This is what two months looks like

Elle, my sweet child, how have you been with us for two whole months already?  I cannot get enough of this baby!

Parents with multiple children...WHY DOES IT GO EVEN FASTER THE SECOND TIME? WHY!?  Parents who are thinking about a second child -- IT GOES EVEN FASTER THE SECOND TIME. BE PREPARED.


Here's the thing.  God blessed me with the nicest baby in the world.  Thank you God.  She's got the most pleasant disposition.  Sure, she squawks every once in awhile, but it's probably because she's hungry or because she has to burp.  Otherwise, she's cool to hang out and watch the action.  And when she's not sleeping, she's watching the action.  Grace was a super alert, very aware and very needy baby.  This one is also super alert and very aware, but she's El Chill-- she'll watch the action from her bouncy seat, her swing, mom's arms, dad's arms, and who are you again?'s arms too.  She started smiling at me when she was 2 weeks old.  I thought it was a fluke the first two or three times.  Maybe a little gas, maybe a little practice smile. (Speaking of gas, this beautiful, pink-cheeked baby girl farts like a man.  It's been embarrassing for many of us when out in public with her.  Because they're loud.  And certainly a tiny baby couldn't produce such a mighty wind.  Oh, I assure you, she can.  I digress.) After a week of a big gummy grin greeting me every morning when she woke up, I knew she knew what she was doing.  She's been so aware since the beginning, always craning her head to find her big sister when Grace would call her name.  Last week Elle was in her bouncy seat across the room while Eric unloaded the dishes, and he noticed her following him with her eyes, back and forth across the kitchen. Certainly, he thought, she can't see that far and that well yet...so he did a few bob and weave moves just to see...and sure enough, she tracked him the whole time, like can't fool me dad.  I got you.  And that colander you just shoved in the cabinet?  It doesn't go there.  I'm telling mom.

One of the best things about this baby is that she knows that days are for playing and nights are for sleeping.  PRAISE JESUS.  I just listened to a podcast about Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, and sleep, which is often taken for granted, is just as fundamental to human survival as food and shelter.  New parents, if you feel like your lack of sleep is making you crazy, it probably is.  Thank you Elle, for going back to sleep.  Sure, she's essentially still a newborn baby so she's going to wake up multiple times a night, but she goes back to sleep!  SHE GOES BACK TO SLEEP!  Her big sister rarely did this without much bouncing, walking, and deep lunging...then she'd lull off right about the time she'd be getting hungry again, and the whole vicious cycle would start all over again.  Not so much with Miss Eleanor.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  Mommy is so  much nicer and less medicated this time around.

She's bound and determined to suck her thumb but is having a devil of a time finding it.  So she often ends up like this:

Gave up.

Almost there...

Nailed it...?

She coos back when you talk to her, and she has the sweetest little voice.  Since she was four or five weeks old she was no longer content to be held close to your chest, she would crane her neck back and look into your face, almost as if she was studying it. She looks and looks, then smiles and coos, almost to reassure you your face is entertainment enough, nothing else is necessary.  The other day she locked her eyes on a toy above her and then batted at it. I felt my breath catch: how are we already here?  Sometimes it feels like I'm on a runaway train, time just hurtling me forward, faster and faster and faster.


I was talking with a few of my besties this past weekend, two of whom have two children as well, and we debated if our second babies are actually easier than our firsts, or if we were just nutcases the first time around.  We decided a little from column A, a little from column B.  It's so nice to be a parent the second time around.  I'm enjoying it tremendously.  Grace, Eric and I got off to a rocky start.  Eric had a trial that started the day after Grace was born so he wasn't around much.  Like, at one point, I was officially discharged, bags packed, baby bundled up, waiting for him to pick me up, nurses kind of poking their heads in like, what happened to the dad? And I was sitting on the edge of the bed nervously smiling, like, he's coming, he's just running late oh god did he abandon us?! Is this a thing that happens?

Of course he didn't abandon us, but when you're self-employed, you gotta do what you gotta do. I also distinctly remember him careening out of the hospital parking lot while taking a call from a client and thinking, I thought he was supposed to be driving 8 miles an hour while we both nervously cluck about reckless drivers these days? That's not a thing that really happens either? Huh. So that's how we started our little family life together, me trying to make life easy on Eric by doing the parenting work essentially solo.  It was hard and lonely.  So this time we made sure there weren't too many pressing appointments on the legal calendar, and we made my mom quit her job. (Jk.  Kinda. We did roll the dice and brought two small children to San Diego juuust to be a little cocky.  It went beautifully.  More on that another time.)  Truthfully though, the last time around I think I was a little bored by the new job I had -- babies don't do much to stimulate one's brain in any intellectual capacity-- and I think that freaked me out, that my new life path was going to be a boring one.  This time, I have a firecracker of a two year old to keep me company, to keep me laughing, who tells me I look "so bootiful mama!" and that "milk is so yucky right now, right? So yucky.  I need orange juice,"  and that her pretend Keurig (WTF right) makes "wonderful coffee." Couple that with a beautiful, smiling, well-rested baby?  Bliss.

Happy hour never hurts, either.