We are surviving!

Well, here we are....a family of 4. Calle is just over 2 months old and we are surviving! Some days that's all we can do, survive. But most days we do just fine. The transition from one kid to two has been smoother than I was expecting. I still find it surreal sometimes that we have two kids.  It's like I blinked and all of the sudden I am turning 30, and am married with two kids. How did that happen?

I'm finding that having a routine helps everyone and the days that we stray from that routine are typically the days that are roughest. We try to either get out of the house in the mornings or have someone over for a play date. This seems to help our days go by quicker and more smoothly. Griffin seems to be adjusting well for the most part. He loves his sister and likes to pat her and give her kisses. But...he also likes to scream close to her because he knows it scares her...just to see her reaction. He has regressed in sleeping as well and is sometimes up more times a night than his newborn sister! Being the little monkey that he is, he climbed out of his crib a few weeks ago, and now he's in a toddler bed. He won't stay in it when we put him to bed or down for a nap, so we pretty much have to rock him or nurse him to sleep every time. Imagine rocking a nearly 30lb toddler to sleep!

Calle, on the other hand, sleeps about 6 hours straight at the beginning of the night, most nights anyway.  This is incredibly exciting for me as Griffin didn't sleep that long until he was about 9 months old! Co-sleeping with her has really helped. I would definitely recommend it to any new parents. It seems kind of crazy that I feel more rested with two kids than I did with one. For the most part, I'm really enjoying being a mother of two. It's exciting to watch Griffin learn and achieve new things every day, and it's heart warming to watch him interact with other kids and with his sister. It's also been neat to watch Calle grow and be able to do new things, like smile and start to hold up her head.

The time is going by even faster with Calle than it seemed to with Griffin. It seems like just yesterday that I was having contractions at home, thinking that this was going to be the day. The day was April 29, and I started having light contractions at about 9:00am. They came every 10-15 minutes for the next few hours, when I decided to let Riley know he should come home early from work and called my mom to have her come pick up Griffin. We went to the mid-wife appointment that I already had scheduled at 3:30 and they confirmed that I was indeed in labour. They did a procedure that moved me from 2-3cm dilated to 3-4cm dilated, and we went home. Shortly after that things got serious. My mom picked up Griff at about 5:30 and Riley got things ready upstairs, covering the carpet with shower curtains and setting up the birthing pool. The midwives arrived a few minutes later and I got into the tub. Calle was born at 8:38pm after just a few pushes. It was so wonderful to be at home again and spend the next hour tucked in our bed with my new baby and my husband. Griffin came home the next morning to meet his sister and our family of 4 was complete!