Our New Addition

Allow me to introduce the newest member of the MitMit family - Charlotte Elaine.

She was born 4/13/10 at 10:35am, 7lb 2oz, 19.5" long.

Day 1 - at the hospital

At home with Mom. Yes, that is brown hair. A ton of it. More hair at birth than Addie had at 12 months old.

Napping (see Mom - I do sleep!)

Good work to Charlotte on executing on most of our pre-birth directions - she definitely looks like her mom, although we still need to work on the sleeping bit.

The return of the sleepless nights have definitely been an adjustment - some nights go better than others. But we appear to have a one-hour-snacker on our hands (read = goes 1 hour between nursings), just when you're starting to fall back to sleep...

The other big adjustment has been for big sister Addison. On our second day home from the hospital she asked Dad when Charlotte was going home. (Well you see Addie - Charlotte is home.) Addie definitely seems to have significantly more energy than before baby came (or maybe its just my sleep-deprived perception), but she can be a good helper. Sometimes. When the mood strikes her. I'm enjoying having Eric home on his leave as keeping Addison focused (and avoiding the out of control crazies!) is a full time job. Fortunately she returns part time to daycare next week - relief for all of us.

I'll leave you with this picture of the sisters. Sisters, its all about sisters.

March

Okay so I offically slacked on the blog posting here, entirely missing the month of March. Lot's of good activities (read = excuses) which kept me from blogging:

• We had house guests (complete with newborn) for a few weeks (temporarily lived with us due to a house fire)
• We sold our house
• We bought a new house
• We packed up our house and moved across town
• We moved into our new house & unpacked
• Set-up a nursery & got ready for baby (less than 1 week to go!!)
• Created a new 'Big Girl' room, still decorating. Toddler selected theme = butterflies & dolphins.
• I worked an insane number of hours over the last 2 weeks (one week alone > 110 hours physically at work)

A few notable Addie quotes to reflect on during this past month:

• BABY SISTER COME OUT!!! (Yelling at my belly last night.)
• Mom, do you hear me?
• No, you listen.
• At daycare this morning - Addison: "Abbie, Abbie look at my braid!" Abbie (another 2 year old): "Wow Addie, that's great!" (I love the adult like sentences and conversations.)
• I want to go on trip. Trip to Grandma's house. No school. Grandma's house. (Too bad it was a Tuesday...)

Is that Jay from Project Runway?

Nope - its Addie and another fabulous 'Dress Yourself Sundays' selection.

Today's fashion (seeming to be drawing her inspiration from Jay McCarroll) features: Hello Kitty underwear worn as a hat, new Dora sunglasses, a red Boston Scientific T-shirt, a different shade of red velour pants, and mis-matched stretchy gloves.

Mommy Training

I thought about titling this blog entry 'potty training', but realized that the toddler is the one doing the training here.

Monday was a vacation day for Addie and me, since daycare had a professional development holiday. And yes *gripe* we still pay for the day even if its their holiday costing me vacation time. Addie did a great job all day staying dry in her pull-up...expect for number-two's. She's still insistent on wanting to make her number-two's in her diaper/pull-up/underpants. Pretty indiscriminant about the bottoms she goes in, just showing a strong preference over the toilet. A pair of hello kitty big girl underpants have even been sacrificed in this battle. (Yep, cut those off and threw them away. No way I was going to try and salvage. You poop, you lose.)

So late Monday afternoon, after negotiating with Addison for 30 minutes - on the upstairs toilet, on the downstairs toilet, no - back on the upstairs toilet - one piece of candy, fine - two pieces of candy - she made two small poops in the toilet. WooHoo! So proud of my big girl!

We went and got the promised "award" two pieces of candy, which Addie gladly took. All giddy she ran around the corner, came back, smiled at me, and promptly filled her pull-up with poop. Ugggghh.

A Quiet Saturday Nap

On Saturday, after 45 minutes of fighting nap (read = return to bed 25+ times with screaming. Lots of screaming) we had silence. Ahhhhhh.

How nap time went for me:
I settle in to watch last week's episode of project runway. At one point I thought I heard some feet shuffling, but there was no crying, no banging on the door. Addie must be sleeping. Better not chance it and open the door to check on her, might wake her up and lose precious me time (TV time.) And besides Eric's upstairs. He would hear her if she got up.

How nap time went for Addie:
Interesting. If I don't make any noise, no one comes to check on me. I can do whatever I want. Yes! Wonderful!!
Now strip off pants and shirt. Hate pull-up - take off. Perfect - now I'm NUDIE.
Opps, too excited must be quiet.
Hmmm, where does Mama keep the lotion. Ah - here it is. (Pump bottle until have large pile on floor.) Yes, rub lotion all over me. Love it. NUDIE. MORE lotion. Yes! Ohhh, big mess. Better get a wipe to clean it up.
Uh-oh, have to go potty. Ummm, I'll just go over to this corner of my room and ...