No More Swaddling

Its as if she knew the last days of the 4th trimester was up and right around 3 months, no longer needed to be cuddled and protected in a womb-like state. Instead, she's defiant in resisting any attempts to be held down. We do still swaddle her at night since she can still startle herself. Guess she is still just a baby after all.

More from the Shore

More on family adventures in Eastern Shore.

Eastern Shore, Part I

We spent Memorial Day weekend at the Eastern Shore with the Dinhs. We probably should have stayed home since Q was only 7-weeks old and we were all sick. She cried lots in the car (which rattled me and forced us to stop alot) though she looks nice and peaceful in the Moby here. Dek had a grand time with the family, especially cousins Mercy and Mai-Ly.

Super Dek

Yes, he bathes with goggles on sometimes. Things really do get lax when there is a second child.

"Mommy, I need my goggles to take a bath."  When questioned about the function of this, he responds, "So I can see under the water."

Well, at least he's practicing his swimming skills.

Hanging Out

Knowing how short the time that they are portable is, I like to keep Q (2 months) closeby as much as possible. She's not super into nursing (such an independent and pragmatic baby, she'll like want to move out of the house at age 11) so keeping her attached to me is another way for us to have fun/bond/allows me to get things done.  We've been scrubbing her nice little round head more so her cradle cap is disappearing and she's showing off that male-patterned baldness with such great style.

Retro Dek

Dek is wearing some of my brother's pants from his preschool days back in the late 70s.

Mother's Day with 2

Mike made the morning very special as I celebrated the first mother's day with two kiddos. Hard to think that I used to be scared to hold a baby and somehow I have two offspring trailing me and that enjoy my company most of the time now. Q loves spending lots of cuddle time in the Moby back then (she has now decided she is too big for it as a 3-month old).

Water Baby

Someone does not like to bathe. Well, that's not true. She's been enjoying it more as long as we don't shampoo her. Q has had a pretty stubborn batch of cradle cap that Mike has been scrubbing pretty hard at times. This was the only pic that was belly up, she does seem to be "water biking" as she does her calisthenics during bath time.

2 months!

Here is Ms. Q a little after her 2 month mark (9 weeks). She's starting to be more wakeful and smile at us though she mostly has a very questioning look on most the time. Thanks for your patience as I back-post most of the phone photos. I still struggle with getting the photos organized so I can document what's happening when exactly...

Running Behind

No photos with this post since I have not had time to do anything since I got sick over my birthday over 2 weeks.

I had a very bad cold that almost led to a sinus infection.. but then I caught another cold which DID lead to bronchitis. I have been a runny mess despite all the nasal spray, humidifying, neti pot rinsing I've done. I finally went to the doctor and she advised me to take antibiotics. I'm really conservative about medicine since I took antibiotics so much as a child. Especially now that I'm nursing and though I know most medicines are "safe for breastfeeding," it doesn't make me feel better about taking them. 

The final straw. I pulled out some back and rib muscles coughing so much at night. I had some really bad coughing fits that just messed me up. During all this, Dek's cold made his eye leak gunk which everyone thought was pink eye (but it wasn't), Mike got another round of something that needed antibiotics.  Agh.

So no, I've done nothing but basically coughed and held the baby for the last two weeks. So tired.

Sick Selfies

What do you do when you're stuck in the house still recovering from illness and germs are just going everywhere? Answer: at least take some selfies.

Good Times at Grandmas

Dek and cousins Mercy and Mai-Ly at Ong Ba's house for Mothers Day. 

I'll Just Make Myself Comfortable

With all the germs and post-nasal drip cough around here, it has lead to some pretty interesting night time routines. Derek is also in the process of night time potty training (i.e. waking us at 3am to potty) but then needing a human sized lovey to get back to bed. Admittedly, we have not been very good enforcers of the bedtime routine in Dek's early days since we were more go-with-the-flow types who didn't want to necessarily pass up dinner invitations or a late night out when we knew Derek was good natured enough to go along with the flow. However, Q has been a game-changer, since the level of exhaustion/illness has risen above our desire to be normal humans and have a life after hours.

Our evenings/nights usually look like this:
6:30pm Dinner
7:00pm Bath
7:30pm Bed for Dek. Which is usually followed by a short, but consistent negotiation of bedtime stories and who will do the final tuck in. We give Derek a "card" that he can use to call for us once. We started with five cards a few months ago and now that we're down to the one, its a good compromise. After that he'll usually stay in bed unless...
8:30pm Q usually falls asleep on her own after nursing.
9:00pm Dek sometimes has to pee one last time if he is awake.
12:30am Q is up to nurse (sometimes she will sleep through this feeding)
3:00am-ish Q is up to nurse again but goes back to bed.
3:10am Inevitably Dek will wake up if he hears baby. Gets a sip of water since the nighttime coughing has been bad with the cold. Mike will need to take him to pee and they both end up in the guest room.
5:00am Derek is now lying sideways and Mike moves back to the normal bed.
6:00am Q is up to nurse and up for a few hours.
6:30am Dek wakes to pee and usually for the day.

Believe it or not, I can usually get some rest. If I go right to bed around 9am and Q sleeps until 3am - that's a solid 6 hours which I barely got when I didn't have kids, so that's the jackpot. Even a sleep stretch of 3 hours is really decent. Dek was such a restless baby that he would usually wake in 1-2 hour increments, so this is (sadly) not too bad.

The bigger challenge sharing a bed with Dek is he inevitably starts to do a rotation until he's completely horizontal and then you're pushed out of the bed. Then when he wakes up, its like, where did you go?