Six weeks and Counting --- Our little combustion

Six weeks and counting. There haven’t been any six hour night sleep stretches in a long time. Most nights we are down to 2 or 2 ½ at most, many are even less. The more I look at the difficulties inherent to having children, i.e. lack of sleep, terrible twos, etc, the more I see our relationship to God in miniature as well as opportunities to become more like Christ. Like the lack of sleep, we get the difficult opportunity to learn how to be kind, patient, long suffering, and charitable while we are sleep deprived and prone to the opposite. Christ was always kind, gentle, patient, long suffering, and charitable, even when He was tired. In the terrible twos I see Heavenly Father’s frustration with us when we fail to do what He has asked, commanded us to do NUMEROUS times. If only we were as obedient as we expect OUR children to be, how blessed we would be. I can see why (and I’m sure I only see a small portion at that) the plan of salvation revolves around families, and why families are so crucial in our development.
I can’t believe it’s been six weeks. The days, and nights, have all run together. There have a number of occasions that Joe and I commented on how much easier having two children was. And how did we ever think ONE was hard. Of course it was, but man, a little perspective and experience really does change your perceptions, expectations, and threshold for being tired. Going back to the six weeks marker, Julia is doing great. We had her weighed at one month, 8 pounds 1 ounce, so she’s gaining weight perfectly, 1 ounce a day. That has been a concern with each of the girls. Knowing that she’s doing well is a huge relief. She’s fussier when awake than I remember either Cassidy or Molly being. Julia wants to be held while awake, but she doesn’t really like it if you’re sitting while holding her. At night she often sleeps in the crook of my arm on the couch. There have been many a night when that was the only way that I could keep her asleep. I always said that I wouldn’t sleep with my infant but when it’s either that or not sleeping at all, I choose sleep. Same with a pacifier; Julia doesn’t really keep it in her mouth very well but sometimes it is the only thing I can do to pacify her.
One of my visiting teachers is a great photographer and she offered to do a mini photo session for Julia, of course I jumped at it. The pictures are AMAZING!!!!! Here are some of them. I can’t wait to frame some.

I am already worrying about equality between the girls and middle child syndrome. Cassidy had a little photo session when she was 2 weeks old. And her grandmother did an awesome painting of me holding her while she’s in her blessing dress. Julia had a photo shoot, her grandmother made her blessing dress, and I will get pictures of her in it. Then there is Molly, our dear Molly. True, I made her blessing dress but we never took any pictures of her wearing it. Nor did she have any type of photo shoot and I really didn’t take any photos that would come close to being that type. Will she be jealous?? Will she think that she was gyped?? I hope not. Molly definitely has the best birthing story of all the girls. But there again, she has the worst birthday, Christmas Eve. Poor girl.
Cassidy is in an attitude stage. She likes to forcibly tell us NO when she doesn’t want to do what we ask of her. At times it is hard not to laugh and other times it’s hard to keep my cool, especially when she’s being told to get off her sister and she responds with no.
Molly is such a pleasant child to be with, except when she’s screaming (which she does just to make noise with Cassidy). She is jabbering a lot more but still only says Ball, Dog, and Hi. She’s never tried to say mama or dada, oh well, one day. She is such a climber; my mother-in-law calls her the Terminator because she just goes through everything. And if she falls, she just gets up and continues. Today she went head first over the arm of our couch and as she stood up she laughed the most adorable laugh. So great. Because she doesn’t talk as she goes, sometimes she gets into things without your knowing she’s even there. She tests everything and remembers so much. Molly loves to be snuggled and always goes running to the back door when Joe comes home from work. She is a daddy’s girl, for sure.
Well I started this post over a week ago, and it’s finally getting on the blog, sorry.

Sunday Cassidy really busted out with attitude, during sacrament meeting no less. I had to keep a straight face and just look at her as she practically screamed at me to “let [her]do it, let [her] do it, just let [her] do!!” The it being take off Molly’s shoes. To the normal observer my girls ate pure sugar for breakfast, not that sugar makes you hyper, but you know. They were CRAZY, so with the screaming and not sitting even remotely quiet, I had to take them both out of the chapel and find a room with a speaker so I could listen to the talks as the girls and I sat where we were not disturbing everyone. It only took a couple of minutes of Cassidy sitting in her own chair and me trying, unsuccessfully, to hold Molly still. At one point I looked at the girls and thought that Cassidy is all girl, drama and babies, and Molly is all tom boy, hold the talking and pass the daredevil. So much fun but such an opportunity to learn to be patient and long suffering and kind and all those good qualities we want but loath to have to endure learning and acquiring. We were able to return and listen to the mission president give a powerful, ie loud, talk. Very good sacrament meeting. I really appreciated his wife’s talk on Peter in the New Testament. Oh how I NEED church on Sundays. What was Joe doing during this episode? looking so peaceful holding a sleeping Julia. Lucky him. Except he had to try to keep her asleep as I had to shuffle past with the girls, twice. Good job Joe. AND he got a sleeping Molly into her car asleep, out of her car seat asleep, and into her crib asleep. She then slept another 2 ½ hours. Good job JOE!!!!!!! Now if only I could do that.