Big and small

Last night I got very little sleep.  Not surprisingly, this was a combination of my toddler and infant needing me, in addition to my persistent postpartum pain.  My pelvic bone separated, either during pregnancy or childbirth, and will take a unnamed "very long time" to heal.  Needless to say, when I finish putting my daughter to bed and it's already 10 pm, then I'm needed at 1:30 am, 4:10 am, 5:00 am, and 6:23 am before getting up for the day close to 7 am, AND I have to soak my entire lower body in a bath of piping hot water before going back to sleep because that's the only way to mitigate the pain, I get very little sleep.  But I digress, this is not the intended content of my post.

My big girl on a ride at the Del Mar Fair

My little man and his sweet smile

This post is supposed to be about my big girl and my small boy, an update.

Elijah is still my relaxed baby, for the most part.  The past few weeks brought some witching hour behaviors, that are mild in comparison to his sister's antics at his age, but can definitely pose challenges  between the hours of 6:30 pm and 9 pm.  Still, I am able to put him down for at least one nap a day awake but drowsy -- he'll drift off in his crib or swing unaided.  He smiles and talks, talks, talks.  His big blue eyes are bright and inquisitive, especially when he stands up and tries to put his head in swivel mode to see everything, before realizing that his head still flops forward and backward without his permission on occasion.  He's definitely staying awake longer as the days go by, and it's so much fun to watch him gain awareness of his surroundings, especially when a certain someone is always an inch from his face.

At the Mission in San Juan Capistrano

I love this age.  His needs are fairly simple and I feel that I meet them to the best of my ability.  He loves his ma ma, as evidenced by the fact that his little striped friend, which lives inside my shirt on occasion so that it will smell like me, is a great help in putting him to sleep.

 

And Abigail, oh my Abigail, is so funny.  She converses like an adult, knows what she wants, has generally reasonable expectations, loves to laugh (even at nothing, just for the sake of laughing), and is my constant companion.  I recently went on vacation with my three sisters, our annual sister weekend, and brought the baby along.  The drive up to San Juan Capistrano was so quiet, which I thought would be a nice change, but it wasn't.  I missed my little chatterbox in the back seat.  Last year's sister weekend I left her with her daddy and was sick to my stomach, knowing how hard it would be for her to miss me for three days.  She cried so hard at bedtime the first night that she threw up.  This time I was nauseated for a different reason.  I knew she would be fine, that they would have a fantastic weekend of infant-restriction-free-fun.  I also knew that I would be missing out on the very little alone time I get with her.  On weekends, Jake and I can take turns with the kids in such a way that I can play with her without restrictions.  This probably only happens for 2-3 hours a week nowadays, while it was previously a constant perk of her life, and mine.  Giving up those hours was much harder than I thought it would be, as sister weekend is something I am completely committed to, and look forward to every year.

 

I keep coming back to the fact that my transition from mothering one child to mothering two has been most difficult in regard to my Abigail.  She's a very perceptive person, and I understand from her actions and her language that she has very complicated emotions toward me right now.  I was (and sometimes still am) her sun and moon, her everything.  She wanted to do everything with me, be with me all the time.  Now she is more independent.  She chooses not to need my help because I'm holding the baby, or just because it's exciting to do it on her own.  But at times, especially when we have company or she is feeling somewhat insecure, she will lash out at Elijah for my attention or refuse to do things that she did on her own even before he was born in order to assert her needs.

Running fast on the trampoline at YMCA gymnastics

Holding out her own ticket on the Balboa park carousel

I guess my struggle is that I love to watch her grow, but I want it to be a positive choice, not a necessity.  I understand that it's healthy to grow through normal life circumstances (like having a baby brother), and I surely have done that myself, but for some reason it feels hard to watch her make a choice based on the fact that her options are now more limited.  Still, I think she has turned a corner in her adjustment to Elijah.  She is in love with him, and she's much more gentle than she was to start.  Her newest play activities include breast feeding, swaddling, rocking, and shushing her baby dolls.  When she announces that one of her babies is 2 or 3 weeks old she expects to be congratulated.

 In the end, life is good.  There's no denying that.