Getting to know you...

It's taken me longer than usual to finish typing this post as, to be totally honest, it took me a long time to feel like myself and not see everything through a veil of exhaustion. Despite the hurdles, parenthood x2 has been both wonderful and an adventure for us all. I'm not quite back to full steam, so I'll summarize as best I can the good, the cute, the amazing, the bad, the ugly and the sublime...

The good:

Thankfully Lily isn't mad at me and she seems to genuinely like her brother. She's been showered with hugs and "big sister" gifts and naturally she has relished all the attention. She has frequently questioned just exactly why she is getting so many presents and seems perplexed that people are so happy for her, and has only acted out by regressing to her more needy 2-year-old-self...but it's far better than the homicidal reaction or defiant anger some friend's kids have demonstrated, for which I am eternally grateful. In fact I very nearly kissed a jogger who passed us and, ignoring Matteo, said to Lily "You must be the big sister!!" which made her beam with pride.

The cute:

Ok, take this with a boulder of salt since I'm the mama and am ridiculously biased when it comes to my boy. He's amazed me by showing me he is already his own unique person, totally different than how Lily was as a baby. A few of the things I love...
- Froggy legs. Yes, I know all newborns do this, but it's taken a month for him to relax them and he still prefers to be froggy-esque...hence the obvious nicknames Froggy and Little Frog

- Cowlicks. The back of Matteo's wee head has two of them side-by-side with a strip of downward-growing hair in the middle. When he came out it was clear from the ripples in his peach fuzz that his hair will one day be curly, so hopefully the dueling cowlicks won't cause him too much misery. Oh, and speaking of fuzz...his very first bath I went to wash his little head and ALL HIS HAIR WASHED OFF. His dome was, in one fell swoop, fuzz-free. I was traumatized, he was nonplussed. Fortunately it started growing back in a matter of days

- One-armed victory salute. He came out with his right hand raised above his head in a tiny fist and continues to lift it high and proud whenever given the chance and for no apparent reason.
- Bucky and Little Buck...what Chris calls him. When I asked him why he said "I don't know - he just looks like a Bucky"
- When startled he shoots his arms and legs out like a starfish (even when sound asleep), he randomly shudders his limbs and in the hospital he would lie swaddled with his legs up in the air forming a perfect "L". What amazes me is that ALL of these motions I've instantly recognized and remember experiencing when I was carrying him - so amazing and interesting to see them on the outside

- Jurassic Park squeaks...he sounds just like the newly hatched velociraptor, heart-meltingly cute, especially when matched with his very mellow disposition and easy-going ways (honestly, he only cries when there is an easily-identifiable need...hunger, diaper, burp)

- His other nickname is Saul as he often furrows his brow and looks like a very concerned little old man. The excess skin really is comical - when cradling his head the additional skin there wrinkles up just like a shar pei

- Like Lily, he is a total cuddle bug. He loves to be held and fall asleep on us, tucking his head up under our chins. I now know how fleeting this is and need to savor it every minute I can

The amazing:

We have been floored by the kindness and generosity shown us by our friends and neighbors. I've woken up to find a handmade quilt on my doorstep, swing and bouncer seat and clothes for Matteo. We've had no fewer than 6 dinners delivered to us. Paula spent a week doing my laundry, dealing with the scariest of the diapers, making sure I ate well and we were taken care of. Since Matteo is a second child I honestly didn't expect much more than a congrats email, but we've instead we've been made to feel like our son is the only kid to have been born in the last decade and I am now on a first-name basis with the UPS and postman from the number of packages we've received. I really couldn't feel more blessed and grateful.

The bad:

Matteo was born tongue-tied which has caused all manner of difficulty with breastfeeding and necessitated having to get his frenulum cut. Even after that was done, he and I still weren't able to master latching, resulting in hour-long feeding sessions that left us both frustrated and him crying for food he just wasn't getting. So now I pump. And pump. And pump some more. The bright side is that I am producing way more than he eats so am establishing quite the stockpile. Of course the downside is that I am attached to noisy, embarrassing machinery about 3 hours a day. Oh, and all those Bumgenius diapers I bought leak. Sigh.

The ugly:

Wow what a difference breast milk makes in the diaper department. With Lily every day was a waiting game....will she please-oh-please poop today? With Matteo this is NOT an issue. No siree, not at all. He's had explosions that transcended diaper, onesie AND bouncy seat...he's erupted at the doctor's office and for an encore peed over the exam table and himself (we had placed bets on how much he weighed...I won, but after that performance my guess is Chris was the winner). He's loud and proud about it - and strangely I am thrilled by it. I was always so stressed out counting the days between Lily's poops....with him I have no doubt things are - ahem - moving along juuuuust fine.
The sublime:

Parenting two kids...one we're just getting to know and one who we are watching develop into a more amazing human being every day. A few of Lily's latest observations on life:

- "People in this country are bad drivers" when someone wasn't driving fast enough in front of us to suit her. Yes, we have Chris to thank for that one

- "The L is for Lily!" her rebuttal to Chris when he was explaining why there was an R and an L on the bottom of her blue sparkle flip flops

- "Where are the bad dancers?" and "Will he/she get a ticket?" when watching So You Think You Can Dance with me. She was completely enamored of the "dance show" when the competition to make the Top 20 was happening...not so much when they were chosen and there were no more "bad dancers" to entertain her

- Speaking of "not so much" she has mastered it's comedic usage. The first few days Matteo was home I rarely left "mission control"...aka the chair I was nursing him in. She was outside the door showing me how well she could roll matchbox cars down the hall saying "look how fast this one can go!" when I heard a crash down the hall followed by "or not so much"

- Air quotes is another one she is working on mastering. So far she has only does it once, but seeing her fingers curl was beyond precious

- As I mentioned before, Lily loves to play the "what is he/she/it saying?" game. She also has developed a passion for insects, including a poor unfortunate snail she adopted as a temporary pet one day. She me if I knew what it is saying, to which I replied "what do you think?" Her response: "I don't know what I'm doing!" Realistically, she was probably right

- Lily: "Mama, sometimes my breath stinks, too." Me: "It's called morning breath." Lily: "We're twins!"

- After playing got out of hand...

Chris: "No more playing Kung Fu with Jude and Douglas"

Lily: "But I wasn't!"

Chris: "Yes, you were"

Lily: "No I wasn't!"

Chris: "Then what were you doing?"

Lily: "Playing karates!"

- "Mama! I found something!" the words I dread...they inevitably mean she's spied something sugary she wants to eat, fragile she wants to play with, expensive she wants to buy...

And last but not least, an image to sum it all up...