Baby blues as in the blue eyes that sparkle brightly as she smiles and coos. Case in point...
This girl is smiley. She finds one of our faces and she lights up with gummy smiles and sweet coos. I do not think Riley was smiling and cooing this early and it still shocks me when I talk to her and she responds with a baby version of "you are silly Mommy".
I prayed hard for a smiley girl after seeing pictures of Halle on Annie's photography site. I wanted sleeping baby pictures with huge grins (check) and I wanted big gummy grins and at just 3.5 weeks old she started delivering. These are not gas grins. She responds to your attention with them and will follow your face around and shoot more grins your way.
On a different note isn't it completely silly what you will do/sound like to get your babe to smile. I actually listened to myself on the camcorder and was mortified at how annoying I sounded and then I realized how outrageously happy it made her and I set down the camcorder and went right back to it!
She loves to watch Riley and the picture above is of her smiling at Ry Man and all of his moves. He was dancing for her and she found it hilarious. What's also funny is how serious Riley can be when it comes to dancing. He has moves that showed up out of nowhere and it's been a great energy releaser when the days get long.
I think since Alyssa has come into the picture Riley's 'all boy' mentality has gone off the charts. His imagination is unbelievable and it astounds me at how well he can play by himself while I have my hands full with his sister. He uses his car as a boat when he is fishing, as a Tahoe when he is transporting himself to and from the lake, as a motorcycle when the sun comes out and as a bus when he feels like torturing me by asking me to "hop on Mommy, pees pees pees". (Serious leg workouts trying to sit/walk along the back of that tiny car!) Daddy took him fishing on Sunday and he caught tons of crappies (way more than Uncle Ben!) and enjoyed some much needed guy time. It amazes me that he is willing to pick up a fish at 2.5 years of age with no trepidation. He stuck his little finger right into the mouths of the crappies and laughed as they flopped (fwopped) around. The video is seriously cute and as soon as I figure out how to get it off of D's phone and onto our computer it will be a must see!
This weekend was quick even though the littlest in the house kept me up until 3:00 a.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday it still went by quick and I somehow managed to keep my eyes open for the ride. D and I got a little alone time Saturday...alone time to grocery shop (how romantic!) and then to go out for appetizers and drinks. It was nice, really quiet and by the end of our 3 hours alone we missed our children. Riley is spending Saturday nights at my parents for sleepovers and this last Saturday I missed him badly. It is going to be tough after spending 12 whole weeks together to be apart when I go back to work but we do what we gotta do. After tortuous long nights with the little one my Mom came over and watched her so the whole house could nap Sunday and then she ended up sleeping from 11 p.m. Sunday night until 4:55 Monday morning. She scared the sleep right out of me as I panicked when I thought something had happened to her after waking up at 4:00 but apparently she had worn her little self out by keeping us up til 3 a.m. for 3 nights in a row.
Life is busy. Sleep is not easy to come by. Days seem too short and somehow long at the same time. We rotate laundry, dusting, vacuuming, and misc chores everyday chipping away at them until they are all done. I do dishes in the morning and in the late evening. I read books to Riley everyday and we fish alot!
What is Riley reading?
The 2010-11 Fishing catalog from the Sportsmens show. He picks out which owies and lures he has and then asks for the rest for his b-day. His other favorite books of the moment are Farmer Joe and the music show, Llama Llama misses Mama and I am a big brother. We read these multiple times everyday. I am just about ready to burn Llama Llama but he sounds so darn cute when he pronounces llama.
With help from family, a chance to sleep til 9:00 most days courtesy of Daddy, lots of hugs from Riley and sweet smiles from my favorite set of baby blues I manage to make it through the day in one piece but I do look pretty rough. Fortunately all of this craziness has worked great for the extra pounds I need to drop! I have my 6 week postpartum check up next week and then I hit the gym Jillian Michaels DVD's and get rid of the 15 left I have to lose.
Wednesday was perfect with 2 baths given, a shower taken and everyone fed by 12:30 (I know, what an over-achiever I am, right?!) thanks to Riley helping out with the 11:30 bottle feeding otherwise no one would have ate until after 1:00.
And after feeling like a failure of a mother on Tuesday, Wednesday was so vindicating. Tuesday I stripped Riley down for a bath and found red bumps all over his body. Lack of sleep, his recent allergy to the paint at school causing his hands to peel and my total paranoia made me call the Dr and get him right in. So at 10:30 I had one hour to get myself dressed, pump, feed the babe and get all three of us out the door for a 12:00 appointment only to find out is was a bad case of eczema and that he would need to cut back on baths and have vaseline applied to the red areas 4X a day! Ha! Like I have time to strip him down 4X a day. Anyways the appt took forever with a medical student and we didn't get home until 1:30 and we still needed to eat lunch. It was a colossal waste of time and it made a huge mess of our day. Poor kid is just like his Mama with sensitive skin, eczema and I am sure glasses, braces and severe allergies to follow in the future!
It is so worth it. All of it. I am so very blessed and humbled at the end of the day when my children are tucked in (one usually alot later than the other) and sleeping peacefully. I can't help but be proud of myself, of us, because we are rocking it---some days more gracefully than others but nonetheless we are rocking it. Parenting two is so much work, hard selfless work and to be honest I don't always feel so humbled and gracious at 2:00 a.m. when I have a baby that can't sleep without our arms around her.
Her new nickname is night terror since the recent schedule has been stay up as late as possible, cry when Mommy turns off the TV, get all googly/wide eyed when we enter her room and wave your arms around like a mad woman when set in your crib. I have started watching shows like Sister Wives, The Real World Las Vegas, Jersey Shore (hey, don't judge, it's really late and TV sucks that late and just to note-I could only stomach one episode) and of course my daily DVR'd episodes of The Young and the Restless. I actually have a hard time falling asleep before midnight now and am fearing getting on a schedule before I go back to work. She is only 5 weeks old though and my late night mantra is "this won't last forever, this can't last forever." Some nights it's easier to swallow then others but regardless the next morning she is all bright eyed and bushy tailed smiling at you and asking for forgiveness for her late night escapades.
Exhibit A:
(she stopped smiling when I pulled the camera out, she will need to be trained : )
So we march on putting one tired, overworked foot in front of the other and we try to remember that not too far down the line she won't want to be rocked to sleep and she won't beg to be held and loved on and she won't be our tiny baby girl anymore.
Today is a fresh new day and I think I can.
