Meghan enjoyed meeting her new sister and goes back and forth between being interested in her and ignoring her. When she came to meet Katie at the hospital she received a new baby doll from her sister! The second day she came to visit in the hospital, the pediatrician came to do a well child check over Katie and Meghan went completely to tears to hear him "make" her baby sister cry. She had to leave the room to go for a walk with Daddy. She's such a sweet and super sensitive girl!
Mommy and Katie came home from the hospital on Friday May 6th. Katie seemed to like her swing quite a bit!!
Meghan loves to help in the kitchen, as has been well-documented. On our first night home, she helped Daddy to mix our fancy dinner of mac-n-cheese with ground beef. She had a blast being such a big helper!
One of Meghan's favorite parts of the day is getting the mail with Daddy. She has watched us open and read many pieces of mail and many packages in the past several months. One day, a package arrived from my grandparents and she knew that you use a tool to open packages and she worked very hard to open the package with the mail key. We found it so cute!
After changing her diaper, I scooted Katie off the changing mat and onto the floor. She rolled over and fell asleep and napped there for an hour. It cracked us up - she looked so uncomfortable, but apparently not!
On May 9th, I shared this picture on facebook with the following update:
1) This picture is from this morning when Katie was chilling in the swing waiting to leave for the doctor's office. Meghan brought her a toy to play with - SWEETNESS!! (Also, she looks just like baby me in this picture.)
2) We had Katie's doctor appointment today and she is only one ounce shy of her birth weight. This means she has gained 9 ounces since coming home!! If you know our history of feeding problems around this house, you know what a relief that news was - and why I nearly burst into tears in the doctor's office.
3) Our girls slept for 2 hours at the same time in their own rooms!! After a super-colicky first baby, a baby who sleeps is a completely new experience for us!! (See below for Katie - sleeping swaddled and in her swing - upright because she has reflux!)
Meghan is loving having a little sister - this day she told me "I read Llama Llama to Katie. Katie like it!" It's cute watching how excited about and interested in her little sister she has been!
On a nice day, Daddy and Meghan took the bubble machine outside - she loved singing and dancing in them. It was pure joy all over her face and in her spirit - this picture just makes me so happy!
One night, she fell out of her bed and, rather than cry, she crawled up into her rocking chair and spent the rest of the night there....we're not sure when this happened or how long she slept in the chair, but she was most definitely sleeping soundly there when we woke up.
Meghan's imaginative play has been increasing even more this month - it's been fun to watch her creativity when she's cooking food for her dolls and animals. Her level of imitation has been increasing - she's paying even closer attention to the things I do and is imitating them very realistically!
In the picture below she was using a syringe as a rotary cutter and playing "fabric." She was pretending to cut her fabrics and then fold them up like she's seen done when we've purchased fabric from the store!
More evidences of Meghan growing into an excellent big sister - she likes to help put Katie's things away in the pack-n-play when they aren't in use, she likes to bring her sister toys, and she loves to read stories to her little sister. I love watching her love her little sister. I'm pretty sure that the baby will grow up thinking her name is "Oh! Baby Katie!"
Once I was cleared for housework (after a C-Section, I had to add tasks and weight back into our days slowly) Meghan was thrilled that we were vacuuming again! She loved helping Mama out using her vacuum.
Some fun pictures of goings on with the girls. Postpartum emotions have been very difficult this time around and I have been focusing on taking pictures of these simple days that we are living out. Then when I look back over those pictures in the evening I am reminded about all of the wonderfulness of our day even though it seemed completely overwhelming while I was living it :) It's been a pretty good coping technique for me!
On May 25th the girls went "back to cloth!" Meghan had been wearing disposables since preterm labor and bedrest started for me in mid-March. We didn't want the people helping us out to have to learn to do the cloth diaper thing, too. Then, for the sake of not having dirty diapers needing washed when we went into labor, I didn't start her back in them. But, I missed them! And, she missed them! We were both excited to bring them back out. And, Katie looks simply adorable in her cloth diapers!
(Katie's first diaper was a newborn Bum Genius diaper!)
Meghan has begun getting into princesses and fairy tales recently. We purchased her two princess figures and a dragon figure to add to her toy collection. They are the same size as her Schleich characters so her princesses can farm - because, why not? She has been loving fantasy play!!
Near the end of the month, Katie started noticing high contrast patterns - she loves looking at the windows behind me when I burp her downstairs and she LOVES looking at the mesh on the side of her pack-n-play! She also LOVES the simple black and white book that Meghan loved.
We've also been working to spend lots of time outside! Meghan loves being outside and we have so much fun when we play out there together!
We also enjoyed our strawberry harvest this month!!
