Category Archives: Sisters

Life via iPhone

Apparently I never mastered the whole “blogging while on maternity leave” thing. I’d either feel bad I was ignoring Rylee or Andy or it’d be nap time for the girls and I’d either catch a few Zzz’s myself or look around at my disaster of a house a feel the sudden urge to scrub all the things. Or you know, load the dishwasher at least.

Don’t fret. This is my last week of maternity leave. Yep, 6 weeks has nearly already passed and I’m headed back to work on Tuesday the 4th. September is part time, then I’m back full time at the beginning of October.

I’m ready, but not. If that makes any sense at all.

While it seems nearly impossible to bust out my laptop for some legit blogging, I always have my phone handy so while 1 kid naps and the other eats I thought I’d give a quick update…

Ry heads back to school next week. She has a new teacher that we met in Saturday. She is really looking forward to being back at school! She’s still struggling with her sassy attitude. Well, ok she has no problem with it. I’m the one struggling.

Reese will be 6 weeks on Thursday. Crazy. She’s doing ok sleeping at night. Normally only waking once around 3 AM then up again around 5:30. I use the term “normally” loosely. Last night she had me up 3 times.

Her favorite place in the whole house is her changing table. She’s completely content just to lie there for minutes at a time.

She’s been smiling for a couple of weeks now. And she’s starting to coo a little bit now too.

I swear her eye lashes grow longer every day. Her hair is starting to lighten up a bit. It may end up being more auburn than we originally thought it would be.

She is finally big enough for cloth diapers which makes my wallet happy. Though today I’ve been lazy and just used disposables. But I’m not complaining at all because she has totally wrecked almost every diaper shes had on today.

She LOVES hanging out in our Ergo baby carrier. That thing is a magic worker! I swear I don’t know how people with more than one kid can get by without baby wearing. I wear her at the grocery store. I wear her outside while Ry is playing. I wear her around the house. Super convenient.

Ry still thinks her baby sis is the cats pajamas. Always wanting to be all up in her business. Always wanting to hold her. Always wanting to get up from the dinner table to go check on her. She does get kinda pissy if Reese cries too loud during her cartoon time though.

That’s all the update time I have for now. Hopefully once I’m back at work we’ll be in a bit more of a routine and I’ll be back to my old self.

Of course no update post would be complete without photos…

Why yes, our 4 year old did name our baby.

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I talked a little bit about our baby name struggles here a while back.

We struggled. A lot.

And by we, I mean me.

Completely.

Andy & I had talked about Reese Kallen as being “THE” name for a while. But I wasn’t quite convinced.

I’d loved the name Reese for a long, long time. Andy randomly found the name on a baby naming website one night and threw it out there. I was so shocked that he liked it that it instantly became the front runner.

I had come up with Kallen before I was ever pregnant with our second. I love the idea of family names (Rylee’s middle name is Vivian, after my grandmother). My sisters are two of my very best friends & so special to me that wanted to incorporate their names somehow, but didn’t want to choose just one sister. Kallen is a combo family name that I sort of ‘made up’, but fell in love with {KAtherine + KeLLi + KristEN = Kallen}. I threw the idea out there to Andy and he thought it was great.

So, Reese Kallen…we both liked it, but like I said, I still wasn’t convinced.

Not long after that post about having not name and my head pretty much exploding, Rylee was being her cute self and stuffed her beloved blanket up in her shirt and declared that there was a baby in her belly.

I asked her what she was going to name it. She told me she didn’t know. Then I asked her, “well what should we name the baby in my belly?” She looked at me point blank and said “Reese.”

I was convinced that Andy and put her up to that…I shot him “a look” and he swore up and down she came up with that all on her own. I didn’t know she’d ever really paid attention to the conversations Andy & I were having.

I sort of brushed that whole thing off.

Then a few weeks later, during dinner one night, out of the blue, Rylee said “I can’t wait for my baby sister Reese to be born. I think I’ll call her Reesie sometimes.”

Andy & I locked eyes.

And just like that, we knew her name would be Reese.

Wordless Wednesday: Rylee’s First Look

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First of all…how is it already Wednesday!?

Second of all…these last couple of days have been rough to say the least. Little miss must be hitting her first growth spurt because holy-eating-on-the-hour batman.

Third of all…how is it already Wednesday!?

I had big plans to write out Reese’s birth story, but well, see above. Instead, for now, I’ll leave you with a little sneak peek…Rylee’s first look at her baby sister.

Please ignore the off center, imperfect photo that was taken awkwardly one-handed by Andy while he held Ry with his other hand and focus on the look of complete awe and amazement that is on her face. It was such a sweet moment that I will never, ever forget.

Life. Lately.

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I’m sitting here with the sounds of Sid the Science Kid and the steady drone of the baby swing in the background. I’ve got a snuggly 4 year old keeping my left side warm. A towel that’s been wrapped in my hair for about an hour too long.

And a heart that is overflowing.

These last few days home have all been a blur. As with any brand new baby, there’s been a flurry of feedings and diaper changes. Semi-sleepless nights and naps in the day. Between all that, I’m trying to balance my time with Rylee, making sure she knows I still love her as much as always. We’ve read books together, made a couple of dinners together. We have plans to polish our toe nails during a Baby Sister naptime this week.

After things settle down a bit/we work into our routine as a family of four, I’ll share Reese’s birth story and some other fun stuff.

For now, I’ll leave you with these…

P.S. I haven’t been updating facebook as much lately, but you can follow me on instagram for the latest and greatest pics of my girls…MY GIRLS! @LilMissRysMama

P.P.S. I started this post at about 10 AM…it’s now almost 1 PM…and this is my new reality.

Then I got slapped upside the head with boob talk.

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So the other night, Andy randomly said to me, “You know you’re the one talking to the kid about breastfeeding, right?”

Of course, I nonchalantly replied, “of course…”

When in actuality, in my head I was thinking, “Oh SHIT, you’re right! How did I not think about this before!?”

Rylee is at that stage where she gets things, but doesn’t quite get them. Where she says things but maybe shouldn’t.

She currently thinks “penis” is a bad word and whispers it when saying something like “daddy goes pee from his penis” {insert nervous 4 year old giggles here}. I always respond in a “kid, it’s really no big deal, every guy has a penis and that’s just how they pee” type answer, but yea…I think you get where I’m going with this…

Breastfeeding…

I nursed Rylee for nearly her whole first year. That’s my plan this time around too. It’s obviously going to come up. It sort of already has…Ry talked about getting to feed baby sister in the hospital. I started laying the groundwork by letting her know that for a while only mommy will be feeding baby sister, but she will get to soon. Too vague? Perhaps.

She’s a naturally curious kid. She’s never been around breastfeeding. It’s obviously a natural thing and nothing to be ashamed of, but I’m pretty modest when it comes to things like breastfeeding. With Ry I nursed almost exclusively in her bedroom. If we were anywhere not home, I always had my Hooter-Hider ready to go and I always found an out of traffic area to feed her. And let’s be honest, to a 4 year old who has never been exposed to it, it’s not necessarily the norm. The last thing I want to do is make a big deal about it. But I also don’t want to make such a “no big deal” thing about it that she’s telling everyone she sees, strangers and all, “My mommy feeds my sister with her boobs.” Because I can totally see her doing that. You know what I mean?

Should I be talking to her more about it before sister is born? What do I say? Have you been in this situation? How did you deal with it? Were there books you read to your kiddo? Clips on youtube? Am I making this into a way bigger deal than it should be?

HALP!

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Somewhere In The Middle

Mostly Average Accounts of the World's Okayest Mom.