Lifelines

“Put your hands up, you little rascal!”

(REVENGE–see below)

See post below so you know what in the hell I’m talking about :)

I can’t stand it.
Luxe received this unbelievably adorable headband from the Nalli family (oh my, with an outfit containing a TUTU) and I can’t stand it.

She is so tiny and that flower is so giant and all of it put together is just SO DAMN CUTE!

Jenny, I know you’re relaxing on the beach and won’t see this until you get home but dear me, did you make this???
If so, I’ll take twenty and I’m SO not kidding.

(Jenny makes the cutest hairbows over at etsy but her shop is currently closed for vacation purposes. I know this because I went there to order me a batch of super cute headbands if they were listed on her website but no luck since that working girl is chilling in the Outer Banks for a week.
You suck, by the way ;))

Thank you so much, Jen, for this super cute hair-fixer-upper!
We nearly gave a whole table of old ladies heart failure when we whipped it out and stuck it on her head at lunch today–I honestly thought we were going to have to revive one of them!
(Luckily we did not but I’m not sure how great of a lunching companion I was because I kept looking over at her and squealing, “You are so CUTE!”)

Really, I can’t stand it.

This is what happens when Luxe makes an appearance in the mornings: SWARM!

Sometimes they all crowd around her and her poor little newborny eyes start going off in two different directions which the kids think is HILARIOUS and which I find to be horrifying indicative of what a zoo we must live in, when someone’s eyes literally roll around in their head in order to see everyone at once.

Luxe has this period of time where she will not sleep.
She’s not even necessarily fussy–not inconsolably, anyway; she’s just wiiiiide awake.
From about 9:00 or 10:00 at night until midnight-ish, many nights she’s up and she’s eating.
REPEATEDLY.

And I can’t even complain about this period because do you know what happens afterward?
She’s up so long and eats so much that she sleeps for HOURS when she finally goes.
Last night, she ate and ate and ate from 10:00 until 1:00 (there are chunks of time there where I hand her off to Charlie but within 20 minutes, she’s always back to the boob) and then she slept….until SEVEN FORTY-THREE this morning!

I of course woke about six time during the night to make sure she was breathing (what IS this obsession???) but am now up for the day and am actually happy about it.
So happy in fact that I offered to get up with Creux at 8:00 when he came in looking for a breakfast maker.
This has been the first morning in months where I’ve been able to let Charlie do the sleeping in.
I had just finished nursing Luxe when Creux came in and Charlie climbed out of bed and starting dressing and I whispered, “If you want to snuggle her, I’ll get up with him.”
He nearly cannon-balled back in the bed.

Getting sleep makes all the difference in the world.
I can do this, I can do ALL of this (”this” being my crazy, insane, very, very FULL life) if I can get this kind of sleep.
Creux was in the midst of colic at this point when he was my newbie and I kid you not, he was up every two hours and he was screaming.
He did not sleep like Luxe is sleeping until he was 16 months old.
Of course, anything can change and she could rip that sleep away from me in an instant.
But I am SO grateful for what I’ve gotten–I feel like I could even handle a bit of that sort of sleep deprivation and not go totally mad or have the nervous breakdown that I’m always threatening to have.

By gosh, I sort of feel like…me again.

This photo was taken last night during one of the pass-offs to Charlie and he “paced” her right to sleep.

I’ll nurse her and try to get her down on my own but she usually pops up the second I leave the bed. I’ve been trying to “take back” some of the bedtime stuff with my Littles because…well, because I miss them and they miss me and bedtime is a sweet time to reconnect. I haven’t been able to do much of this since Luxe arrived–Charlie has been so great about just taking over both of them–so it’s nice to give him a break, let him spend some time with Luxe, and to get back to Mommying.

***Two things to note:
Jenny, tell Emma that Luxe loves the little animal printy sleeper (look how cute!) that she picked out for her!

And can you all see that tiny paw reaching up to “pet” her in the photo?
That’s Creux and that’s exactly what he wants to do :)

We had the absolute good fortune and pleasure of hosting a small playdate with my college girlfriend (and ex-roomie–best ever) Jenny and her two adorable kids, Margot and Mason. (With a third on the way!)

Jen, I had such fun catching up with you! It makes me so happy to see Margot and Greer run off and play like old pals–it reminds me of the playdates we used to have when they were just months old and we were both so excited to have girls that we had matching clips dangling from their 13 hairs :) I would say maybe they’ll be running around campus together some day like their mamas were but I don’t think either of us want to re-create that! (wink, aaaaaand double wink)

I know you know this but I absolutely treasure our friendship and maybe it’s because it’s now been SIXTEEN YEARS (can you believe that? doesn’t it seem like we met just yesterday at Park Hall?) but I’m just so happy that we’ve always kept in touch and made efforts to keep the connection alive.

I adore you to pieces.
Thanks for being such a wonderful friend.

Have an awesome time at the beach and come back when you get home.

XO

It’s not easy to do anything with a newborn in the house.
At least not with MY newborns, who are definitely “spoiled” silly, to the point of not wanting to be apart from mama at all.
Which means that while they do sleep all day, they like to sleep WITH me all day.
And if I’m not sleeping?
Well then often times they aren’t either.
Not at least until I devote some time to carrying/jiggling/rocking/swinging/snuggling.

So getting sh*t done becomes a challenge without my stinkin’ Moby sling in Autumn Blossom.
Which can not be found, by the way.
It just can’t.
Charlie checked with The Powers That Be over at Moby.
It was a limited edition.
FIGURES.
And they are making more but they won’t be available for over a month.
But I found a back-up and if I love it (it’s the same style) then I’ll just order the elusive sling later and I’ll have two.
(You can’t have too many baby wranglers, can you???)

Way off-topic.
GEESH, I do that a lot!

After the Harmons left on Wednesday, we had a super modified version of our Sunday cleans since we were too busy having a grand old time to do ANY cleaning last Sunday.
And in order to get some sh*t done, I set the baby in the bed and hooked Greer up with my Netbook.
She’s like my number one blog fan, did you know that?
Since my blog is filled with all kinds of family photos, most starring her, she’s a Lifelines addict.

It was all going so smoothly.
I was vacuuming, the girls were happy.
I was Getting Sh*t Done.

And then he came, light saber in hand, to wreck my day.

(What I didn’t take a photo of was the manic waving about of that stupid light saber in full-on “I’m going to bust you in the head!” mode, followed by the counter-attack of Greer, who came LEAPING off the bed to wrestle him down and rip it from his fat little paws all the while shrieking an animalistic battle-cry at top volume, followed by wailing infant who suddenly, horrifically, realized she lived with crazy people.
Vacuum was abandoned in the hallway, Littles were escorted out literally by their ears, soothing boob was produced.
Housework still waiting to be finished.
Sigh.)

Luxe turned three weeks old on Monday–I’m just running behind on her photos!
I hit the Baby Jackpot this time around as she’s just the sweetest thing ever and gives me no trouble; she handles this house like a pro.

We went for a meet-and-greet with Dr. Carine today and she’s looking great!
(Luxe, not the doc :))
She had a big growth spurt recently and is now 7lbs, 2 oz (born at 6lbs, 11oz) which is pretty good considering that she lost weight, as all babies do, right there at the beginning.
She measured in at 21 inches which is a huge leap from the 18 she was born at which sort of has me wondering if maybe the hospital’s measurement was off a bit.
I mean, I know I make good milk and all but I don’t know that it’s good enough to grow Superbaby!

All in all, it was a nice visit (and she didn’t even bust my chops for waiting three weeks to get Luxe in to her which I TOTALLY appreciated) and we’re stocked up on Mommy and Luxie goodies in the form of probiotics and vitamin D supplements for both of us.

She’s a dream.
And we all just love her crazy.

Photos from Monday:

She was swinging and I thought I’d have a few minutes to myself.
But as soon as I got comfortable, she woke up crying.
I picked her up and since the radio was on, I danced around the kitchen with her, singing along to Eminem’s new song.
(I mention that so she’ll know I’m a cool lullaby singer–no “Twinkle, Twinkle” over here ;))

She snuggled in close and fell asleep.

I couldn’t resist.