Week in Review

This has been a LONG week, it seems like. I guess all the thrush stuff has been tiring. Mollie has been more irritable this week, and we're hoping that it's due to her mouth hurting. I mean, we don't want her mouth to hurt, but we'd rather this yucky mood be due to that if it does hurt rather than just a new personality trait, you know?

Yesterday after Natalie had breakfast, I asked her what she wanted to do and gave her some options. She said she wanted to play with blocks. I realized right as she said that that I had some laundry that HAD to go into the dryer and some things I was supposed to sterilize. I asked her if she wanted to help me in the kitchen first. She happily agreed and proceeded to drag a chair from the table up to the counter so she could help. ;) So, I worked on things while she stood and talked to me. She found a big container of plums on the counter and really wanted one, so I cut it up for her. She calls them "tums," which sounds a LOT like "tim" which is how she says Kim. Kim came over for dinner Thursday, so it's been hard discerning if Natalie is hoping Kim will come back or in need of a plum, but I digress. ;) So we finished up our kitchen stuff, and Natalie went into the living room. I sat down at the computer to send a quick email, and Natalie came back to me and wanted a "bah." I was baffled. I kept asking her what she meant, and she kept repeating the same word, but she said it wasn't a ball that she wanted. I asked her to show me, and she took my hand (LOVE this!) and led me to her toys . . . and the blocks. Sheesh! I had totally forgotten about our plan! She does not forget anything!!! So, we started to play with blocks, but quickly moved on to puzzles because, after all, she is only not-quite-two and doesn't always know what she really wants. ;) We had fun puzzling though. :)

Here are some photos of her eating her "tums" in the kitchen.

Natalie and Brad have this "thing" where they look at each other sideways and then a chase commences. Natalie thinks this side-looking-face is hilarious. Oftentimes, she'll be sitting at the table and say, "Luh, Mommy!" so I look, and below is the face that I'm met with. I can't help it, it cracks me up every.single.time. Below that, just for fun, is Mollie's take on "the face." :)

Here's a story from Brad - I'm recounting it for him, so hopefully I get it right. :)

Yesterday, Brad officially received a really cool award at work (yay Brad!!!!), so we decided to go out for dinner to celebrate. This just goes to show how much your life changes with TWO kids - we decided the best option would be to go to the food court at Quail Springs Mall because it's a bit of a drive, there are lots of options, Natalie would enjoy it, and it would be loud and no one would notice much if Mollie wasn't totally happy. Then we could walk around at the mall a bit. Somehow, we keep forgetting that we apparently have one of the only babies on the planet that doesn't enjoy car rides. Or maybe we just keep persisting, hoping she'll get used to it. No such luck yet. Mollie was not happy most of the way there, but Brad managed to get her to calm down by rocking her infant seat once we got there. So we made it to the food court, got our food, and were pleasantly surprised that one of the "car" tables had just become free - score! Mollie decided to give us just exactly enough time to eat before she got upset, so that worked well. We were able to eat and Natalie really had fun. After we cleaned up, we tried pushing Mollie in the stroller, but she still wasn't happy. It was getting close to mealtime for her, so I decided to take her to the car and feed her there. While I did that, Brad took Natalie to this little play area in the mall. It's not much to get excited about, but Natalie enjoyed it. One of the "attractions" there is a plastic 2-person boat. When they got there, a little girl who was probably about 4 was sitting in the boat playing patty-cake with . . . well, no one. :) Natalie went over to the boat and used ALL her might to get into it on her own. The little girl asked her if she knew how to play, and she just loooooooked at the girl, then looked back at Brad with a huge grin. He just laughed. The little girl continued to play alone and Natalie stayed in the boat. After a bit, the little girl, a bit confused, asked Natalie if she could even talk at all. Natalie just looked at Brad and grinned HUGELY again, as if to say, "Daddy, get a load of this girl! She's talking to me!" But she never really talked back to the girl. It's so funny that she's just so used to seeing the world through us that she's not totally aware that the world is aware of her too! ;) :)

Blue

Blue. That's a) the color of Mollie's mouth AND b) my mood lately. I found out on Wednesday morning that I have thrush. Yay. I have refrained from mentioning it on here, but I've had lots and lots of issues with breastfeeding this time around. I don't know how long I've had it, but I have something going on pretty much since Mollie was 1 week old. Now, it wasn't thrush back then, but I'm not exactly sure when it started. So on top of the pain that I'm dealing with, I have to take medicine, cut sugar, increase water, sterilize everything, yada-yada-yada. Oh, and use this stuff in Mollie's mouth that makes it blue. Like crazy blue. Elizabeth had a little boy in the nursery at church a couple weeks ago whose parents were using the same thing but didn't mention it. The girls in the nursery thought the baby had gotten hold of a marker and and were freaking out. THAT kind of blue. Fun.

I have some good news. We ended up seeing the doctor today about Mollie's thrush, and they said we should stop using the blue stuff (yay!) even though they were the ones who told us to start using it. That's ok. Now she'll be on the same medication that I'm on. Hopefully it works quickly for both of us! I am sooooooooo ready to just have a normal nursing experience. So. Ready!

You can't completely tell, but here's Mollie a couple days ago with the blue stuff. It really looks so odd in person. We're so relieved to be able to stop using it!

Walkin'

This morning after breakfast and a nice little bath for Miss Mollie, I decided to take the girls on a walk. Mollie wanted to take a nap, and Natalie wanted to go "ah-side," and the weather is really mild today (it was like 75 at the time!), so I figured a walk was the logical solution. Because it didn't seem too warm and Mollie isn't always too fond of the carseat that locks into the double stroller, I decided to wear Mollie in the Moby and just put Natalie in the single stroller. It worked well since Natalie seems a little more content to just sit in that one, Mollie is always happy in the Moby, and that stroller has cupholders where I can put all my stuff - phone, garage door opener, etc. Well, it was a tad too warm and a lot too humid ;) to really make it enjoyable to carry Mollie that way, but we powered through it. Mollie was asleep within seconds of beginning on the walk, Natalie was happy the whole way, and we were out for a whole 30 minutes! ;) I'm sure we were a sight to see!

JBF Goodies

Yesterday was the JBF presale, and I found TONS of cute clothes for Natalie. They had so many things in her size that I found plenty without even going through all the racks. Somehow I kind of miscounted my items and ended up with quite a few more shirts and jeans than we probably need. Although I bought jeans in 2T and 3T, and it looks like the 3T will be too long for her for quite a while. Oh, and one pair of jeans was 4T, which is frustrating! So we are set for jeans for quite a while!

I found some really cute dresses, plenty of PJ's, a jacket, and a winter coat! Unfortunately, I didn't find much for Mollie's size, but I did find some cute things and I think we're pretty much set until the spring, so between now and then we'll figure something out if we need to. :)

Here's most of the clothes I got Natalie. They look so much better in person!

Here are the outfits I found for Mollie:

A plus B does not always equal C, sometimes it equals 1,417

Natalie is so much fun lately - she's just like a little sponge, soaking up so many new things! She is learning so much we can hardly believe it! Since she's so interested in letters and numbers and doing fairly well with those, I figured it would be good to really try to introduce colors and shapes to her. She has a book called Apes and Shapes that has a wheel that you turn to choose the right shape for each page. I don't expect her to totally "get" that, but she likes to turn the wheel, so we turn the wheel and I try to label the shapes for her and see if she picks up on some of them. For some reason, she has picked up on "oval" from the start, but she is totally lost on all the other shapes. Here's a common exchange between us:

Me: What's this one? (it's a circle)
Nat: Um, ooful
Me: No, it's a circle.
Nat: Ohhhh yah!
Me: Can you say circle?
Nat: Sir-sil
Me: Good!

Then we go through a few more shapes, and end up back at the circle.
Me: Do you remember what this one is?
Nat: Ummm yah!
Me: OK, what is it?
Nat: Sare!
Me: No, not a square. What is it?
Nat: Ummmm . . . ZEBA!!!
Funny, I didn't realize that was a shape at all!

I am an accountant. I like math - although most accountants will tell you that's not a requirement for liking accounting because not that much of it is really math - but I do like it. I also like grammar. I like things that are black and white. I'm not a fan of shades of gray. I like things that have ONE answer - and to be frank, I like it when I find that ONE answer. Being aware of these things has helped me to come to a new realization. Although I could have told you almost two years ago when Natalie was a newborn that I didn't think my favorite time in her life was going to be the newborn months, I couldn't have told you exactly why. I didn't understand it, and I just didn't feel that my personality totally meshed with caring for a newborn. I now realize that it's because, when it comes to all things baby, A + B doesn't usually = C, and sometimes it = 1,417, which I never knew was an option. Or sometimes it = 704, which I thought could be an option, but thought that it was a long shot. Or maybe, just maybe, at the end of the day, A + B = "ZEBA!" Who knows?! Apparently, not me.

How Time Flies #467

Tomorrow is the big JBF consignment sale - yay! Brad brought down our tubs of 3-6 and 6-9 month baby clothes so that I could see if we need any winter clothes for Miss Mollie or if we're covered. As I was going through them, I had such fond memories of Natalie in the little outfits, and I can hardly believe that my beautiful girl who sings the ABC song with me and begs and pleads to go "A-Zoo" and "Ah-side" is the same little being who sat, smiled, and drooled all over these tiny clothes just mere months ago. It's just amazing. I found myself looking at some of the 6-9 month clothes, going, "Seriously?! Mollie is going to be wearing these kind of soon? I think Natalie just outgrew them!" *sigh* Time flies!!!!

Oh, and I have to address my excitement over the fact that Mollie was awake next to me, cooing happily as I sorted clothes and talked to her. Yay for awake time during the DAY!!

Tummy Time

Mollie's been holding her head up for short times pretty much since she was born. Despite the fact that I have to admit we've been slacking a bit with Tummy Time, her neck muscles are definitely getting stronger!

Unfortunately, these photos were taken at 4:53 AM today. Mollie has gotten into a routine of sleeping almost all day (although I don't let her sleep more than 2 hours at a time), and having really fun, happy awake time from about 3:30 am to 5:30 am. Ugh. I guess I should be glad she's happy and not crying during that time, but come on, Mollie! Mommy and Daddy need sleep!!

Zoo!!

I took the girls to the zoo on Friday. We met Katie, Brooke, and Summer there. It was my first time taking the girls out by myself, and it went really well. Natalie had a blast, and hardly wanted to sit or stand in the stroller at all, but she minded fairly well. Natalie had a little ketchup incident while I was kind of tied up feeding Mollie, but a stranger mommy was right there to the rescue to help with wet wipes, which was SUPER sweet! She and her friend were there with kids that were probably 3-6 years old, and they said they were impressed with Katie and I being out before noon with a newborn and a toddler. :)

This is the only picture I managed to take on this zoo trip, and I think it pretty much sums up how all the female Billheimers felt after our outing . . . this was taken just as we were leaving the parking lot of the zoo - and we were only there for a couple hours!

She Smiled!!

OK I keep forgetting to tell people this, but Mollie smiled for the first time on Monday! I was so excited! I had been saying that I thought she'd probably smile at Natalie first, but she smiled when I was getting ready to feed her - so I guess the first smile can be attributed to milk! I thought maybe I had imagined it because she didn't smile again for days. Then after I fed her in the night on Thursday night/Friday early morning, she smiled really big when I said, "Aren't you ever going to smile again?" and smiled at her really big. Brad got to catch a glimpse of the end of that smile. So . . . very exciting stuff! My money's still on Natalie to get the first laugh though! :) Let's hope the smiles become more frequent!

Sweet Natalie

This is my new favorite picture of Natalie. I somehow didn't upload it with the others.

She's been singing the ABC song with me lately, and it's absolutely adorable. She mumbles a lot of the letters, but she's getting better. I'm going to attempt to capture it on video. We'll see how that goes. ;)

My Morning with Natalie

This morning, Mollie pretty much went right to sleep after her first feeding, so Natalie and I had lots of time to play together. After she got dressed, I somehow managed to convince her to let me do her hair in a fun way. I let her play with the package of tiny plastic hair bands. She got them everywhere, but her hair is adorable AND she even helped me "EEN UP!" I was thrilled since she usually fights me every single step with her hair - and that's why it is always down and semi-messy. ;) Oh, and it's been FOREVER since I even attempted to do her hair, and I cannot believe how long and thick it's gotten. So neat!

Once her hair was done, I convinced her to let me take pictures - something else that she hasn't been too interested in lately. We had a lot of fun, and I think I got a bunch of cute shots. Can't believe our (older) baby is going to be 2 in less than a month. She's growing into such a fun little girl!

Sleeping & Stretching

Earlier this evening, I had to wake Mollie up to eat, and she decided to stretch, stretch, stretch, and then fall back asleep! This is pretty unusual! Usually she stretches, fills her diaper, then she's ready to eat. Did I mention we have to give her sufficient time to do this before every feeding or we'll end up having to change 3 diapers before I get to feed her? It's insane the amount of diapers we go through. We have used well over 300 diapers at this point! That is just crazy!

It's hard to really see here, but the above photo shows what is affectionately referred to in our household as "crazy-mad-scientist-hair," and this example is certainly not the worst of it. ;)

I alllllmost caught an allllllmost smile above. It's coming soon, I just know it!

Another Comparison

We were looking at my mom's old photo albums last weekend, and Kim and I thought some photos of me as a baby really resembled Mollie. I was really surprised to see a resemblance, to tell you the truth! I know they aren't exact, and I honestly don't care who she looks like ;) :) but I think it's fun to try to match things up! Here are a couple examples.

A Comparison

I've been asked by a few people how Mollie's size compares with Natalie's, so I thought I'd post Natalie's 1-month and 2-month pictures. I wanted to do this anyway, but thought maybe I was the only one who'd be interested. :) I think Mollie resembles Natalie more at 2 months, although Natalie weighed a bit more and looks a little chunkier. :) It makes sense, though since Natalie was a month early. What do you guys think? :)

Natalie at one month (6 lbs 9 oz)

Natalie at two months (9 lb 11 oz)

Mollie at one month (9 lbs)

One Month & More

Miss Mollie Grace is ONE month old today! It's so hard to believe! While there is still lots of adjusting going on, I feel like we are settling in to a new "normal." I took Mollie to her one-month appointment yesterday, and she now weighs 9.02 pounds! That means she's gained almost 2 pounds in 2 weeks! Yay! This means that we have the total OK from the doctor to let her sleep as long as she wants to at night . . . which means our doctor is my new best friend! To make sure she was getting more than enough fluids, the doctor wanted us to wake her after 4-5 hours at night because of some slight jaundice she was still seeing a couple weeks ago. It killed me to wake her every night and then try to feed a sleepy baby. I am so excited to let her sleep now! We were blessed to have a really awesome night last night! This good news totally overshadowed the fact that before they called us back, I got pooped on in the waiting room. Hardly any got on Mollie, and of course I had an extra outfit for her but not for ME! It's the first time that's happened to me with Mollie. Ah, the joys of motherhood. She was pretty fussy for the entire appointment, and I was telling Brad that I must have really mellowed and wizened up or something because if Natalie had pooped all over at an appointment at that age and then been fussy the whole time and I was by myself, I would have been a nervous wreck, but this time, I was like, yeah whatever. It happens! Yay for mellowing! ;) :)

So Mollie is still a great eater and sleeper, and she's finally happy being awake a little more each day. She is another baby who needs to be swaddled, but that's ok. We're used to it from Natalie. Brad's an awesome swaddler, but I am not, so we got a couple cotton SwaddleMe blankets so that helps me a lot! Mollie's got a nice case of baby acne right now, as you can see. It peaks between weeks 4 & 6, so hopefully it won't be around too much longer - and it could get worse before it gets better, but we're hoping it doesn't. It's a purely cosmetic thing though, so it's not like it matters really. She is really starting to "track" objects that you put in front of her, which is neat. It makes me feel like she's more aware of us, which is good! I am so excited to see a smile - hopefully soon!

The last two photos here are of Natalie sleeping. Just thought it was cute how she sleeps with like a million "babies." Her eyes are open in one, but she must have just opened them for a second, because she was totally asleep. And speaking of Natalie and bedtime, I am enjoying this so much more lately. She had been kind of fighting bedtime for a while, but we're back to our usual routine - and it's even more special I think because she likes me to lie in bed with her and she's trying to "read" the books with us. Our favorite one to read together is Snuggle Puppy by Sandra Boynton (LOVE her!). We giggle and read and sing together and it just makes my heart swell. How did I get to be so blessed?!

First, the obligatory "pink bear" photo: