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| Madelyn at one week old, sleeping away! |
Where to begin! It has been quite an eventful three weeks home with Madelyn! Three weeks ago today, she arrived during quite a lightening storm and continues to survive the natural disasters!
At 5 days old, while all the house was napping, I heard a boom come from Olivia's room. I think to myself, "why is Olivia awake and how did she get books to drop?" Suddenly, the dresser begins to rattle and the TV looks like it is going to fall off the dresser! Not quite comprehending what is happening I run to the top of the stairs and yell down to Jean, "is this an earthquake?" I hear a little cry from Olivia's room and Jean is standing over the pack -n- play on the main floor. There are many thoughts that flash through my mind, but suddenly it is over! In the aftermath of the 5.8 earthquake on August 23rd, we were fine and had quite a scare. Olivia woke up from her nap at that time, and Madelyn just slept right through it! Dan was at school and we connected after a few minutes, but he was fine and Howard County Schools sent everyone home at that point to check the structures of the buildings. Lee, in Ocean City, did not even realize that an earthquake had just struck! One natural disaster down and two more to come!
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| Little bit of floor time! |
On Saturday, August 27th, at 8 days of life, Madelyn experienced another major event. Hurricane Irene, a category three storm, was traveling up the East coast. Dan and I did not really buy into the hype that the storm brought, and did not worry to much about it. However, we did need groceries for the week, so one advantage to having an 8 day old is that after the 5:30am feeding, I headed to the store before the frantic crowds hit! I was in and out of the store by 7:00am and we hunkered down for the day. The media was hyping up the fact that we may have power outages and downed trees, and I was praying that we would not loose power! After a visit from Carol, Scott, Bradyen, and Blake, who came to meet Madelyn, the rain started to come down. Laura come over for a little Hurricane Party/Fantasy Football Draft Party, and the lights only flickered once. I went to bed still praying we would not loose power! When I woke up at 4:30 am to feed Madelyn, I looked outside and the entire neighborhood was black, the rain was coming down, and the wind was blowing hard! However, our side of the street still held onto the power! We never lost it, but the rest of the neighborhood was out until Thursday! We felt very grateful for maintaining our electricity. The rest of the area was a mess. We had several roads closed around us from downed trees and Dan even had the first day of school off because of lack of electricity! It was quite a memorable event.
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| A visit from the cousins! |
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Finally, during the past week it literally rained for the past three days! Thanks to the former Hurricane Lee, we had the left overs this week. I have been going a little stir crazy, and we tried to go out somewhere each day. The hitch in that plan was that Olivia woke up from her nap on Tuesday with a 102 degree fever! We visited the doctor on Wednesday and it was another virus. There was nothing we could do except Advil and fluids. Upon arriving at the doctors the skies unleashed. It began to rain as hard and as fast as it did with Hurricane Irene. Yay, two kids to get to the car. Luckily the nurse offered to keep the girls at the door and I could pull up the car. I was soaked, but the girls were fairly dry! Olivia kept staring at me, saying, "Mommy wet!" Thanks Olivia I did not realize! Wednesday caused many trees to fall again and flooding on many roads. There are crazy videos of Old Ellicott City streets looking like a river!
On Thursday we headed to the mall for some dry entertainment. We met up with Miss Sharon, our day care woman, at the Story time. Olivia had a great time and we even rode the carousel! Madelyn was a good little girl and we had a brief stop at the food court to have a bottle and a snack. I was so excited to have a successful outing with both girls on my own! It is the little things!
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| Best of Friends! |
Madelyn continues to grow and eat well. We are struggling to understand how to keep her asleep. She is very strong, and really likes to use her sucking reflex. However, the pacifier does not stay in her mouth. She could be dead asleep and if that thing falls out she wakes up and starts to cry! I told Dan we are not putting her to sleep with the pacifier because I do not want to play that game all night long. So far we have won the battle. Haha! The other challenge is when we swaddle her, she will slowly get her arms out of the blankets. This was not a huge deal with Olivia she would continue to sleep with no issue. On the other hand, Madelyn will then start trying to suck her thumb, fingers, or hand...and wake herself up, crying! Feeling frustrated, I pulled out a blanket with Velcro called a SwaddleMe. We never really used it with Olivia, but with Madelyn it is like a straight jacket like contraption! When she is in it she cannot get her arms out. This allows her to sleep longer...most of the time. We often hear her let out grunts and cries trying to get her hands outs. Once again...one for the parents!
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| The BIG sister! |
Olivia is doing very well. She loves Madelyn and is very interested in her "feeding." She will tell me "Madelyn feed other side". She loves to help change her diaper and see her poopie. Lately Madelyn has been spitting up and Olivia will say, "see spit up, gross." We have gotten into a bit of a routine, espcially in the morning. Madelyn will sleep until 8 or 9 am. Olivia and I have breakfast and play for a bit. When Madelyn wakes up to nurse, Olivia will say, "watch Gabba now." I reply yes and we head to my bed to watch her show "Yo Gabba Gabba" while I quickly feed Madelyn. It is a nice break for everyone, and the only 25 minutes of TV she watches!
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| ~First bath~ |
So Miss Madelyn has had quite an adventure filled first three weeks! She has visited the library, the zoo, and the mall. She also drank her first bottle and took her first bath!
We gave both girls a bath at the same time and that has been cute. We had to encourage Olivia to put water on Madelyn's belly not her face! Madelyn cried the entire first bath, but the second one was much smoother!
We also fed Madelyn a bottle and that is a huge step for me! I like the fact that I am not the only one who can feed her now. It makes us a bit more mobile and I can give Dan a bottle to feed to her and I can sleep a bit more at night!
Life with two girls is going well! This week will be exciting, and Madelyn will be meeting many new family members because Bethany's wedding is on Friday! We look forward to Olivia being the flower girl and celebrating with Bethany and Bryan!
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