we check the shower for syrup bottles

The kids are now 16 months and 8 months old. My daughter is very interested in stacking things; her favorites include wooden candlesticks and whatever food she can pull out of the pantry cupboard to relocate before we stop her.  My son is rolling all over the place and is pretty satisfied with this mode of transportation, however he often can be found in a push up position staring at a toy and in this way seems to be meditating on the idea of crawling. They are both cute and smart and I am very proud of them.

The complete exhaustion and regular bouts of crying (well, MY regular bouts anyway) have gone.  There are days that are difficult, obviously, but it isn't an all consuming see saw of bottles and diapers anymore, although there are still TONS of bottles and diapers, don't get me wrong.  There are just larger gaps between them and, where bottles are concerned, less of a need for my involvement in holding &/or picking it up repeatedly as it keeps slipping away.

At 16 months, my daughter has matured enough that I can trust her to stay in the same room with the baby if I go do something crazy like fix lunch or move the laundry around.  I often find my son with one of his cloth books, a sock, or something else random that his sister has given to him while I was gone which makes him super happy. He laughs. She laughs at his laugh, he laughs at her laugh... and we just have a house full of giggles until one of them pukes or drops something loud.

Everyone asks how they are together, and the simple answer is that I expect they will be great pals and loving siblings as they grow up because they make each other very happy even now.

So the flip side to all of this lovely joy is that I've been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease, which basically means a couple of the cushy discs between my vertebrae have gone south and it hurts a lot.  I'm in physical therapy in an attempt to train my back to use other parts of my spine more and the bum discs spot (in my lower thoracic area) less. This training also hurts, so all told, i'm in a lot of pain pretty much all of the time (as opposed to before I started PT, when I was mostly only in pain when I hadn't moved much like first thing in the morning).  I'm hoping this all works out soon because I'd love to play on the floor with my kids and you know... not cry when I have to unexpectedly lean over for a long time... like if there is a diaper explosion while my son sleeps and I have to try to clean him up while containing to poo AND not waking him up since it is, let's say, 4 am and he finally just went to sleep before his diaper suddenly stopped containing what he was putting in it. blink.

I'm so lucky my husband is so involved and willing to step in at night.  Really, he does essentially all of the post-midnight baby stuff before getting up super early and heading to work. Because our 8 month old still sleeps like a 3 month old- even requiring a few night time feedings- my husband is really remarkable to do this. Particularly because my back is most painful in the night and I get kind of cussy when I'm both sleepy and in pain...  as it turns out. :-/

My oldest baby is almost 1!

Being a mom to two under one has been hard.  super hard.

I probably cry from just being exhausted at least twice a week. There are far too many days that end with me feeling like I've done nothing but feed babies and coax them to sleep for hours on end. Sometimes I forget to eat and the dogs are always shedding faster than I an sweep. However, it has been an amazing year watching my daughter grow and mature from being a helpless & serious newborn into a funny and determined toddler (well, almost toddling). I've enjoyed experiencing pregnancy with my son and watching him go from being a 10th percentile helpless newborn to being a 90th percentile 3 month old.  Also, his giant smile is pretty great.

I'm headed into the last two weeks of having two under one. I can't say I won't miss my daughter's babyhood- I already feel the finality of the rare times she sleeps on my chest.  I feel sad that I missed so many of these naps and so much snuggling her when she was smaller because I was so pregnant and she was so kicky at around 6 months old.  She was an amazing baby.  BUT, I am looking forward to knowing her as a toddler, to the times when my kids will be closer in size and ability.  It will be wonderful to see them interact on their own terms. Right now, we have to carefully watch to make sure my daughter's head pats don't turn into grabbing chunks of his hair.  I love hearing her talk and I can't wait to be able to understand more of it.  The next year will be tough in new ways, but I'm really excited about it.  I will probably cry from being exhausted 3 times a week instead, but it will all be worth it.

Birth after adoption... RIGHT after.

There is a serious lack of blogs about raising two kids who are 8 months apart. I know, I know, my family make-up is somewhat rare but still, someone should be documenting this amazing time. At least that's what I said to myself during my pregnancy... and again when my son was born in mid-Feb... and yet again when he hit the one month mark! The truth is, there is a very good reason that there are so few blogs about two babies under one year old. Who has the time!? 

 
I now have a 9-month old (almost 10 months now, but lets not make a mommy cry just now, ok?) and a 7-week old. My older baby LOVES screen time- phones, tablets, computers- she has mastered touch screens (which occasionally are apparently lick-screens), so when I use an electronic device, I have to keep it hidden from her. I have texted with my mom behind the couch pillow, yes. This obsession of hers makes blogging very difficult. Additionally, much of my day is generally spent in this way: diaper, bottle, diaper, bottle, bottle, diaper, bottle, bottle, bottle. Sprinkled liberally with crying babies. But right now, in an amazing twist, BOTH babies are still asleep! 

A family friend recently found out she was pregnant as she was in the process of adopting a second child. It got me thinking again about how difficult it was to find kindred spirits for me & the blogs/message boards I did find were all from many years ago. So, I wanted to at least get general thoughts about the birth soon after adoption out there before the babies start waking up. I hope to delve further into this stuff in future posts, but let's be honest, it may be a couple months before that happens.

For me, the pregnancy & birth were very emotional and sometimes difficult as I couldn't help but think of my daughter's biomom as I felt the baby move, etc. I had a lot of tears for her biomom particularly in the days around the birth. I also had some unexpected feelings after the baby was born (i.e. twinges of weird defensiveness for my daughter when people talked about who my son looked like). It was also difficult for us because people assumed we were told we couldn't have kids and that we had gone through treatments and such before deciding to adopt, which was not the case. It is difficult and awkward to correct people who we hear talking about our miracle baby that we never thought we could have, when in fact we chose adoption on purpose. It is equally awkward (internally, anyway) to just let them tell the story and not correct them.

I think if my daughter was older at adoption, it would be a whole different set of emotional sticking points, and probably there would be time to take some of them on before the new baby (and without being pregnant & emotional already!), so hopefully some of it is easier for most people.

The best part though is the rush of relief & light heartedness as time goes on and you realize there is no paperwork nor social worker visits! This is particularly important since having two babies (and two dogs) means the house is a disaster at all times. 

Oh, and now i hear crying, so I must cut this off. Until next time!