Lesterfamily.com

Tonight my heart is a little heavy and my eyes are more than a little moist. My little boy is getting on a plane with his daddy and won’t be coming home until Sunday. This will be the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing him… JP has a business trip in NY, and since Evan still flies free (for now), we agreed it would be a good idea to have him go along and spend some time with his grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins in New Jersey. Erin and I are staying home to hold down the fort and take care of Tucker and Madison.

JP, as you might imagine, is more than a little anxious about traveling with a 2-year old that is not always on his best behavior these days. We made sure to pack an entire bag of toys (mostly cheap things he’s never seen before, along with some oldies but goodies) to keep him distracted. Plus, JP has the ever popular iPad that Evan enjoys thoroughly. We’re all keeping our fingers crossed and holding our breaths that everything goes alright. I’ll feel better when I get a call from them tomorrow letting me know all is well.

I’m sure there will be lots of photos taken of Evan with the Lester family and all his cousins. Of course, because Murphy’s Law is supreme, Evan managed to get his first goose egg on his forehead this weekend. We took him to the playground and he had a battle with the entrance gate, and the entrance gate won. The swelling has gone down, but he’s still got a bit of a bruise.

We decided our little ragamuffin needed a haircut before the trip so that he would look somewhat presentable – even with his bruise. This was his third haircut. The previous two haircuts have been somewhat uneventful, so we were not really prepared for the complete meltdown that ensued during this haircut. I managed to get a few before, during and after shots for your enjoyment.

My maternity leave with Evan was one of the best times of my life. I was getting plenty of exercise, I was eating right, I was enjoying watching every little thing that my bundle of joy did, and I had very little stress (it’s nice not having to work). This go-around with Erin is a little different. For one thing, I’m working part time, so that has added quite a bit of stress to my day-to-day life. Plus, having a toddler to tend to in addition to a baby has been quite a juggling act – leaving me with very little “me” time. Hence, the lack of lengthy posts…

A typical day in my life, now that Erin is 3 months old:

Sometime between 6 and 7 am. Erin wakes up. I get up, brush my teeth, put in my contacts while JP changes Erin’s diaper. Then I feed her.

6:45am. Evan wakes up. Unless I am feeding Erin at the time, I am usually the one to get him up and dressed. JP hops in the shower.

7:00 am. I’m busy feeding Evan breakfast, feeding the dogs, making sure Erin is not fussing in her swing, and making Evan’s lunch.

7:20 am. JP takes Evan to day care. I eat breakfast (assuming Erin has fallen back asleep…which she usually does), and check my work emails, the news and facebook.

8:00 am – 9:30 am. JP is home from taking Evan to day care. I hop in the shower while he watches Erin (she’s usually sleeping). By the time I’m out of the shower, I usually have a little less than an hour to take care of any work items or the household chores (e.g., putting away the dishes, sorting through laundry, etc). With both JP and me at home these days (not to mention having two kids and two dogs)…there always seems to be some household chore that needs to be done…

9:30 am (ish). I feed Erin.

10:00 am (ish). Erin and I head out for an hour-long walk with the dogs. Erin usually falls asleep pretty soon into the walk and is usually sleeping when we get home.

11:00 am (ish). After returning home, I brush the dogs (it’s amazing how much they still shed) and prepare lunch (these days it’s either PB&J or an avocado and cheese sandwich). If Erin is still sleeping, I do some more work and/or continue with the household chores I didn’t get to earlier.

12:30 pm (ish). I feed Erin.

12:30 pm (ish) thru 3:30 pm (ish). Erin is usually up for a few hours after the 12:30 feeding. We have a little play time in the play gym, bumbo chair, buzzy seat, etc. I try entertaining her with some of Evan’s old baby toys…but she likes smiling back at my smiling face the best. This is also the time that we go for car rides if I have to run any errands (e.g. grocery store, babies-r-us, target, etc). We seem to need to run these errands more frequently these days; not sure how we will get this all done when I’m back at work.

3:30 pm (ish). I feed Erin.

3:30 pm (ish) through 5:00 pm (ish). After feeding Erin, I leave her with JP so that I can go get Evan from day care. He comes home pretty hungry, so we usually start making dinner shortly after he walks in the door.

5:30 pm (ish). We have dinner. These days it’s either hotdogs or mac-n-cheese or some other protein and vegetable dish. He’s also a big fan of tofu which I find to be particularly amusing. We keep our fingers crossed that Erin is content sitting in her swing as the family eats, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes we switch off holding her while the other eats and helps Evan with his dinner.

6:00 pm (ish). I feed Erin.

6:00 pm – 7:00 pm (ish). This is the especially challenging time of trying to manage two kids at the same time. Evan is usually good around Erin, but we have had a few hitting incidents. Lately Erin has been very attentive to Evan, watching everything he does. He’s taken to showing her alot of things – “Look Erin, look at the rattle”…it’s very cute. I imagine it’s only going to get better as they get a little older and Erin is a bit more independent.

7:00 pm (ish). Bath time. Evan gets a shower/bath everyday. Erin is on an every other day schedule at the moment (we’ll switch to every day as she gets more mobile). When Evan takes a shower, we try to give Erin a bath at the same time. But lately he’s been wanting baths, so she has to go after him. JP is the bath giver in the family. I hold Erin while he bathes Evan, then we switch. I help Evan brush his teeth, get his PJ’s on, read stories etc while JP gives Erin a bath.

7:30 pm (ish) – 8:15 pm (ish). Evan is in bed (though usually not sleeping yet), but Erin is usually up (and cranky). JP and I switch off trying to calm her down. I sneak a few sips of red wine when I can and we usually watch the news and some celebrity gossip via TMZ.

8:15 pm (ish). JP feeds Erin a bottle while I pump.

8:15 pm (ish) to 10:30 pm (ish). Erin is usually oscillating between sleeping and crying. About 9 pm JP usually tells me he’s tired and goes to bed. Sometimes he takes Madison with him, sometimes he takes Erin. I unwind with some t.v. or genealogy research.

10:30 pm (ish). I feed Erin. We are usually all in bed by 11 pm. We get 7-8 hours of sleep and then it all starts over again…

I know you’re not supposed to compare your children, but these reflections are hopefully innocuous enough (and from so early in their lives) that they won’t hold it against me if they ever happen to stumble across this blog years from now.

Finding out I was pregnant. Advantage Evan. I found out I was pregnant with Evan on Christmas Day, 2007. We were in Florida visiting family and able to share the happy news with them. Coming off of a miscarriage just a few months earlier – it went a long way towards healing our broken hearts. We were also back east vacationing with family when we found out we were pregnant with Erin, and ironically enough we had just been through another miscarriage the month before. This time we decided to keep the news quiet for a little bit, I guess we were a little gun shy. I was also suffering from the most painful ear infection of my life at the time – it actually sent me to the ER. The hearing in my right ear still hasn’t recovered from the nerve damage caused by that infection…

Pregnancy. Draw. Although I never really got nauseous with either pregnancy, I was pretty miserable with both. With Evan, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t sleep and I was just uncomfortable all the time. With Erin, the pregnancy symptoms weren’t that bad – but my immune system was completely non-existent. I don’t think I’ve ever been more sick in my life than I was the 9 months I was pregnant with Erin. I managed to catch every single virus despite the fact that I had flu shots and washed my hands every chance I got.

Going into Labor. Advantage Erin. Evan – somewhat unexpectedly – came 5 weeks early and managed to break my water while I was at work (how embarassing). To make matters worse – I was in our Walnut Creek office – about an hour from San Francisco – and I did not drive that day, so the President of my company had to drive me home. Erin had the decency to break my water while I was at home…my only gripe was that it was at midnight.

Labor. Big Advantage Evan. My labor with Evan was a dream compared to Erin, even if the epidural slowed down the process quite a bit. With Erin I had to suffer through more painful contractions than I ever felt with Evan, and then had to have an emergency c-section b/c she was breech. Having an unexpected c-section had a big impact on me physically, emotionally and psychologically. In addition to the pain from the nerve damage that I am still dealing with (though it is getting better), I struggled with a bit of post-partum depression as well. I never ever want to go through that again. Good thing I only want 2 kids…

Eating. Advantage Erin. Evan would nurse for 40 minutes at a time and would spit up all over the place afterward. Now that I’m a more seasoned mom, I realize that he was just suckling for comfort and not actually eating for a good bit of that time…but the fact remains that he would be very fussy if I tried to shorten our nursing sessions at all. Erin, on the other hand, is an extremely efficient eater – we’re done in 10 minutes – and she barely ever spits up.

Sleeping. Advantage Evan. Evan was a phenomenal sleeper. He was sleeping 10 hours a night before he was even 3 months old, and he would sleep most of the day, giving me plenty of mommy time to myself. Erin is a decent sleeper, but nowhere near as good as Evan. These days we usually get about 7 hours at night, but I’m lucky if she has one good nap during the day. Don’t get me wrong – she naps – but it’s only for an hour at a time at most – whereas Evan would give me 3 hours at a time.

Temperment. Draw. JP and I lucked out; we can’t really complain about having difficult babies. Evan was a very calm baby that hardly fussed and just silently took in the world (on those rare occasions that he was awake). Erin is a very happy baby and smiles a lot. These past two days excepting, she hardly ever fusses unless she has a dirty diaper, is gassy, hungry or getting a bath.

I am looking forward to seeing them grow up. I will do my best not the compare them in the future

We went to a baby shower for some friends of ours, Mike and Corii, who are having a baby girl (Violet) any second now.  We went over to their place about a month ago for their baby shower.

Mike is a great musician and happens to have a drum kit in his house, which all the kids at the baby shower loved….

Especially Evan.

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July! I have to say I’ve been missing the amazing fireworks we used to get in Orlando thanks to Disney and Universal being in our backyards…the stuff here in the Bay Area seems like child’s play in comparison (not that you can even see anything with all the fog). Erin enjoyed her first 4th of July at a nice BBQ at Bill and Jessica’s house. Neither of the kids were able to stay up for the fireworks though – maybe next year.

They are both growing up so fast. Erin has already grown out of her size 1 diapers, size 3 months clothes and newborn insert for the car seat. Plus, she reached a new milestone by sleeping more than 8 hours last night – yay!

Evan has started to outgrow some (though not all) of his size 18 months clothes, and has started taking swimming lessons with his mommy. Yesterday was our first lesson, and things went pretty well. There are some kids in his class that are already able to swim underwater without any help, so hopefully Evan will learn alot from them. He’s definitely the least experienced swimmer in his class, which makes me feel a little guilty for not starting lessons sooner, but I’m sure he’ll pick up things fast. When class was over, the first thing he said was “Go swimming again”.

Unfortunately, Evan has also entered into the “terrible twos” phase. For a long time I was in denial thinking that he was just teething (and to be fair he has gotten ALOT of teeth recently and several are still coming in), but all of his whining and crankiness has gone on way too long (and way too consistently) for sore gums to be the cause. JP is much more patient than I am with it all, but we’ll get through it somehow.

Many thanks to Fran for the cute princess outfit for our princess

I just gave Erin some (it has been a couple of days and the Dr. said to do it if she was uncomfortable).

Wow.  Effective.