4 weeks

Matthew and I are getting used to the 2 kid household. Claire slept through the night for the first time last night which was a lot sooner than her older brother did. I'm not holding my breath that it will happen regularly though.

Claire is similar to Oliver in that she's super fussy at night. It would have been nice to have one child that didn't scream from 6-8pm each day for months on end. I'm getting used to the numbness of just sitting with a baby that cries and not taking it personally. I can tell this time around that I'm a little older, and that I don't have as much energy to please.

Claire is a great eater and very strong. She is already lifting her head up and about half way to rolling over. She loves music with a strong beat and is starting to get interested in lights. We've been reading her the books we have that are black and white and she's responding to the high contrast of the images.

Oliver is in a lot of classes these days. He goes to Bing each week on MWF and he's enrolled in both swimming lessons and also soccer. He's a little scared of the swimming lessons. I felt bad when he asked me if he could get out and be done, and his instructor is a little bit of a rough guy. But... a little fear is a good thing. I totally hated swimming lessons and I love to swim now.

Soccer class is a little silly, but he likes it. I had hoped it would be a little more real than it is. It's more of a, "kick the ball to the frisbee and you get a stamp," kind of a thing. Still, it's good at getting him to follow directions as he moves his body.

Dynamic Duo

Day 15

Claire is now waking up and looking alive now and then. She still primarily wakes to feed but the feeding time is longer, and then there is an hour of restless colic before she goes down. She seems to have gas, so we got some colic ease drops for her. I wish she would rest on a blanket and just chill, but I don't think her eyesight is good enough yet to let her just lay and stare.

Oliver is in a bedtime story rut. The same three books for the last week or so at bed. All about trucks. One is a library book, one a picture book and the last one is the Richard Scary Things that Go book. We just turn each page looking for Goldbug.

We've had lots of visitors over the long weekend and are very thankful for all the great food and gifts folks have received.

Claire is born!

I induced labor on Jan.2, 2012 after having 12 hours of contractions that weren't gaining in momentum. Claire was almost 9 pounds so I'm so glad I didn't wait any longer! The delivery was super smooth. I barely felt any pain and the delivery was much faster than doctors expected.

We are now settled at home and getting used to the new baby with existing baby routine. Which basically means you have that same vampire lifestyle of being up all night but now need to be taking your toddler to preschool, swim lessons and other activities. Some people say having a second child is more than twice the work. I'm not sure about that but I'm definitely exhausted. Exhausted to the bone. Thankfully the recovery from pregnancy has been faster (though more painful) this time around.

Baby Claire is just beautiful, and so far has a great disposition. She's a big eater and sleeps for relatively long stretches at a time (3 hours). She doesn't cry much (so far). She looks a lot like Oliver did at this age and it's such a thrill to have a little girl this time around.

Oliver is a great big brother. He's been very understanding and has seemed to mature drastically in the last week to help us out. I'm very proud of the way he has responded to this huge change in life.

Like brother like sister

Great Insight

The other day I was painting a picture for Claire's room using water color. Oliver was very interested and impressed with the picture. He looked it over and told me how much he liked the unicorn, which is actually the best part of the layout. Then he said, "Hey Mama, there is no white paint here," pointing to my tray of watercolors, "How you did make the unicorn white?"

"The paper is white, so I just painted purple all around it," I said. "Whoa! That's cool."

I thought it was a pretty great insight of his to notice that.

Santa

Yesterday we went to see Santa in downtown San Carlos. We got there right at noon when he opened and there was no line! Oliver walked right up to him and said, "Hello, I'm Oliver!" in typical Oliver fashion. Then he handed a note we wrote outlining his gift desires and one gift idea for Papa and Mama. We tried to get a good photo but Oliver didn't really want to sit on the stranger's lap or pose. Oliver declined a candy cane and we left. Later when we passed by again on our way to the car, Oliver shouted to him, "We are just going to walk away now!" indicating that he didn't want anymore Santa time. Santa laughed at that one.