January

Holding my two babies, as Atom gives his little sister a kiss

The first month of 2012 seems a fitting time to launch a new blog. Thanks, Mama for giving me the motivation to do this! Hopefully I’ll get myself to post more stuff on here besides just the monthly review.

I spent most of the month adjusting to having a new baby again and learning how to divide my daily time and attention between a 2 ½ year old and a newborn, now that Scott is back at work. It’s hard. Trillian wants to be held all the time, Atom wants me to play with him, and I just want to rest.

As always, lack of sleep is the hardest part of having a baby. This month we’ve progressed to the point where at least Trillian knows that night is for sleeping and she doesn’t have it confused with daytime anymore. Other than that, there’s not much change. She’s still eating every couple hours throughout the night. On top of that, getting her to settle back to sleep afterwards without being right next to me has been a losing battle, and most of the time she ends up sleeping nestled in my arms in our bed instead of next to our bed in the co-sleeper like she’s supposed to.

Six weeks old and already holding her head up pretty well!

I’ve tried to give Atom some extra interaction from other people and activities to compensate a little bit for not being able to focus on him as much. I’ve gotten more involved with other playgroups this month and I even had a playdate over at our house to do some painting and drawing with everyone. I also take Atom over to my parent’s house at least once a week and he LOVES playing over there! Even though it’s hard to get out of the house with both kids, once we’re actually out the door Trillian is very portable at this stage and Atom is happy in the car with his dvds and always very happy to go to the playground, toy store, library, grocery store, or really anywhere that’s new and interesting. He is also incredibly talkative these days and he is constantly making me smile with the cute phrases he comes up with!

Say Cheese!

We also had a lot of doctor’s visits this month. I’ve been taking Trillian for weekly labs at the hematology clinic at Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando throughout the month. On January 5th she had her second transfusion and we don’t know yet if she’s going to end up needing another one or not. She is making more new red blood cells now, but her hemoglobin levels have still been dropping, so she hasn’t really stabilized yet. We’ll just have to keep checking frequently for the time being. I’m going to start getting her labs done at the hospital in Clermont soon so it will be more convenient and we won’t have to go into Orlando unless she actually needs a transfusion.

Trillian's second transfusion

I asked Scott to summarize what he’s been doing at work this month, but he just said it was a blur. Lack of sleep is catching up with both of us…