Navel Gazing: Mommy Edition

Well, Elliana is practically all grown up already.

I exaggerate a teeny bit...but her cord stump came off yesterday, which is the beginning of the end of the newborn stage. Why must time go by so fast?!

Bear went back to work this week, and things have been going okay so far, even though he and Keira have been sick for the past few days. I've had lots of company and haven't had an entire day "alone" with both girls yet, so it's been nice to ease into this whole Mom of Two thing gradually. Elliana sleeps for an hour or two at a time during the day, so my only problem is figuring out what to do with that time: hang out with Keira? Play with the sorely-neglected Catey Pup? Tend to the mountain of dishes in the sink? Brush my teeth, perhaps? I'm trying to sort out my priorities and find a good balance between everything, which I'm sure will just take a little trial and error.

People keep telling me that once you have two kids, the baby will have to hang out in the bouncy seat/swing/wherever as much as possible so you can pay attention to the older child and get things done around the house. Call me naive, but I refuse to succomb to this as a strategy...at least, not yet. I spend a lot of time these days weighing how much attention and affection I'm giving each of the girls, and trying to figure out what atrocities I'm committing that they'll be telling Oprah about in a decade or two. Keira, for example, has been allowed to watch an inordinate (to me, anyway) amount of TV lately because it's an easy way to keep her occupied while I nurse Elliana. Square eyeballs are certain to develop any time now. Ellie, in turn, has suffered the indignity of being stashed in a full laundry basket so I could help Keira rush to the potty, and will never enjoy the peace and quiet Keira experienced as an infant because of, well, Keira. She also already has about a 1,000 photo deficit compared to the zillions of delivery room and newborn pics we have of Keira--but hey, it's not my fault a certain somebody decided to evacuate in such a hurry! I know things will never be 100% fair or equal between them, but that doesn't stop me from trying.

Next week, we have to take Elliana in for her THIRD blood draw to confirm whether she might have hypothyroidism. If she does, it basically means she'll have to take medication for it daily for her entire life, but as long as she does that, she'll experience no effects of it. There are definitely a lot worse things that can go wrong, especially when you think about all the millions of processes it takes to turn a faint line on a pregnancy test into a precious little Ellie-bug in only 40 weeks...but we're still keeping our fingers crossed that she doesn't have it. We should know by next Thursday. In the meantime, I'll add "three blood draws in two weeks" to the list of grievances Ellie can hold against me someday!