Then I woke the baby up yet again doing a diaper change and putting her clothes back on. She went back to sleep in her carseat. *sigh*

Looks like I have yet another perfect baby!

Photo: I'm getting bigger! At least compared to this tiny duck.

Grab some popcorn...

Presenting 3 new videos of my sweet girls! For some reason, these won't post on the blog, so you'll have to go to YouTube to watch them.

Elise at 2 days old: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzm8uHJUJfk

Kalina singing a song she made up based on "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window." Yes, she is singing "I do hope that white-tailed-deer is for sale." (August 26): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0TpTEFN0Cc

Kalina reading to Elise a week or two ago (Kalina's wearing her all-time favorite car pajamas): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MehQrC08PCY

Our Saturday morning

Our strategy lately has been "divide and conquer." True to our word, we are in this way generally victorious (whatever that means nowadays).

We find it very ironic that these days, a "break" means only having to wrangle one child. Our rule being that you can do whatever you want as long as you have one kid along. It works out pretty fairly: the older child has an at times activity-ruining opinion about everything while the younger one, though portable, is still at risk for germs and can't hold her head up for more than a few seconds, although she's getting better. So when choosing activities, it's important to select the correct child to bring along.

For instance, Elise wouldn't be very much fun in a fishing boat (just keeping her out of the sun would render the trip more trouble than it's worth). And Kalina would be a bit of a nightmare if you wanted to go to an antiques auction.

This Saturday morning, we paired off like usual. Much to Kalina's dismay, she's generally stuck with her (wonderful, fun, caring) Daddy while I take Elise.

Daddy and Kalina were headed to a farm. Kalina's been asking to live on a farm, lately (a request Matt is about 5 seconds from being willing to grant), so with farms being the "in" thing for toddlers this time of year, Matt decided it was high time to take her to one.

They had a nice time. No, our tender little Kalina did not ride on the donkey whose saddle she's sitting in ("off!" she said 3 seconds later), although Matt thinks she may have been convinced to after seeing other kids ride. While she was thrilled to see all the farm animals, the first thing she told me upon arriving home was the farm had "No cows!" with her characteristic furrowed brow and an irritated tone. What kind of a person would deign to have a farm without cows? Shameful! Fortunately, this omission didn't seem to entirely ruin the visit, and they may go back next week (it was free!).

Meanwhile, I decided it was high time for a Mommy and Elise outing. It was probably more special to me than Elise, but she put up with it just fine. We went to Old Navy to see if they had any new clothes that Mommy needed (they did!).

I was astounded at how easy it felt to venture out with a newborn. All you do is haul around the carrier. When the baby cries, you jiggle the stroller a little with your foot, hold the pacifier in with one hand, and continue trying on clothes with your free limbs. Fifteen minutes later, after a few false starts, the baby is fast asleep. Piece of cake!

Elise and I forgot to bring the camera to the store, but Daddy's/Kalina's pictures are here. Plus a few of Elise because she's so cute.

Photo 1: Wide-eyed Elise
Photo 2: Elise and Mommy
Photo 3: The donkey ride that ended before it began!
Photo 4: Matt said Kalina was pensive the whole time. Here's a rare smile.
Photo 5: Ride 'em, cowgirl!
Photo 6: When the donkey ride didn't work out, Daddy was able to exchange the ticket for a hayride instead!

TV time

It's with a heavy heart that I confess that I now allow Kalina to watch TV.

Yesterday, in fact, I allowed her to watch a whole lot of it since she was spending the morning throwing up and running a fever.

The tube is no longer reserved for hotels and other peoples' houses--we've revealed to Kalina, and on purpose no less, that our TV is actually good for more than the static she sees if she pushes the "on" button. She seems to have forgiven us for keeping her in the dark for so long.

Of course, this new development coincided perfectly with the advent of little Elise. Actually, it coincided with the date when, two weeks after Elise had arrived (one week to realize that I need TV, and one week to receive the much-anticipated Blues Clues DVD in the mail from Amazon.com), we all sat down in the evening with a bowl of popcorn and inaugurated our television as a family.

We chose Blue Clues, by the way, at the advice of Matt's cousin, who'd thankfully done all the research on children's programming and touted it as one of the best. I was grateful for the help--it makes me feel slightly better about the whole thing, like when I allow Kalina a lovingly baked oatmeal cookie instead of a Twinkie.

"Kalina would like to watch the dog!" Kalina had announced that day (she'd seen the DVD box) and, exhausted, we figured it'd be just the thing to carry us through the pre-bedtime half hour. Elise got to tag along, but slept through the whole thing in my arms, much to my relief.

Too excited to even eat the popcorn (she'd hold a kernel in her hand for a good 10 minutes before munching on it and then, realizing she's not a huge fan of popcorn, would grab another to hold and feed it to Mommy or Daddy 10 minutes later), Kalina clammed up the second the show began. Silent and still, our girl was utterly entranced by the screen. Was our worst nightmare coming true? Was Kalina officially a TV addict? A pint-sized couch potato?

Or, even worse, was she going to burst into tears and render my attempt at getting 25 minutes each day to care exclusively for her sister and/or the dishes obsolete? Matt and I knew it could go either way and exchanged glances back and forth over her head.

And then, a good 10 minutes into the show, Kalina surprised us all when after Joe (the host) asked if anyone could see a triangle, she pointed swiftly, confidently and triumphantly in the direction of the screen (and, we assume, specifically at the green triangle in the picture). She was hooked, and we breathed an ironic sigh of relief.

We've watched the same episode now about 9 times. She's watched about half of another one, enough to know that the first one was her favorite.

And we ask for it again many times a day.

Just for fun, here's my top 10 list of why I still don't like my little girl (either of them) watching TV:

10. I'm morally opposed to TV before school age. Not really, but it's hard to suddenly allow something that has been forbidden for so long. It's a letting-go process and yes, I am laughing at myself about it.
9. The creepiness factor of watching adults make utter fools out of themselves to entertain children. And yet, I love them for it. After all, haven't we all been there at one time or another?
8. Lack of intriguing plot or character depth.
7. When Elise is in her swing and Kalina is watching TV, I feel like a really, really, really bad mom.
6. I'm not looking forward to years of character-themed birthday parties and Halloween costumes.
5. My little girl is growing up! Even the AAP says she's old enough to watch. So sad. :(
4. "Kalina would like to watch the dog." Repeat.
3. TV is frying my child's brain. I can't help but believe this.
2. Poor Elise has only had about two weeks of life sans TV. She'll be deprived of all the quality time and attention her sister received. *sob*
1. I've had all the songs from Blues Clues stuck in my head at once for days now, playing repeatedly all at the same time. Sometimes the cacophony keeps me up at night.

Photo: Kalina and I made a paper chain! See, we do still spend quality time together!

What to do with two

Before Elise was born, I thought that being the caretaker for two small children would be impossible. How would any of us get anything to eat? Could we all manage to get clean every day? And most worrisome, how was any of us going to get any sleep at all, ever? I decided it was hopeless. Part of me wasn't looking forward to the challenge of proving myself wrong.

And then Elise came along and nothing mattered except the fact that the four of us were nice and cozy in our little house and there were moments when all of us were happy at once.

And then Matt went back to work, and I've had to face that which can reduce even the boldest and strongest among us to tears: managing a toddler and a newborn. You've heard about the best of the worst of my first day. Since then, things have improved (you haven't heard the worst of the worst of the first day, and you won't). I've learned a few things. At one point I thought it was easy, and that lasted at most 10 minutes.

This post is dedicated to all my mommy friends who are facing life with two. Here's how to survive the first few weeks:

1. If someone offers to make you a meal, shout "yes" at the top of your lungs, and then sign them up for a specific day before they can change their minds. No matter how much you love to cook, you will not love to cook while holding a floppy newborn and denying your toddler the privilege of eating the eggshells she's grabbed from the counter.

2. Shower courageously. Got 5 minutes before one is supposed to wake up from her nap and the other is supposed to eat? That means you can take a 4-minute shower! It's okay to assume it's going to work out, because we all need a little hope. Go forth. Shower. Be clean.

3. Get organized and find a system. I have 3 diaper-changing stations that I stock every night. I hate that I have 3 diaper-changing stations, but it works right now. Hopefully I can work my way down to 2 in the next few weeks.

4. Subscribe to a magazine that has nothing to do with kids. Read it occasionally. Talk about what you've learned. Try not to think about your kids for 5 minutes a day. It's hard, but it's one of those things that reminds you you're human, and not a domestic robot like your kids would occasionally like you to believe.

5. Track your accomplishments. It might be "I got the baby to nap in the crib today for 30 minutes!" or "I prevented the toddler from squeezing her entire juice box onto the dining room floor!" instead of "I wrote a book chapter this weekend!" but it matters.

6. When all else fails, sing. You may appease at least one child and if not, at least it'll give you something to concentrate on and drown out the crying.

7. If you feel yourself bouncing back and forth between needy kids like a ping pong ball, just count your blessings that you're not pregnant anymore, because that would make it a lot harder to reach the pacifier that bounced behind the recliner while removing a spray bottle from your toddler's deathgrip.

8. Come up with a strategy each day for what you'll do if your toddler doesn't nap. It could be a special outing, a craft or baking project or a heap of stories that you'll plan to read because that way you'll at least get to sit down.

9. Spoil everyone a little. Bribe your toddler once in a while when you really, really need her to just let you brush your teeth, for goodness sake, so you can get out the door and because she had juice this morning. Hold your baby during your toddler's entire nap, if you enjoy it. Sneak an extra Oreo. You can undo all the bad when you're getting more sleep (or before your children leaves for college, whichever comes first).

10. It's okay to count the minutes until Daddy gets home. Even neurosurgeons and air traffic controllers have easier days than mommies of two, sometimes.

11. Let the electronic babysitters take over occasionally. You're not a bad mommy if every so often one child is sitting in front of the TV while the other is sitting in her swing while you run around like crazy doing laundry and dishes between popping the pacifier back into the baby's mouth. Or so I tell myself.

12. Remember that lots of successful, happy people have two children. Maybe it'll work for us, too.

Photo 1: Kalina helping Elise with tummy time.
Photo 2: Cute!
Photo 3: 3 months later, Kalina is finally riding her birthday tricycle! Parents won the helmet war.

Newborn: take two

I'm going to let you in on an awful little secret. It's one I feel okay sharing because I don't think it'll cause too, too much emotional turmoil down the road for my firstborn since I've hopefully made it clear how delighted I am by her overall.

Here goes:

I'm enjoying the newborn stage the second time around much more than the first.

There, I said it.

It's not that I didn't enjoy Kalina's newborn and infant stages. I occasionally look back and pictures and remember how cute she was and how much fun it was to watch her grow and develop. It's just that many of the times when the camera shutter wasn't clicking, I was tearing my hair out and slowly dying from sleep deprivation. Worst of all, I didn't even know what hit me.

I remember at the time one friend who gave birth to her second a few months after I gave birth to my first told me, not unkindly at all, how much easier it had been with just one (hi, Krista!). "Good thing I won't be having another," I mentally told myself.

And yes, thinking back, it could've been far easier with just one, had I known that my one would eventually sleep through the night, roll over on her own and quit her infernal screaming through every single change of clothes and diaper, for heaven's sake.

But with your first, the shock of "I've been bouncing this baby for 2 hours and she's still awake," or "I just did laundry yesterday and now all my clean shirts have chunky yellow spitup on them so I have nothing nice to wear to the grocery store," and the emotional trauma of the horrid Facebook posts from childless friends that complain "...might not survive, it's 5 am and I'm already awake" leave you withered and fried. [Or possibly worse, "my 3-week-old is sleeping through the night!"]

Can you tell I'm still, to this day, getting over it?

And then the second one comes along. This time, you hardly hear the crying--it's relatively simple to remedy and besides, you've heard worse--and nothing takes you by surprise. You preemptively scatter burp cloths, blankets and pacifiers around the house (only to have them gathered into a big pile by your neat-freak toddler). You develop a strategy and full range of tactics to combat sleep deprivation, reevaluating every evening. Most of all, you remember that it does go rather quickly (in hindsight, only) and that you have a matching hat and booty hand-me-down that will make your cute newborn even cuter, if such a thing were possible.

You know:
-Soon, the baby will learn not to poop at night, which means fewer miserable "diaper changes by Braille"
-Spitup washes out just fine, even without stain stick, until the baby starts solid food.
-Sleep usually gets better before it gets worse, but at least you get a respite.
-Any bad habits you create out of sheer desperation are usually fixable.
These things will all help.

Plus, newborns are remarkably easygoing. You can dress them up in ridiculously cute outfits and lug them all around town and they just go on eating and sleeping and excreting as they've been born to do. Nothing phases them as long as they're in a cozy carrier of some sort.

And of course, it helps that Elise is pretty amazing. We think she already understands the concept of using her hand to keep her pacifier in, and she can even occasionally calm herself down. She likes her swing now and has even been looking at the little dangly things on it that are supposed to entertain babies, but that Kalina never gave a second (or first) thought to. Her hair is still soft and fuzzy, which is fun in the middle of the night when I'm so sleep-deprived that all I can think of is "aw, I'm petting a baby bunny!" She doesn't mind tummy time, and she's starting to be fascinated by lights, which is a very easy-to-entertain phase (they all are for a while).

I do feel bad that I can't pay the same attention to Elise that I did to Kalina. The poor girl gets all but ignored every morning and afternoon, but doted on every second that I'm not trying to rescue her from her big sister's hugs, kisses, and wild jumping (so, when the 2-year-old is asleep). I have a feeling she'll find her own way to budge into the conversation and playtime, though, as she's proven she's not afraid of being vocal.

We have fun personifying Elise and showing her things (and showing her off to Kalina's animals). We put words in her mouth ("Elise loves your new cat shirt, Kalina!") and generally make sure she's part of the family. It's just fun.

I'll admit, though, that we enjoy her most in the daytime. When do newborns sleep through the night?

Photos:
1: Cute
2: Elise's fist bottle! During our family adventure on Saturday (yummy breakfast out and a walk in a garden)
3. Cute

New shoes

Along with Kalina comes many rules. No cats playing with her toys. No one leaves the bathtub until all the water is out. Hands must be in her lap when we close the car door (so her fingers don't end up pinched somewhere), or we have to open the door and close it again so that she can put her hands in her lap.

Some of these may have begun as our rules, but Kalina has embraced them fully. She's an orderly little soul. We've actually had to curb the picking up of toys before naptime, for instance, as it occasionally gets out of hand. (We can't believe we've ever uttered the words "No more picking up, it's naptime!" for instance.)

Kalina occasionally plays these like trump cards--there are only so many things we're willing to battle over--and we almost always give in. She seems so emotionally connected to having her ducks in a row, and these aren't really a big deal.

Regarding shoes, her rules are: No wearing shoes in the house. Shoes must be properly fastened at all times while on her feet. No new shoes.

The problem being, of course, that shoes wear out or get grown out of or, by golly, Mommy just really doesn't want you wearing your scuffed pink play shoes with your fancy blue dress so we're going to try the nice brown or white shoes today instead (I've recently given up this battle--the pink shoes go to church, now, too, because wearing a dress in the first place is the new battle. This is why I'm glad to have another girl--maybe she'll wear dresses.).

And then we have to violate the third rule of shoes, and it's stressful for us all until Kalina has finally married the new pair of shoes and we can quit worrying about shoes for a good 5 months.

Over the summer, for example, Kalina's play shoes were falling apart. We visited our local Target to pick out some new ones. As I ogled the lovely variety of adorable toddler shoes, Kalina found her current shoe, on clearance. We soon located the right size. Proud of my little shopper, I admit I was a bit disappointed not to get a change of toddler foot scenery.

More recently, it's come time to find some fall/winter shoes in a size 7, and to develop a strategy for transitioning Kalina into them.

I first begin mentioning to the girl that soon she'll need new shoes, for size, weather, and the fact that her old ones are becoming indescribably yucky, especially after stomping in the puddles from last week's rainstorms. Both pairs. "No," she decides. I remind her that she hated her old shoes at first, too. She doesn't respond, except probably to remind me about the fox Daddy saw that one time in the woods (her favorite story lately).

And then I scope out the selection. All but one pair of reasonably priced shoes either sport princesses (that Kalina doesn't know) or is a scaled-down model of what high schoolers are wearing, so our only choice was Target's usual "fairly cute yet generic athleisure shoe suitable for the season." Just like the summer shoe, only more enclosed.

In a moment of brilliance, I had Aunt Nancy pick them up at the store for me and drop them off. I made a big deal out of the fact that Aunt Nancy had brought the shoes. Would this make the difference? Would she cooperate better for someone who wasn't Mommy? I'll take any advantage I can get.

The problem with trying clothes on Kalina is that she hates tags, with a passion, to the point of frantic tears even if she sees tags on clothing that Matt or I are trying on. So new clothes are always a gamble--you want to make sure Kalina will actually wear the clothes before taking the tag off, but you can't really make sure she'll actually wear it until you've taken the tag off because it would be cruel to force tagged clothing onto a hysterical child.

So on Friday evening before our usual neighborhood walk, we made a big deal about taking the shoes out of their box and showing them to Kalina. We held our breath as we asked something like: "Here are the new shoes that Aunt Nancy brought you! Aren't they nice? I wish I had new shoes! Look how pretty they are! You need new shoes, remember? Aren't your toes kind of pinching in your old ones? [a nod] How about these?"

Joy of all joys, the toddler agreed to give them a shot. But I knew we weren't out of the woods yet. I sent Matt off to snip the tags before Kalina could change her mind. We then convinced her to wear socks, "since the weather's getting cooler--now you can wear your cat shirt and your fish shirt and your dog shirt because the weather is cooler, which is why you need to wear socks, too!" (more holding of breath)

Assent. We slipped on the shoes and the socks and pulled Kalina to her feet and...

"Not the new shoes!"

There it was. The toddler spirit rising up against change, clearly outraged that she had let it get this far. I'd heard this chant before, as I was introducing her second identical summer pair--a switch that had been quite stressful in its time.

Then Daddy had a brilliant idea: "How about Daddy carries you?" And we got the girl out the door, where I would put the second part of my plan to work.

After a few minutes of walking, by which I mean each one of us carrying one kid, we came across the motivation I knew Kalina needed to make her shoes her own. Fortunately, I've learned it only takes a few dozen steps for Kalina to turn new shoes into old favorites. And there was a sewer drain a few dozen steps away, and a plethora of rocks to toss into it. "You can throw rocks into that sewer drain," I tempted the child, "but you'll have to walk over there yourself."

At the suggestion, Kalina warily gave it a shot. She needed picked up once or twice on the way, and stumbled slightly--off balance from the new shoes, no doubt--as she tossed her first rock in. And then another, and then another. I knew we'd be okay.

Sure, the girl still needed to be carried occasionally on the way back home. And yes, she did seem a bit relieved to take the foreign objects off of her feet once inside. But the new shoes had walked their way into her heart.

This was confirmed for me the next day, when she actually asked to wear the new shoes as we were headed out the door for some family fun.

Glad that's over for the season. Next challenge: Finding a Christmas dress that matches her pink, white and blue sneakers.

Photo: Kalina in her "airplane" with her "suitcase," loaded full of animals, of course (because what else would you bring on a long trip?).