New favorite word...

Lyla has a new word that I love hearing her say: swam-wich. As in, "Yes, I want a choc-wet swam-wich". Makes me laugh everytime.

4 months

Little Savvy is 4 months old already. She weighs 13lbs 10oz and is 24.25 inches long. Right in the 50th percentile. She has found her hands and grabs at everything these days. She has rolled over both from her back to her belly and belly to back. She smiles nonstop. It's pretty cute. She has also started to laugh a few times and then stops herself. She watches Lyla with great intensity. Savannah is making more noises and blowing lots of bubbles and getting very wiggly. Lyla is finally getting a response from Savvy so things are picking up in Lyla's world. Savvy will smile at her, only encouraging Lyla more and more. Watching that relationship begin to develop is so sweet and sincere. Lyla will "read" books to Savvy, bring her toys, get her giblet for her when she's crying, rub her belly is she's sad and sing songs to make her happy. Lyla is a very intuitive big sister. She seems to be right on top of Savvy's needs- which is cute- she genuinely wants to make sure things are good. I love getting to know these two little girls individually but feel so privileged to be able to watch them grow together.

2 months.

I wanna rock!

Mr. Gibbles.

When Lyla was born I was anti-pacifier. I would see children who were far too old with a hunk of plastic hanging out of their mouth like an old cigar as they talked. It did not seem cute to me at all. On about day six of little Lyla’s life she just cried and cried, nothing consoled her. Being new scared parents we decided to give the pacifier a try just to see if it helped. Like a seal at feeding time, she grabbed that thing and then there was silence. We decided she could use it for a little while and then we would surely be done. We also decided it needed a name and Matt came up with Giblet. The Giblet went everywhere with us. We needed it as much as she did. I’d like to think it was our back-up to our wonderful parenting tricks but truth be told it was the first thing we went to in a time of chaos.

Like every good friend, nicknames surfaced quickly- Gibbles and Mr. Gibbles are the two favorites. Slowly we managed to get Mr. Gibbles down to only being used during naps and bedtime. Progress was being made. I would ask Lyla about not having Mr. Gibbles anymore and a flat-out “No” was always the answer.

When Savannah was born, we decided to give the pacifier a chance with her as well. Lyla was fascinated that more Mr. Gibbles were coming into the home. This was huge. New baby sister = more Gibbles. Jackpot! I decided one day to take Lyla to Target to help me shop for new pacifiers for Savannah. I had no intention of getting Lyla another pacifier. Well somehow LYLA ended up with TWO new Gibbles. My rationale in purchasing more was that we could phase out the old newborn one for one that was sized appropriately. Like socks, pacifiers come in sizes and she still has a newborn one. That’s what I told myself in Target anyway. It made sense to me. That’s all that matters, right? I also thought that old Mr. Gibbles could be easily replaced. That was my first mistake. Well actually my second mistake, the first one was the trip to Target. Pretty soon Lyla was skillfully managing two Mr. Gibbles also known as “New Gibbles” and “Old Gibbles”. The attachment was compounded. We had two Gibbles to care for. In the early days of having a newborn and a two year old, Lyla capitalized on our sleep deprivation and foggy heads and came out the victor in the Gibbles department. So now, Old Gibbles and New Gibbles are bargained for continuously by Lyla and they are trusty sidekicks she can’t imagine living without. I asked her the other day if she was ready to say goodbye to both of them and after she took a minute to really think about what I said, she looked at me and said “No”. I think Matt and I have to be ready to say goodbye too- Mr. Gibbles - old and new- are kind of part of the family right now- we can’t just throw our friend away.

6 weeks

Poop.

Poop makes up about 75% of our conversation these days. Seriously, no lies, that is all we talk about. Lyla is absolutely fascinated that Savannah poops. All we hear when we change Savannah's diaper is "want to see the poopoo's" over and over again. Keep in mind, she is a newborn and that means plenty of poops and possible poop situations. All of which keep Lyla way intrigued. When Lyla poops she builds a fortress around herself with all of her toys then announces abruptly after the fact that she needs to use the bathroom. If we don't jump up instantly we have a serious situation in the bathroom. She quickly runs in, strips off ALL of her clothes and wants to wipe and "see the poopoo's". If you haven't tried to teach a 2 year old bathroom etiquette, this is quite interesting. The biggest lesson thus far is that we don't touch poop. BIG lesson to learn in my book. Lyla knows it but sometimes events spiral out of control and shit happens, literally. The other hot topic is our dog Charlie's poop. Lyla points ALL of it out and wants it cleaned up pronto. This phase will pass for sure but in the mean time, it you stop by the house be prepared to openly talk about poop.