Our Little Corner of the World: Life in the Past 6 Weeks!

"A new baby is like the beginning of all things - wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities." -Edna J. Le Shan

Life with two has been busy! Hence my lack of blogging recently! I feel like we've adjusted pretty well...the adjustment to being a family of four hasn't been NEARLY as challenging as I expected, which has been a welcome surprise! Lizzie is, for the most part, a pretty fussy baby, much like her brother was. She spends a lot of her awake time crying. Sometimes that makes it hard to get things done, especially Joseph's homeschooling. But we're managing! She is, mostly, a great baby overnight, though. Some nights it's really hard to get her down, especially if she slept a lot during the day. But MOST nights she goes to bed easily and just wakes every 2-3 hours to nurse. Overall, I'm much less sleep deprived than I was with Joseph, maybe because I just know what I'm doing a little but more this time (with nursing and parenting in general :-) ). She's definitely gained weight well...as of today she's 7 weeks old on the dot, and up to about 9lbs 7oz, a gain of over 3 pounds from her birth weight! Our pediatrician said rapid gain is relatively common in babies that started out on the small side like she did. She's a healthy and growing girl. :-) Our pediatrician, Dr. Lowe, has her on reflux medication because she has some pretty bad reflux, also similar to Joseph when he was a baby. So far, it seems to be helping a lot, and we are grateful for that.

We were so blessed to have several friends from our church bring us dinner after she was born...it was so nice not to have to figure out how to get meals on the table those nights! My friend Jessica was the first to bring us dinner when Elisabeth was a week old. Her daughter, Anna, is exactly 5 weeks older than Lizzie. It was fun to get a picture of those sweet girls together...I think they are going to be good friends, just as their older brothers have been friends since birth!

Joseph has adapted SO WELL to being a big brother! I'm so pleased! He truly loves his little sister...he loves to give her kisses, and loves to comfort (well, at least try to comfort) her when she is crying. He also loves to come up to her and say "Oh, my girl...you're so beautiful!" It warms my heart. :-)

An attempt to calm the fussy baby :-)

We've been able to make it to all of our normal fun activities with Lizzie in tow. Here we were watching the group Big Bang Boom at the McNairy Library when she was just a couple of weeks old.

We attended La Leche of Greensboro's World Breastfeeding Week event at Geeksboro. Lizzie slept away in the Boba for most of the time.

And that same day, we met Heather and Samuel at the Farmer's Market for lunch at the Moose. Samuel and Jojo always have so much fun together, but poor Heather got the responsibility of entertaining both boys while I took care of Lizzie. The boys certainly looked like they were enjoying themselves! We love these sweet friends!

Football season is now upon us, and that makes our little family very very happy! We were able to get both Joseph and Elisabeth to show us their "dab" during halftime of the Panther's game one Sunday afternoon..

We started our homeschool preschool year recently and Joseph has done great so far. Just like last year, he loves learning, and some days he even tells me "I want to do MORE school, Mommy!" after we are done for the day. He's awesome!

The sign does say "First Day of Preschool," I just couldn't keep him still long enough to get a clear picture.

Field trip to Bog Garden

Joseph has also really enjoyed the times we can take him to the park on weekends now that the weather is getting a little less sweltering...

And he recently hit a big milestone...trying his first piece of sushi (this is a big deal in our family since we love ethnic food so much!) He didn't like it but, to his credit, he ate 2-3 bites before declaring he didn't care for it.

I also had my 6-week postpartum appointment with my OB/GYN, Dr. Lowe. My mom went along with me so that I could take both kids and get pictures. It was important to me to get pictures of him with both Joseph and Lizzie together since he delivered both of them (I also have a picture of him holding Joseph at my postpartum appointment back in 2012). We often talk about how blessed we are to have him to take care of me and our children before birth and his wife (who is our pediatrician) to take care of our children after they are here. They are both so wonderful to our family and always go way way way above and beyond in caring for us.