Well, I’ve got about six minutes to kick out a summary of the past four months before I fall dead asleep on this keyboard.
Today was my first day back at work. I’ll be sticking with my old part time schedule for the time being which makes me very happy. I spent last week transitioning Polly into day care, working up from two hours on Monday to six on Friday. This was ostensibly for Polly’s benefit but also helped ease me into it so that I was able to make it into my first day of work without a tear-streaked face.
So, Polly! She is such a doll. I’m sorry we haven’t been keeping you apprised as she went through her phases…from being a squishy mewling newborn, to when she’d lie on her back and march in place with an intent look on her face, to when she’d lie there blowing bubbles and waving her arms around like an angry crab, or when she’d lie back in her bouncy chair and twiddle her hands under her chin in a very evilly scheming manner.
Theo was an easy baby — a great eater, a great sleeper, hardly ever cried — so to preserve the balance of the universe I’d been expecting Polly to be a royal pain. So far, however, the scales have remained tipped in our favor. She doesn’t sleep as well as Theo did and is still spending a good chunk of the night in our bed with us, but we usually get a good 4-6 hour stretch from her in her crib every night. She is very social, more so than Theo was I think, and smiles and gurgles all the time. She has also been quick with physical milestones and started rolling over at 3 months and lately has been inch worming around on her belly.
Frankly, I can’t stand how sweet she is with her shining eyes and a big beaming smile. Her hair (which sticks straight up in the air, by the way) is so so soft and oh, the way she smells! Well, okay, maybe sometimes she smells not so fresh but underneath it all she has that delicious baby smell. It takes every ounce of restraint I have to keep from gobbling her up.
Theo has been adjusting well. He has definitely ramped up his testing of us and other classic Terrible Twos behavior, but he also makes us laugh on a daily basis and can bring me to tears with how sweet he can be sometimes, like when he sang “You Are My Sunshine” to me one night as I was putting him to bed, or when he rocks Polly in her car seat while singing “Rock a Bye Baby.” He has never been hostile towards Polly but was largely disinterested in her until a few months ago. He becomes more and more interested in her all the time and likes to show her off to his classmates.
We’ve been careful to spend quality time doing Theo stuff. It was rough for a few weeks this summer when Matt injured his back and had to have surgery. He was unable to bend over or lift anything more than 10 pounds for several weeks, so he could not pick up either child, vacuum, do laundry, load/unload the dishwasher (although I did point out that he could wash dishes by hand), etc. Aunt Jessica stayed with us while Matt got his surgery so that was a huge help, then Nana came to visit and help out right after the operation. He is fully recovered now.
We thought about taking Theo out to the 4th of July fireworks but decided in the end not to. It just seemed like it could go badly, what with Matt’s back, the crowds, the late hour, and his unknown reaction to the fireworks. Watching them on TV that night after Theo was sound asleep, though, I felt sad that we hadn’t let him experience that. Nearly everything I encounter now I see through the filter of my children’s eyes. I feel like we say “no” to him so much and I wish he could understand that far from denying him everything, we’d do anything for him. Our outings, our meals, our days, our lives are structured around his needs and wants.
We’ve been having a fun summer. Matt and Theo have been spending time in our “pool” (the hot tub with the temp turned way down) and Theo has been going “unnawada!”, although he forgets sometimes to hold his breath. He loves the water so we enrolled him in swim classes for the fall. We’ve been having lots of visits fro family and friends all summer and there is more to come. We’ve also been on a camping trip, two nights and three days. Being in the tent was too much excitement for Theo and he did not want to go sleep. He kept climbing out of the Pack and Play to bounce around on the air mattress Matt and I were going to sleep on. Eventually, about 3 hours past his bedtime, we put him in the minivan and belted him into his car seat. He almost seemed relieved to be confined, and immediately took on a glassy-eyed stare and then feel asleep a short while later. Naps were completely out of the question, however, and by Day 3 Theo was pretty much falling apart.
Well, I know this is very disjointed and I’ve forgotten a bunch of stuff but I do want to get this update posted. We’ll try to do better with keeping up to date. I don’t have time to stick photos inline with this entry, but there are a bunch of new ones on our Flickr site.
