Noe News is Good News

What we will remember about life with Lyla-1 month old

Lyla turned one month old on Wednesday! I can't believe how fast time is flying already. It's kind of breaking my heart... knowing that she'll be a completely different baby as each day comes. I'm trying to soak every bit of her in- may even be a little obsessed. She's already changed so much! Her schedule is starting to settle a little. One thing is always constant- she wakes up at 6am and wants to play! Thankfully, Adam has taken that time slot as his scheduled one and one time with her and I get a little bit more sleep- if you can really even call it that because it's hard to sleep when your baby is awake right next to you. She's a pretty good sleeper at night though. The past few nights she has given me at least 4 hours of straight sleep... one night she even slept 6 hours straight! I'm hoping this means she will sleep through the night early on! Crossing my fingers but not getting my hopes up. 



My philosophy on parenting has changed a little over the years... with Joselyn and Landen I tried to force my schedule on them and I honestly feel that it prevented them from getting the sleep that they needed. I've come to my own conclusions that it is the reason they didn't sleep through the night until they were a lot older. I even felt their feeding had to be on a certain schedule. I kind of feel bad for that. This time around I am letting Lyla lead the way. I feed her when she is hungry or needs comfort and don't try to force her to sleep if she wants to stay up and play. I hold her a lot (got myself a Boba wrap which I LOVE) and jsut try to enjoy her being little. I don't get as annoyed when she cries although the sound of a crying baby never sits too well with me. I always feel like I am doing something wrong if they cry... when I really know it's just how they communicate. To be honest, she doesn't even cry all that much. She's very predictable. She will cry if she has a dirty diaper- more like scream. She HATES them. We plan on switching to cloth diapers here pretty soon- I'm hoping that will help. She also cries when she is tired. That's about it! She is so happy and alert when she is awake and she has been awake a lot more lately. She loves being talked to. It seems she especially loves Joselyn. Joselyn can pretty much get her to stop crying and knows how to talk to Lyla. It's so sweet. 



What's even sweeter... Lyla's first real smile was at Joselyn.  Since then, we've all been able to enjoy her sweet little smile. We also have found that she loves to copy our mouth movements. We stick our tongue out and she mimics us. I've already been trying to teach her to say mama. 


 
Adam and I both have different ways of calming her down and holding her. Adam will hold her sitting up leaning up against his hand and it calms her almost instantly. I can't get that to work for me!



I can usually lay her on my arm and carry her around and she's happy as can be. But once she gets tired, I swaddle her up, shhh in her ear and her eyes get really heavy. She doesn't NEED a pacifier to go to sleep, but it definitely helps speed up the process. When she sleeps at night she sneaks her little arms out of the swaddle and sleeps with her hands close to her face. It's adorable.



As you can see, she is starting to lose some of her hair. I am praying that she doesn't go bald like Joselyn did and instead quickly grows hair back like Landen did. We'll just have to wait and see...



One little struggle we've had with Lyla was that she seemed to cry almost every time I nursed her. It just didn't seem right. So we did some research of our own and figured out that I probably had an over active let down. She could keep up with the flow just fine, but wasn't getting the thicker milk- only the foremilk. This was giving her an upset stomach. So we figured out some ways to fix it and things are much better now. I've always had this idea in my head of sleepy babies after they eat! She is fitting into that category more and more now. She will still fuss if she needs to be burped. It's funny that even after 3 kids, I still have questions and am still learning about taking care of a newborn!



These are just some of the things we will remember about Lyla's first month with our family! I'm so happy and grateful that my sweet friend Kasey has been here visiting and that she spent hours with us capturing this crazy new family life of ours. I will forever cherish these pictures! WIll be posting more soon on the blog but you can go ahead and see all of them on the top left!

Lyla- 3 weeks

2 weeks old

I had a little photo shoot for Lyla when she turned 2 weeks old. It was weird taking pictures of my own newborn... a lot more challenging really. Not to mention Lyla is a very alert baby and would hardly sleep! But that's ok... because this is who she is and how we will remember her- as a wide eyed baby who loves to be awake :) 

Because she loved to suck on her finger, we were originally not going to give her a pacifier. Seeing a cute little baby sucking on their finger was just too cute... but we decided to do the pacifier after all... we knew it would be easier to get rid of! Paci babies are cute too though!

My sister-in-law's mom made Lyla that beautiful blanket!! Such a sweet gift!












 

Lyla is 1 week old

I decided I could not do a daily picture thing with Lyla- but promised myself that I would take at least one picture of her a week so that I can see how she grew. I kind of missed that with my other two, and this birth is one for me to correct all my regrets, right? If it makes me feel somewhat better...

Lyla is SO loved by Joselyn!! Every time I lay Lyla on the floor Joselyn is right there. It's not surprising then that Lyla's first real smile was at Joselyn!

Landen smiles

Since I did a post about Joselyn, better do a quick one of Landen! His personality is really starting to show, and it's sweet. And now that he is feeling MUCH better, he is even sweeter. He loves to be awake and take in the world around him and be a part of everything. We sure do love this little guy! We are especially loving his recent smiles and talking. So sweet.

I hate January... but I'm trying to love it

January has got to be the WORST month ever! It follows the happiest time of the year (Christmas), there are no big holidays to look forward to and the coldness starts to get old. I start yearning for warmth and sunshine. Being stuck inside has especially gotten to me this year, especially with a few terrible terrible things that have happened recently.

The other day, Landen fell off the couch. He is ok... I didn't even have to take him to the doctor although I watched him like a hawk for signs of a concussion. I felt like such a terrible mother... I was RIGHT there next to him and couldn't catch him in time. I couldn't get a hold of Adam and I was so scared... I was bawling my eyes out. I finally called my mom and dad who rushed over to my house. My mom, who has some medical background, checked him out and they both helped calm me down. You see, my mom once told me about a famous sumo wrestler who's baby fell off the couch and died. So I was SCARED.

If THAT wasn't bad enough, I also hurt Joselyn yesterday. Landen was having one of his terrible crying spells and I was trying to calm him down while Joselyn ate lunch in her high chair. Then SHE started screaming because she wanted down so while holding Landen I tried to pick her up out of the chair with one arm... and she ended up displacing her elbow. OUCH. It broke my heart. I was a little calmer this time around because I knew what had happened, but I was emotional nonetheless. She wanted to be held only by me and wouldn't move her left arm at all. She just held it really close to her body. Adam just happened to come home right then for lunch which was good timing. I had to cancel my doctors appointment to take her to HER doctor. We wrapped her up in a big blanket because we didn't dare try to put a sweater or coat on her and move her arm. Dr. B was very understanding and said it happens often to children that age. He held her arm up and with one little twist and a pop it was back into place and Joselyn felt better instantly. For being so good, Dr. B gave her a sucker. And to make ME feel better, he also gave me one :)  Joselyn was allowed to eat it in the car... JUST THIS ONCE.

Despite all that and the bad weather that has been going on,  I've tried to stay optimistic. Scenes like this continue to put smiles on my face and make being at home worth it:

 

Other good things happening??
*I signed up for a gym membership finally and got an unbelievealbly GREAT deal! (If any of you want the same great deal I bet I can get you one through the end of January - I would LOVE a workout buddy!)
*Which means I will get to start working out
*Which means my stress level will go down and I'll get a bit of time to myself to regroup
*Which means I will be more cheerful towards my husband and children!
*Landen smiled at me again this morning
*Adam gets a break from basketball for the next two weeks which means he'll be home the next two saturdays!
*Valentines Day is coming up!
*Despite my mistakes, my babies are both healthy and happy (well, happy MOST of the time)
*Landen now weighs 12 pounds +. What a little cute chubby guy. Love it.
*I've learned some valuable lessons on how to be careful with my children!

What do YOU do to keep away the January blahs?

He smiled at me :)

Yesterday morning Adam informed me that our baby boy Landen smiled at him the other day. I couldn't believe that he had smiled at him first - although since he misses out on everything else I guess he deserves that little moment. So he said something like "I bet I can get him to smile at you too" and started talking to Landen in his high-pitched sing-song voice that we only hear men speak when they speak to babies. And there is was!! A sweet little smile for his mommy. It made my day :)

My mom taught the lesson at church in Relief Society yesterday and she brought up some interesting facts about what makes people happy. It wasn't money- it was relationships. Here's from the study she mentioned:

"Most researchers believe the largest single contributor to happiness (aside from genetics) is meaningful relationships with other people. The stronger the social network of friends and family, the happier a person is."

But what I really wanted to share was this following excerpt about having children because I could really relate to it:

While marriage increases happiness, having children has been shown to actually lower a person’s happiness—at least for a short while.

Weird, huh?

“Kids are hard,” says Brooks. “But that’s part of our mission in life—to do hard things, to perfect ourselves... The fact that children give you hard times is part of the deal.”

Brooks goes on to say that while happiness may be lowered initially, parents find great meaning in providing unconditional love for children, and meaning is the highest form of happiness. “Unconditional love itself is a source of happiness,” he says. “Paradoxically, your happiness is raised by the fact that you are willing to have your happiness lowered through years of dirty diapers and tantrums. Kids are an important part of a happy lifestyle.”

A 2004 poll conducted by Time magazine supports this theory. When people were asked “What one thing in life has brought you the greatest happiness?”, the number-one answer was children, grandchildren, or both.

Isn't that so true though? When Landen smiled at me yesterday I felt that unconditional love for him that gives my life so much meaning .

In love

Oops! Time really does get away from me now with 2 babies... can you believe Landen is already 1 month old? It literally feels like JUST YESTERDAY that we brought him home from the hospital. I was thinking about how time is going by a lot faster with him than it did with Joselyn and I read this sweet sweet post at one of my favorite blogs (Soule Mama) that described EXACTLY how I feel:

"Despite all the energy we've put into slowing things down around here and enjoying the moments, the time is still going far too fast for my liking... Every so often, I think back to eight years ago (in my case 15 months ago) when we began this parenting journey. The first baby who we could literally sit and stare at all day long. Whose every movement and twitch and smile and pattern we knew because it was all we were paying attention to and soaking up and loving. That complete absorption in the first baby was an amazing moment in time unlike any other. I'll always remember it as magical... But this time? Life moves faster. There's so much more to do in a day - so many more little people needing just as much attention and just as much love. So Harper comes along for the ride - in the sling, on our chest, or very nearby. And when I have a chance to sit down, or at the end of the day when all is quiet, I wonder where this day has gone. I marvel at the difference in his first months compared to that of the first child. But each time that leads to worry...I find an oh-so-frequent sight like the ones above. I see it all day. And my photo files are full of them. The near constant hovering, performing-for, snuggling (a little too tightly) with, "beeps on the nose," and similar older sibling showerings-of-affection he gets all day long. And I remember - that for these younger siblings - this is their gift. A whole lot of love - distributed into many hearts."

Isn't that so sweet and beautiful??

Today I went to lunch with my sister Chelsea and while we were there I sat and stared at my little sleeping Landen and was filled with love for him. I felt tears coming to my eyes and I think I about made Chelsea laugh... and then I went on to tell her my journey about falling in love with Landen. You know how you always wonder if you can love another child as much as your first? Well, when Landen was born of COURSE I loved him. But... it doesn't compare to how I feel now. Not NEARLY. It was hard, you know? A baby that cries all the time and doesn't let you sleep... and a one year old who keeps me on my toes. I would get so frustrated sometimes and almost resentful because I was SO TIRED. Then something happened the other day where Landen and I made this huge connection and I felt it. I just looked at him and cried because I realized how much I loved him and just how sweet and precious he was. I think the love you feel for your child is gradual and continuously growing... and it really does only get better with time. I am now a believer about loving 2 children. I wouldn't say it's the SAME love, but equal in value and strength.

So now Landen is 1 month old. I went back and read some posts about when Joselyn was that age... and am quickly realizing that he is going to be her age before I know it. He's still a newborn... but he's already made lots of progress. He's as strong as can be... can hold his head up perfectly and his strength can make it difficult for us to change his clothes and diapers. He loves looking at new faces I've noticed. He'll just study and stare and it's so cute because for those first few seconds someone holds him he just stares in silence. He loves Joselyn. Whenever she is near he seems content. And of course she just ADORES him. She loves to help change his diapers and clothes, play "this little piggy" and "pat-a-cake" with him and she especially loves to hold him and give him real kisses. (in fact, he's really the only one she gives REAL kisses to) You really have to see her in action to know what I am talking about, but that post from Soule Mama above explains the sibling love pretty accurately.

The past 2 nights Landen has slept 5 hours straight at night. After a crying spell a few nights ago, Adam suggested bringing our swing upstairs and letting him sleep in it. That did the trick. We're thinking he has Reflux and that the slightly upward angle makes it more comfortable for him to sleep. It's been great! It's given me a lot more energy and I have been in a cleaning frenzy. I have got SO MUCH accomplished and feel very good about it. I still have a lot of organizing to do (kitchen cabinets, going through old boxes of junk etc) but feel like I finally have the time and energy to get it accomplished.

I'm so excited for the months to come... excited to see Landen's first smile (we've gotten a few sneak peeks from him as he sleeps) and hear his first giggles.

A few other things about Landen at 1 month old
-He is already about to grow out of his 0-3 month clothes! He's a big little guy with a little chub on him and we LOVE it!
- Still has most of his red hair but it looks like it might be falling out. Sad.
- His eyes are getting really dark - think they are going to be brown afterall
- Eats just about every 2-2 1/2 hours... for about 10 minutes. He's fast.
- LOVES to cuddle

<3

Thank you, Gripe Water, for letting me sleep last night!

Nights have been rough for me the past few weeks... Landen has been suffering from gas pains and it's been hard to get him to sleep after I feed him. I've been avoiding the usual food culprits that cause gas in babies, but that doesn't seem to have helped. I remembered a friend telling me that her daughter had colic pretty bad and so she used Gripe Water and that it was a lifesaver. Well, after looking up some info and reading some more testimonials, Adam and I decided to give it a try. Guess what? I slept SO good last night. Landen would wake up to eat and go right back to sleep in his cradle. It was such a nice morning to wake up feeling refreshed and well-rested. Well - as well-rested as a new mother could be any way :)

Different

I know I talk a lot about how different Laden is from Joselyn but that is what makes this all so interesting. Landen HATES to be swaddled and actually sleeps better when not swaddled. This was SO hard for me to get used to because I am, uh.... was, such a strong believer in Happiest Baby on the Block. He'll let me swaddle him and he'll be just fine, but it's when he's NOT swaddled, we're learning, that he sleeps better at night.

Oh, and sleeping? This little guy doesn't sleep nearly as much as Joselyn did. Joselyn slept almost 20 hours a day up until she was about 9 months old. But Landen will stay awake for hours at a time taking in the world. The problem is... it's also harder to get him to sleep which becomes a concern in the middle of the night. I'm just hoping, PRAYING that since he eats so much and is gaining weight so fast that he'll be one of those sweet babies who learns to sleep through the night early on in his life.