6 Weeks of O (and one day)

I'm lost in this warped time-space continuum. Elapsed time has no meaning to me. Minutes take hours and days take seconds. Someone will call me and leave a message and I'll think, I need to call them back. And then I do. But it's been days since they called, but I could just swear it's only been hours. Wasn't this past weekend Labor Day weekend, the beginning of September? So, this post might be mostly random thoughts because I've been thinking them, and thinking about posting them, but then time passes and I haven't posted in over a week...

So, I've been told that O is six weeks old (and one day) already. Sorry I don't have stats for him--I had a cranky, non-napping toddler and we didn't get out to the group at the hospital to get them weighed. It was nap time yesterday, and she was obviously tired, but she screamed hysterically and then cried for most of nap time (when she wasn't meowing at the cat who was asleep on her rocking chair). See, I'm not the parent who will put a child down for a nap, and after five minutes of crying, or ten minutes, or even forty-five, will say, oh, she doesn't want to nap. You know why? Because it's not about what Elsie wants. It's about what's BEST for HER. A schedule. A nap time. She doesn't have to sleep. But she does need to be given the opportunity. And she did not use that opportunity to sleep. So, we went out and played with the neighbors after lunch, and Elsie was cranky, but she definitely loves being around other active children.

On that note, she has stopped behaving toward Oscar as if he were a cat. She'll steal his pacifier, slobber it up really good, and then try to give it back to him. The other day he was crying and she picked up his pacifier and tried to shove it into his mouth, which made him more mad, but I did appreciate the help. :) Mostly, though, she'll go get her baby dolls (courtesy of Grandma Beaver and the lovely EW) and throw them around a little bit. The other day she did this:



I was completely surprised by this turn of events. She is understanding what her babies are, now. Hmm..

She also has started saying her M and B sounds again (thanks to a playdate with Mr. J who says "fish" and "ball" like a pro). She will throw out a "Mama" from time to time, but she's not talking to/about anyone in particular. So I say, "That's me. I'm Mama," and tap my chest. And then she taps her own chest and says, "Mama." And I say, "No, you're Elsie" and use her hand to tap her chest, and she says, "No." Her favorite word. She doesn't really quite know what it means, but she sure does love it. And randomly, on Tuesday, she started saying "ball." We walked in to A & J's house to play and she spotted his ball pit and yelled "Bah!" and ran over to it. I thought it was a fluke until later when we were home and she came running (yes, she runs now, too) into the room yelling "Bah! Bah! Bah!" and then threw a little bouncy ball onto the floor in front of her. And the other day, she was eating lunch, and she said, "Coco!" I initially ignored this randomness, but then I thought I should turn around and investigate, just in case, and sure enough, Coco had jumped up onto the counter in her line of sight. And did I mention that she says "thank you"? I don't know how long she's been saying it, but the babysitter at our church small group said something to me about her having that down pat, and I was puzzled. Sure enough, she hands me something, she says thank you ("taaank you"). I hand her something, she says thank you. It's cute.

She's also turned into a certified professional monkey. Yes, she was climbing up on chairs before. Now she wants to climb on the table from the chairs. She's tried more than once to get into her high chair without help (yikes), and the other day I caught her climbing up the handles of the drawer in my bathroom, like a ladder, to get to things that I thought I had put out of her reach. She prefers to stand on top of her little picnic table instead of sitting down at it. And she's even tried climbing up onto the changing table. The one good thing, though, is that she doesn't like to get down from the chairs or coffee table because the edge is not soft, so once she climbs up, I'm free to do things that she would ordinarily interfere with (loading/unloading dishwasher, taking out the trash) because she's trapped herself on her own private island:



So, enough about big sister. Let's talk about the man of the hour. Before he was born, some people were of the opinion that O couldn't be as good as his sister. Truly this was my worst fear as well since she was such a good baby, but all the naysayers were wrong. Let's talk about how Oscar is similar, but also different in a good, good way.

Oscar is a gem. He's been a sleeping machine since we brought him home from the hospital. I'm not saying that he didn't cry, and wasn't fussy, but unlike Elsie, he did not have his nights and days turned around (maybe because he was born at the end of a rather easy-going summer while Elsie was born after a crazy school year). He slept for 3-hour stretches from the get-go, and had absolutely NO wide awake time in the middle of the night. I was utterly unprepared for this. My houseguests actually got to sleep at night! I was not a complete zombie! What?

Oscar is also much more vocal than Elsie ever was in her baby stages (as Eli noted, she has more than made up for it now). I used to wonder what people meant by baby coos, because Elsie skipped from silence to babbles. Oscar coos. And it is the most adorable thing. Usually, it's in conjunction with gassiness or discomfort, but it's is still so cute.

Oscar does not really mind having things put over his head. E used to scream and scream. Oscar lodges his complaint and then leaves it at that. (Again, as Eli noted, he didn't spend a traumatic day waiting to be born.)

While Elsie slept through everything, Oscar sleeps through Elsie, and I have to say that that is a much larger accomplishment. He likes the vibration mode on the bouncy seat, which Elsie hated. He prefers the white noise of the bathroom fan, where Elsie liked the dryer. He's a quick eater and a pretty good burper. But he does have that gas issue that will wake him up around 4 a.m. We work through it and go back to sleep.

And while I'm bragging, last night O slept for a nearly 6-hour stretch, followed by a 3-hour stretch. It was much easier to face my cranky teething toddler this morning once I had had a good night of sleep:



Yep, she's pretty even when she's crying. It's sickening. ;)

So, if you've made it through this post, you're probably thinking, um, Erin, where are the pictures of that baby? I know that's the only reason you're here, which is why I'm saving the best for last. Ladies and Gents, I give you O, at 6 weeks (and one day):









And this here's a shout out to all you little old ladies who pull back the blanket on a sleeping baby because you just can't get enough:



Cheers.