NEW BABY

It's been 2 weeks since the new baby girl arrived. I'm sleep deprived but I'm sooooo glad I don't have to be at work. The only bad thing is I only took 4 weeks off (which is the same or slightly more than what I did during residency when I had Ryan 3 years ago). That means I only have 2 weeks left! I have to figure out how I'm going to get enough sleep, breastfeed throughout the night (hopefully only every 4 hours instead of every 2 like I've been doing these last 2 nights), go to work and pump in between patients.

Last time I didn't try as hard as I am now at the breast feeding thing mainly due to the sheer pain of it all. My best friend just had a baby girl 2 months ago and now makes it look so easy. But she did let me know that the first month was difficult.

The baby is beautiful and has a good temperament. I don't know who she looks like, but I figure she'll start looking "like herself" by 2 months. I looked back at Ryan's baby pics those first couple of weeks and he looks very different from how he looked by month 2.

Potty Training

Ryan has yet to be potty trained which is adding stress to an already stressful event of having a new baby. In addition to that, we find ourselves yelling at him more often than usual because in his efforts to interact with the new baby, he actually is rough with her. He has a cough and at times doesn't cover his mouth. He wants to shove the pacifier in her mouth when she is crying. He'll start bouncing around next to me on the couch while I'm breastfeeding which in turn hurts me since the baby is latched to you know what . . . (talk about pain!)

Ah, but I love the boy and feel very guilty when I'm mad at him.

The other thing is he is having terrible 3's rather than terrible twos. He wasn't this bad at 2, but now he is whining, throwing tantrums (even before the baby arrived). We have tried the supernanny techniques but the reflection chair and time out don't always help.

Dealing with two

Just when I could handle one, now that we have two I'm pretty much stuck at home. My mom comes over and is extremely helpful. She is and was Super Mom to me. I think if I was formula feeding the new baby it would be easier, since others could feed her b/c just as I finish breast feeding it's time to feed again. You're supposed to count 2 hours from the BEGINNING of the feeding to the beginning of the next. So if it takes me an hour to feed the baby, in another hour I'm feeding her again. That leaves little time to tend to other things, namely Ryan. especially since a lot of the time the baby doesn't just eat and sleep, but rather eats and then wants to held.

My mother will be taking care of the kids when I'm at work, but my plan is that my father will mainly take care of Ryan.

School shopping

I spent last week school shopping for Ryan. He'll be attending pre-K which people tell me is the Kindergarten of the days of yore. Ryan will not be turning 5 by the September 1st deadline so will not be able to attend the public school that receives our hefty taxes. I could let him wait a year, but that means he'd be wasting a year.

My plan is to put him in private school and then transfer him to public school in 2nd grade where they won't have the age restrictions. We think highly of Ryan of course and think he's the smartest kid around (except for the potty training thing!). He is 3 now and knows the alphabet, numbers, writes his name, knows his address, phone, dob, and can use the computerand mouse and can read a little thanks to the one on one with grandma.