Up until he was about three months old, Charlie woke up every 2.5 to 3 hours, wouldn't nap for more than 45 minutes during the day, would occasionally decide to stay up all night long, and would cry from about 5 pm until 8 pm, usually starting right when I was in the middle of making dinner. Apparently, this is normal baby behavior. Apparently, Claire was not normal. We learned to appreciate the baby swing and its ability to keep Charlie calm long enough to cook dinner and grandmas willing to come over during the witching hour. I loved the days when I managed to get Claire and Charlie to nap at the same time, so that I could take a nap too. I often felt frustrated by my inability to figure out what Charlie needed. Then, Charlie figured out how to suck his thumb and became a much happier baby. One night he went to bed at 7:30 and slept until 5:00 am. He did this a couple of nights in a row, and then one morning I woke up, it was 7 am, and Charlie was still asleep. Life started to look much rosier. The days of colic and night feedings seem like a lifetime ago. I'm not in the least bit nostalgic for that stage of babyhood, even as Charlie seems to get bigger and more person like each day.
Charlie at 4 months - June 22, 2011
At four months, Mister Charlie is a pretty easy going, happy baby. He likes to lay on the floor where he can kick and watch all of the people and animals in his life. He seems to prefer watching Claire to just about anyone. He's started reaching for and grabbing toys. He likes to have something to do with his hands. For several weeks he would wring his little hands, and then it finally occurred to us that he might actually like a toy or a blanket. He kicks his legs anytime he is excited. He's rolled over a couple of times and I half expect him to start chasing after Claire. Charlie's teeth are working on pushing their way through his gums, and he chews on anything he can get to his mouth. Kisses on his cheeks and tummy guarantee a smile, if not a giggle.
He has an ever expanding vocabulary of sounds - my favorite is a cross between a squeal and a yell and communicates pure excitement and seems to say "look at me." Charlie has figured out that he has to be loud if he wants to be heard above his sister. Based on his earlier seriousness, we thought he might be our quiet child, but as he starts to reveal himself to us, his introverted parents are preparing themselves for a house filled with noise and non-stop activity.
At his four month check up he weighed 14 pounds and was 25 inches long. He's developmentally right where he should be, and it doesn't look like we need to continue to age adjust based on his early arrival. I think it is normal, as a parent, to worry that your kid might not be developing normally, and professional reassurance to the contrary is comforting and welcome.
May 31, 2011
As I write these posts about what Charlie and Claire are doing, I find myself wrapped up in nostalgia and a longing for the future. I know that I will miss Charlie's immobility, yet I'm looking forward to watching him crawl and walk and the independence they bring. I'll miss the quiet of his baby sounds as he plays happily in one place while Claire plays happily someplace else. Soon, he will be in Claire's things and he won't be oblivious when she grabs a toy out of his hands, but I look forward to their interacting and their hopefully being friends and playmates (with some hope from the picture of Claire showing her sweet side). I simultaneously enjoy the closeness of nursing while counting down the months until Charlie is weaned. I like to daydream about the trips we can take when they get older, not planning around naps, lazy summer days characterized by hours at the pool and kids curled up reading on the sofa during the heat of the day. In the throes of raising a baby and a preschooler it is easy to romanticize the future and forget to enjoy what they are doing right now - to enjoy each kiss that brings a smile to his face and the fact that right now Charlie and Claire want nothing more in the world than to be with us.
Two months that is, which means that he has officially moved from newborn status to that of infant. He still seems pretty sleepy, but Charlie has woken up. He cries and grumps. You can see him trying to figure out this strange place that isn't the womb. I enjoy watching his eyes open wide, trying to take in everything that enters his field of vision, the way he'll crane his neck to see something that caught his eye. We've gotten a few smiles, most of them in his sleep. In his waking moments, he seems a little frustrated with his inability do anything but lay on his back and flail his arms.
We spent Charlie's two month birthday with an early visit from the Easter Bunny. (Claire had a date to go skiing and egg hunting at Brighton with her Grandpa Matt and Uncle Neal on Easter Sunday). He woke up just in time to help Claire look for eggs and seemed to enjoy being part of the activity and being held and loved by his adoring grandmas.
At his two month check-up he weighed 10 pounds and 12 ounces and was 22 inches long. He's outgrowing his newborn clothes, and after a string of leaky diapers, moved up to size 2. He has a double chin and chubby knees. While still completely Charlie, as his face fills in, he looks more and more like his sister. Someday, you will look at the two of them and know that they are siblings.
When I look back at Claire's days as a newborn, I realize that I spent a lot of the time waiting for her to sleep longer at night and to start doing something. I mentally needed her to interact with me. I wish I had spent more time enjoying her instead of wishing time to go by quicker. I know that the sleepless nights and the colic end. And while I am looking forward to Charlie's smiles, giggles, and longer stretches of sleep, he is our last baby. We will never have a two month old baby again, and I know that this time goes by way too fast. Before we know it he will be asking for the keys to the car and taking girls out on dates.
Back before Charlie was born, I planned on writing a post about Claire at two and half years old, to take a snapshot in words of all the things that she is. Things didn't quite go as planned. So now that she is 2 years and eight months old, I'm finally getting around to it.
I have a blank book for both Claire and Charlie where I periodically write them letters, documenting how I see them, how I am feeling. Here is what I most recently wrote to Claire.
"Dear Claire,
You are two years and eight months old or thirty two months old. In the last two months, your little world has been turned upside down, and you are so resilient. You have welcomed your little brother into our little family of three with such generosity. I could not be more proud of you. You love him, and he is going to adore you.
I find myself often jotting down in my memory the funny things you say. I should be writing them down here, but I don't really have it together. Before I had kids, I would hear parents repeating the cute things their kids said, and I would roll my eyes. As parents we have the tendency to think that our kids are the smartest, cutest things around, but wanting to remember the words that come out of your mouth has so much more to do with us thinking that you are smart or cute. When asking you to get out of the bath, and you respond "my butt says no" or when something is funny you say "that cracks me like a funny egg," I definitely find it funny and cute, but I feel like I get a glimpse into the way your mind works, the way your personality is developing.
As we get to know Charlie, as he starts to spend more time awake, I keep thinking of how we originally thought you were such a serious little baby, but then we took this picture of you when you were about four months old. You are sitting up, you have a chubby little face, and you are looking at the camera with a smile on your face, winking. I think of that picture as being one of the first times we really got a glimpse of your personality. That picture of your personality is constantly changing. Here is how I see that picture at 32 months.
Green. You want to wear nothing but green, green shirts, green shoes, green socks. Your favorite foods are green, green eggs (yes, I put green food coloring in your scrambled eggs), broccoli, peas.
You are simultaneously sweet and spicy, artist and attorney, independent and clingy.
Your imagination and ability to play by yourself blow me away.
You like to direct your playmates how to play with you, prompting us with our lines. "You say, ..."
You have a flair for the dramatic.
You can turn any conversation into a song.
You have strong opinions and can be inflexible when things don't proceed how you envision them proceeding.
I am often impressed and exasperated by your strong reactions to things that make you unhappy.
You remain fiercely possessive of your belongings.
You are grateful, randomly thanking us for something we gave you months ago, for your little brother, or the eggs you refused to eat fifteen minutes before you said thank you.
You are loving and kind, and I am so proud to be your mother. "
We started this post two weeks ago. The fact that we are just now finishing and publishing it seems to be pretty symptomatic of the way things go around here these days, slowly. I feel like I am incapable of accomplishing anything, but Charlie weighed in at 9 pounds 3 ounces on last Monday and Claire seems like a pretty happy kid, so I guess we are doing all right...
Seven weeks ago Wednesday, Charlie joined our family earlier than we had all expected. The day before he was born, I strongly suspected that my water had ruptured and was leaking. After an appointment with my midwife, I was sent to Labor and Delivery, where they confirmed that I was in fact leaking amniotic fluid. Around 4 pm the pitocin started flowing, and the contractions began. Throughout the course of the night, the pitocin was gradually increased, and after about 20 hours of contractions, I gave in and got an epidural (actually, my temp was beginning to rise, and the epidural was a last ditch effort to avert a C-section).
Once my body was able to relax, Charlie decided he was ready to make his appearance. An hour and half after the epidural, he crowned, we were moved to the operating room where he could be passed directly to the Special Care Nursery (SCN) for assessment. Fifteen minutes later he joined us. Charles followed him to the SCN, and after they were sure he was stable, they brought him back to me for a few minutes. Letting him go was easier than it had been letting Claire go. She had received such fabulous, loving care at the SCN, and we didn't doubt that Charlie would as well. Charles and I both felt comforted by the familiar faces we saw in the nursery.
I was discharged on Friday, while Charlie remained in the hospital. Babies born at thirty-five weeks are apparently notorious for being sleepy, and it took Charlie a good week to wake up and really eat on his own. I was able to keep my hospital room, so that I could be close to Charlie. When Claire was born, it was easy to spend my whole day at the hospital and to be there for almost every feeding. With Charlie, Charles and I both felt torn. Claire was at home, getting tons of attention from her grandparents, but we missed her. We simultaneously wanted to be at the hospital to take care of Charlie.
Five days after Charlie was born, I took a trip to the ER because I was having chest pains. I was diagnosed with several small blood clots in my left lung. I spent two days in the hospital and will be taking anti-coagulants for the next nine months to allow the clots to dissolve and reabsorb into my blood stream. After being discharged from the hospital, Charles and I started back into the dance of trying to take care of Claire at home and being at the hospital to bond with Charlie. With the support of our family and friends we managed. Charlie progressed and gained more and more eating endurance, which was the key to being able to bring him home.
Then he put on weight one day...and then did it again. After twelve days in the SCN, he was ready to go home. We picked up Claire from school and headed to the hospital to bring our baby boy home. Claire was so excited to finally meet her baby brother face to face (she was not allowed in the SCN, so had only been able to view him through a window a few times). We got home, got Charlie settled in his bassinet and Claire set to work playing. It was a wonderful feeling to all be able to sit together in the same room. And we set off to try and figure out what our new routine would be.
Two days in, I woke up bleeding. My mother-in-law would later say that it looked like a murder had occurred in our bedroom/bathroom. Charles called 911. He then called his mom, who came over straight away (at 4:30 in the morning). We knew the kids would be in good hands, and Charles was able to follow the paramedics to the hospital. I was assessed, then moved to be closer to the doctors and nurses station. Charles overheard someone say I was the most critical patient they had had in a while. Once again, I had retained a piece of placenta. The blood thinners I was on because of the clot made the situation much more complicated than when I experienced the same thing with Claire. Plasma, lots of IV fluids, and lots of fear and stress later, I headed to the operating room. Conveniently enough, I was in the OR before Claire went to school, so we decided to have Charles take her in order to make sure her routine was not disrupted too much. Charles and my mom met me at my room once I was out of surgery, and we waited to hear whether I would get to go home that evening. They decided to keep an eye on me, but I got to go home the next morning.
Needless to say, we became way too familiar with LDS hospital and got to know a lot of health care providers at the hospital (and Charles swears their cafeteria has the best pancakes in SLC). Charlie and I were both well taken care of, and everyone we encountered did a great deal to make very stressful situations tolerable. Many of them felt comfortable asking whether we planned on having any more kids. We were pretty sure we would stick at 2, but our experience erased any doubt about that.
And now we are starting to settle into something resembling normal. I have managed to get out of the house in the morning with both Claire and Charlie and actually get Claire to school on time. We've taken trips to Red Butte Gardens, the Zoo, and have taken a couple of walks on rare warm days.
Charlie's cheeks are starting to fill in, and he is quickly starting to resemble a chubby little baby. He's still spends most of his time sleeping, but he has a couple of alert periods every day where we get to see his blue eyes. We're still trying to figure him out, and I have to remind myself that while he has been part of our lives for six weeks, he's really only a little over a week old. He's a pretty gassy little guy, but it doesn't seem to bother him too much. He just grunts and sleeps, and rarely cries.
I do not think that Claire could have handled everything that has taken place in the last six weeks any better, largely due to all of the attention she received from her grandparents. Now that we are all home she has definitely had some challenging moments, which has been compounded by the fact that Charles and I are both exhausted, but she is so sweet and proud of her baby. She seems so big and grown-up next to Charlie. I count myself lucky that she is happy to play by herself while Charlie nurses endlessly. I find that listening to her play is incredibly entertaining. As I type this she is playing with several bottles of soap pretending that they are her friends and teachers from school.
While we are exhausted, we are happy. Charlie has so easily made himself a place in our lives. Among all the chaos, lack of sleep, and dirty dishes, there are moments in our day that seem so perfect: Charlie, Claire and I reading stories before nap time; Claire's insistence that Charlie come up to say goodnight or pick her up at school; Charles and Claire sitting on the sofa holding Charlie together.
Through all of the stress of that first month of Charlie's life, I think we both realized how lucky we are to have so many good things going on in our life. I'm personally grateful to be alive, to be here to take care of my kids, to love my husband. We are so grateful for our families and all of the support we received. Our moms, my dad, and my brother all took turns taking care of Claire, sleeping at our house so that Charles could be with me at the hospital, and just making Claire's life fun and stable at a time that could have been very traumatic. We have an amazing group of friends who provided us with food for a month despite my weird dietary needs. We felt so loved and cared for and are so glad that we are raising our children in such a supportive environment.
I'd like to say I'll be posting frequently, but I'm learning not to have any expectations right now. In the meantime, here is a slide show of pictures from the last six weeks.
Very early in this pregnancy, my midwife did an ultrasound, at which point in time, the baby resembled a little lima bean, and the baby has been referred to as the Baby Bean ever since. The Baby Bean is due to arrive in about eight weeks. Very soon, life will no longer be All About Claire, hence the renaming of the blog to "The Bear and the Bean." I've created a separate page for The Bear (Claire) and The Bean (name to be determined), so that they each have their own special place. In addition, there will be a home page for posts that concern us all. In the next couple of weeks I hope to post some photos from Christmas, Claire's skiing adventures, our trip to Mexico, our basement re-do, and an update on two and half year old Claire.
