Crying... Early starts... Dirty nappies... Constant feeding... These are the things that everyone mother with a newborn should expect. Parenthood is the best and hardest thing that I have ever had to do. Sometimes I find myself trying to remember what it was like in the household without my two beautiful kids but then as soon as Sienna is on holidays at Grandmas, the house feels so empty without her and it just doesn't feel right. Sienna and Ollie are such huge pieces of our lives now, nothing would be right without them.
Ollie is growing like a charm. He is now 4.5kg which is just under the 15% percentile. He is doing really well putting on weight, considering that he was really underweight for a while there. He is consistently gaining an average of 200g a week, so I'm really happy about that. He is 57.5cm long, putting him the at about the 25th percentile. He has grown a massive 8.5cm since he was born :-( He is growing way too fast.
He still loves to be cuddled, and would much rather fall asleep wrapped up in someones arms rather than in the rocker. Although, over the last few nights I have been testing out the putting him down drowsy but not asleep in his bassinet and letting him put himself to sleep. It hasn't been going too badly (touch wood), but he does tend to make a lot of noise as he is going to sleep, not crying noise, just baby gurgle.
The constant need for cuddles, love and attention is definitely something that I find draining. Especially as I have two kids now and I can't always be cuddling with Ollie when I need to be watching what Sienna is up to and I need to be giving her some one on one time also.
We had our 6 week shots the other week, and I am so glad that Josh had that day off because he was a lot braver than me and held Ollie down while he was being given the shot. I was nervous because Ollie is such a loud crier, I didn't want to imagine how loud he would be getting his shot, but he did really well. I mean REALLY well. I think he did better than Sienna did when she had her first shot. I think it could very well have to do with how calm Josh was when he was holding him as opposed to Sienna's first ones where mum and I were nervous wrecks. Sienna also had her 18 month shots on the same day and Josh held her down too. She also did really well. There were hardly any tears then she was distracted with the awesome stickers given to her from the nurses.
Ollie also had his 2 month appointment a few days ago and the nurses at the clinic said that he was doing very well. Not only was he putting on a good amount of weight, but he had very good neck and head control for his age. Which we already knew because he has been lifting his head pretty much since birth. He is just gaining better control of it now. We were told to do tummy time with him every day, so he can continue to build those muscles in his neck. We were also told that he was very vocal for is age, and the fact that he was copying our sounds and mouth movements already was very advanced for his age bracket.
I am slowly getting better at juggling the two of them and have had quite a few days at home with just the three of us while Josh is at work. It still stresses me out a little bit, I'll admit, but not nearly as much as it did at the beginning. Sienna being at daycare too has been a big help and a catch up day for me also. We are about to start her on two days a week there, so that should be a good help for me. But Sienna is getting really good at helping me. She will get nappies for me when I'm changing him (mind you sometime I need to remind her that we only need one, when she bring over about six of them), and she is always the first one to tell Ollie that it's ok when he starts crying. The love that they have for each other is incredible. His eyes will follow her around and watch what she is doing all the time and she is always up for cuddles and kisses with him. It's crazy to think that in a years time they will both be running around and playing together.
In the past month I have noticed that Sienna has become a lot more affectionate. She was never really a cuddly baby. But recently she is always giving me cuddles around the legs and won't really hesitate or fight if I ask for a cuddle or a kiss. She is also getting so good with her words. We can literally have conversations with her now, which is amazing! She understands us and we can understand her, most of the time. She is picking up so many new words, so fast. She will just come out with the most random sentences and she just leaves us in awe.
She has been a little whingy and restless recently and we are putting it down to the fact that we have seen some molars coming through, so they might be giving her a bit of grief. We have also hit a bit of a speed bump with her eating. She has got really picky with food recently and I don't know if that's to do with teeth also, or if that's just her being a turd. But even with all the whinging and whining there have been plenty of beautiful smiles and cheeky ones too. She is the cheekiest little girl and I love it. He sense of humour is fantastic and I just love hearing her laugh.
I love my little family. Even though there are times when I feel like I could rip my hair out, when Sienna is running wild and Ollie won't settle... the good times definitely outweigh the bad and I wouldn't have it any other way.
My house is by no means perfect. I’m fact, it is far from it. I always have a mess in my kitchen and my lounge room is always full of the kids toys, and unfortunately, having all that around constantly makes me feel stressed out. Looking around and seeing mess makes me feel like I’m failing as a house maker. Now, I know people always say that a real house looks like it’s lived in, but my house looks VERY lived in and no matter what I do I just can never seem to get it looking clean. With the amount of toys the kids have downstairs and all the pop culture stuff that Josh collects, my house always seems 'full'. I don’t mind full when I can see the floor. To me a freshly vacuumed floor makes all the difference. I don't know what it is about it, but it just makes me feel better to see those vaccuum lines across the floor because I know at least my floor is clean, and now with Ollie being so mobile that I definitely something I need.
