Hadassah Grace-the third month

Well, my sweet little daughter is 3 months old, 15 lbs 5 oz (checked her on Monday because we need to monitor her weight since we are having a hard time getting her to drink milk while Mommy is gone at work), and such a sweet smiley bundle of preciousness. Yeah, parenthood is pretty amazing the second time around too. Here is what has been going on in our family this month....
I went back to work 2 weeks ago, and it has been a very difficult and challenging transition for all of us. Hadassah is much more vocal than Ben, gets angry much more quickly, and is just kind of an "all or nothing" type girl...so where Ben waited until he was 5 months old to decide bottles were overrated, she pitched a fit right away, and continues to do so each time a caregiver tries to feed her when I am gone. Prayers on this count would be much appreciated-I so hate to think of her being sad and hungry, she is awfully young to go for 2 5-6 hour stretches per day without eating or drinking, and I am sure it is wearing on Josh to have her spend as much time crying as she does. We are trying everything we can think of-cup feeding, spoon feeding, syringe feeding, various bottles/nipples, etc. and have had only limited success so far. A dear friend got her to eat 1.5 oz today from one of our new bottles (which is by FAR the most she has accepted not from me) so maybe we can still convince her to at least have something!!
Josh is so close to being done with school we can taste it...and yet the insanity of his final semester means he is literally always doing school and still not totally caught up (at least, he doesn't feel he is). We are just trying to survive and hang in there as a family until he is done...he and I haven't had a decent conversation in the last 2 weeks, we aren't often both home at the same time, and we are both so intensely exhausted (him because he regularly stays up far past midnight to complete work, me because of Hadassah reverse cycling and foot pain that is bad enough to prevent sleep many nights). We are so incredibly thankful for friends who have stepped in and offered to help us with childcare, meals, etc.-we would be drowning without this help, I am sure!
 Just quickly, since I know some people will be curious...my foot started acting up when I was pregnant and has gotten markedly worse over the weeks since Hadassah was born (I am sure that spending much of my 17 hour labor standing and squatting while barefoot did not do me any favors-not the smartest move I have ever made in my life, but I was not thinking about my feet at the time). It has not been this bad since I was a teenager. It's the one that I have had 5 surgeries on (3 on the other). An MRI has shown there is an exostosis (new bone growth) underneath my fibula (basically just below my ankle) which is causing some tendons to be compressed/pinched and now I have something called tenosynovitis (means inflammation of the tendon and tendon sheath surrounding the tendon). I almost certainly need surgery to prevent worsening of the growth and potentially eventual tendon rupture, but we really can't afford (physically or monetarily) for me to be off work and off my feet right now, so we are trying an injection on Friday to see if we can buy some time. Meantime, I wear a brace at work and am supposed to be nonweightbearing at home. I do my best, but with 2 under 2...it's not the easiest. If you come to my house, be warned...it looks like a toddler lives in it with a Daddy who is too busy and stressed to clean and a Mommy who is too exhausted/lazy and is usually not able to manage standing for more than a few minutes at a time by the end of the day.
Okay, on to fun stuff!
Hadassah can roll from her back to her tummy. She doesn't do it regularly yet, but I have seen her do it enough times to be pretty sure it isn't an accident when it happens.
She has the most gorgeous, sweet smile that transforms her face from adorably chubby to simply angelic. How hard you have to work to get her to smile is a pretty good indication of how close your relationship is with her. She smiles pretty readily at me and at Daddy, extended family and friends have to work at it a little harder, and there is exactly 1 person in the world that she smiles at without him smiling first...big brother Ben. Thankfully, those 2 adore each other. He often asks to hold her, he loves to kiss her and hug her (and "hold" her), and he loves to rub her back or pat her sweetly while they both nurse. I so hope they keep on loving each other as they get older! (anyone have suggestions on fostering a sweet loving relationship between siblings? I'm all ears!)
Her head control is greatly improved, though she is still fairly wobbly.
She likes nursing quite a bit, but is not quite as in love with it as Ben was. She doesn't always comfort nurse to the same degree that he did, and there are times when she actually prefers another means of comfort over nursing.
She LOVES being worn, especially in "her" wrap (we were borrowing it from a friend, and she fell so madly in love with it that I ended up buying it from my friend).
She loves being rocked, which makes me very happy. Ben never liked rocking, so now the glider is actually getting some use! And with the foot pain, it is SO nice that she actually prefers rocking over walking/bouncing most of the time!
We have done a little bit of EC with her, but I think we are going to wait to really start that until Josh is done with school. She is just with too many different caregivers and so often out of the house.
She has gotten a bit better about wet diapers-she still doesn't like them, but she usually only makes me change her 1-2 times per night, which is much nicer than 6 or more!
She loves to "talk"-she will coo and bob her head and make such sweet faces.
Just think, by this time next month, Josh will be within days of graduating! That will be awesome, and maybe bring some big changes for our family. We'll see. Until then, if you don't see or hear from us or I forget to respond to you, I am very sorry...feel free to pester me at will. As I said, in some ways we are just trying to survive the next few weeks.

Deep Breath Before the Plunge

Today my husband suggested taking Ben to the playground, so we got dressed, packed the diaper bag, and put on shoes to his delighted chants of "outside, outside!"
...which quickly turned to screams of anger, frustration, and heartbroken sobs as he was strapped into his car seat. The heartbreak continued all the way to the park-I tried to explain that we understood what he wanted (to a tearful "yeah, okay!") and that we were going to play at the playground and were almost there-at which point he would dissolve all over again. He was positive in that moment that we were denying his heart's true desire, even though we obviously knew what it was, and his little heart didn't understand why we didn't love him anymore.
Thankfully, we soon arrived at the park and joy came, as fully and completely felt as the agony from only moments before. He is now happily running, sliding, and climbing (Hadassah and I are nursing in the car because it us too cold to fumble with layers right now-and too windy). I am so glad, because even though I knew he would be happier and have more fun at the park than just in our back or even front yard, it was hard and sad to listen to him being so sad on the way.
And then it hit me...I have so much more toddler in me than I would like to admit. The heartache, anger, betrayal? Yeah, I feel those in reference to losing my dream of being a full time stay at home mom. Now, I honestly don't know if this is just how it is or if my heavenly parent has a better destination in mind that will fulfill my deepest desires even better than what I think I want. After all, Ben has these same reactions when we say no, as we sometimes must. But we don't love Ben less in those moments. Can I trust that He doesn't either? This is hard on so many levels (not the least of which is perceived judgment over my dedication to motherhood from strangers and acquaintances alike). And how do I walk through this, allowing the grief but not being swallowed by it, and choosing each day to make the most of the time I am given with my sweet babies?
I really hope we are headed to the "park"...