Leah, Emma and Claire (and Jen and John)

I am having a hard time finding time to update this site. Pre Claire I used to do it while I was listening to the girls fall asleep. It was convenient that I was close to their room when I needed to go in and tell them to settle down in my big mean voice

Claire is a very good baby - during the day. She eats and naps and is content to be by herself and look around. In the evenings she can be pretty high maintenance. Although it can be a bit of a challenge, her timing works because John is home. He usually gets the girls sorted out for bed while I am with Claire. Until recently she would settle in and go to sleep for the night around 10-10:30pm. The last 4 nights she has been a bit challenging and hasn’t settled down til closer to midnight. We have even tried giving her a soother with very limited success. She either wants it or she doesn’t and it has spent more time flying out of her mouth lately. The good news is that once she goes down she’s good for the night. She usually feeds once in the night but today she didn’t wake up hungry til after 6am.

It’s hard to believe that she’s only 7 weeks today. She seems so big to me. She is definitely smiling now. It can still be a lot of work but if she’s in the mood she’s all smiles. She’s also more alert and is awake longer (mostly at night…) and more aware of the world around her. Unless she’s hungry she isn’t choosy about who holds her and she even indulges her big sisters whenever they ask to hold her (which thankfully isn’t all that often).

John’s parents arrived back from Costa Rica on Thursday and spent the weekend with us. Emma and Leah really enjoyed their visit. They get so excited when we have visitors (it comes complete with squealing and a little dance) and its nice to see that they enjoy their family. John and I took advantage of the help and spent Saturday looking for something to go under the tv and watching Drew’s basketball team play in Guelph. Claire tagged along but was no bother. She didn’t even flinch when I fed her in a high school gym with very loud music. Lucky for me I don’t think there is a noise quite as piercing as squealing toddlers so Claire is well adjusted in that department!

Not much else to report. We’ve had more snow and the girls have been out enjoying it. They finally figured out that you can crawl around and roll in the snow (I couldn’t show them with Claire attached to me in the Bjorn). They are also really getting quite creative with their imaginative play. They spend more time sitting in closets going on adventures than they do playing with their actual toys. Napping is still hit or miss but when they don’t nap they play. If I go in they tell me to please not come in - that they are busy talking to each other. I also keep on forgetting to write that they have favourite colours - Emma’s is pink and Leah’s is yellow. They are quite obsessed and it’s pretty amusing although irritating when trying to find things like yellow sunglasses…

Here’s some video to go with my lucky picture

The girls

I love this picture. I think it captures just how much the girls love their baby sister. I know I’m usually full of moaning and groaning but this picture makes me feel very lucky.

- We had a very nice Valentine’s Day. My present was a big snow storm that made John stay home. It was the first day in a very long time where we just stayed home and did nothing. Usually when John is home I get antsy to go out and do something. The girls had fun in the snow (at least 40cms of it) but it was really cold and windy so they were only out for about 30mins.

-Last week John got a sinus infection and he was pretty sick for a few days. Luckily the rest of us stayed healthy and all three of the girls slept well so I was able to let John get some rest.

 -Claire is still a very easy baby. She eats a fair bit during the day but she’s very efficient. I can have her fed and burped in as little as 10 mins now. John gave her a bottle on Saturday and I gave her one this morning and she guzzled them no problem. While I hate pumping I know we have to be consistent with giving her one so that she’ll take it when she’s older and a little more with it. We still haven’t given her a soother.

-Claire is still sleeping very well and lately I have only had to feed her once in the night. The worst night I’ve had since she was born was Sunday night but it had nothing to do with her - I had my first migraine in over a year and I was up puking. By morning I was fine - just tired but knowing that it wasn’t any of my kids that had kept me up made it easier to deal with.

-Claire had her 1 month well baby check up on Tuesday. I’ll update the growth chart page later with all the stats but she is now just over 10lbs. She is doing very well and the doctor had no concerns. When we were in the NICU one of the nurses said to me that one nice thing about having preemies is that they are babies for so much longer. I now understand exactly what she meant - Claire seems so big and it’s like she is growing so fast. I completely forgot to ask about her puking because I was worried about Leah. I think we’ve figured out that the puking is due to her eating too much. I tend to lose track of time with everything and sometimes I think she feeds when she’s not really all that hungry. I have to start paying more attention to when she last ate.

-Leah is progressing but it’s still not good. We’ve got her pooping every day now but she’s still terrified unless its really loose. I had thought maybe she had fissures but in talking to the doctor about her symptoms he doesn’t think its internal and an external examination was all clear. He has doubled her colace and scheduled her for another appt in 2 weeks. She is making progress - it’s just very slow but that was to be expected. It’s very hard on all of us but she is a brave little girl and if anything she’s happier than ever. Little weirdo

-The girls got into preschool for September - May 2008 (YIPPEEEE!). The morning program was full but they will go three days a week from 1:30 -4pm. I was a bit disappointed they didn’t get in for the morning but the few times I’ve had to get the three of them out the door in the morning has convinced me it’s a good thing especially seeing as Claire won’t be as easy when she’s 9 months.

Claire was one month old yesterday. I was really happy I disproved my theory about being wound up during pregnancy. I have managed to stay relatively relaxed this past month and I have a relatively relaxed baby to show for it. She has her moments but there is always a reason.

She’s still pretty much a newborn so really there’s not much to tell. She’s started to be much more alert this past week and can now follow her mobile and turn her head when she hears our voices. She has a very strong neck and has been known to pitch herself backwards. While she isn’t deliberately putting her hands in her mouth if she happens to come across her fist she will give it a few licks and a good suck. She started smiling yesterday but it’s not consistent yet - I am pretty sure these aren’t gas smiles. She’s has also unfurled and now likes to kick her feet and wave her arms. The arms make me laugh - she looks like she’s a spastic rapper when she really gets going.

She is doing extremely well on the feeding front. She’s got a little belly and is starting to look chubby. The only issue we’ve had is that she can be a bit barfy and tends to spit up quite a bit. I’ve had myself convinced a couple of times that she has reflux (the girls were on meds for this) and I plan to talk to the doctor about it next week. I think feeding was my biggest concern going into our second newborn experience and I am really relieved it is going well. I probably should be pumping more in preparation for trying out a bottle with her but I’m really not in any rush to use the pump again. She is also pooping well. She pooped pretty much every diaper change for the first couple weeks but now she’s settled in to about once every day. I moved her up to size 1 diapers yesterday. She could probably stay in newborn but it is amazing how slowly you go through diapers with just one baby!

Sleep was my second biggest concern going in. Thankfully she is also sleeping well - as well as I expected anyways. When she first came home we bought a remote control heater and put it by my chair at the end of our bed so I could feed her without freezing. I then started feeding her in bed with the boppy and then finally when my parents were just about to leave I learned how to feed her while lying down. While she has gone 4 and 5 hour stretches she is going 3 hours these days. I am tired but I drink one cup of coffee in the morning and it is manageable. I will have to get her sleeping in her crib at some point but at this point we are in survival mode and doing what works best for our family.

I know it’s early but her eyes are still blue. It wil be very weird if John and I have three blue eyed daughters. Her hair is thinning out a bit and is brown with red highlights. Apparently she looks just like I did when I was a baby - I will have to dig out some pictures. She doesn’t really look like either of the girls but some of the stuff she does reminds me of them. She has this scrunched up worried look that is all Emma and sometimes when she’s sleeping she’s just like Leah.

Having her around has been an easy adjustment for all of us. The girls are loving but not overbearing. The only major thing they’ve had to give up is their position in the car and they didn’t care at all. John is enjoying his sleep as there isn’t much he can do to help me out at night. I have recovered just fine from the section and life with the girls coupled with the last trimester of pregnancy prepared me for functioning on minimal sleep.

Here are some pics I took yesterday. I forgot how easy it was to photograph something that hardly moves!

Relaxing on her bouncer seat - the bouncer doubles as a sling shot when you have toddlers around. Thankfully we figured that one out with a doll and not Claire!

Looking around

One thing that sucks about winter babies is that it is too cold to hang out in their diaper.

My parents left this morning. Now the true test begins.

I can’t believe Claire is 4 weeks today. It seems like we’ve had her forever. She is doing really well so far and I am still relatively well rested. We’ll see how it goes now that I have to get up with the girls. I will never understand why they can’t sleep past 7am…maybe I’ll call them on Saturday and Sunday mornings when they’re in University to punish them for what they’re doing to me.

I haven’t updated in awhile. Even with my parents here it’s been busy having the three of them. I am very grateful that my parents were able to stay so long. My goal was to get Claire feeding without any issues and for me to be physically able to take care of the three of them. It was very sad to see my parents go this morning but I know I can handle them now. My mom’s parting words were to not try and be supermom - that really I just needed to keep the three of the fed and clean.

We are still having issues with Leah. She is still scared to poop or bathe. I took her to the doctor last week and we discussed some strategies to get past this. He is very concerned that she is going so long between poops and has put her on a stool softener. While she is still holding it when it does come out (when we physically put her on the potty) it is soft. While she still gets very upset when she goes it isn’t as violent. Baby steps. This whole thing has been far more stressful than having a newborn and I just wish she would feel better. Her mood is excellent though (it wasn’t for awhile) so I am thankful that she appears to be feeling much better. Leah and Claire have appts next week so we will follow up then.

I’ll post more about Claire when she’s 1 month. Here are some pics. There are tons more on Flickr.

The girls ‘playing’ colour shapes bingo

We took Claire to see Great Grandpa this past weekend

Claire and Granny

Claire and Grandpa