Surviving...

We survived our first week home and first weekend as a family of four without any major disasters. Charlotte continues to be a pretty good baby, which has definitely made the adjustment from one to two kids easier. She pretty much only cries (knock on wood) when she needs something and is pretty easy to calm down when she is upset. While she is still sleeping a ton, she hasn't quite figured out her days and nights. There have been many sleepless nights, but we are finding that we are much smarter during the nighttime hours the second time around. With Claire, we would both jump out of bed and work together changing her diaper, feeding her, and putting her back to sleep. This time it is all about shifts. Art usually takes the late night shift, starting around 9:00pm. He wakes me when she needs to eat and then I stay up with her until she goes back to sleep. The rest of the night, we take turns...I feed her and if she doesn't fall back asleep Art steps in to help. This allows us both to get more sleep and makes handling a very energetic 20-month old much easier. Claire continues to adore her baby sister and gives her kisses any chance she gets. She has only had a few real moments of jealously so far, which have mainly occurred when I'm feeding Charlotte and cannot give her a ton of attention. She continues to greet each morning with a very whiny and demanding "baby". And while it is a bit annoying at times (mainly because the last thing we want her to do is wake up the baby), I'd rather have her want to be with her than the alternative.

I'm sure I'm imagining it, but Claire seems so much older since Charlotte was born. She has such a big personality and she continues to make us laugh each day. I thought I would share a few funny moments with Claire over the last few days, so I don't forget them...

1. The Naughty Step: shortly before Charlotte was born we started giving Claire time-outs on the "naughty step" when she was misbehaving. So far it has worked out great about 75% of the time. She gets upset about the fact she has to sit there, says she is sorry when her time-out is up and gives us a hug before going back to playing. The other 25% of the time, she thinks it is fun to be told to go to the naughty step. She still obeys by going over to the step, but proceeds to smile and giggle the entire time she is there. On Saturday she even went so far as putting herself in a time-out. She was climbing on the coffee table and I asked her "do we climb on the coffee table Claire?", to which she responded "step" and walked right over to the naughty step and sat down. It was one of those moments when it was really hard not to laugh.

2. Adventures at Naptime: we knew it was bound to happen sooner or later...Claire has officially figured out how to get out of her toddler bed. Both Friday and Saturday she was up playing in her room after we put her down for her nap. Art caught her in the act several times...he said that a guilty look spread across her face as she raced back to her bed. On Saturday, after 1.5 hours of taking toys out of her room, telling her to get back into bed, and finally taking her blanket away, she fell asleep. Hopefully this is only short-lived. At least she isn't getting out of bed at night...yet.

Here are a few more pictures from our very busy weekend: