Happy half birthday to Annabelle, and anniversary to me!

Today, Annabelle is officially two and a half and our tiny baby is hardly tiny any longer. He was eight weeks old as of yesterday. It’s hard to believe I’ve been a mom of two for nearly two months now, and that I married the handsome guy they call daddy (for the second time!) three years ago today. Four years ago, I never would have imagined myself here, literally or figuratively, and yet here I am. I’m one lucky mama!

We took Elliot in for his two month visit with the pediatrician yesterday and I was shocked to learn how much he had grown. It seemed to me that he had gotten much, much bigger, but the stats were beyond my expectations. Six weeks ago, he weighed in at six pounds and five ounces and was 19 and 1/4 inches long. Yesterday he weighed ten pounds, seven and a half ounces and he was 22 and 3/4 inches long! I’m beginning to wonder if I’m producing cream ;)

He rolled over from his belly to his back for the first time on Sunday, and again yesterday. Given how seldom he stands for being put down during his waking hours, I was pretty shocked. Annabelle rolled over quite early, but I was a devout follower of the church of tummy time back then, so I credited that for her muscle strength. He also loves to stand up and bounce, which is so funny to me at his age. He will straighten his legs to standing when held against us and, with no help or prompting, bend and straighten his knees over and over to bounce up and down. He looks around with such wide eyes, and is just generally tons of fun to observe and be near. He alternates between awesome nights with four or even six hour sleep stretches and nights of waking every two hours or so and needing a whole lot of bouncing and pacing to get back to sleep. Andrew was not around to help with that part during Annabelle’s infancy, and some nights I thank my lucky stars that he is this time.

We’re practicing EC with him as we did with Annabelle, and he has had such clear signals from day one, so I think it’s perfect for him. It is a touch harder to do when there’s another child’s needs to consider, but overall it’s still manageable. I’ll have to write about that in more detail in a separate post soon.

Annabelle is, for the most part, embracing life as a big sister. I plan to write about some of the less glamorous parts of the adjustment in a separate post at some point, too, but overall she surprises and impresses us on a daily basis. Right now, she loves helping with things around the house, from chopping vegetables and washing dishes to helping with the laundry, and even doing a little vacuuming.

She has also been spending more and more time in completely independent play, imaginative and otherwise. A friend of ours brought A some tinkertoys as a gift when she came to meet the baby and, unlike every other toy that she seems to grow tired of after a week or so, her interest in them has been stayed for several weeks now. She spends plenty of time building “cars” and “tractors” and they are really quite impressive. She also loves to wrap herself and her animal models in blankets, towels, pillowcases, washcloths, and anything else she can find.  Everything is something else in her play at the moment, too. She still plays different characters all the time, but now she designates everyone else as someone new, too. When she pretends to be a friend of hers, she calls me by that person’s mom’s name, Andrew by their dad’s name, and Elliot by the name of their sibling if they have one.

She is very interested in what sound different words start with all of the sudden, so I’m excited to set up an “I Spy” game to play with her soon. I think it’s time! This is the beginning of my favorite phases of language development, so I’m pretty thrilled to watch her interest grow. She has also been incredibly polite of late, telling me, “Thanks for the yummy meal, mom,” as we sit down to dinner every night. This is something Andrew has been modeling for many, many months now, and I’m glad we’ve resisted the urge to prompt her in it, because it’s so cool to see her spontaneously expressing gratitude. Then again, she is still two. I thought it may be a good time to start the practice of making thank you cards, but she has been totally resistant to that whole concept.

One thing that has surprised me is Annabelle’s recent responses to new people. She has been doing a lot of “hiding,” as in that first picture of her above, when someone looks at her. At times she seems to actually be frightened by strangers, which is a completely new development. She almost always warms up eventually on her own, as with the nurse at Elliot’s appointment yesterday, whose initial hello earned a petrified stare from Annabelle’s hiding place, and a dash into the daddy’s arms. By the time the nurse left the room, she received a warm smile, a wave, and an audible, “bye!”

I’m sure all of this will change, just as life has continually done over the past two and a half years, but for now – here we are. It’s a crazy life, but it’s a good one. How has your life been? I’d love to hear, either in the comments below, or in a post in your space. If you have one, please link it up!

These photos and the one below were taken in part for the mamatography challenge, which has be at least trying to capture a photo every day this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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