February - So Far So Good...

Well!  This past week was our first five day week of the new year in which everyone went where they were supposed to go and did what they were supposed to do!  Yippee!!  You know that means someone (probably Margot) will come down with something soon and throw a monkey wrench in this health plan.  Speaking of Margot, she's had a fantastic week as far as sleep is concerned, too!  Four out of five nights she slept ALL. NIGHT. LONG.  She can FINALLY be laid in her crib and left to herself without the insane crazy lady wailing she was doing a few weeks ago.  Now, if we follow the routine (bath, jammies, nursing, book, song, bed), she practically jumps into her crib.  And when she wakes up crying in the middle of the night, it only takes 5 - 15 minutes for her to get herself back to sleep.  That middle-of-the-night crying is so much different now than it was a few weeks ago.  It's gone from "HEEEYYYY!!!!!  COME GET ME BEFORE I DIE!!!!" to "Hey.  I'm awake.  Anybody?  Anybody?  No?  Alright, then.  I'll just go back to sleep, I guess."

Also, I want to write a giant post about how different, difficult, wonderful, insanely exhausting, remarkably brilliant it is to have two kids.  Instead, I'll just say this:  I have to remind myself of two important things every single day:

1.  We are not the first or only people to have two children.  Lots of people do it and have done it before us.  It often feels like there are entirely too many children in this house and then I'm all, "Oh wait.  There's only two.  My grandma had six.  I'm a total wuss."

2.  Margot is not Sylvia.  Margot is a baby, not a toddler.  There are two years between then, so Margot will not be a toddler tomorrow.  I need to let her be a baby and stop waiting for her to grow up.  I need to invest in the high chair and the teethers and the morning nap.  These things aren't going away any time soon, nor should they!  This poor baby.  I feel she may be rushed through her entire life.  I'll do my best to not do that.

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks.  I promised myself I'd take Margot's seven month pics in her chair this weekend.  Now that she's almost eight months old.  Ai yi yi!  Poor second baby.  *Facepalm.*

Margot's Christmas outfit from Papi and Mamie in France.  It's warm and adorable and she's worn it OUT since we got it.  Merci, Papi et Mamie!

Getting ready to go outside takes longer than the time we spend outside.

Sylvia will not part with her bouncy ball from Cici.  You'd think it was the only Christmas gift she received.

Our trip to the mailbox included stomping through every pile of snow at the end of every neighbor's driveway!

Sweet li'l footprints.

Sweet li'l house all covered in snow!

Making snow angels!

She got pretty good at it!

Babies make the BEST faces!  Margot has been eating in her high chair for the last couple weeks (instead of the bumbo), and she LOVES it!

Margot's still crazy bald, and probably will be for quite some time, if she's anything like Sylvia or myself when I was a baby!  Sylvia's hair is getting long enough for a braid, so that's a lot of fun, especially since she thinks having her hair braided makes her Rapunzel. She's no longer interested in pigtails, which breaks my heart!

So here I sit, at 8:30 on a Saturday with two girls in beds upstairs.  It feels like midnight and I'm wiped out, but we've had such a good day that all I can do is thank my lucky stars for those two sweet girls.  I forgot how fun it is to be a little girl.  I'm trying really hard to LET them be little girls without my nutty Mama brain interfering.  I'm working hard to relax and count my blessings.  After all, I'm not the first (or the last) person to do this, right??