Monday, January 18, 2010

Life as we know it

A week ago today, I gave birth to Emily #2 Baby Charlotte. It is RIDICULOUS how much this girl looks like her sister. Take a look:



The only difference in their appearance is that Charlotte DEFINITELY has Will's family's long skinny feet and long skinny fingers whereas Emily has my short fat fingers and feet. I can already forsee the pre-teen meltdowns when I take my girls shoe shopping and Emily and I can buy cute shoes at the store while Charlotte will have to get whatever fits. Oh well, there's always Zappos.

I have a feeling they won't look identical for long though, because while Emily was jaundice and it was always a struggle to get her to eat, Charlotte NEVER stops eating. She will nurse for 45 minutes, fall asleep, wake up 5 minutes later rooting and nurse for another half hour. Sometimes she's still hungry after that, and then we'll give her a bottle (both because I'm out of milk and because there's only so much nursing my boobs can take) and she'll drink 3.5 oz. A baby at 10 days old is only supposed to have a stomach capacity of 1 oz! My milk, as usual, has been very sluggish to come in despite the fact that I've been taking enough fenugreek to make me smell like a maple tree, but when it does come in I'd better have a lot...I feel like I'm nursing twins.

So Charlotte is a very good baby...she only really gets irritated if she starts rooting and is not supplied with a boob or bottle in a timely manner. She almost never spits up, which is a HUGE difference from Emily, who was so difficult to feed in the first place and then she'd promptly barf up everything you'd given her. Charlotte has been snoozing quite a bit during the day, which makes me nervous because it can mean party time all night, but she pretty much wakes up for a diaper change and a nursing session and goes back to sleep at night which is awesome.

Emily has been amazing too. She hasn't shown a single bit of jealousy so far, and she LOVES her little sister. She has gotten a bit TOO loving on one or two occasions, but by and large she is incredibly gentle and sweet, especially for a 2.5 year old. Except for some complications I'm dealing with (I will probably post about it later) life has been pretty great since we got home. I've been getting a shower and a nap every day thanks to my wonderful husband and family, and that's huge. Emily has been a well-behaved toddler and wonderful big sister and Charlotte is healthy and doing well so we're all pretty happy campers around here.

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