The Girls

Coco turned three months old (!) and has (mostly) left the fussy newborn phase behind. She was never colicky or anything, but she got kind of screamy in the evenings--David started to take it personally because he'd get home from work and all of a sudden she was the opposite of fun to hang out with.

Three months seems to be the magic number (though yesterday afternoon she had a fussy spell) because she's mellowed out. She's wide-eyed and alert and smiley and really wants to have better hand-eye coordination than she actually has. She has rolled over from front to back and almost made it from back to front but she's not a fan of tummy time. Today instead of rolling she just squawked and then cried. Well, we tried.

She's still a spittier baby than her sister ever was, but even that is easing up a bit (which basically means that it happens just infrequently enough to catch me off guard every single time).

Her smiles squish up her whole face and light up my whole life. Her cheeks are so kissable. She's just delicious, and believe it or not, she's even cuter in person.

She's given us a couple full-nights of sleep, but it's more typical for her to want to nurse somewhere between 2 and 4am and then to snuggle down again until morning. She's still sleeping in our room and I like that arrangement just fine so I have no firm plans to switch bedrooms, although we are going to get twin beds from my parents to put in "the big girl room." Maybe one of these days we'll rearrange things...

My anxiety has spiked a little bit just in the last few days. The grief season, combined with cold and flu season, combined with knowing a couple of babies who died of SIDS between 3 and 4 months old... I worry of course but then I had one sleepless night where I just had to watch her breathe from 2-6:30am. For the most part, I'm more relaxed than I was with Zuzu, but the anxiety flares up on me sometimes.

I was just telling a friend that Eliza was our perfect plan and Zuzu was our desperate hope and Coco was our lovely surprise. She still feels like that--such an amazing and unexpected gift. I can't believe we got that effortlessly lucky, and maybe that's part of the reason why I catch myself worrying that something that came to us so easily could also slip away.

Even as I type that out, I know it sounds crazy. The logic side of my brain eventually wins (she's here and she's healthy), and I am sleeping well almost all of the time. But, you know. Crazy will rear its head every now and again.

And oh, my Zuzu. Every bit of two years old. I described her today as a challenge and a delight. I've tracked the source of "Not today!" (said in a cheerful, sing-song voice) to her teachers at school. Zuzu asks to go to the park every day (even today, when it is 30 degrees outside) and that's their response. It's funny because she's started saying it at home in place of "No." I ask if she'd like some yogurt with breakfast and she replies, "Not today!"

After a few weeks of tears and clinginess at school (right after Coco was born and Zuzu's primary teacher left, the transition was kind of rough), Zuzu now runs ahead of me into the building to find out whether her "fwiends" are in the classroom or the playroom.

Today she wore mittens for the first time since last year. They are hand-me-downs from a friend--pink striped with reindeer heads on them. She was super excited about them but forgot what they were called. So when she got to school and her teacher started to help her take off her coat, she said, "No, please no take off my pockets!" (Her teacher totally let her keep her mittens on and once again I left feeling so grateful that we are able to put her in an environment where she has so many kind and caring adults looking out for her.)

Zuzu is still really into Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck. When she requests to watch a show, it's always Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Sometimes I'll put on Daniel Tiger, but she's totally over Curious George. I think she would be into Clifford the Big Red Dog but I haven't DVRed any of those episodes. 

After a difficult weekend, we decided that her level of brattiness is in direct correlation to the amount of television she watches. While thirty minutes of peace and quiet can be an absolute necessity on occasion (the witching hour is real and David is almost never home for it) most of the time it's just not worth the meltdown that inevitably ensues when it's time to turn it off.

She is easily appeased by this Mickey Mouse fairy tales book I got from the library, which has the most horribly bastardized retelling of fairy tales ("Little Red Riding Minnie" is the worst) but she freaking loves it. There's a picture of Minnie crying and when we ask her what's going on in picture she says, "Oh, Minnie misses her Mickey Mouse! Her is so sad!"

(I will actually be super sad the day she figures out pronouns because using "her" for "she" is freaking adorable when Zuzu does it.)

She's really started using her imagination to play, and I love hearing her talk to her dolls. Sometimes she'll tell me that Mickey has come to our house to play with her. She'll also tell me good-bye and then say she's going to "run errands" and "go Target, get pancakes."

Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" is her favorite song and she requests "Play Play" (because "players gonna play play play play play") every day and wants us all to dance. 

She calls herself a princess when she twirls in a dress, though she'll make herself so dizzy she slips and falls in her socks on the wood floors.

She climbed the outside of the stairs yesterday, holding on to the bannister, and then called "Look, Mama! I up here!"

I completely ignored her because any reaction would only encourage repeat behavior.

They can be exhausting (I mean, I haven't even touched on bedtime for Zuzu here) but these girls make our home so much fun.