Molly’s First Birthday

Here it is. At long last after what seemed like both an eternity and an instant. Molly’s first Birthday. Since this last year has been such a trying year of both ups and downs for the parents, I decided that we would do a special write-up. Part one is talking about Molly’s Special Day. Part Two will be Mom’s take on this past year and Part Three will belong to dad. It is important we remember these times in-case we forget how wonderful/horrible it was! So, here we go...oh wait, first, what can our 1 year old do now?

Well, Molly is standing on her own, eating everything she gets her hands on, signing quite a bit, talking in her own special way, and is curious about everything. Oh yeah, and she is small....really small. We had a her 1 year check-up so normally we would tell everyone her height and weight percentiles...but at a whopping 16 1/2lbs and 26” she doesn’t register on the charts. Except for her head which is in the 80th%ile...this will make walking hard for her. She is so much fun, loves her brother and her parents, and turns heads everywhere she goes. And oh my goodness she is the messiest eater I have ever seen...even taking into account that she is a baby. She is easy to laugh and makes everyone else laugh with her--a total delight. And with that, Caden has been an amazing brother. He loves playing with her, helping her, and protecting her when he isn’t actively trying to trip her to the ground. We are just recently noticing a new problem when everyone awwws and ohhs over Molly but forget to pay attention to Caden when he is sitting right next to her. I guess we should have known this would happen, but we are having to work at making Caden feel special too. That is especially hard since the horrific threes makes the terrible twos look like the best age of his life. It is a big part of our life being patient with our little man and reminding him how special and awesome he really is.

Okay, so here we go now...

Part One: Molly’s Birthday This is an interesting birthday for parents and kids alike. It is the first birthday, so it is indeed momentous, but does a one-year-old care whether the planets are realigned to make the day perfect and full of fun and games and presents? Or is she just as happy rubbing her lunch in her hair and taking all the books out of the shelves? The answer is, it doesn’t matter. It is a VERY important day for the parents. I mean seriously, all a birthday really signifies for most of us is that we managed to not get ourselves killed for another year. But for a one-year-old, the parents have managed to keep their child happy and healthy and not kill them in the process. Okay so to the point, mommy and daddy went big for Molly’s birthday. We had her real birthday on Thursday and her party planned for Sunday. They both turned into sizable parties. Thursday night we made a big pasta dinner for the family (which means 12+ people) and mommy made Molly a gluten free, dairy free, soy free & nut free cake decorated with a Moose. It was both pretty and tasty. Molly didn’t take to the cake like Caden did on his first birthday (see here), but she was pretty excited for the attention and singing.

The Sunday party was something to witness. At first, we were going for a moose themed party, cause we call Molly, Molly Moosey. So Katy ordered a Moose piñata from a friend of Nicks right away. Sadly, that was the end of finding any other moose themed party favors (aside from the cakes decorate by Katy). So mid-stream, we converted it to a beach party theme because we had a box of Hawaiian decoration and Molly likes the beach...we think. It was so cute. The whole backyard had decorations, pools, beach balls, brightly colored fish, leis, grass skirts and moose. The moose, oh my goodness, so the aforementioned friend of Nick’s dad is a piñata maker, and he made us this moose that was the star of the party. We were expecting this small moose head for the kids to beat to pieces. But, it was a full up moose with head and body that was so big, Molly could ride it. We had a measly 5 bags of candy which did not come close to filling it up. It was so cool. Thanks a ton to Raul and his family for this.

Please see the pictures below to see some of the pictures, it was really a lot of fun.

Part Two: Mommy and Molly’s Year One Wow! What a year its been...its been an amazing year but definitely a really, really, really hard year on all of us. Looking at Molly through the past year, its really hard to believe she’s the same child. Not only has she grown and developed a ton she is now a completely happy, joyful child which she just wasn’t for a long, long time. Her year started with hours on end of crying and screaming, worries about her allergies & health and she hardly slept until recently. Now she is perfectly healthy just very small, hardly ever cries and sleeps consistently through the night and naps. Simply put its amazing!

For me, its been a tough year. I spent most of the year sleeping on average 4 hours a night, had the crying baby and a very active and at times difficult three year old, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. Being able to be home with both of my kids is such an amazing blessing...even though its hard. I have been able to witness all of both kids 1st smiles, rolling over, climbing stairs & more, so much more.

I must admit that now that Molly is 1 I feel very sad to be moving out of the baby stage of our lives. Even though both kids are fantastic at every age, I love babies. I REALLY love little babies. I feel a little jipped out of the scenario this time around because for a good chunk of Molly’s infancy it was so stressful that we couldn’t enjoy it, although when things were good we did really try to relish in them because they were so rare.

I first remember knowing something was really wrong with Molly in the hospital when I nursed her for over 2 hours at one sitting and she was still not at all satisfied and just cried and cried. The nurses assured me my milk just hadn’t come in. I should have trusted my “mother’s instinct.” The fact of the matter was my milk just didn’t agree with Molly. We went through everything trying to get it to work--elimination diets, trial and error and finally found that dairy was simply intolerable to her--even “dairy free” probiotics just didn’t work. So we went no dairy for me and got things mostly regulated and tolerable. Even though I was dairy free my breast milk still had lactose which still made it hard for Molly. We stuck with the breastfeeding for as long as we could because of all of the benefits we believe it provides, but it wasn’t until we finally worked up the courage to put her on a special formula 100% (she wouldn’t take a bottle at ALL) that she got 100% better and slept through the night. In my opinion there simply is nothing worse than having your baby miserable and there is nothing you can do.

Caden did amazingly well this year given his circumstances. Our house was very loud and stressful for a good chunk of the past year but Caden generally provided much needed comic relief. He had his ups and downs--even he was being woken up by a screaming Molly. When Molly was about 12 weeks old and still crying-more screaming an average of 12 hours a day I remember thinking who is this child. It was as if Caden turned into a completely different kid--helpless, whiney and at times mean. Luckily this was fairly short-lived. Caden is used to being the center of attention for everyone around (an average group of 20 is his norm to perform for) so sharing the spotlight is definitely a challenge, but he’s getting the hang of it.

We are starting to get glimpses of our future with our two little ones. They’re playing together more and more and definitely love each-other. No one can make Molly laugh like her brother and Caden is definitely taking on the protector role which is precious. All of our struggles were worth their weight in gold--which especially right now is worth a LOT!

Part Three: Daddy and Molly’s Year One As any dad knows, there is no shortage of advice to be had for a father expecting his second child. I don’t remember if any of the advice was good or not, but it certainly wasn’t useful...and what advice really is? How can you prepare for something like this. But, if I am going to give advice, I would tell any soon to be dad of two that the second child will be the opposite of the first. If the first was easy (like Caden) then the second will show you what pain really is. If the first was rough, then relax, you have earned this break. And that is just how the universe works. The pregnancy really wasn’t much different (look back here) all things considered. In-fact, it was so similar Katy and I were lulled into a false sense of security that this would be an easy child. The labor and delivery was MUCH easier than Caden further leading us to believe that we would be lucky enough to have two easy kids (see here). She was so calm when she was born, so quiet and happy. And that was the end of it. Just before we left the hospital, we had some clue that things were going to be difficult. Eating wasn’t her thing, or she couldn’t handle mommy’s milk, or something. Of course we didn’t know just then. Of course we had planned not sleeping a whole lot at first. That was a given. We had been focusing more on the big brother new arrival dynamics than anything else. And if memory serves, that was pretty easy. Caden welcomed his new sister with open arms and was supportive and more than anything we could have expected. But poor Molly was so unhappy. And the worst part was we did not know why. She was clearly uncomfortable. She could not sleep, she could not eat easily (or enough), and the worst part was she was not happy. So Katy started the long process of elimination dieting. What was she eating that was bugging Molly? Take away everything, add things back in. Put a few suspects in and out over weeks until we find the culprit...dairy. Of course, this is good news that we found the issue. But it sucks for Katy having to watch her diet for any signs of dairy. And that was the strange part about it. Normally, any food a mother eats are broken down to the most basic proteins and sugars before going to baby. But if Katy had even a trace of lactose, Molly would be up for days screaming. It was terrible. But we had an answer and could move forward. But she was still not a happy child. She had/has severe acid reflux, bad constipation, and she was quite simply a terrible sleeper. So we worked with prevacid, Miralax and sheer will to get our baby girl comfortable. For this first year, we really never got a full night of sleep. Even when she was squared away medically, she tended to wake up at 1 and/or 3am almost every night. Despite our best efforts of ignoring her, scheduling her, what the &^%* ever her.

At this point, looking back at our year, it is amazing we survived. I was working/commuting a lot, Katy was dealing with a very fussy baby, a very precocious 3 year old and the house. And there was no sleeping going on. Everyone suffered. It is a real testament to this family that we pulled through. Caden was not getting the attention he needed and was getting mommy and daddy at their worst at times. But he was patient and helpful and continued being a great big brother. I don’t quite remember when it happen, but at some point very recently, Molly turned into a very happy baby. She eats, she sleeps (THROUGH THE NIGHT) and she is the most personable child I have ever seen. This birthday week has made me look back and realize that all our hard worked paid off. And it was real hard work. Not just passive suffering. We worked hard to get Molly happy. It makes me so happy that we got through this together and are better for it. And for all that happened, I can’t believe she is already one.

So going back to the importance of first birthday’s, this last Thursday when our little girl turned one, we did the whole celebrate her thing until she went to sleep. Then mommy and daddy went out on the town to raise a glass to the real heros of year one. It was the quickest longest year of my life.

Here it is. At long last after what seemed like both an eternity and an instant. Molly’s first Birthday. Since this last year has been such a trying year of both ups and downs for the parents, I decided that we would do a special write-up. Part one is talking about Molly’s Special Day. Part Two will be Mom’s take on this past year and Part Three will belong to dad. It is important we remember these times in-case we forget how wonderful/horrible it was! So, here we go...oh wait, first, what can our 1 year old do now?

Well, Molly is standing on her own, eating everything she gets her hands on, signing quite a bit, talking in her own special way, and is curious about everything. Oh yeah, and she is small....really small. We had a her 1 year check-up so normally we would tell everyone her height and weight percentiles...but at a whopping 16 1/2lbs and 26” she doesn’t register on the charts. Except for her head which is in the 80th%ile...this will make walking hard for her. She is so much fun, loves her brother and her parents, and turns heads everywhere she goes. And oh my goodness she is the messiest eater I have ever seen...even taking into account that she is a baby. She is easy to laugh and makes everyone else laugh with her--a total delight. And with that, Caden has been an amazing brother. He loves playing with her, helping her, and protecting her when he isn’t actively trying to trip her to the ground. We are just recently noticing a new problem when everyone awwws and ohhs over Molly but forget to pay attention to Caden when he is sitting right next to her. I guess we should have known this would happen, but we are having to work at making Caden feel special too. That is especially hard since the horrific threes makes the terrible twos look like the best age of his life. It is a big part of our life being patient with our little man and reminding him how special and awesome he really is.

This is an interesting birthday for parents and kids alike. It is the first birthday, so it is indeed momentous, but does a one-year-old care whether the planets are realigned to make the day perfect and full of fun and games and presents? Or is she just as happy rubbing her lunch in her hair and taking all the books out of the shelves? The answer is, it doesn’t matter. It is a VERY important day for the parents. I mean seriously, all a birthday really signifies for most of us is that we managed to not get ourselves killed for another year. But for a one-year-old, the parents have managed to keep their child happy and healthy and not kill them in the process. Okay so to the point, mommy and daddy went big for Molly’s birthday. We had her real birthday on Thursday and her party planned for Sunday. They both turned into sizable parties. Thursday night we made a big pasta dinner for the family (which means 12+ people) and mommy made Molly a gluten free, dairy free, soy free & nut free cake decorated with a Moose. It was both pretty and tasty. Molly didn’t take to the cake like Caden did on his first birthday (see here), but she was pretty excited for the attention and singing.

The Sunday party was something to witness. At first, we were going for a moose themed party, cause we call Molly, Molly Moosey. So Katy ordered a Moose piñata from a friend of Nicks right away. Sadly, that was the end of finding any other moose themed party favors (aside from the cakes decorate by Katy). So mid-stream, we converted it to a beach party theme because we had a box of Hawaiian decoration and Molly likes the beach...we think. It was so cute. The whole backyard had decorations, pools, beach balls, brightly colored fish, leis, grass skirts and moose. The moose, oh my goodness, so the aforementioned friend of Nick’s dad is a piñata maker, and he made us this moose that was the star of the party. We were expecting this small moose head for the kids to beat to pieces. But, it was a full up moose with head and body that was so big, Molly could ride it. We had a measly 5 bags of candy which did not come close to filling it up. It was so cool. Thanks a ton to Raul and his family for this.

Wow! What a year its been...its been an amazing year but definitely a really, really, really hard year on all of us. Looking at Molly through the past year, its really hard to believe she’s the same child. Not only has she grown and developed a ton she is now a completely happy, joyful child which she just wasn’t for a long, long time. Her year started with hours on end of crying and screaming, worries about her allergies & health and she hardly slept until recently. Now she is perfectly healthy just very small, hardly ever cries and sleeps consistently through the night and naps. Simply put its amazing!

For me, its been a tough year. I spent most of the year sleeping on average 4 hours a night, had the crying baby and a very active and at times difficult three year old, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. Being able to be home with both of my kids is such an amazing blessing...even though its hard. I have been able to witness all of both kids 1st smiles, rolling over, climbing stairs & more, so much more.

I must admit that now that Molly is 1 I feel very sad to be moving out of the baby stage of our lives. Even though both kids are fantastic at every age, I love babies. I REALLY love little babies. I feel a little jipped out of the scenario this time around because for a good chunk of Molly’s infancy it was so stressful that we couldn’t enjoy it, although when things were good we did really try to relish in them because they were so rare.

I first remember knowing something was really wrong with Molly in the hospital when I nursed her for over 2 hours at one sitting and she was still not at all satisfied and just cried and cried. The nurses assured me my milk just hadn’t come in. I should have trusted my “mother’s instinct.” The fact of the matter was my milk just didn’t agree with Molly. We went through everything trying to get it to work--elimination diets, trial and error and finally found that dairy was simply intolerable to her--even “dairy free” probiotics just didn’t work. So we went no dairy for me and got things mostly regulated and tolerable. Even though I was dairy free my breast milk still had lactose which still made it hard for Molly. We stuck with the breastfeeding for as long as we could because of all of the benefits we believe it provides, but it wasn’t until we finally worked up the courage to put her on a special formula 100% (she wouldn’t take a bottle at ALL) that she got 100% better and slept through the night. In my opinion there simply is nothing worse than having your baby miserable and there is nothing you can do.

Caden did amazingly well this year given his circumstances. Our house was very loud and stressful for a good chunk of the past year but Caden generally provided much needed comic relief. He had his ups and downs--even he was being woken up by a screaming Molly. When Molly was about 12 weeks old and still crying-more screaming an average of 12 hours a day I remember thinking who is this child. It was as if Caden turned into a completely different kid--helpless, whiney and at times mean. Luckily this was fairly short-lived. Caden is used to being the center of attention for everyone around (an average group of 20 is his norm to perform for) so sharing the spotlight is definitely a challenge, but he’s getting the hang of it.

We are starting to get glimpses of our future with our two little ones. They’re playing together more and more and definitely love each-other. No one can make Molly laugh like her brother and Caden is definitely taking on the protector role which is precious. All of our struggles were worth their weight in gold--which especially right now is worth a LOT!

As any dad knows, there is no shortage of advice to be had for a father expecting his second child. I don’t remember if any of the advice was good or not, but it certainly wasn’t useful...and what advice really is? How can you prepare for something like this. But, if I am going to give advice, I would tell any soon to be dad of two that the second child will be the opposite of the first. If the first was easy (like Caden) then the second will show you what pain really is. If the first was rough, then relax, you have earned this break. And that is just how the universe works. The pregnancy really wasn’t much different (look back here) all things considered. In-fact, it was so similar Katy and I were lulled into a false sense of security that this would be an easy child. The labor and delivery was MUCH easier than Caden further leading us to believe that we would be lucky enough to have two easy kids (see here). She was so calm when she was born, so quiet and happy. And that was the end of it. Just before we left the hospital, we had some clue that things were going to be difficult. Eating wasn’t her thing, or she couldn’t handle mommy’s milk, or something. Of course we didn’t know just then. Of course we had planned not sleeping a whole lot at first. That was a given. We had been focusing more on the big brother new arrival dynamics than anything else. And if memory serves, that was pretty easy. Caden welcomed his new sister with open arms and was supportive and more than anything we could have expected. But poor Molly was so unhappy. And the worst part was we did not know why. She was clearly uncomfortable. She could not sleep, she could not eat easily (or enough), and the worst part was she was not happy. So Katy started the long process of elimination dieting. What was she eating that was bugging Molly? Take away everything, add things back in. Put a few suspects in and out over weeks until we find the culprit...dairy. Of course, this is good news that we found the issue. But it sucks for Katy having to watch her diet for any signs of dairy. And that was the strange part about it. Normally, any food a mother eats are broken down to the most basic proteins and sugars before going to baby. But if Katy had even a trace of lactose, Molly would be up for days screaming. It was terrible. But we had an answer and could move forward. But she was still not a happy child. She had/has severe acid reflux, bad constipation, and she was quite simply a terrible sleeper. So we worked with prevacid, Miralax and sheer will to get our baby girl comfortable. For this first year, we really never got a full night of sleep. Even when she was squared away medically, she tended to wake up at 1 and/or 3am almost every night. Despite our best efforts of ignoring her, scheduling her, what the &^%* ever her.

At this point, looking back at our year, it is amazing we survived. I was working/commuting a lot, Katy was dealing with a very fussy baby, a very precocious 3 year old and the house. And there was no sleeping going on. Everyone suffered. It is a real testament to this family that we pulled through. Caden was not getting the attention he needed and was getting mommy and daddy at their worst at times. But he was patient and helpful and continued being a great big brother. I don’t quite remember when it happen, but at some point very recently, Molly turned into a very happy baby. She eats, she sleeps (THROUGH THE NIGHT) and she is the most personable child I have ever seen. This birthday week has made me look back and realize that all our hard worked paid off. And it was real hard work. Not just passive suffering. We worked hard to get Molly happy. It makes me so happy that we got through this together and are better for it. And for all that happened, I can’t believe she is already one.

So going back to the importance of first birthday’s, this last Thursday when our little girl turned one, we did the whole celebrate her thing until she went to sleep. Then mommy and daddy went out on the town to raise a glass to the real heros of year one. It was the quickest longest year of my life.