Leila is my dear 7 1/2 month old daughter, also known as little sweetie, cream pie, little glo worm, brutus magutus, Leilers and occasionally, little stink face. The last one really isn't as harsh as it seems when you combine a cute baby with a poopy diaper and baby talk, really. I hope she sees it differently but I feel like her whole life has been kind of crazy. I don't know if this is really a post about my daughter Leila or a post about having two children close together. Either way, I hope someone can pick up what I'm putting down.
My pregnancy with Leila was joyful and fearful. I found out I was pregnant with Leila on November 13. We were so happy because we had lost a baby at 7 weeks at the beginning of September. I was sick like with Sofia and scared for a while because I didn't want to lose this baby too. In the end we made it just fine and after a carefully planned birth, I had Leila on July 17. I had her totally naturally and it was a very empowering, amazing and totally wack-a-do experience. I was exhausted after being up all night and when I finally got hold her I just felt overwhelmingly overwhelmed. Ug. I loved her but I was thinking to myself "who is this new kid?" "how am I going to recover and take care of two kids?" "when can I sleep?". After some personal complications, I left the hospital and began to work on my new "normal."
At about 2 1/2 weeks Leila started with some crazy reflux and colic. I remember being on the way into the grocery and she just started to spit up EVERYTHING in her stomach and then some. It drenched her clothes, the car seat cover and actually drained through the car seat and onto the pavement. It freaked me out big time. The colic period was from 9pm to midnight or later every night like clock work. We heard from someone that taking her to the chiropractor might help with both the reflux and colic so we did, and it helped! The reflux never came back after the first appointment and the colic peaked at 6 weeks then disappeared. Now Leila is a pretty good sleeper... she just gets up a lot at night still!
After things started to settle in that way, my mom fell ill again. She was at the hospital for almost a month exactly and then went into home hospice care at my dear sister's house. So from the beginning of September to mid- December me and my girls woke up everyday, got around and left for either the hospital or my sister's house. I basically moved in to my sister's house. Each day I took care of my recently potty trained toddler, my needy infant daughter and my dying mother. It was the most taxing, exhausting, emotionally annihilating time in my life. It's important to note here that if given the opportunity to do it again-- I would, in a heart beat. My mother and daughters are that important to me. My mother passed on December 15 and I am still grieving.
Now I can't believe that Leila is going to be 8 months. I feel like I have been so mentally strained between making sure that everyone is bathed and has eaten and has snacks and grief and everything else that I don't feel like I've been entirely present. But maybe I am being too hard on myself and this is just what having a second child (I keep saying second child- my second child, I also have my stepson) is like. I am glad to report that at this point I am keeping up in the baby book and with picture taking. Leila is no less special just because she is my second child. Leila has a very light-hearted and fun spirit. She is demanding and intense and stong. She is not a little squirt like Sofia- she is long and the weight of Sofia as a 1 year old. When she wants something, you know it. When I walk out of the room, she cries. She loves her mother, what can I say? Her comfort is to "paw" at my face and chest which usually ends in an involuntary blood draw. She is kind of the family goat right now, eating everything (especially paper) in sight. She is doing some serious army crawling, determined to get in to stuff she is not allowed to get in to. Leila is happy and giggly but very intense. And I love her so much. She is so special to me, just like Sofia, but in her own way. I can't wait to see the girl she is growing up to be :)
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