Be Still My Heart

When Abigail was a baby, we took full advantage of the portable swing and bouncy seat. The swing was the only way she would sleep for the first month and the bouncy seat allowed us to put her down so we could eat dinner. We would make funny faces at her to entertain her (us) if we just wanted to give our arms a rest. One thing we never did was to buckle her. I mean, seriously, where was she going? We were always right there and she didn't even turn over until she was 4 months old. Once she started to get the hang of sitting up, we put her in her high chair and the bouncy seat and swing were put away.

It was nice to dust off the old but good pieces of baby furniture again when Madeline was born. I really was looking forward to having the same fun with Madeline that we did with Abigail. The swing wasn't so much fun for Maddy as it was for Abby. I did get some more sleep at times when Maddy wouldn't go back to sleep or if she was spitting up a lot. But the bouncy seat...she LOVES the bouncy seat. I don't know if it is because of the sitting angle is different, the bounce is a more of an up and down direction versus the swing going back and forth. Whatever the reason, as long as she liked something. I was worried that we would have no arm relief.

As with Abby, we never buckled Madeline into the bouncy seat. We were always just an arm's reach away from her and always made sure that Abigail was very gentle if she wanted to see Madeline in the bouncy seat. Of course Maddy mostly would sleep in the bouncy seat so we had to teach Abby that she couldn't touch her new baby sister if her eyes were closed. Of course now if her eyes are open or closed, we get a status report. Very cute. Minor tangent: It wasn't cute when I went to wake up Madeline one morning and Abby was with me. Abby climbed up to see Maddy in her crib and then announced in a very loud voice "Her eyes are closed!" Poor Maddy jerked awake and her lower lip stuck out before she started screaming. Poor baby.

We continued our routine until friends of ours, with three little girls of their own, mentioned that we should always have the seat belt on the bouncy seat or swing because their middle daughter decided to see how high the swing would go and their baby bounced out of the seat on to the floor. Thank goodness she was alright but they had to make a quick trip to the emergency room. When Josh and I heard this, we both stopped breathing for a moment and we promised that we would always strap her in from now on.

The other night we were having dinner and Madeline was in her bouncy seat on the floor between mine and Abigail's chair. Josh was on the other side of the table and we were having a nice dinner at home. I had Madeline smiling and cooing. Of course Abby wanted to play with her baby and got off her chair to give Maddy a kiss. I asked Abby to get back into her chair and she proceeded to push the back of the bouncy seat all the way to the floor and let go. The seat, and thus Maddy, bounced up. THANK GOODNESS I had put the strap on. Madeline just came up about 4 inches off of the bouncy seat and back down. My heart absolutely stopped. I jumped up and put Abby in time out for playing too hard on the bouncy seat. I know that she didn't know what the consequences were of playing on the bouncy seat like this but I had to do something to scare her from doing it again. As I sat down, the reality of what almost happen suddenly started to sink in. What if she wasn't strapped in...What would she have hit...I was just an arm's reach away and look at what almost happened.

Time out ended and as I just held onto the table still reeling from the event, I asked Abby to come back to the table and tell Maddy she is sorry she pushed the bouncy seat. Josh asked me what happened and I told him. He just said "thank goodness I didn't see that." I wish I hadn't seen that.

And people wonder why I am neurotic!

Rolling on The River

Madeline has decided that since most of this blog has been about Abigail, that it was her turn. Literally. Yes, she has turned over, folks. While this may seem like a normal milestone for any baby, we were amazed that Madeline was doing it at 3months old.

I remember taking Abigail to the pediatrician and one of the milestones for a 4 month old was the ability to roll from back to stomach. This takes some coordination and head control. So we were not prepared for Maddy to even attempt it before the month of December and her looming 4 month birthday. But she decided that she wanted to be the center of attention for both Josh and I. She had been rolling on her side quite successfully and I thought she would just work this out for another month before completely rolling over. Boy, was I wrong. We just were sitting on the floor after dinner playing as usual. I was playing with Abby and Josh was playing with Madeline. I heard Josh saying "Almost! Almost!". I looked over to see Maddy grab the side of the play mat and pull herself over. Wait! You can't use props. That is cheating, Madeline. So we put her back onto her back and see if she would try it again. Without hesitation, Madeline rolled to her right side and onto her stomach almost immediately as if to say "Take that, Mommy!" Yes, I was just proven wrong by a 3 month old. I can deal with it.

Now that Madeline has perfected rolling over, it has been hard to keep her on her back. She rolls over when she is put on her back anywhere. That includes the bouncy seat and swing. Now we can't forget to strap her into either of those unless she is asleep. But as you will see below, even that doesn't work all the time.

Yes, she was out cold in this picture.

The only issue we now have is that once she is on her tummy, she doesn't know how to get back to her back. But we are working on that one. By this rate she will be walking before she is a year! I don't know if I am ready for that one.

Sleep is NOT Overrated

Everyone tells you that the second child will hit milestones much earlier than the first child. “They” tell me this is because the second child wants to keep up with the first child. While I heard this, I wasn’t sure of it. I didn’t want to start comparing Madeline to Abigail and scrutinizing everything they do. I know that it sometimes is hard to not compare your child to other children but you want the reassurance that your child is on the normal track of life. Of course you secretly say to yourself that your kid is actually smarter than their kid because they can do X, Y, and Z better or at an earlier stage. I don’t know why we do it but we do.
The whole purpose of this blog was to write down those milestones in our lives. Not only baby milestones but also just my thoughts on any one day. I actually started blogging in 2006 when I found out I was pregnant. However, I wasn’t ready to share it with everyone so I eased into the blog talking about other nonsense (well, it isn’t nonsense to me but probably to you). Sorry for the tangent.

One milestone that I realized I didn’t write down was when Abigail started sleeping through the night. I knew that I would always remember that date because it was the day I returned to work after my maternity leave. We joked that Abby knew I was returning to work and therefore knew she started to sleep through the night. Well I returned to work on November 2 but Madeline was still not sleeping through the night. I would get Madeline to bed anywhere between 9 and 10 PM but would see her shining face between 2 and 3 AM. Fortunately, she would only be up for about 15-20 minutes allowing me to go back to bed until the alarm went off at 5 AM. I honestly had no clue how I was going to function a whole day at work this way but it is amazing what you do when you have no alternatives. I worked hard Monday through Thursday and then left early on Fridays to get a nap before Josh got home with the girls. I also would catch a nap on either Saturday or Sunday to sustain me through the week. But since we are not squirrels and do not store up sleep for the winter (especially when it is in the 80's here…IN NOVEMBER!) this was starting to drain me. But miraculously, by the end of the third week back at work, Madeline decided to test out sleeping through the night. THANK GOODNESS. Of course because I figured this won’t be a lasting thing, I wasn’t telling a lot of people. I really didn’t need her to prove me wrong. But the next night and even the night after that, she slept through the night from 9:30 PM to 6 AM. I think she would have slept later except I wake her up at 6 AM during the week. I will soon start pushing back the bedtime but I don’t want to move anything yet. I did see her at 3 AM on Sunday morning but we were so far out of whack on schedule on Saturday that I wasn’t surprised. But I will take her sleeping 4 out of the last 5 nights!

I got more sleep Friday night than I have had since August 12. Thank you, Madeline!

Mooove Along Cow

Since I had successfully nursed Abigail for the first year of her life while working full time, I had no issues with doing it again this time. However, since I had so many initial problems nursing, I was mentally prepared to see a lactation consultant and purchase additional items that may help me with nursing. I even resigned myself to having to supplement with formula here and there if I couldn't pump enough. (Minor tangent: I never had to give Abby formula but had to pump one or two times extra a day to make her bottles for the next day. Not the most fun and I had no clue how I would find time to do that with two kids) But it wasn't something I wanted to do. My body was made to feed my baby and I wanted to continue that with Madeline.

Breastfeeding is not exactly like riding a bicycle. Okay, maybe like riding your friend's bicycle. Same principle but different techniques sometimes have to be used to jump it over a curb. In the hospital, I asked to see a lactation consultant to make sure that I would not fall into the same problems I had last time. I slowly made it to the two week mark and the visit to the pediatrician to get Madeline's status. She was doing very well nursing and we just took off from there.

Then I dusted off my old friend, the pump. I have a love/hate relationship with this device. I love that it allows me to provide milk for Madeline when I am not with her but I hate having to lug it everywhere. It is seriously heavy! Between the pump, tubing, flanges and cooler with ice packs, my passenger seat belt keeps beeping at me thinking there is a passenger on the front seat. Nope, just my pump bag. With the experience I had from last time, I decided to start pumping early to build up my freezer stash. I wanted to make sure that I was ahead of myself by a little so I didn't have to worry.

When I pumped with Abigail, I would normally get a total of 3-4 ounces each pumping. I also was supplementing with herbal vitamins and Mother's tea. I started pumping here and there with Madeline. For some reason, my body kicked into ultra high gear thinking I was providing milk for a small village. As of Madeline's 3 month "birthday", I have almost 200 ounces frozen and I pump four bottles worth in the three times I pump a day. (I have to go down to the Medical Department at work and use one of their exam rooms to pump. It is private but a little weird) I am just so shocked in the difference my body has made between the two kids. Thankfully it has made for one less thing to stress about. I don't worry if there is milk left over in a bottle that gets thrown away by day care or if Josh takes a night feeding once in awhile.

Too bad this kind of milk doesn't go well with cookies!

The Panties Told Me To

With going back to work and Josh leaving the house as I wake everyone up, I have to get both kids ready in the morning to be out of the house by 7 AM. Madeline is easy to get ready. She just lays there looking cute as I dress her. Like this:





Abigail is a different story. She can be a little more challenging to get dressed and it always depends on if she is in the mood or not. Josh thankfully has been leaving for work 10-15 minutes later in the morning to help me out with this sometimes daunting task. While I can get Abby dressed by myself, she usually wants to do it by herself. If at all. I really don't want to be fighting with her or put her in a bad mood first thing in the morning so we try to do it in a positive way. Josh usually can convince her to get dressed by herself a lot more easily than me so I let him have at it. I just stand their with Madeline and either finish getting her ready or help Josh. But yesterday morning, she wasn't having any of it. Until Elmo told her to do it.


Abigail is a self proclaimed Elmo-holic. She loves Elmo and all things Elmo. So of course we have Elmo panties (and pajamas, and shirts, videos, dolls, you get the point) for her to put on. Convinced that this would be the easiest way to get them on her, I chose the pair with the big Elmo on them. However, this was still not coaxing her into getting dressed. Josh picked up the panties and with his best Elmo voice made the panties ask her to get dressed. Immediately, Abby turned to Elmo on the panties and said "OK!" as she pulled on her shirt. I threw Josh another pair of panties to put on since we didn't want to break the spell of the Elmo panties. She got completely dressed listening to Elmo. She even gave him a high five.


The next morning, we figured we could get away with the same trick. Sure enough, she stops fussing the minute Elmo asks her to get dressed. Abby gets dressed right away talking to Elmo the whole time. After all her clothes are on, Abigail gives Elmo a kiss (yes. she kissed the panties) and put them on her bed. Of course Josh and I are now convinced that we are going to have to pay for some sort of therapy in the future. No sooner did we share this sentiment than Abby picked up the panties and started to have a conversation with them with her voice as Elmo. She knew Elmo wasn't really in the panties. Whew!


Amazing what you come up with to get your 2 1/2 year old dressed. Who knows what the trick will be tomorrow. Otherwise she may walk out of the house like this if it was up to her:

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Back to life, back to reality

Back to life, back to reality

Back to life, back to reality

Back to the here and now yeah

Show me how, decide what you want from me

Tell me maybe I could be there for you --Soul II Soul, 1984

The inevitable has a habit of sneaking up on you. I knew that I only had 12 weeks off for maternity leave but those 12 weeks look so long in August. Not so much in October. I had been planning since I left to go back to work on November 2 so I started getting things done in October when Madeline had a more predictable schedule and I was physically able to run around town. The last week in October, one of the smart things I did was put Madeline in day care. I wanted to make sure that she could cope with the change while I was available to swing by. I also had exciting plans that week. I went to the dentist and the eye doctor. I also got a hair cut and my nails done. I also wanted the chance to do a few trial runs of getting out of the house. During my leave, getting out of the house could take 2 hours and I wouldn't care. However, I really needed to be out of the house by 7 AM. Was that going to mean I was going to have to wake up at 3 AM? Maybe. But after a few tweaks, it only took me 45-60 minutes. Not too bad in the great scheme of things. Then before I knew it, Monday November 2 came.

When I had gone on maternity leave the first time, I had come back to 700 emails. Yes, 700. This time I really thought I was going to come back to more because I am on a busier program. I had taken my computer home to at least check in on things but after just a quick call to my manager once in awhile, I soon decided that getting on my work computer wasn't necessary. I also knew that my first week back would be very slow at being efficient and getting back into the swing of things would be a work in progress.

Monday morning started at 5:00 AM. I had told Josh that everything that could be done the night before needed to be done. My purse was packed, pump was clean and lunch was made. Perfect. I got up at 5:00 AM (only after being back to bed for 20 minutes because Maddy had a 4 AM feeding) and got myself ready to go. The plan was to be done with everything I needed to do while I had two hands free by 6 to get the troops up. It almost happened like that. Madeline had decided at 5:45 that she wanted out of her bed. So I brought her downstairs while I finished breakfast and she sat happily in her bouncy seat. Then the real test started. I brought Maddy upstairs to get Abigail up at 6:00. Abby is normally a morning person (doesn't get that from me) but this morning she wasn't waking up on her own. I had to wake her up and get her dressed. Not easy to do with one hand but sometimes she is helpful and gets herself dressed. Thankfully, it was one of those days. I had them both downstairs within 10 minutes. I got Abby her breakfast and fed Maddy hers. We all got everything we needed to get done accomplished and was out the door by 6:50. I dropped everyone off and headed to work. WHOO HOO.

Of course I got NOTHING done on Monday. I come to find out that they had suspended my work account and no one could figure out how to get me back in. Called the help desk, a system administrator, the IT department, Human Resources and the Employee Service Center before I found out my MANAGER had to call the Employee Service Center to verify that I came back to work. I found that comical since he was out of town. But I was back at work. They told me to wait until Tuesday and I should be running. Nope. Had to call the help desk back (which they are hardly ever helpful) and it took my VP calling the IT director to get anything done. Finally I was able to get on my computer. But then I had to call back to get email up and running. And one more call to get my time card working. Ugh. Of course I finally get everything working to find out that my "replacement" during my leave didn't do much of anything. I now have more work to do than when I left but that is a whole other post.

The rest of the week outside work was pretty good. We had dinner every night, a clean and fed toddler and a happy baby. Now if I can just get Madeline to sleep through the night, we will be in business.

Are You Kidding Me?

Since we are down to the last few days of freedom before I have to go back to work, I planned on some fun things this past weekend. I put on the calender a few weeks ago "Theme Park". I told Josh that I didn't care what the weather was like or which theme park we went to but damn it, I want to go to a theme park. It is one of the perks that we are fortunate to enjoy living in Orlando. Not to mention that we have the HOOK UPS!!! (Minor tangent: We haven't had to pay to go to a theme park in years. My brother works at Busch Gardens so we have Sea World/Busch Garden annual passes and his girlfriend got us Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure passes for free. We also go to Disney for free with our friends who used to work there. But since they don't any more, we lost that hook up. Oh well. Thankfully, Abigail is not really into the House of Mouse)

We decided on Sea World since it was more toddler friendly and closest to us. We woke up in the morning and had a relaxing morning getting everything ready to go. I was having problems getting Abby to put her shoes on her feet by herself (because helping her would actually make her more irritated) so I told her we were going somewhere special. She looked at me inquisitively and still wouldn't put on the shoes. I simply said "Would you like to go to Sea World?" She looked up at me to make sure I wasn't joking and immediately started jumping up and down shouting "Sea World! Sea World!". The shoes got on in 3 seconds.

After Madeline's breakfast, we loaded up the double stroller, Bjorn, diaper bag, water juice and milk (because Abigail has to have one in each hand...we are teaching her double fisting early) in the car and headed for Sea World. Once we got there, unloaded the car and put a healthy dose of sunblock on everyone, we headed in. After going through the gates and the employees trying their best to corral anyone they can into a posed group shot so you can have a souvenir picture of your day at Sea World for $19.95, we walked past Sea World's newest roller coaster, Manta. I am NOT a fan of any roller coaster but since I know Josh is, I always will wait patiently for him to ride the ride...as long as the wait isn't unreasonable. We walked by Manta and the ride wait time was 20 minutes. Perfect! Usually he can get on sooner because he is a single rider. There is always at least one empty seat on the coaster. I told him to go ahead and I will wait with the girls.

As we waited under the coaster to catch Josh, Madeline started to fuss. She is not a fan of the car seat especially when she is not in motion. It is a great thing that the car seat unhooks from the car to the stroller without unbuckling but poses problems for my kid if we stop moving. So I took her out and decided to hold her while Abigail was waiting patiently for Daddy. 10 minutes...15 minutes..."Mommy, potty!". Okay, let's go. I grab the diaper bag, Madeline and Abigail and head for the bathroom. I get the potty seat out, get Abigail's pants off and lifted her on the toilet with one hand because Maddy was in the other hand. We do everything and even though it is a bit of a juggle (struggle) we head back to the coaster where we hear "Manta is experiencing temporary difficulties. Stay in line because the wait is short". Josh calls me and says he is still in line and is going to wait. Okay. We will sit and wait. I break out the snacks and Maddy decides she needs to eat. Well, there I am sitting on the curb at Sea World with the stroller in front of me and a blanket draped over Madeline so I can nurse her. Three minutes go by and Abby said "Mommy, potty!" I asked her if she can hold it because I am convinced that she doesn't really have to go but she did have a lot to drink in the car on the way over. She tells me she can't hold it and starts to walk back to the bathroom. I interrupt Maddy's mid morning snack, strap her into the Bjorn and head over to the bathroom. On the way over there, Abigail trips and starts crying. So here I am holding her, holding Madeline, holding the diaper bag and getting to the bathroom. I put her down Abby plays with everything we walk by. Ummm. Potty? I get everything out, put her on the potty and she says "No potty!" Are you kidding me? Unfortunately if she doesn't want to go, she will not go. I ask her nicely to go because, after all, I schlepped EVERYTHING over there to go. Nope. No luck. Great...we walk back to Manta and I hear "Manta is experiencing technical difficulties." Notice there wasn't any "stay in line because you are going to ride soon." Lovely. As I got back to the stroller, Josh is walking towards us because Manta was broken. The look on my face sort of said it all. In my head it said "40 minutes, 2 kids, 2 potty breaks, 5 minutes of nursing, screaming baby because she is hungry and you didn't even get to go on the damn ride...here take a kid and where can we get a beer."

I finished feeding Madeline and thankfully we had a fabulous time the rest of the day. It was also the start of their Halloween Spooktacular so we had loads of candy. I just fear the next time Josh asks if I want to go to Sea World I will simply say "Are you kidding me?"

Footnote: There were MANY opportunities for Josh to get on the coaster because every car that went by had at least one open seat. But Josh decided to wait for the front of the line since that is the best seat and the line wasn't that long. However, only FOUR people can ride in the front per car. I am down there waiting with two kids and he decides to wait in the longer line? Are you kidding me? Yup. He got an earful for that one.

Footnote 2: Don't even ask about the new Dolphins hat I got him and the chlorine.