I worked really, really hard to ensure that both of the girls were breastfed. After working so hard to overcome thrush and continue breastfeeding when Natalie was a baby, I took measures to ensure that Miranda and I never fought that battle. Aside from a little issue with oversupply, nursing Miranda was easy from the beginning. And from the beginning, nursing Miranda was very different than nursing Natalie. But in my determination to not compare the girls to each other, I neglected to notice or fully realize how different a nurser Miranda was. Which is how we got from Miranda being exclusively breastfed until she was 5 months, to where we are now: at almost 10 months, Miranda is only nursing once a day. Once she was introduced to bottles when I went back to work, she was hooked. And since (based on my experience with Natalie) it never occurred to me that Miranda would prefer bottles over nursing, I wasn’t careful about my supply. If she keeps nursing until her first birthday, I’ll be happy and surprised.

As much as I worry about Miranda’s immune system and miss the special bond that comes from nursing, bottles and formula have their advantages. It’s nice not being the only parent who can feed her in the middle of the night. And although bottle feeding requires carrying around a lot more stuff, it’s easier to feed her on the go with bottles, especially now that she can hold them herself. No matter what she eats, Miranda is happy and (despite a few minor illnesses) healthy. And that’s really all that matters.

And finally, because our beautiful daughters are always keeping us on our toes, they have totally switched places with respect to their feelings about baths. Miranda, who always loved the water and didn’t even flinch having her hair rinsed or water getting in her eyes, suddenly hates baths! And Natalie, who has always hated baths, especially having her hair washed, has discovered the joys of fancy shampoo and conditioner. Now she washes her own hair, tolerates rinsing much better and no longer freaks out (quite so much) the minute a bead of water starts descending down her forehead. The other day, she actually cheered when we announced that it was time to wash her hair. And Chris and I almost passed out from shock!

When I spoke to the owner before signing her up for the class, I was impressed with their philosophy. He said at this age they are looking for the kids to learn how to take a class, by listening to the teacher and taking turns with the other kids, and gain confidence in being in a new environment. The gymnastics skills are the vehicle through which those goals are achieved. The class also helps kids build gross motor skills.

I’ve been impressed with the teacher, Miss Janette, who is so patient and kind with the kids. Not only does she help break down the skills into easily learned pieces, but she encourages the kids to challenge themselves. At the end of the class, Miss Janette asks the kids to tell his or her parent what their favorite part of the class was. Then the kids all high-five each other, the parents, and their teacher. It’s super cute.

Natalie LOVED it from the moment we walked into the big gym. There’s never been a skill or new activity she hasn’t enthusiastically participated in. She occasionally gets frustrated when she cannot do something perfect immediately, so I am thrilled that the class is helping her learn to be patient and practice. I love watching how proud she is of herself when her hard work and practice results in her accomplishing a new trick.

One of the skills was to jump with both knees together onto the vault. Natalie had trouble getting her knees to stay together, so she practiced over and over again, using our couch as her personal vault. When she could do it well, she was so excited to show her teacher, Miss Janette. When it was her turn on the vault, she held up the line to be sure that her teacher saw her, shouting, “Miss Janette, Miss Janette, WATCH THIS!!!!!”

Now Natalie is more than ready to graduate to the kids only class, and once I go back to work Meema and PopPop will take her to class each week. Luckily I took this video that I can watch since I won’t get to watch her doing gymnastics live each week. The video shows off Natalie’s gym skills, as well as my lack of steady-camera skills!

Before we left we debated about whether or not to go. I took Natalie to the pediatrician to make sure she didn’t have any infections as she’d been running a fever for two days. But she was eating, drinking, and sleeping fine, and pretty much acting normal. The doctor said it was just a virus, so we decided to chance it. Of course in retrospect, that was a big mistake. Almost as soon as we got to the campsite, Natalie became fragile, clingy, and cranky. Any little problem set her off. She wanted to be held all the time. She had trouble sleeping*. A few times, twice at 4:30 am, she had complete, utter meltdowns that took her a very long time to recover from. She started picking at her chapped lips so much that they cracked and bled, which incited more meltdowns. Whenever she cried, her nose ran, which made her cry even harder, which made her nose run more—you see the problem. She often melted down upon waking up, which we realized was because she had to pee, but felt too tired to walk to the bathrooms. We bought a potty for her to use in the tent, but she didn’t always want to do that.

At one point, after a particularly bad meltdown, Natalie wanted mommy-and-only-mommy, and Miranda needed to nurse. Since Miranda is very easy to soothe and hasn’t yet gotten into a bad cycle of continuing-to-be-upset-as-a-result-of-being-upset, Chris held Miranda off while I tried to calm Natalie down. At a certain point, I had to feed Miranda, and it broke my heart that I couldn’t meet both of their needs at once. Natalie was still upset when I got to Miranda, and at that point, Miranda was as upset as she’s ever gotten. She nursed, but stopped every minute or so to scream at me for making her wait so long. When both girls were finally calm I felt like sobbing. I felt like I could *almost* imagine what my friend Lindsay, who has a girl Natalie’s age and triplet 10-month-old boys, must face multiple times a day. At this age, and even in that situation, the girls’ needs are pretty simple. And yet at that moment mothering them felt like an overwhelming responsibility.

Another thing we learned (although we already knew!) is that we have amazing friends. If Jodi and Jay hadn’t been there to support us, we never would have attempted, or made it through the trip. And the girls are so comfortable with them that when they were having good moments, they were just as happy to sit on their laps, be carried by them, or fall asleep laying against them.

Finally, Chris and I affirmed that we are a good parenting team. Monday marked our 7th wedding anniversary, which was fitting since it was one of the more challenging experiences we’ve had since getting married. Even though the weekend was extremely stressful, we stuck together. Our parenting styles are complementary, which is a good thing since this weekend, we needed all our tricks to survive.

Here are the pictures, which as I said, reflect an entirely different experience than the one I just described.
Natalie’s funny face
Look who’s old enough for back carries!
All the comforts of home
Funny faces
Ducklings on the lake
Mad faces
Chubby legs I guess Miranda’s socks are too tight!
The burn on Miranda’s arm Apparently our kids are destined to be scarred by the time they are 4 months. A flaming piece of wood popped out of the campfire and landed on Miranda’s arm. She didn’t cry even though it blistered almost immediately. Chris and I have both camped our entire lives and never had anything like that happen before.
Natalie in the coal mine On a rainy day we went on a tour of the Lakawanna coal mine. A lot of the details went over Natalie’s head of course, but it was fun to go so far underground.
Natalie shows off her rocks She sorted them in order of sparkliness.
Miranda and Natalie bundled up Finally calm after they both had complete meltdowns. Thank goodness for episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba on my iPhone.
Miranda with Auntie Jodi in the hammock
Natalie smiling Funny that we got lots of pictures of Natalie smiling on the trip, even though she was pretty miserable overall!
Eating pancakes in the screen tent
Hikers
The hiking trail was surrounded by these pretty flowers
Jodi and Jay
Miranda asleep on my back
Tree on the trail
Natalie with Auntie Jodi
Chris wearing a tired Natalie
Hiking while wearing the kids On our 7th wedding anniversary!
Happy after a nursing break
Stopping for a snack
Miranda with Auntie Jodi
Miranda and Mama
Ganoga Falls
On the edge In more ways than one….Natalie started melting down right after this photo was taken.
Overlooking a 90-foot waterfall The map said the trail to these falls was 3 miles, but according to my Nike+, it was 5.5!!
The lake on our campsite One last photo before we headed home. We chose to start a 4-hour drive at 10 pm rather that suffer through another horrendous night and morning. Hopefully our next camping trip will be better!

*The first night we all had trouble sleeping since the couple camping in the site across from ours stayed up until 3 am arguing. Loudly. Every other word out of the woman’s mouth was f—ing. That combined with Natalie waking up crying, Miranda waking up to nurse and both girls wanting to be held by mommy at the same time made for very little sleep for all of us. Then Natalie started the day at 4:30 am with a long, terrible meltdown.

Taking the path of least resistance is scary because it forces parents to hand over control to the child. Losing control, in my estimation, is what makes parenting so frustrating. But letting go and trusting that things will come together is a good life lesson, especially for control freaks like me. What we’ve found in making this our parenting style, is that an opportunity always presented itself for making changes when the child is ready. And our patience in waiting for those opportunities was always rewarded with smooth transitions.

Fitting with my trying to control things, before Miranda was born, I planned on doing things differently in terms of sleep. I planned to get her sleeping in her crib, in her own room from day one so she would be used to it, because part of me still thought that Natalie was a “bad” sleeper because we did something wrong. Luckily, when Miranda was born, I came to my senses and remembered some good advice about sleep and survival in the first 12 weeks: by any means necessary. In other words, follow your baby, not the “experts.”

I also discovered that when Miranda was born, I had absolutely no desire to put her down. Ever. Parenting an infant for the second time makes you realize how quickly it passes and how you have to treasure each moment. So I think for the first two weeks (at least) I parked myself on the couch and Miranda slept snuggled against me. Or Chris, on the occasion that I had to, you know, eat, use the bathroom, shower, and spend time with Natalie.

And so far, Miranda has been a great sleeper (knocking wood furiously!). With the exception of a couple of weeks where she was fussy and hard to settle in the evening, Miranda has been amazingly easy going. We figured out her sleep formula early on (swaddle, pacifier, vibrating bouncy seat, white noise) and as long as we stuck with that, she’s been sleeping fine. At night, she’s been starting out in the bouncy seat and when she woke up to eat, I brought her in bed with me, where she also slept well.

At her two month check-up, I let the doctor get in my head and it knocked me off my game. Dr. Stephen (who I LOVE as a pediatrician, by the way) asked how Miranda was sleeping and I told her everything was fine. Then I said (only half-seriously) that I was a bit worried about what would happen when Miranda outgrew the bouncy seat and that I was considering buying a vibrating crib mattress. Big mistake. Of course Dr. Stephen replied by telling me that Miranda shouldn’t have to rely on vibrations to sleep, and that it would be best to try and get her used to the crib as soon as possible. And I immediately panicked, thought about how I was doing it all wrong, and went home determined to get Miranda sleeping in her crib.

“Operation-get-Miranda-to-sleep-in-her-crib” actually started out okay. I think she slept for 3 hours or so in the crib at the start of the night. But when she woke up to nurse, I couldn’t get her to stay asleep in the crib for more than five minutes. Finally, at 2 am, after an hour of picking her up, rocking her, burping her, nursing her, walking her, re-swaddling her, etc, etc, every 5 minutes I came to my senses. I remembered that sleep is more important than doing it “right” (whatever the hell that means) and that if I was patient, ignored the “experts” and followed Miranda, an opportunity would present itself at the time when Miranda was ready to sleep in her crib.

This weekend, opportunity knocked—a lot sooner than I anticipated! First, Miranda took a nap in her bouncy seat, unswaddled. She had fallen asleep in the mei tai carrier while I was at the farmer’s market and I had already transferred her into the car, and then from the car into the house. Since she was already asleep, I didn’t want to disturb her by wrangling her into the swaddle blanket. We’ve done it before because she wouldn’t stay asleep otherwise, but I decided to risk it. Much to my delight, she slept for over an hour!

Later that afternoon, while we were working in the yard, Miranda was laying on a blanket. She became fussy, which I didn’t quite understand because she had recently woken up from a good nap, was fed, and had a clean, dry diaper. My hands were covered in dirt from gardening, so rather than pick her up, I just stuck the pacifier in her mouth whenever it fell out. That seemed to be all she needed to calm down. Then, despite the noise of Natalie dropping rocks into a metal bucket and numerous squawking birds, Miranda fell asleep. On her own. Unswaddled. And she slept like that, on a blanket in the shade, for over an hour. Given our history with sleep challenges, we were quite shocked. So astounded that we documented the milestone with pictures:

Lounging Miranda She hasn’t quite settled on which finger to suck on and goes back and forth between her thumb and other fingers.
Miranda fell asleep on her own!!
Conked out

That night, Miranda went to sleep in her crib without a problem. We did swaddle her, since we didn’t want to change more than one part of the routine at once. She slept for 4 hours, I got up to nurse her and she went back to sleep in her crib without a problem and slept for another 4 hours. Then she slept another 2 hours in bed with us. The next night, she woke up after 45 minutes to nurse (she was so tired when I initially put her down that she hadn’t really eaten a full “meal”). She was smiling at me when I put her back in the crib, as if she thought she was waking up from a nap. I decided to try and leave the room while she was still wide awake, just to see what would happen. She fell asleep by herself and stayed asleep for another 4 hour stretch. And at 6 am, I kid you not, Miranda woke up laughing. When I brought her into bed, she fell asleep again with a smile on her face.

Natalie too has been working on staying in her room all night until morning (we implemented a sticker chart that has led to a 100% improvement). Since waking up to two smiling, happy girls in the morning is too precious to miss, we’re sticking with co-sleeping for those last couple of hours of the night. We often are rewarded on the weekends not only with waking up to happy smiles, but with kids who sleep until 10 am. I don’t want to jinx it, but at least for now, we’ve got the best of both worlds. And we got there by following the babies, not the experts.

Matching Jammies!!! This is the 3rd or 4th time I’ve tried to get a decent picture of Natalie and Miranda in their matching jammies….luckily I got this one before Miranda outgrows hers.

The zip up footies don’t make a lot of sense for Natalie to wear since she has been night trained. A couple of weeks ago, we forgot to put a pull-up on Natalie before bed and she’s been wearing undies to bed ever since. It was a full week before she had an accident, and since then she’s only had a couple. I think wearing a diaper at night might be the last bit of babyhood gone….we are so proud of our big girl!

Big Sister Natalie

Natalie is proving to be an awesome big sister. Before Miranda was born, we had been worried about her regressing in any number of areas: sleep, potty, eating, etc. We worried about jealousy and Natalie acting out to get attention or out of confusion, frustration, and anger. We worried about her insisting on Mommy’s attention while I was nursing or otherwise attending to the baby. Our heads were filled with stories of older siblings trying to sell or throw out their new, unwelcome family members.

But like the strong, amazing girl she’s always been, Natalie has accepted the challenge of becoming a big sister with grace and enthusiasm. She has been willing to share her toys, loves to hug and kiss Miranda, and wants to be involved in taking care of her. In fact, the only times Natalie has gotten upset haven’t been when she’s not getting attention. Rather, she gets upset if we deny her access to her sister, i.e. “Miranda just fell asleep, so now isn’t a good time to hug her.”

What’s even more impressive to us is that Natalie seems to be embracing not only that she has a baby sister, but that she is, in fact, a big girl. Instead of regressing, she’s become even more independent in terms of the potty, eating, and playing. She’s been sleeping in her bed all night almost every night. Miranda is only 3 weeks old, and so far we’ve loved watching Natalie’s relationship with her sister develop, as well as see her growing maturity.

Rocking out Notice her pajama shirt says "I like to be LOUD!"

When we took Natalie to her 2½ year well-visit in July, Dr. Stephen encouraged us to begin potty training since Natalie appeared ready and because it would be helpful to have potty training established before baby #2 arrived. We knew that Natalie was ready but had been dragging our feet. Labor Day weekend seemed like a good time to start since we could hole up at home for three days. We planned on taking diapers away entirely and expected a lot of accidents until Natalie got the hang of things.

But the weekend before labor day, Natalie decided that she was done with diapers and wanted to wear pretty underwear instead. Although we weren’t fully prepared (we only had a few pairs of underwear and no potty training books or videos as we had planned) we decided to follow Natalie’s lead. I ran out to stock up on underwear and stickers and tattoos for rewards.

The first day went as expected: lots of accidents! She actually got the hang of pooping on the potty fairly quickly, but had some trouble with peeing. My suspicion is that the diapers are so incredibly absorbent that Natalie had no clue what it even felt like to pee. At one point during the first day, she angrily said, “HEY!!! These underwears keep peeing on me!!!”

Luckily, it didn’t take very long for Natalie to make the connection that she could control the peeing. After a week or so, she was making it to the potty most of the time. She would mostly have accidents if she was too distracted by something fun to stop and use the potty. She was successful with the potty at Melissa’s and while out and about too. And she was covered in temporary tattoos! At some point we had to start putting tattoos on the tops of her feet because there was no space left on her arms.

But then she started resisting sitting on the potty, especially to poop. At first, we used upped the rewards….every time she produced something on the potty, she could have a lollipop. One day while Meema was watching her, she went to the potty twice in quick succession and asked excitedly, “After my pee lollipop, can I have a poop lollipop?”

I was worried that we’d never be rid of the lollipops, but we were able to phase them out fairly easily. First, I started setting some limits, like no lollipops after dinner, then she only got lollipops for pooping, then only for keeping her underwear clean and dry for the whole day. It wasn’t long before she stopped asking for lollipops altogether. But for a while, she looked like this much of the time:

Sometime in the fall, Natalie started regressing in terms of pooping. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but we finally realized that every fall, Natalie starts struggling with constipation, probably because we are eating less fresh fruit. Unfortunately, constipation quickly turns into a vicious cycle for kids as they start withholding because they associate pooping with pain. For Natalie it also caused a lot of problems with potty training.

We tried a few different interventions (including miralax) and finally settled on what seems to be the best solution: cutting down on milk, pushing more fruit, and sitting in the bathroom, telling stories and/or reading books with Natalie for a long time before she actually goes.

After a few rough months, we seem to be settled into a good, regular schedule and Natalie has been virtually accident-free. We’ve noticed that she is much more likely to wake up at night (sometimes crying) if she hasn’t pooped that day, so sitting on the potty for 15-30 minutes has been incorporated into our bedtime routine most nights. Makes us wonder if constipation has been at the root of her sleep problems all along.

Overall, the experience was positive, and Natalie is very proud of herself for learning this new skill. Dr. Stephen was right to encourage us to accomplish this before the new baby arrives. One because it would be difficult to devote the amount of attention the process took whilst caring for an infant. And two because it’s one of the ways that Natalie identifies herself as a “big girl” because “only babies wear diapers.” We are so proud of our big girl, too!

Natalie petting Tillman’s doppleganger, who Chris’ Aunt jokingly named “Stillman.”

Recently (November maybe?) I overheard Natalie and Clara talking about Tillman.

Clara (looking down the hole in the door to the basement): Where’s your kitty?

Natalie: Tillman “dived” so we can’t see him anymore.

Clara: I think he ran away.

Natalie (very upset by this notion): MOM!! Tillman dived, RIGHT?

Me: Yes, that’s right honey. He died and so we can’t see him anymore. Let’s go play in the playroom!!!

I didn’t really want to explain death to someone else’s child, so I went for the distraction.

We went into her room to choose an outfit. Natalie rejected a few things we suggested, then told us that she wanted to wear her “blue tank top with the flower on it.”

I said, “Sorry, honey, but that shirt is dirty. You wore it the other day and it’s in the laundry basket.”

“You mean my tank top is dirty?” Natalie hates it when we (or anyone) uses a general word to refer to something for which there is a more specific term. Heaven forbid you call her flip-flops “sandals.”

“Yes, your blue tank top with the flower on it is dirty. You’ll have to choose something else to wear.”

Natalie buried her face in my lap. Then she stood up, looking forlorn. “I really, really, really wanted to wear that tank top!”

I could empathize completely with having a specific, perfect thing in mind to wear, only to find that it’s dirty, or otherwise unavailable. “I know honey, it’s very disappointing when the thing you want to wear is dirty.” I really didn’t think that Natalie would be so emotional about clothes this young.

Natalie said again, “I really, really, really wanted to wear that tank top!” She looked like she might cry.

Chris also expressed his condolences about the tank top and promised to wash the it that night so that Natalie could wear it the next day.

Then I spotted a suitable replacement dress in Natalie’s drawer. “Look, Natalie! What about this dark blue dress with light blue flowers? It’s soooooo pretty!!”

Chris exclaimed, “Oh yeah, that dress perfectly matches your blue eyes!!”

Oh how we miss the days of pulling any old outfit out of the drawer and dressing Natalie without protest or hassle. Luckily, Natalie caught on to our enthusiasm for the blue dress and happily put it on.

As I looked at the dress more closely, I noticed there were some spots on it. I wondered why the spots didn’t come out in the wash, then touched one. Ew. I realized that the dress must have gotten back into the drawer instead of in the hamper after Natalie wore it last, because it had splotches of crusted yogurt on it. At this point, getting Natalie dressed had already taken 20 minutes. I knew that telling her that the dress was dirty would likely incite a tantrum and make both Chris and I late to work. As much as it pained me, I didn’t say a word. So, after all that fuss, Natalie ended up wearing something that was probably dirtier than the blue tank top that she wanted to wear in the first place. Oh, the irony.