Category: Children Stories

Emma’s planning phase:

OMG she turns 5 months on Thanksgiving… I’m going to make her sweet potatoes to eat with us at Thanksgiving… this will be really special.

Liam’s planning phase:

Doctor mentioned I should consider trying out real foods on him and I’m at the grocery store… might as well pick up a couple bottles of baby food and we’ll see when I have free time this weekend.

Emma’s first taste: Hated it. I was devastated. Worried my child would be developmentally slow.

Liam’s first taste: Hated it. I shrugged and ate the rest (because baby food is super expensive… I’m not wasting that on a picky eater). Learned that I LOVE banana baby food.

Emma’s journey to liking food: I painstakingly mixed breastmilk into the food for months before weaning her off of it to make it more manageable for her to eat.

Liam’s journey to liking food: I continued to eat whatever food he wasn’t keen on until we found a winner (apple sauce). I am kind of excited for what baby food options I’ll get to try next week.

We splurged this time around and rented a SNOO, which if you haven’t heard about it is “a responsive baby bassinet that boosts a baby’s sleep by combining gentle rocking with soothing white noise and snug, safe swaddling” or so the website claims. Actually, I really like it but it’s hard to know if  it really was a miracle worker or having a baby that doesn’t have colic is just that much easier.

To that end, Liam is about 1,000 times easier than Emma was so it is shocking when he throws a huge cryfest. However, when he goes off he often gets so mad he pukes. Which is what happened on Thursday night, he puked everywhere until there was no way he could sleep in the bassinet without it first being washed. Since it was late at night we put him in the crib and OMG he passed out it 2 seconds. Well, I guess that’s the end of my baby in a bassinet… boy is growing up…. sniff sniff.

Party at the top, casual on the bottom (and a friend to hug). Pretty much my go to outfit at night in college: get half dressed until the decision was made to stay in or go out.

So thankful for Emma’s old preschool! A couple days after I got home from the hospital with a preemie that had lost a scary amount of weight and had to be fed by a syringe around the clock in hopes of bringing his weight around*, I realized that Liam’s early birth also meant I’d need to be back at work 5 weeks earlier than I planned… and right as Emma’s summer school was ending. The last thing I wanted to deal with at the time was to also figure out what to do with my rambunctious 5-year-old for a month.

So so so happy that Emma was able to go back to the school she had been at since she was 2 years old! I’m relieved that I can just fall back into our old routine for one more month and Emma is thrilled to be back with her friends and teachers she adores before having to face the scary world of Kindergarten. ♥️♥️♥️

*note: hilarious to think about now that his weight is 97th percentile adjusted and 75th percentile unadjusted

Freedom!!!

…and Liam’s inguinal hernia has been repaired! 😅 He has to stay overnight at the hospital since he’s under 50 weeks of gestational age but seems to be handling everything like a champ. So thankful for the amazing doctors and nurses at Kapiolani, my mom for taking care of Emma while we were here all day and Ryan who is still running around on the various errands I sent him on (like picking up a subway sandwich for my dinner! 😋) while I now just get to relax and make myself at home in Liam’s new digs for the next 12 hours.