"I will never..."

There were lots of things I said I would never do as a parent.

And then I became a parent.

There were still lots of things I said I would never do as a parent.

And then I became the parent of two babes in a year.

The primary example of this is Lydia and I have been sleeping together in the rocking chair. Yes, our baby sleeps with me. Once upon a time, I said my child can't get used to sleeping with me if I never let her. What I didn't think to consider was that my baby was used to sleeping with me long before I gave birth to her.

But with a getaway [from the kids] planned for May, we decided it's time to cut the umbilical cord. A little. Since I will never let my baby "cry it out", we are starting out with The No-Cry Sleep Solution approach by Elizabeth Pantley. For now, the goal is to just get Lydia taking naps outside of my arms. We will tackle nights later. Today is Day 2. Yesterday was awful. Today is going a little better.

We will see if I can hold to my sentiment against "cry it out" methods. I sure hope so.

Lydia at 6 weeks old

4 diapers in 10 minutes

This morning I changed 4 diapers in 10 minutes. I'll spare the details, but let's just say only one was Brett's and in the midst of Lydia's screaming, Brett found a dirty one to throw at his sister. Yesterday our morning started out around 6:30am. My goal was to get to the store. After two and a half hours, the kids were fed, I was caffeinated, we were all dressed, and out the door - both the kids on their second outfits for the day, as they had both puked on their first outfits. But between the pukes and poops, spills and screams, we are starting to have a few moments of sanity again. We are enjoying Lydia's first smiles and coos and Brett's discoveries and contagious laugh.

Here are a few holiday highlights:

rockin' around the Christmas treeplaying "manger" with cousins

all 11 cousins big smiles

all 4 cousins

kissing cousins

GREAT grandma!

merry christmas

Lydia is missing an arm, but what a cute expression, and Brett isn't poking her...

Merry Christmas!

our last three weeks in pictures

So, Grandpa Ardy has not gotten to meet Lydia yet, and he wants to see pictures, other than of her screaming! The last 3 weeks have been a bit of a fog, but here we go with some random snapshots:

Harambee Village Christmas Celebration

Getting a nice Christmas photo of the kids together was futile a task.Santa came to visit Culver's, so we went for some ice cream! Brett was a little reluctant.

Decorating the tree!