• 
  

  This is my diaper stash, including six pocket diapers with busted elastic, 11 prefolds (sold), a FuzziBunz wet bag (sold), and two Thirsties Hemp Inserts ($3 each or $5 both).

  
  

  
• Fitted diapers: 
  

  top row, left to right: Cotton Kids ($2), Bumboo bamboo (sz 2) ($12) (one sold), a cotton adjustable diaper ($2)
  middle row: Snug-to-Fit cotton ($2), Thirsties (sm)($5), Blue Lake Diapers (m/l)($12), Motherease ($2)
  bottom: BabeeGreens wool organic (lg) with insert ($12), Sustainable babyish (sold)
• 
  

  Diaper Covers:
• 
  

  top row: Bummis super whisper wrap (m) x 3 ($6 each)
  second row: Bumkins (sm) x 2 ($4 each)
  third row: wildchildforbabies.etsy (s) x 3 ($5 each)
  bottom row: Thirsties (sm) and Thirsties (sz 1) ($6 each)
• 
• Pockets diapers (they all come with 2 inserts):
  top row: BumGenius x 3 ($7 each)
  middle: TinyTush (sold), RolyPoly (med) x 2 ($9 each), HautePockets (sold)
  bottom: FuzziBunz (med) x 1 ($10 each) (white and blue sold)
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
• All-in-ones: 

  top row: G Diapers (sold)

  middle:Bum Genius organic ($9), Thirsties (sm) ($8)

  bottom: Thirsties (1) ($8)

  
  

  EMAIL: sjb_tiger (at) yahoo (dot) com 

Unbelievably, Greta turned one on May 11th! We had a wonderful birthday party for her. It's a little embarrassing that it has taken me this long to update the blog, but hey, two kids keep you busy! She started walking in mid April and is all over the place now!

We had a great time celebrating Laurel's 3rd birthday today with a gymnastics party. I think the parents had more fun playing with the parachute than the kids did (wasn't that the best day of gym class!)

And as you can see, even a gymnastics princess needs her beauty sleep. Happy Birthday Sweetheart.

Someday I might post Christmas pictures, it was a great one! But right now I'm just checking in to document that in the past week Greta has:
1. Started crawling,
2. Started consistently saying "dada" to Tim, and
3. Cut her first tooth (ETA - This tooth was found by Nanny)
What a busy little multi-tasker we have!

Uh oh, we're in for it now. Greta is now pulling up to a standing position by herself. She's done it twice today at Nanny's house. I'm afraid walking won't be far behind if big sister is any indication.

UPDATE - Laurel is now saying all 26 letters of the alphabet without skipping any! For awhile she has been saying A-H and N-Z, but today (Dec. 2nd) she has been saying them from A to Z. What a big girl!

We had our family Christmas photos made yesterday and these are the pictures that didn't quite make the cut. 

You can already tell that Greta is going to have a hilarious personality. What a little ham.

 Laurel doesn't look mischievous at all, does she?

 This is Greta's "mean face."

 Greta: "I will break you."

 Braden's escaping and Eli's had enough.

 This is Laurel's yes-I'm-smiling-but-I'm-not-happy-about-it face.

 "I want that ornament, but dang, this chair is comfy."

 Apparently Greta is not a fan of Laurel's version of patty cake.

 "We're losing interest in this Mom."

 Greta's going in for the windup.

We had a a wonderful Halloween this year though it was a little colder than usual. Luckily both of the girls' costumes lent themselves well to layering so everyone stayed relatively cozy. Here are some pictures of our adorable kiddos.

Our sweet, quiet little girl has morphed into a squealing, screaming baby. Greta has discovered her voice and has been letting us all hear her loud and clear. She is also sitting up on her own and playing with her toys. She reaches for everything and we have to be super vigilant to keep her away from everything.

Laurel's language is absolutely exploding. She is finally successfully putting together sentences with more than just nouns! It is awesome to hold long conversations with her with only rarely having to resort to hand gestures and pointing. She is also learning to sing songs.

Both of the girls are at such fun stages and are really interacting with each other. Laurel loves to show off her "baby sisser, Geta May." And Greta thinks Laurel is the most hilarious thing she's ever seen (which may very well be true.)

Greta had her four month checkup today. Everything was great and despite the fact that I tried to warn her that the sweet nurse was going to stick her with a few needles, she was friendly and adorable, as always.

Now on to my favorite part, the stat comparison (I just realized Laurel must have had her 4 month check up a week or two early, whereas Greta had hers a little late, so the numbers aren't great to compare, but the curve makes the percentile comparison correct).

4 Months

Weight:

Greta - 14lb 14oz (75%)

Laurel -14lb 0oz (75%)

Length:

Greta - 25.75" (90%)

Laurel - 23.75" (45%)

Head Circumference:

Greta - 41.5 cm (60%)

Laurel - 41 cm (50%)

So once again, Greta still has a sizable (haha) lead on Laurel, especially in the length category! It doesn't surprise me, the kid's already outgrowing her 6 months clothing.

I wonder at what age the girls won't want me to post their weights in a public place, hmm...

I meant to write a blog post last night to let everyone know that Greta rolled from her stomach to her back yesterday morning, but apparently she knew I hadn't written it yet so she decided to show off a little bit more. This morning she rolled over from her back to her stomach at my mom's house!

Greta is such a fun and good-natured baby. She is still sleeping great (knock on wood!) and is very patient with all of Laurel's attention. She laughs out loud and offers adorable smiles to most everyone. We're so blessed to have such fun, happy girls!

I go back to work full-time on Monday. Let me ask you, how am I going to be able to leave these two precious girls? It will be hard, but I know they are in great hands with my mother and mother-in-law.

We took Greta to her two month well baby exam today (wow, I can't believe she's been here for two whole months!) Everything is going great with her and she's getting so big! The most fun things are her constant smile and coos. She is very social and likes to interact with everyone, especially daddy. While she likes Laurel, she's already smart enough to flinch when she comes at her too fast! She had three shots, which of course broke mommy's heart. Other than one ear-piercing shriek when the needles punctured her skin, she didn't cry at all. As soon as the shots were finished she nursed and promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half. We'll pray she doesn't have any reactions to the shots.

Now the fun part, her growth stats vs. Laurel's at 2 months old.

2 Months

Weight:

Greta - 12lb 4oz (80%)

Laurel - 11lb 4oz (60%)

Length:

Greta - 23.5" (85%)

Laurel - 22.25" (50%)

Head Circumference:

Greta - 38.5 cm (45%)

Laurel - 38.8 cm (50%)

I really don't want to jinx it, but things are going smoothly! Laurel has been over the moon about her little sister, we just have to be vigilant in keeping that excitement contained and Greta safe from the exuberance. We've been extremely fortunate to have lots of help from my mom and mother-in-law in trying to keep Laurel on her normal schedule, especially with her afternoon nap.

Now, I sincerely don't think there is such a thing as a "bad" baby but Greta is absolutely wonderful. Tim and I laugh about it, but you seriously don't realize she's in the room most of the time unless she needs to eat. She is very contented and sleeps wonderfully! She loves to snuggle up on mine or Tim's chest and at night she will usually sleep for three to four hours at a time, wake up to eat and then go back to sleep within 20-30 minutes.

I keep asking myself if Laurel was that much more difficult or if I just feel a lot more prepared this time around. My mom says it is primarily just knowing what to expect (and that Laurel was also a very easy, laid-back baby). Also, Laurel and I had lots of breastfeeding problems at first (including double mastitis) and I had tons of tail bone pain for months after her delivery. All those things combined to make the first few weeks after her birth quite difficult. This time around we had a little bit of a bump in the road with nursing but after a day of moping that I was going to have to pump for a couple weeks I got some perspective that we'd have months, if not years, to have a great breastfeeding relationship.

One of the hardest things is not letting my temper get away from me when Laurel does act out. We're trying to make lots of special time for Laurel so that she doesn't start getting resentful of Greta, but it's really hard to carve out much extra time right now. Today was our first all-girl outing as I took Laurel and Greta to the playground. It went really well and I'm sure it's just the first of many, many outings!

Laurel was so excited to get to come see her baby sissy in the "pital." Her Nanny and Papaw bought her a special baby doll so that she could introduce us to her baby and her to our baby.

This is my incredible doula, Angie. She was incredible during the delivery.
Here's the first kiss between sisters. Laurel is crazy about Baby "Geta."
And finally here's a very tired but proud mama with her new baby girl.

Tim and I stayed up until about 1 a.m. early Wednesday morning watching an incredible thunderstorm spread out around our house. Shortly after I fell asleep, I was woken up with my first contraction at 2 a.m. and it was definitely different than anything I'd felt before. It spread into my back and the tops of my legs and was very low in my belly. I got up and went to the computer to use a contraction counter so that I didn't have to wake Tim up and they were very consistently 45 seconds long and 6 minutes apart. The only thing changing was the intensity. By 3:30 I woke Tim up and told him we might want to get packed and ready to go. I called my doula, Angie, shortly after 4 and she agreed that it sounded like this was for real. We decided it would be best to meet at the hospital.

At 4:30 my water broke and almost instantly the intensity and frequency of the contractions went through the roof. I endured a very difficult 30 minute car ride to the hospital (which I later found out must have been my transition phase.) They were coming every 2 to 3 minutes and I really had to moan to deal with them. Poor Laurel was in the backseat, but she was a real trooper. She kept asking, “Mommy, belly hurt?” My parents met us at the hospital and took Laurel home with them. Angie was also waiting for me and helped me get into triage where the nurse exclaimed "I can't find a cervix. Get the doctor here immediately!" I was completely dilated and starting to feel the urge to push.

They rushed me into a room and called in a resident physician from another group who was there for another labor. She and Angie (who is also a certified midwife) were getting a game plan together to deliver me while I stood up beside the bed. (I refused to lie down in the bed because it was just too painful to move anywhere.) I leaned over the bed and tried a few pushing contractions standing up but I could never really find a comfortable place or a way to relax between pushes. At that point I decided the bed looked a whole lot better and I sat down. Luckily our regular OB arrived just in time and jumped into the action.

Tim had gowned and gloved up and the OB was teaching him how to catch the baby! At this point I was scared out of my mind to push for fear of the pain. Angie stood beside my head the whole time and talked to me about why I did, in fact, have to push and push past the point where my mind told my body to quit. I "sat out" several contractions while I worked up the courage to do it and then she said the magical words, "Your baby really needs you to push.” I had heard them mention that there was “light meconium” showing up in my fluid and that the baby’s heart rate was starting to show a little distress so I closed my eyes, drew in my legs to my chest and pushed as hard as I could. Feeling her head move down and then crown was the most intense/painful/incredible feeling. With one more push her head was out I felt relief. The next push to get her shoulders out was just as intense but the fear was gone because I knew I had already done it once.

Tim caught her and put her on my chest. No one had told us that our baby was a girl (and Tim didn’t even think to look) so immediately I moved the cord to see her. I got the privilege of telling everyone that we had a little girl! It was awesome.

I had a 2^nd degree tear that went into the muscle so the repair work was fairly uncomfortable but I was finally holding my little girl so it was all alright. The hospital staff was awesome and I held her on my chest for about 2 hours. They did her Apgar checks, her Vitamin K shot and her eye ointment all while I held her and let her start nursing. There was no pressure to bath her or measure her and they just told me to let them know when I wanted to get those things done.

Greta May was born at 6:20 a.m. on Wednesday, May 11, 2011. She weighed 8 pounds and measured 19.5 inches.

From our frantic 5 a.m. arrival until our discharge, we were only in the hospital for 32 hours. Now we are back home and enjoying seeing our two girls get acquainted.