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Thursday, October 2, 2014

Our life as 4

I can't believe Lily is 9 weeks old, and Levi turns three next week. It blows my mind.
As of late, we have adjusted very nicely into our lives as four.

Levi is in the whirlwind of the terrible twos/almost threes. Sometimes it is so defeating. I take a gentle approach to parenting. I do not believe in spanking/fearing your child to get them to listen. Because of that I do a lot of talking, calm time, and deep breaths with Levi. Some days it works like a charm, other days he gives me an evil eye and throws his food on the floor for the fifth time without taking his eye off me. After all my schooling in the area of development for kids infancy-middle school, I know this is normal. I know its how toddlers develop and autonomy is a big thing right now. Some days I just question myself and wonder if I'm doing the best that I can as far as teaching/disciplining him. Its worse feeling judged by others when I am doing everything I can to be patient and calm with him. Some people think I should just spank him. Others think I do it all wrong. Some agree with me. Either way its easy to feel alone in this whole process, this whole portion of parenting. I see a lot of strides regarding Levi's behavior. The thing we deal with most is lack of impulse control. He'll just get frustrated and throw things. He is having trouble sleeping lately. He will just get up in the middle of the night for no reason at all. He cries when its nap time. Some days are bliss and things are great. Other days, I want to cry and pull my hair out. But he is still such a sweetie pie. He is still a mama's boy. He still looks for the moon every night. He lays in the grass and counts the airplanes in the sky. He is my little nature boy. His vocabulary has grown SO MUCH in the past 5 months or so. Watching him grow is so rewarding. I love that boy.

Lily is a gem. I'm not big on making babies stick to a schedule, but if it works for them then follow their lead. Ever since Lily was about 3-4 weeks, her schedule started adapting to Levi's and we just went with it. Now she bathes, eats and is in bed by 8:30 just like Levi. She sleeps until about 5 am and is up to eat. Then falls right back to sleep until about 8-9 am. Just like Levi did when he was a baby. As far as breastfeeding, I don't want to talk too much about it-as I am still a little disappointed in myself a little. Its a hard thing to swallow that it didn't work for us/for me-for the second time. The pain was excruciating and unfortunately with only two weeks until school started up for me I didn't have the time to be extremely patient. I would pump for an hour and still be extremely engorged. Levi and Lily would be crying this whole hour. Then I would be crying. It was just too much. We were all happier with the switch to bottle feeding. Now do I get a little sad when I see Mama's breastfeeding? Yes. I wish I was able to have more time home with her to get it down. I loved the idea of having that bond with Lily during my whole pregnancy. The first day was bliss. She was a champ. I will forever cherish those memories and the bonding her and I shared, just us two, from the minute she was born until the minute we switched to a bottle. She is doing great on the Earth's Best Organic formula and I couldn't be happier with how well she does it. She is so smiley and "talkative". She is such a cuddle bug, and is doing so much better during the day. She used to be so restless during the day. Now she naps 2-3 really long naps-about 2-3 hours, and cat naps throughout. She even likes her swing now-thank god. I baby wear a lot. It gives me the bonding I don't get through breastfeeding and we even do skin to skin with the wrap sometimes. I love that little girl to pieces. She is amazing.

I think having a new baby takes a toll on your marriage. It ain't been easy adjusting-especially living at Josh's moms-that's a whole box of stress that is just piled on. But we are finally at ease, and things are in a sweet spot. We are enjoying our life as four. And things are just easier these days. God has truly put a light in our lives, and we are blessed. Through the good and the bad, I am so happy to have Josh by my side through it all.

Josh and I both celebrated birthdays too!

Enjoy some pictures of the past-uh, 9 weeks? :)