February 24

Well friends, today is my due date!  And instead of just now having a baby, I'm busy with my 2.5 week old and almost 20 month old!  Our days are looking a little crazy these days, although I think I've mostly got it under control.  Of course, the day is not without hiccups of course.  I could show you a million pictures of precious sleeping, smiling babies, but that wouldn't really be the whole picture.  But of course, what mom stops to run and grab the camera when her babies are hungry, sad or hurt and crying?? So happy sleepy baby photos will have to do...

Riley was such a high maintenance newborn (required being held at all times, pretty much), that I almost feel guilty about how easily Jackson has slept so far.  Guilty because I don't rock him all the time and hold him all the time when he's sleeping like I did with Riley.  Even if he's being "tough" to get to sleep, I just have to stick him in the swing, or even walk around with him for a few minutes.  But more often than not, I can lay him down, pat his back a few times, and he's out.  And he usually stays that way while Riley and I play and make all kinds of noise around him.  He totally doesn't mind one bit...

Riley has been so funny lately, with a little bit of difficult added in there just to keep me on my toes.  I am spending A LOT of time nursing Jackson lately, which means less time to be focused on her, and lots of time focused on baby.  I try to keep Riley as involved as possible, which I think has been helping a lot.  Every time Jackson needs a diaper change (which seems like all. day. long), she is my biggest helper.  Brings out the changing pad, gives me way too many wipes, yells "stinky P.U. baby!" and then throws the diaper away for me (her fave part).  Now if only changing HER diaper was so easy...

Riley has actually been overall REALLY good while I'm feeding Jackson, but she is starting to discover that I'm a little preoccupied, and that she can get into a bit of mischief while I'm feeding him.  She also does some definite attention-seeking things... likes this:

Uhhh, yeah, that would be her pushing herself all the way under the chair until she got stuck, and yelled for me to help her because "i stuck!"  This required unlatching the little milk monster, and rescuing her from under the chair, with a warning NOT to do that again.

Other sources of mischief?  Literally turned away for TWO seconds to check on Jackson, and come back to this:

She's normally really good with pens, she knows not to use them on her hands/face/clothes... you should have seen the look on her face when I first saw her, such a sly little grin like, "uh oh, look what I did mommy..."  But it's hard to get mad or even frustrated when she also does such wonderful things all day long.  Things like taking care of her own little baby doll.  Things like rocking Jackson in his swing when mama forgot to turn it on...

Jackson seems to have finished up his first growth spurt, thank goodness, because it was exhausting!!  He got weighed today and he is up to 7 pounds, 6 ounces!!  Riley's exact birth weight!  At least that's definite proof that he's been going through a growth spurt, in exactly one week he gained over 14 ounces... almost a whole pound!

So now here we are, 2.5 weeks in, and I'd say we're doing alright.  There have been tough moments.  There have been way more funny/amazing/special ones.  Like last night, when I decided to stick the two babies in the bath together again.  Only this time, for some reason, I had the brilliant idea to try and feed Jack Jack right before bath time, figuring he would be all nice and calm in the bath since the night before we bathed him while he was hungry and he was NOT happy about it.  Well, if you have a newborn, you should know that food goes in one end, and very quickly out the other... soooo needless to say bath time was cut short for both babies, and this mom spent a good 20 minutes rinsing toys, scrubbing the bath, and doing lots of laundry...  Oh well, at least this little guy was happy right?  (And Riley was none the wiser, thank goodness)

Also... coming soon... guess whose big girl room is almost all finished??  Bed has been set up, walls are decorated, reading corner is in place... now just waiting to install two shelves and then many pictures to come. It might just be the cutest little toddler room you've ever seen, and she LOVES it.  All day today she would run in there and yell "NEW BED!!!  Mommy coming??"  and wait for me to come and see her on her new bed.  Here's a little peek into her "reading corner" where she was playing her alphabet ipad game before bath...