Life in the Clark Lane

I have a new blog address!  While I kept http://www.andlillymakesthree.blogspot.com, it will redirect my blog to the new site.  I officially changed the name to "Life in the Clark Lane" and the address is http://www.lifeintheclarklane.com.  There's no blogspot in there!  I have my own domain, which is very exciting.  Dad and Jim both played a role in the new name selection.  Another frontrunner, suggested by Dad, was "When Lilly Met Jack," which I still love.  But Life in the Clark Lane doesn't have to change.  And it encompasses our entire family, not just Lilly and Jack.  So, Life in the Clark Lane it is, as we begin the next chapter in our lives as a family of four.

Today, Jack is one month old.  Time is flying and it seems to be going even faster this time around.  This week, I took Lilly and Jack to the doctor; Lilly had her two and a half year check up, and Jack had his one month check up.  Lilly was much more aware of what was going on during the appointment today, and kept asking why she had to be a "nuny nuny" for her check up.  It's a logical question, and after trying to explain that Dr. Brown was going to weigh her and measure her and see how big she's getting (which apparently didn't answer the question to her liking), I resorted to saying, "because Jack's a nuny nuny too."  That was the answer that stopped the "whyyyyyy?"  They both keep growing, as much as I try to keep them little forever.  At their appointment, Lilly was 36 inches tall and weighed 28.5 lbs.  She grew an inch and gained 3.5 lbs in 6 months.  Jack was 22.5 inches tall and weighed 10.5 lbs.  He has grown 1.5 inches and gained 3 lbs since he left the hospital.  It's amazing how quickly newborns grow!  The appointment was uneventful, which is always good.  We go back in a month for Jack and six months for Lilly.

It's still strange to think that we have a son.  Those words haven't really sunk in yet, I think because at the moment, our son is a baby.  And so far, he's been very similar to Lilly in everything from the way he looks (with a head full of hair) to his cry (both our children have real "waaaaaah" cries) to his sleep patterns (he slept for a 6 hour stretch last night, I fed him, and then he slept for another 4 hours).  Although after I feed him, you should hear him burp! It's unbelievable.  He truly burps like a boy.  It's actually the only thing that wakes Jim up in the night...he doesn't hear crying, my talking, changing diapers, feeding (you get the point), but as soon as Jack burps, Jim rolls over and usually says a groggy, "wow...that's impressive," before going back to sleep.  We've got the whole diaper situation under control now, so changing his diaper is a little bit more relaxing.  As Jack hits the one month mark, he is starting to make very cute baby noises and is much more alert when he's awake.  He seems to be figuring out his days and nights and is getting over his baby jet lag.  I see his wide open eyes staring up at me in the night less and less, which makes the nights more enjoyable for everyone.

Lilly adores him, and we couldn't have asked for a smoother transition.  She sings to him when he's crying, and if that doesn't make him stop (which it amazingly does more often than not), Lilly announces that she thinks he's hungry and that I need to feed him.  After Jack was born, Lilly seemed to grow from a baby into a little girl overnight.  When she hears Jack wake up from a nap, she runs off to his bassinet announcing, "don't worry, I've got him."  As amazing as it would be, we don't really let her "get him" just yet, but she tries.  When he's sitting in his bouncy chair, Lilly will go up to him and have little conversations.  The other day, she told him, "you can't play with me yet because you're still little, but when you're a big girl like me, you'll be able to play."  Being a "big girl" seems to be the focus of Lilly's day to day activities at the moment.  When she popped her elbow out yesterday (for more on that, read Jim's blog entry here), we were on skype with Jim's mom, who told Lilly she was being very brave.  Lilly's response was, "No, I'm not brave, I'm a big girl."  If only she knew how little she is.  The picture below is of her taking a nap the other day.  It looks like she accidentally fell asleep.  When I went in to check on her, her bed was piled high with books, the pillows were all moved to the side.  It was as if she leaned back to decide what she was going to do next, and in doing so, fell asleep.  The next one is what Jim found one night when he went in to check on Lilly before we went to bed.  Lilly was sleeping with a balloon that one of Jim's colleagues sent with some flowers when Jack was born.  The balloon said "It's a boy!" and Lilly claimed it as her own and took it everywhere.  Even to bed.   She's still such a little "big girl."

This morning, we were giving Jack a bath, and as soon as we put him in, he decided it was time to go to the bathroom.  Jim and I were laughing, as it looked like there was a fountain coming out of his bath.  Lilly thought it was hysterical, and turned to Jack and said, "Jack, that was great...can you do it again?"  Priceless.  It was one of those moments we'd love to have on video.  When I watch Lilly and Jack together, I often sit back and smile.  I can't believe these are our two children.  It doesn't seem real.

Setting up Daisy in her bouncy chair next to Jack when he was crying.

Jack stopped crying.  I guess he was just looking for some company!

Lilly brought her pillow and a blanket out to lie next to Jack while he was hanging out.

Hanging out on their boppys on our bed.  It's a good thing we have 2 of them, because Lilly has claimed one as her own!

Revisiting one of her favorite toys the second time around.  Lilly loves to lie under there with Jack, and tells him the names of all the animals. (Steve the monkey, Sally the elephant, Gina the giraffe, and the parrot is just "parrot"...I'm not sure why!)

As I started this blog with no real purpose, other than to catch up on what's been going on, let me end it with our Halloween pictures.  This was the first Halloween that Lilly got dressed up.  I'm not a huge Halloween fan, but to see Halloween through the eyes of a two year old bumble bee was pretty cute, and gave it a whole new meaning.  A woman that Jim works with gave Jack a costume, which he was less than thrilled about.  We put him in it for a picture, and then let him snuggle for the rest of the night, while Lilly got the hang of trick-or-treating pretty quickly.  She kept saying, "Can I go to one more house, peeeeeeeeeese??" to which Jim responded every time, "Okay, one more house."  I don't know who enjoyed the evening more...Lilly or Jim!