The first 4 weeks

So our first 4 weeks have come to a close. Life as a family of 4 is amazing, challenging, fun, crazy, comforting and stressful. Molly is an amazing baby. I can see her little personality blooming already and I think she is going to be fun and silly. She has a very go-with-the-flow attitude and is pretty easy going. I am working on figuring out her schedule, but for the most part it looks something like this: wake up at 6 am (this NEVER changes--it's the one consistent thing), nurse, cat nap, awake time, nurse, cat nap, awake time, nurse....this continues until late morning when she takes a solid 2ish hour nap. After that we do the nurse, cat nap, awake time cycle until an afternoon nap around 3:00 or so. Then, repeat cycle until around 9 or 10 at night when she is down for a few hours. She wakes between 2 and 4 times at night to nurse and then usually goes right back to sleep. Some nights, though, she will decide to be awake for a while very bright eyed. It's pretty cute. She is a great eater, sleeper and pooper. She has had a few bouts with gas, but besides those, she is not really a fusser. Even when she is in her car seat she will fuss for a second but then stop. This is something I am not use to as Emma was a fusser. Molly also doesn't fuss when I undress her and put her in the bathtub (she LOVES bath time), when I put clothes over her head, when I don't feed her right when she is hungry, when I change her diaper and use a cold wipe--all of the above would have been something to set baby Emma off on a crying tangent. Molly is also pretty easy to soothe which is great. Her favorite thing to do is nurse. Emma wasn't ever exclusively breast fed--so to have an EBF baby is fun. I love not having to worry about formula and bottles when we go out AND not having to worry about making bottles in the middle of the night, heating to the right temperature, etc. I am starting to pump in anticipation of returning to work--so Molly will be trying her first EVER bottle here pretty soon. I am thinking Daddy and Emma will be in charge of giving that to her. I have started to offer Molly the paci when I know she isn't hungry and just wants to suck. She'll take it or leave it. That is exactly how Emma was--I like it that way. I don't really want a paci-dependent kid. Molly has some amazing head control already and is working those muscles so much. She loves being held looking over your shoulder, cradle hold, snuggled chest to chest and during very awake times she likes to be held facing out. Her eyes are starting to get lighter! I am wondering if I'm going to have a blue eyed girl? We'll see...

Emma is still adjusting. It has been difficult--I'm not going to lie. She LOVES Molly and has not shown any anger towards her (thank you Jesus!)...BUT, Emma is acting out a lot to try to get our attention. I hear this is totally normal but it is just hard for Tim and I because up until this point, Emma has been a stellar kid--never giving us any grief. Well...it's a learning experience for all of us, isn't it? I am confident that after a few more weeks we will be more back to"normal" and Emma will have adjusted even more. New sister aside--Emma is doing great. She has one week of preschool left. She has done great this year! She has grown so independent. It's great. She is still so sweet, shy, funny, sassy, snuggly, cute.....etc. She is a great big sister and a helper to me. She is my first love and will always be. She is sitting on the chair next to me as I type this--asleep--and I can still see my baby Emma. But she is so big now. It's crazy...

It goes so fast. Molly has made me realize how fast it does go. It seems like just yesterday when Emma was an infant--now she is going to be 4 and we have Molly. I cherish every day with my family--with my two girls. I love them so much and will not wish the bad days away. I will hold on to them with my heart and try my hardest to remember these days.