eliza meets grant

I spent all of last week in Texas. My sweet mother, always serving our family, needed me to take care of her for a short bit. So off Eliza and I went to Texas. Even though the circumstances were a bit unfortunate, the time ended up being really great.

 I think the highlight was when my brother decided to surprise my mom and fly in for the weekend. Neither of us have seen him in a year and he had not met Eliza yet. It was wonderful to all spend some time together, even if it was so short. Eliza was great the entire time (well, except for night, she woke every two hours). We even grabbed some mexican food, but mexican food without dairy is just is not quite as amazing as mexican food with diary. 

Overall, it was a much needed time away from my cave I created for myself. I needed the push to leave and this trip was just that. I am very thankful I was finally able to just focus on Eliza and have a chance to really know her. I am eager to get to spend more time with my brother. He is still trucking away on his Special Forces training and will be finished next Spring. I am blessed to have him as my daughter's uncle, he loves them so well.

And this is what Madison did while Will was in charge of her. He did such a good job of caring for her. I think they needed some quality time together. Madison and Eliza are some lucky ladies to have a father like Will.

3 months

We made it to the three month mark, woohoo. While most things have gotten easier, we are still flailing a bit. I think that once she finally figures out the beauty of sleep, we will be golden. 

At three months:

* She is all smiles. I think the first two months were spent trying to figure out how to get her to stop screaming, I sort of forgot to really notice her personality. I am thankful I can really notice her now. She has the most captivating smile.  The toothless, full body smiles, make my heart ache because I  know how quickly they pass, but I am soaking them up now. 

* She is much more content to just be awake now. She has been pretty predictable in when she cries, she is either hungry or tired. I am so thankful for this because the not being able to fix her crying, was awful.

* She can roll from her tummy to her back. Madison was her biggest cheerleader during this accomplishment. She kept saying, "you did, liza, you did!" 

* She falls asleep on her own in the pack in play. This is huge because Madison had to be rocked for thirty minutes at this age before she would fall asleep. 

* She seems to enjoy her carseat now. This makes car rides and runs much easier on me. 

* She is still waking up quite a bit at night. We have started to give her the chance to fall back asleep when she wakes at night, so hopefully that will help her sleep longer. 

* She pulls all her shirts up to her mouth to chew ont hem. At first, we thought it was accidental, but she knows what she is doing. This causes her shirts to become soaking wet. 

* She really likes to chew on her hands. She is only able to find her thumb every few days, but when she does she sucks on to it with a passion. 

the slow turn

It has been about three months since Eliza arrived. I have made it pretty clear we have struggled to find our footing, but I felt quite a shift last week. I think it is easy to not acknowledge the slow transitions in life, to just let them happen, and wonder how we got to where we are. So I just want to make a note to myself that the shift is here.

I am finding bits of myself again. I am finding strength where there was not any before. I am growing confident in my ability to parent both girls. I have time to think thoughts that do not involve dairy allergies and potty training (well, only sometimes...)

 I really do think the turning point was when I finally worked up the courage to take both girls jogging last week. The task seemed too huge just two weeks ago. The process of getting everything ready, not knowing if they would scream the whole time, wondering if Madison would pee all over herself, prevented me from going. Yet, last week, all of that did not seem so crippling and I just went. Its moments like that I feel I am slowly reclaiming myself. My children dictate so much of my life, to feel like I can take back just a sliver, did wonders for my outlook. I felt like I was owning parenthood instead of the other way around.

I do not feel like I am totally out of the clear. Eliza still wakes up four times a night. I also took the girls running on Wednesday during a monsoon, that did not end well. However, I feel a turn happening. My life is making a bit more sense and life with two children is more manageable. 

something from nothing

I only have a few photos on my phone from the last couple of weeks. So I will stretch those to try and make a blog post. I really do feel like I am slowing finding my groove, but the exhaustion is still a bit overwhelming sometimes. Our two year old seems to want to wake up more times a night than our newborn now, which is just lovely. This new predicament has decreased our sleep intervals even more than what they were, think maybe an hour and a half of continuous sleep for us. It is amazing to see how little sleep we can actually survive on though. 

Despite the exhaustion, we went to pick berries yesterday. Madison really enjoyed picking the strawberries and I delighted in seeing her discovering something new. It was just a lot to juggle with two kids. I am proud that I was able to handle the outing all on my own though. 

And to really wear myself out yesterday, I took the girls running for the first time in the jogging stroller. They did great. It was incredible warm, so we played in the water hose afterwards. I felt some what normal yesterday with all the things I did with both girls in tow. However, I could barely stand once Will got home and was in bed by 9. 

I think tomorrow we might attempt a day trip to Estes Park. We will likely just walk around town and head back home. 

That is all I have for today. The little one seems to be on an eat every hour schedule today, so I am off to go feed her.