Eliza got a hair cut

The first time I cut Eliza's hair officially was when she was 6 months old. She had some wispy straggly hairs above her ears and I just trimmed them so they weren't over her ears anymore. But since then, it hasn't been cut.



Until last week!

 

She was such a good girl! It took a little convincing to get her up in the chair (bribery with a sucker to be specific ;) But once she was sitting up there she let Crystal work on her hair just fine.

 

After we had left she talked about going to "Crysso's house" and getting her hair cut again :) I'm really hoping that she doesn't think about cutting her hair now! I would seriously cry!!!

We didn't cut very much. Just trimmed off the uneven ends and brought it up to the new growth on the underside of her hair. The longest piece she cut was almost 3 inches I would say, and Eliza's hair is still about down to the small of her back!

Eliza growing up

My big girl Eliza.

How that phrase makes me sad and happy at the same time!

She is such a treasure to me and while I wish I could keep her little and safe forever, I know that my job is to help her grow and to grow well!

One of the things I have learned as a parent is that I cannot stand by and just merely watch the days go by. I am always asking God for the grace and wisdom with how to teach her and show her how to be the girl (and woman) she has been intended to be!

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Here is a tea party she set up all by herself around the time Cora was born! It seemed as though when Cora came, Eliza turned a developmental corner. She all of a sudden seemed so grown and big... but she's still my baby, and when she curls up in my lap to snuggle I am reminded of just how little she still is.

Our first month with Cora

I've heard a lot of people say that the transition from 1 to 2 kids is one of the hardest... but I've found 0 to 1 to be the hardest and biggest adjustment. Welcoming Cora into our home seemed so natural. It was almost as though she's been here the whole time. Our first month with her holds so many good memories, and I attribute that largely to my Moms and all the help we received to ease the burden of everyday life as we made the transition. I was given the chance to recover at a steady pace and not worry about learning how to juggle everything right away. It helped me learn how to do things a little more slowly and in turn left me with more patience to deal with things that were frustrating.

We came home from the hospital around 9pm on Sunday night July 20th. I really didn't want to stay in the hospital another night since I had gotten almost no sleep the night before. I wanted to be home and comfy... or comfy and warm as Eliza says :)

When we got home, I snuggled Cora into her rocker and laid down to go to sleep. It became apparent very quickly that she was just as grunty and noisy as her sister had been. She also wasn't very content because she hadn't gotten a full meal of milk (since it hadn't come in yet) and was wanting to nurse a LOT. So between my mom and I, we traded her back and forth throughout the night and made it to the next day... barely ;)

The next couple nights were similar, but steadily improving. My milk came in on Monday night/Tuesday morning and that made a big difference. She was still a bit mixed up with days and nights though so it took a couple nights sleeping with her in the rocking chair to keep her calm and sleepy... that first week she spent time sleeping with me, her Daddy and both her Grandmas.

 

Grandma Robinson came on Wednesday and stayed until Sunday. It was so great having her here and Eliza absolutely loved all the attention. Grandma brought her an "Elsa packpack" which is something Eliza had specifically requested. She had never seen one, but liked backpacks because Jacob had one and apparently she figured if she was going to have one, she would like it to have Elsa on it :) 

  

 

Steve was able to take the whole first week off that we had Cora home with us and that was so huge. Between all of us, there was always someone available to help with whatever was going on. After Mom R went home and Steve returned to work, my mom came back for the rest of the week. I didn't even know how much I needed her that second week. I was still not even close to recovered enough to handle things well. By the end of that second week I was feeling able to do so much more. I wasn't in much pain anymore and I was beginning to get the hang of things and the new routine.

 

 

Eliza loves her Cora so much. She always wants to give her hugs and kisses and to "howd her" and "pet her."

 

One of the things I had worried about before having Cora was whether I would have the time to spend with her just "being" when she was a newborn. I had all the time in the world with no distractions essentially when Eliza was born, and I wanted that so badly for my second little girl. I was so blessed to have that kind of time with her due to all the help I had. I will never regret those first days that I literally just sat with her, held her, nursed her, rocked her. I am so so thankful.

When Cora was 2 weeks old we did our first big outing. Alicia's graduation party was that day as well as Emily and William's birthday party. It was a long day, but so fun. It was nice to get out and see how our new life would feel.

Cora unfortunately developed a pretty bad diaper rash within the first week of being born. It hadn't resolved by even 5 weeks, but then it was suggested that I try bag balm, and after a week of constant treatment with that the rash finally cleared up. This was a very frustrating part of the first month...

Another major thing that happened during the first month is that I discovered she had a posterior tongue tie as well as a lip tie. When she was first born, she was able to latch on very well and seemed to be doing fine. When my milk came in, she struggled a LOT and since this had been my experience with Eliza as well we struggled through it and I figured it would get much better once the engorgement went away... Well, that lasted a week and a half and when the engorgement was gone, the nursing issues remained. She would not latch well if at all and when she would, she would click and lose her latch constantly. It was so so so frustrating. I saw the lactation consultant at the hospital and she suggested we see a specialist in Albany about this. We did and she had a procedure where they used a laser to correct the problem. She has done very well since then and is learning slowly but steadily how to be a good nurser... and so am I consequently. It's such a learning curve for both of us, but she seemed to catch on as the days and weeks went by. And by the time she turned 2 months I remember thinking, "ya, I think we're finally getting it." :)

love my girls

I can't believe I have two beautiful girls. I am amazed and blessed.

Sisters in the Fall

I have been wanting to get out and take some fall pictures of the girls for a couple weeks now. Last week I had everything set to go, and then Eliza woke up with a cold :( Not to mention that it was a cruddy day out... and it had been forecasted to be nice.

Ah well. Fast forward 5 days, it was a Monday morning and the 3 of us were all up and the sun was shining. I had set their clothes aside in a bag in the living room making it easy to decide we were going to do pictures right here, right now.

I got them dressed and we hustled outside, all the while feeding Eliza a steady stream of M&M's. Hehehe :) Ya gotta do what ya gotta do!

I had a particular picture in mind which is what I was aiming for, but it wasn't working out... so we rolled with it and I tried a few different things before I got THE ONE!

I couldn't be happier :) Both my babies!



Something like this photo was what I was going for... and it's definitely cute, but didn't work out quite the way I'd imagined ;)





Cora wasn't very pleased with this whole process, in fact, this next picture is about her level of excitement about the whole time ;)



But then I got this cute face :)





My precious Eliza. She tests me and pushes me. But when she whispers in my face, looking straight into my eyes her request, I melt. Totally and completely!



 
For this one, I said to her, "Sit right here with your legs together like a lady." And she responded saying, "I not a wady, I a wiza."

<3

Memoirs from Papa #7

September 12, 2014

Memoirs from Papa (or Gromma) as the case may be,

It's so hard for me to comprehend that you have grown so much! You're such a big girl! How did that happen? Last weekend, you came to spend the night with Groppa and me. It was a wonderful time! The first thing you did after you got here was go swimming with Groppa. You were so cute all wrapped up in your beach towel as you came across the yard to the house with him.

We ate dinner and then... we had “movie night”! Frankly, because Groppa and I had never seen “Froie” all the way through, we wanted to watch Frozen with you. That way, we knew we'd actually sit through the whole thing. Trouble was... you wanted to watch JER! [George] It wasn't possible to convince you otherwise so we just put on Froie and then you were quite content to watch it with us. We told you that was what we were going to watch. LOL. Aunt LoryJean was here to watch with us.

You helped me make popcorn [until you were bored with the whole thing] and I think popcorn was the actual highlight of the evening. You're a Slakes! All this time I thought you were a Robinson!

We had such a good time together, having our first movie/popcorn night together.

a beautiful creation

While you were 15 months... (Eliza)

I am just getting around to finally pulling together words and pictures from over a year ago! I have been keeping track of little things you do and say as the months go by, but I don't always put it all together. So the pictures and stories in this post don't necessarily go together but all are from April 2013.

- Whenever I have your meals ready I come in and ask you if you're ready to eat, you immediately stop whatever you are doing and come hauling in ready to get in your chair. :)

 

- You are still making your surprised "ooooo!" face to get a reaction out of us.

- Today I came downstairs more dressed up than usual as I was going out and when you saw me you made your "ooooo" face and said "Ohhh!" to go along with it. Apparently you're not used to seeing me look so nice. ;)

- You can go down a slide all by yourself! You've been able to do that for a couple months now, but about a week ago you learned to climb the playground all the way up to the slide and then come down!

- You started saying a lot of new words, including Mama, on Mother's Day :)

- other words are:

turtle

wuss dat

bubble

daddy

boppa

a word that means grandma but I can't quite even pinpoint how you say it!

- You have such long hair now that I can put it up in a pony tail and braids. It's SO cute!

- You love Cassie and when I ask if you want to go find her you start looking around to see where she is. If you don't see her you take my hand and pull me toward their house.

 

- You got blanky bear from Auntie and took to her right away. You don't love her as much as Eleanor but she is a good friend nonetheless. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

the birth of Cora Evangeline

Cora Evangeline was born on July 19, 2014 at 5:57pm. She was 9 pounds 4 ounces and 20 inches long.

 

The day of my due date I had a check up with Donna. It was in the late morning and I thought, "hey, it's my due date, I might as well have my membranes swept and see if anything happens." Because after all, at that point, I was totally done being pregnant and wanted to meet my sweet baby face to face.

Within 20 minutes of having that done I began having real contractions. There was a stark contrast between the braxton hicks I had been having since around 20 weeks and what began around noon Friday, July 18. Initially they were approximately 10 minutes apart. Then they moved to 5-7 minutes apart. I was getting really excited thinking Cora was going to actually be born on her DD. However, after about 3 hours the contractions had pretty much stopped. Every so often I would have one or two, sometimes even 3. But nothing consistent. I was bummed!

That evening we got together with a bunch of family (Mom, Dad, LoryJean, Sarah, Devin, Steve, Eliza and me) and went to Red Robin. I had the best burger (the bansai burger) and it made not being in labor be a little bit more ok ;)

The next morning (July 19) I didn't want to sit around the house moping, so Mom and I decided to go to the museum of play with Eliza. It was a lot of fun and we came back around lunchtime. That afternoon at 215 is when everything began my contractions began.

They started 10 minutes apart and that lasted for approximately 45 minutes. Then they moved to 8 minutes apart for another 45 minutes. Around 345 I went downstairs to get something to eat and they quickly moved to about 5 mins. I went back upstairs to lay down again and realized that I was WAY too uncomfortable to be lying down and decided to go to the bathroom. At that point, I basically couldn't get up from the toilet. It was 4pm and I was having a contraction every 2-3 minutes. Mom came up to check on me and I said we should probably go to the hospital because it wasn't until then that it dawned on me that I actually had to get IN the car and RIDE there... which did NOT sound fun at ALL.

We ended up leaving for the hospital right around 5. When I walked downstairs I had another contraction in the kitchen and all of a sudden I felt like I was going to push. That totally freaked me out because I did NOT want to have the baby at home or in the car! I made it to the car and we drove to the hospital. Steve pulled up to the front door and as I got out I started crying and was asking what I was supposed to do? I was in so much pain at that point and he said walk in. I could NOT walk in and the thought of him leaving to go park the car before taking me in was more than I could handle. So he just left the car right there and took me in in a wheel chair.

I was so upset at this point because I truly thought I had hours left to go and I just didn't think I could handle much more. It was BAD. When we walked into the birth place though, all the nurses at the front desk were saying, "Oh wow, she's an 8. She's a 9. She'll be pushing in 10 minutes." I had my head in my hands with my eyes closed and crying. I hadn't realized I was in transition... but I was. And those nurses were right.

They checked me in at 8cm and the labor nurse was telling me to let her know when I felt like I had to push. I told her after she had said that a few times (because apparently I was acting slightly maniacal and hyperventilating) that with Eliza I never felt the urge to push, but that I started pushing at 8cm and dilated during the pushing. She called Donna immediately when I told her that. She had me move down to the end of the bed where they had dropped the end down lower so that I was essentially squatting. It took me a little while to get down there but once I did, Donna said she was going to break my water and we would have a baby.

At that point they began coaching me to push, but I wasn't getting it. It was like I was lost inside my own body and my brain was saying to do it but I couldn't get myself to cooperate. Plus I didn't really want to. I told myself though that I HAD to and that it would be over so soon if I just did it. I asked Steve to push me forward and hold my back and once I did that I started pushing. I pushed for 4 minutes, 4 times through 2 contractions and Cora was born at 5:57pm.

They handed her to me and I couldn't believe how small she was! I said that she was so tiny and the nurses said she was huge. I thought, Gosh how big could she be? Turned out she was 9lbs 4oz, almost a pound and a half bigger than Eliza!

I lost quite a bit of blood waiting for and delivering the placenta. They made me nervous with how frantically they were working on me. I asked if it was serious and was told that yes it was but that they were fixing it and I would be fine. I couldn't hold Cora for long right after she was born because I was losing strength in my arms. That was another reason I knew I was losing a lot of blood.

 

I was able to hold her again about 20 minutes later and she was able to nurse quickly. She literally nursed about 8 out of the first 12 hours she was alive. It blew my mind. And I was so glad that I had the energy to sustain that... because my labor was so quick I was not totally exhausted. That is until the next day when I wasn't able to get any sleep because of all the nursing!


(Eliza and Cora meeting for the first time)

So there is the story about how little miss Cora Evangeline came into this world. She is such a blessing to our family and it feels like she's always been here even just a month after she was born!