Holland |3 Months|

3 months old!

• You go to sleep around 7/7:15 and wake up once or twice.  You are up for the day at 7.  You are awesome about putting yourself to sleep too and that makes things so much easier.
• Naps are still only about 45 minutes if you are in your crib, but our house is never quiet either.  They’ll get longer one day… sooner than later please 🙂



• You are always trying to lift your head up like you’re in a sitting position.  Even in the car seat you try to sit with your head up.
• You are more okay with tummy time now and you can hold your head up really well.



• You love to stand up and you push against everything with your legs.
• You found your hands and you suck on them all the time.  You’ve found your thumb a few times, but I’m hoping you just stick with the paci.



• Bubbles and drool all day long.
• You are usually making it 3 hours before you want to eat again.



• We lay down on the floor and read books and you just smile and talk the whole time.
• Bath time is still your favorite and sometimes Kennedy helps.  You guys are so cute together.



• If I stick my tongue out at you, you do it right back.
• You had a bottle and you had some formula.  I was gone unexpectedly and didn’t have any milk pumped, but you needed to eat so Grandma Leanne fed you.



• You think Kennedy and Reese are awesome.
• You started holding onto a few toys and putting them in your mouth.



• You are still just the sweetest, happiest, most content little baby I have ever met and I am so thankful God gave me you ❤

Love you to the moon, Holland Taylor!

Holland |1 Month|

Baby girl you’re already almost 3 months as I type this, but here’s what I don’t want to forget about your first month.

• You were (and still are) the calmest, sweetest baby ever.

• You were 7 pounds 4 oz at birth, 6 pounds 12 oz when we left the hospital, and 8 pounds 15 ounces when we went for your 1 month check up at 5 weeks.

• You had the worst problem with hiccups.  You got them all day long.  They didn’t bother you, but they kept waking you up so trying to figure out how to get you to sleep without getting hiccups was our main goal.

• We tried all the things, but our winning combo the first month was to swaddle you and put you in the bouncer.  We put the bouncer in the pack and play so it was up higher and I didn’t have to bend over to pick you up at night.  The key to the hiccups was also laying you just slightly on your side and not straight on your back.

• Once we figured out the positioning you started sleeping really well for a newborn and only woke up 1 or 2 times a night.

• You love bath time.  You are my first baby to ever sleep through a bath though.

• You love to be worn.  I got the Solly wrap this time and it’s been awesome for both of us.

• You actually rolled over accidentally a few times one day.  You were like 3 weeks old, but you haven’t done it since.

I think that’s it.  Sleep. Eat. Poop about sums up the first month anyways.  

Happy 1 month! I love you, Holland!

#3 is here!

She’s here! Her arrival was nothing like I was hoping or anticipating, but she’s here and now that’s all that matters. She also has a name… her middle name was decided while I was in labor so nothing like waiting until the last minute.

My littlest baby girl is named Holland Taylor Donaldson. Kennedy has decided her name is “H-cha” or maybe “ate-cha”, but she’s coming around to the name Holland.

She was born Saturday, June 25th, at 10:07 in the morning. She weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces and was 20.75″ at birth. Kennedy and Reese are head over heels for her and they love to help. I’ll get to her birth story at some point, but I wanted to announce her arrival first 🙂

I’m Too Tired For A Title

Just know that I’m comparing situations here and not my girls.

So.

Kennedy was unswaddled by 10 or 11 weeks. She’s also a belly sleeper {still is} which is important to note because your arms have much less mobility on your stomach. And when I decided to move her to her crib… zero issues.

And then there’s Reese.

I’ve been dreading, dreading, moving Reese to her crib at night since she was about 3 weeks old. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be easy so I’ve been putting it off in favor of more sleep.

Right now she takes naps in her crib, swaddled with 1 arm out, and at night she sleeps in the Rock n’ Play totally swaddled… until last night.

I finally tried the crib. And it was awesome. I’d see her wake up on the monitor and she’d put herself back to sleep and I was so proud of her. And then the girls decided to time warp back 3 months and torture me with the tag-team game they made up when Reese was a newborn.

I was in bed by 10:45 and Kennedy randomly woke up around 11. Awesome. Get her back down and she’s up again about 15 minutes later screaming for water. Kennedy is finally back to sleep by about 11:30 and Reese starts screaming at 11:39. Not. Kidding. {Kennedy woke her up and she has this weird thing where she cries if she hears Kennedy cry}

I put Reese back down, get back in bed, and she’s back up. I played the up, down game a few times, but I gave up around 1:30 and put her in the Rock n’ Play except now she was so overtired she just wasn’t going to sleep at all. So I stuck her in my bed and she kicked me the rest of the night.

Here’s the thing with Reese… She’s fighting the swaddle, but if she’s not swaddled she can’t sleep. If she has access to her hands then they’re in her mouth, rubbing her face, and waking. her. up. She’s also a back sleeper so her arms can be all over the place if she wants them to be. It’s just a perfect storm of sleep issues.

Maybe it was just an early April Fool’s joke, but I’m a zombie and I think trying to move her was officially the worst idea ever. I’m still debating trying it again tonight or just trying again in a week or so. Or maybe I’ll just keep her in the Rock n’ Play until she’s 10 and she can ask to sleep somewhere else.

Life Lately – In iPhone Pictures

My aunt, uncle, and cousins came to Florida and Kennedy had the best time playing with them. Chasing lizards {apparently she has a good eye} and swimming in the hot tub… If they were doing it she wanted in on the fun. {no, the water wasn’t hot and yes, she asks for “hot tub” all the time now}

David went fishing the other day so I took Kennedy to get a “special treat.” She ate her doughnut sprinkle by sprinkle so it’s a good thing we weren’t in a hurry.

I bought new sheets for our bed and Reese ate them.

The girls started taking baths together and it’s about the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. Kennedy can do no wrong in Reese’s eyes and Kennedy has nothing but love for Reese.

We had our first beach weekend of the year with our friends and we took the girls to the marine lab. Kennedy was in fishy heaven.

Kisses from my girls… my favorite.

Why Two Is Harder

When I got pregnant with Reese all I heard about was how hard it was to go from 1 to 2. Now that she’s here, I agree, it’s hard… So I’ve been trying to put my finger on what exactly makes it so hard and here’s what I’ve come up with…

•Mom Guilt•
After I had Reese I felt really guilty about the time lost with Kennedy. Then I felt really guilty about all the snuggling that Reese didn’t get as a newborn that Kennedy did. Seriously, you can run, but you can’t hide… the mom guilt is everywhere!

•Prioritizing Needs•
It’s no fun when both girls are upset, but it’s worse to have to decide who to help first. Obviously they both feel like they need to be taken care of first, but I don’t have enough arms, or clones, so choices have to be made. Kennedy also seems to get hurt while I’m feeding Reese and that’s just a whole other issue to try and take care of 1 while the other is attached to you.

•Leaving The House•
It’s insane. More so when they’re closer in age because there’s a high probability that you’ll be carrying the oldest in one arm, holding the baby in the infant carrier with the other, and dangling your purse from the hook you made with your finger. It looks precarious, and it is, but when someone asks if you need help it’s like a game of Jenga and you don’t know which piece to pull so you just say, “no thanks, I’ve got it.”

•Schedules•
It’s just plain hard to fit a newborn schedule into a toddler schedule. Kennedy has energy for DAYYYYS, but there’s only so much I can put Reese through. It’s very limiting, especially in the winter, because we used to spend so much time outside and it’s harder to do that with a baby when it’s cold. So, I have to try to find a balance… Getting the toddler enough play/learning time and getting the baby enough sleep so she doesn’t turn into a no-nap-monster.

•Sleep Deprivation•
When there’s just 1 baby you can sleep when the baby sleeps. When there’s more than one… just buy coffee in bulk.

Gosh, just simple math explains the difficulty… 2 of them… 1 of me.

What Kind Of Mom Are You?

I’ve been seeing this quiz all over Facebook… The “What Kind Of Mom Are You” one.

I didn’t think I was the “helicopter” because I’m really pretty relaxed with the girls and go with a “live and learn” kind of approach to a certain extent.

Anyways… My result

OVERWHELMED MOM

It actually made me laugh because when I took it last night that’s really how I felt.

Some days, I feel like I am rocking this whole mom thing and I’m like yeah we should have 10 kids. Other days… I’m overwhelmed mom.

Those days, I don’t remember to make sure I’m fully clothed out in public {I may not have been at least once}.

There’s just not enough coffee.

And that part about the shower being a vacation… Absolutely true.

“Overwhelmed mom.” I think that’s synonymous with “Life of a mom with 2 under 2.”

A Moment

Over the weekend I had a moment…

I was holding my littlest who was sound asleep in my arms and watching my oldest baby have the time of her life splashing and playing in the kitchen sink.

I was happy, and thankful for my girls, and in that moment everything was just sweet and perfect. So, I cried a few happy tears… and gosh am I not done with the crazy hormones yet?

And then. I made the mistake of turning the handle on the faucet to warm so Kennedy wouldn’t freeze. She threw a fit complete with an eardrum shattering scream. So, I made the water cold again to stop the screaming.

Moment over.

11 Weeks |Then and Now|

Reese turned 11 weeks yesterday.

I went back to work when Kennedy was 11 weeks so I can’t help but think about my life last time I had an 11 week old.

I remember that I cried at the thought of going back to work and I was so anxious about the whole thing. And when David and I dropped Kennedy off for her first day I couldn’t control the tears and I cried off and on that whole first week. I remember the “mom guilt” and how I couldn’t look back at Kennedy when I left.

This time around, its different. I’m home. There is no maternity leave. No deadline that tells me when I have to stop being a full-time mom and start being a full-time working mom who uses the smallest possible portion of my brain at work because I use the rest thinking about my baby.

This week will be no different than the last 10 weeks and I couldn’t be more thankful for that.

Reese |2 Months|

I still feel like Reese is more high maintenance than Kennedy. She really wants my attention 100% of the time and if I never put her down she’d be totally fine with that.

This month…

Right at the beginning of her 2nd month she started sleeping in 6-hour stretches.

She found her hands and sucks on them all the time.

She’s in some newborn and mostly 0-3 month clothes.

She smiles and squeals. Especially when I sing to her.

She started “talking” and she talks a lot more than Kennedy did. {OK and the headband… I made it for Kennedy for the game, but of course she wouldn’t wear it, but wanted me to. So I wore it all day and forgot about it. David chose not to remind me that I had it on.}

She had her first and hopefully only ER visit She had her first sickness and thankfully it was really mild and short.
She had fever, runny nose and cough for a few days.

She had her first Christmas

Her socks still fall off and it drives me crazy.

She likes her play mat for about 15-20 minutes or so. She really doesn’t like the swing and the bouncer is neutral territory. Rattles keep her attention for a decent amount of time.

She is constantly blowing bubbles

She’s starting to get into a regular sleep pattern and usually goes back to sleep about 1.5-2 hours after she wakes up in the morning or from a nap.

At her 2 month check-up she weighed 10.8 pounds {40%} and was 22.4 inches {50%}.

Happy 2 Months, Reese-y. I love you to the moon and back!