Merry Christmas!

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas! We hope this season finds you well. 2011 was definitely a busy year for our family! January began the year as we adjusted to our new life as a family of four. Reese Elizabeth was born in December of 2010 and has brought so much joy to our lives.

I think 2011 can be summed up as the year of job changes. I (Laura) was laid off from my job during maternity leave in January, a situation quite familiar to us. :) We took it in stride and were thankful for the extra time I would have to stay at home with the girls. I had several months of freedom and in July I finally got a job with Partner Engineering and Science doing environmental consulting. The job kept me busy and traveling frequently. In October it was Jeff's turn. He got an amazing new job as a Senior Compensation Analyst with Flowserve. It was an answer to prayer in that my job was no longer necessary, so as soon as he had signed his offer letter, I put in my two week notice to quit my job and become a stay-at-home mom. Long story short, they convinced me to not quit all together, and offered me a very unique situation that I am very grateful for. I basically work when I want to, and don't work when I don't want to. :) It's a great arrangement and I couldn't be happier being at home with the girls, yet still keeping my career relevant and bringing in some shopping money. (I may or may not have a slight problem with an addiction to buying clothes for Kate and Reese.)

Kate is now 3 1/2 years old and is such a sweet heart. One highlight of her year is that she was featured on the November cover of "Suburban Parent" magazine here in Dallas. We are so proud of our little girl!



She enjoys taking ballet and tap classes and we are so excited that she will have her first recital this coming spring! She is a wonderful big sister to her "Baby Reese" and loves to be a helper for mommy. She has also started Preschool this year and is absolutely flourishing. She loves to go to school.



Reese just turned 1 year old! How is that possible? We thought Kate's first year went by quickly - that was nothing compared to Reese! It has been so fun to experience having a baby again and re-live all of the fun (and not so fun) milestones you get to witness.



Reese is on the verge of walking and her vocabulary is just beginning to expand. She loves animals, especially our dog, Bailey, who she calls "Bah." She looks for Bah every morning and crawls over to her and pets her in bed. Her other favorite past-time involves pulling out anything I attempt to put in her hair. She loves her big sister and my favorite part of Kate's school day is the first glimpse Reese catches of her when school is done. She lights up, lets out a squeal of joy, and kicks her legs as hard as she can in the excitement of seeing her sissy. We are so blessed and thankful for our two little girls.



We hope 2012 brings a little more stability into our lives, although we are currently trying to sell our house in order to move a little closer to Jeff's new job. We trust it will happen in God's timing, though we are admittedly a bit impatient to move on. We love receiving all of your Christmas cards and enjoy catching up with your families.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Love,

The Blairs
Jeff, Laura, Kate, and Reese

Sleep Training

Disclaimer - Yes, I let my kids CIO. Not looking for criticism there.

We've come to a crossroads with Reese. Something has to change. 20-30 minute naps 5 times a day is NOT going to cut it. Even the pediatrician said it's time to work on her. She should be taking 2 long naps with possibly one 3rd short nap.

So, I re-read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child again last night. I followed it with Kate, but she took to it SO well, I'd hardly say I had to sleep train her. She was just automatic.

After 3 hours of uncontrollable screaming yesterday at the end of the day because she was overtired from a lack of good naps (with me actively trying to calm/soothe her) I know something has to be done.

She's been breaking out of her swaddle after 10 minutes and freaking out because her arms are loose, so I decided to go cold turkey on the swaddle and sleep train at the same time. Yes, she is getting plenty to eat. No, she is not hungry.

With my notes from the book and an action plan in place, her first nap today was somewhat successful - she only cried 20 minutes (swaddle free!) before she fell asleep. Though wouldn't you know, right at the 28 minute mark, she wakes up. So now the real CIO begins. The book says anything under 45 minutes is not an adequate nap (and even 45 is questionable at her age) and to let her figure things out an additional 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the length of the original nap. So we're at minute 40, and I don't see this ending anytime soon. She just has to figure out her self-soothing techniques on her own. I was making things worse before by continually giving her pacifier back, basically training her to wake up at these short intervals because I'll come back and soothe her.

Soooo! I wonder how long this will take to see results. We were so spoiled with Kate with immediate results. I'm keeping a sleep journal through this process, so at least I'll KNOW when I see results! Emotionally it doesn't really bother me, I don't feel bad for her, but it is just really draining to listen to her scream and scream and scream. I have the monitor turned down, but I sort of have to keep listening so I can take notes on if/when she's asleep and such.

So, that's where we are.

April

I can't believe it's April already! And that I haven't posted in nearly two months. Oops! I really don't know that anyone is reading though - even the blogs I follow have been slow. It seems no one is into blogging anymore. I feel bad though, Kate's infancy was so well recorded, and all Reese is getting is an update every two months. Such is the plight of a second child, I suppose!

She is doing really well. Still a tiny little peanut, she is so sweet, cuddly, and happy. We have started sleep training this week - she's been taking 20-30 minute naps, which just isn't going to cut it. The training is going well, she still wakes up after ~30 minutes, but for the most part I'm able to go give her pacifier back and she'll go back to sleep for another 30-45 minutes. One big difference between Kate & Reese's sleep habits is that Kate was finished with the swaddle at 12 weeks. Reese is still very much dependent on it! It's fine with me, I'm in no hurry to get rid of it, and I figure when she's ready it'll be a smooth transition.

She is SO close to rolling. Every day I think it's going to be the day, but she just quite hasn't made it yet.

Kate is almost 3! When did that happen? I've been working on planning her birthday party - we are going to do "The Little Mermaid." It is by far her favorite movie. It's a fun full circle moment for me, as one of my birthday parties as a child was "The Little Mermaid" as well. I think we'll do it down at our neighborhood pool.

The weather is gorgeous today, though the middle 80's is a bit warmer than I'd prefer for the first day of April. Such is life in Texas. I'm hoping the girls are in a cooperative mood this evening, I'm going to try to take some bluebonnet pictures!

Reese's 2 Month Appointment

She's such a tiny little peanut! 9 lb 11 oz (10th percentile), 21 3/4 inches long (Kate's birth length and 15th percentile) and her head is in the 20th percentile. Healthy and strong!

For comparison, Kate's stats were 11 lb 8 oz (60th Percentile), 23.5 inches long (90th percentile).
And her head in the 15th percentile.

The only weird thing that happened was in her first diaper of the morning yesterday, it looked to me like there was blood in her urine. I saved the diaper and brought it with me, and she said it could POSSIBLY be blood, but since it was still pink in the diaper (and not turned brown 7 hours later) that she thought it was urea (sp?) crystals. She had fluorescent orange pee diapers in her first week of life when she was super dehydrated with her jaundice, and she thinks it's that same thing going on, except it's pink this time. (She'd had 2 more diapers that day that were totally clear.) Reese has slept through the night 5 nights in a row now (YAY!) and oddly wakes up most mornings dry. She thinks it's just her body adjusting to that, and for some reason it piled up that night. She said it's pretty rare though not unheard of to happen at this age. She said we'll watch it, and if it happens a lot then we'll look into it. (This morning she was clear, so who knows!) She's drinking 28-30 ounces per day, so it's not dehydration.

Here are a couple recent pics of my little dear. Nana made her a beautiful quilt and she brought it over a few days ago!

6 Week Update

I can't believe I haven't posted in 6 weeks! Seriously, it's been one thing after another over here. The first week we had Reese home, Kate caught a stomach bug. Thankfully no one else caught it, probably because I walked around the house obsessively wiping things down with Clorox wipes. Then when Reese was about 2 weeks old, I had a gallbladder attack and ended up in the ER. They confirmed that I had gall stones, and told me to schedule surgery to have it removed. They couldn't fit me in until December 28, so in the mean time I had to go through Christmas week on a low (no) fat diet. Boo! But I survived, though the whole family (including Reese) caught a cough and cold where we lost our voices. It was so sad to hear Reese cry without a voice! I came through the surgery just fine, with a lot of help from my family. Jeff's parents took Kate up to Oklahoma for the week, and we stayed with my parents the week of the surgery so they could all take care of Reese. I did a lot of sleeping, which felt great to a new mom. :)

I never posted about Reese's 2 week appointment, so here are those stats: She weighed 7 pounds, 1.5 oz (10th percentile), was 20 inches long (25th percentile) and her head was 25th percentile as well. So very different from Kate! :)

Reese turned 6 weeks old yesterday and is doing so well. Her personality is so very similar to Kate's. She's very relaxed and "go with the flow" and and is such a little sweet heart. Up until last night, I had her sleeping in her Rock n Play in our room at night. That is so funny to me because Kate slept in her crib from Day 1. Maybe it's because she's (probably) our last baby, I'm having a harder time letting go? Anyway, her move to the crib was delayed a bit because of her cough she's had for 3 weeks, and the pediatrician wanted her to be sleeping with her head elevated, so the Rock n Play was the best place for her. She has finally 99% recovered, so we tried the crib last night with great success! When we first had Reese home from the hospital, she hated swaddling, so we abandoned it. We tried it again last night and she took right to it!

Starting around 5 weeks, Reese is giving us one good 8 hour stretch at night, followed up by about a 5 hour stretch. That is so great! The only "problem" is that her long stretch starts at about 8-9 pm, so I'm still having to get up around 3-4 am to feed her. It's not bad though, she generally falls right back asleep after she eats, so I can get back to bed. I also got her first smile at 5 weeks 3 days, so that is always a wonderful moment.

Kate is adjusting really well overall. She LOVES Reese to death, and is so excited to see her every day. She's been a bit more emotional lately, but she's going through such a big adjustment, it's got to affect her somehow! She is so fun at 2.5 years old and blows me away with how grown up she is.





And we keep rolling with the punches - any of you who have known me since Kate was born will see the irony in this - I lost my job yesterday, laid off again. What is it with me and having babies?? So frustrating. It really was the perfect job for a mom. I'm not looking forward to going through the job search again, and working a traditional "8-5" job. Not ideal to say the least. I'm really disappointed and frustrated, but am trying to look on the bright side of things and remind myself that I'm just getting extra time with Reese, and to give thanks to God through all circumstances. He will provide for us.