The Park

Oh how we love the park in our house. It is an almost daily part of life in the big city. There is a nice ritual to heading out in the morning, coffee in hand, running into other regular park kiddos and enjoying being outside. On the days the girls don't go to daycare and it is nice enough for the park you can probably count on us making a trip to one of our neighborhood parks. Park days are dwindling so we are trying our best to get in lots of swinging before the snow. There is a buzz at our neighborhood park since the mayor lives three houses down. With the constant police protection it is the safest park in Chicago!

Juliet is following in her sister's footsteps and loves the swing.Amelia is typically too big for the "baby" swings but she loves under-dogs from daddy and going "very high" which are both harder for her to do in the big kid swings.

Eating wood chips ties with swinging for Juliet's favorite park activity.

Juliet's first ride down the slide while Kennedy (another park regular) waits her turn.

Clearly not the park. This was Juliet on a "sick" day. No, she doesn't look sick at all in this picture but she had to stay home from daycare that day because of being sick the night before. Go figure that we kept her home and she seemed perfectly fine all day! We have been battling colds, an ear infection (Amelia), stomach bug (Juliet) and (maybe) teething constantly for the past three weeks. I am pretty sure Mark nor I have had eight straight hours of sleep in the past three weeks. I'm a bit anxious about having a baby in daycare this winter and am really hoping we don't spend all winter with a sick babe!

Weekend with GranAnn

Sometimes Juliet gets in on park action now. We can get some pretty great smiles and giggles from her in the swing.



Most of the time though Juliet's park trips are spent in the carrier.

Amelia and Juliet got to have both their grandmas at their fall art fair. The theme was Space Odyssey and as you can kind of see in the image her daycare goes all out on the art show themes and decorations.

The kiddos were all supposed to wear black and then were outfitted in "hats". Juliet wasn't a big of  fan of her alien headband. The babes' art projects don't go much beyond hand prints so at each show all the infants are represented in large, theme appropriate portraits.

In addition to art the two and older classrooms do a performance. Amelia's class sang a made up song about a space ship and each kid had a "poem" read. The teacher's asked each student to tell them a story which the teachers wrote down as a poem. They were all super cute and the teachers did a great job reading them so they really showed each kid's personality. I WILL get a copy of Amelia's poem as it was about going to a restaurant and Target. :)

Afterwards we celebrated a successful art show over guacamole and margaritas (and apple juice).

On our latest trip to the zoo, the carousel was hands down Amelia's favorite part. At first she wasn't too sure about riding one of the animals and wanted to sit in the swan with daddy.

After seeing the kiddos go up and down on the animals she just had to go again but this time with mommy.

And because she could she went a third time and was specific that GranAnn would take her and she would ride the panda bear.

A beautiful fall day at the zoo made for a happy little girl!

Sleep in September

September was devoted to sleep training in the Lang house. I am not a supporter of the cry-it-out method or at least I wasn't until Baby J moved in. When at six months old she could easily wake up six times a night and a good night was only two night wakings we finally accepted that she wasn't going to figure it out on her own. I suppose we put sleep training off until we just couldn't function in our sleep deprived states any longer. I realized it was time to reclaim our nights when I had the following dream. I dreamt that I fell asleep at my desk. Mind you we don't have offices and are in an open, bustling studio environment. Falling asleep in such an environment would be very difficult. Not only did I fall asleep but I continued sleeping for two hours. When I woke up and realized what time it was I started asking the guys that sit around me why no one woke me up. My work neighbor, Eric simply said, "I figured you really needed the sleep." So after my dream and many recommendations from co-workers, strangers and our Pediatrician we devoured Happy Sleepy Habits Health Child and got to work. I don't want to jinx ourselves but I will say that I get why crying-it-out has been the go to for parents for so many years and that is because it works....

While Juliet is learning to sleep, Amelia continues to express herself via clothing. There is no doubt that her accessories of the summer were her cowboy hat and open toe, pink ballet slippers with a large bow or as she calls them, "my park slippers"

This fall is looking to be about her movie star sunglasses and Dorothy shoes.

The girls had their first ever school portraits taken. Hilarious is what the pictures are. I can't quite figure otu why these pictures make me laugh so much but it must be the "grade school" picture style on a toddler and infant. Or maybe it was the looks on both girl's faces....

While sleeping might not come natural to Juliet, eating sure does. The girl LOVES baby food. We almost have to feed her with two spoons so there is no downtime while refilling the spoon.

And as always September ended by celebrating Daddy and Poppy's birthday. As has become our tradition the Lang Family headed to Barnaby's for a pizza birthday dinner. Nope, I didn't take any pictures as dining with four under four doesn't allow for time to pull out your camera.

All Work No Play?

Nope, even though I'm back to work we still have lots of fun in our house. Juliet has done pretty well transitioning to daycare. She has been taking a bottle great and is generally happy in her classroom. Sleeping on the other hand has not gone so smoothly. She doesn't sleep that great at home so it is no surprise that she is struggling learning to sleep in a room with other babies. I really hope her daycare providers don't hate us for lot "sleep training" our infant better. They always make us feel better and reassure us that Juliet's daycare sleep  patterns are totally normal and they will work through it. If they are lying then I appreciate them making us feel better.....

Oops

Dislocated shoulders and elbows are just a part of growing up and having too much fun, right? We had our first dislocation in our house yesterday and one would assume it was on Amelia. Nope. It happened at 12:05 and our pediatrician closes at noon on Saturday so poor Juliet made her second trip to the ER in as many weeks. It was a normal round of playtime on the floor with dad/mom and her big sister and her arm got grabbed in just the right way to partially pop her elbow out. Ouch. She was such a trooper and after a dose of Tylenol and getting her elbow popped back in she was back to her smiling ways almost immediately. After the stomach flu, ear infection (which took two rounds of antibiotics to clear up) and her dislocated elbow I sure hope she doesn't have to see any doctors for a while.

Here is Juliet in the Children's Memorial ER. She was happy to give the doctor and nurses lots of smiles especially when they commented on how cute she is :)

Time To Earn My Keep

*warning - lots of text, little pictures*

Well after 24 weeks of focusing on being a mom, I am returning to work tomorrow with mixed emotions. I enjoy my job and HOK has been a great firm for me. I like getting dressed in my work clothes and not having to clean the floor after lunch. I know that I am a better mom by working outside of the home. I like being mentally challenged and working through the constants flow of problems that are inevitable when designing and building large buildings. I like my co-workers and how they make me laugh. BUT I had a very hard time returning to work after Amelia was born. I told myself that with the next one I would try to negotiate a six month leave. I thought the extra time would make such an enormous difference. I could nurse my baby longer, pump less, hopefully be sleeping through the night before returning to work and take the extra time to adjust to life as a family of four.

I also have talked about going to a four day work week since Amelia was born. Nope, I never got the courage to request that of my firm although I know they would let me do it. I have had such internal struggles over what is "expected" of me in the office versus being honest to my bosses that I need extra personal time at this point in my career.

Then my mom got cancer. A great friend of mine, Amanda was such a rock to me during my mom's diagnosis and treatment. Her and her family have and continue to live with the unknowns of cancer on a daily basis. At one point Amanda told me, "Whit, you have to stay positive and believe it or not good things will come from this." Well the scare of my mom's diagnosis in March and wanting to hold onto my girls just that much stronger FINALLY gave me the courage to negotiate the extra time. What do you know, my boss was very supportive and we worked out an extended leave and a four day work week when I return. I worked 8-16 hours/week from home during my leave to allow HOK to not have to switch responsibility for my existing projects.

My leave and where we are with Juliet have neither panned out how I envisioned but I know that is the way life unfolds. With needing to put in time for HOK I didn't get in nearly as many walks, workouts, lunches with friends and naps as I had planned. I thought for sure at almost six months Juliet would be in an easy routine and sleeping through the night. She had other plans. Juliet has steadily regressed in her sleeping and is currently a hot mess. It can take an hour to get her to sleep and she wakes up anywhere from once to five times at night. Night sleeping was better this weekend so please keep your fingers crossed.

Onto the positives. We feel much better about our daycare arrangements this time around. Juliet will be joining Amelia at Rainforest and although they will be in different rooms they will get to see each other at the park, in the big play rooms and during special school events. "My Jenn" (as Amelia calls her) is now a teacher in Juliet's room. Yep, that makes an ENORMOUS difference in how we feel about Juliet being away from us. I'm totally freaked out about how Juliet's sleep habits or lack thereof will make her super high maintenance for her providers...

And finally, I have peace in my heart as I know from experience the wonderful relationship I have with Amelia has happened with me working outside the home. As a family of three we were in a groove that had us all smiling and happy. I know it won't come without struggles but I am confident that we will find the same happiness now that we are a family of four with two working parents.

I think Amelia will adjust okay to my return to work since she has still been going to Rainforest three days a week. With me having Fridays off now she will just be going one more day. As for Juliet time will tell how she adjusts but I know we will get through it and little ones are more resilient than we give then credit for. Mark will have to adjust to being the family chef again and my crankiness as I become more sleep deprived. As for me, tomorrow I will be trying SO hard to not cry (which I'm doing now) when I think about someone else getting to wake her up from her naps (that is if she actually takes naps).  Even though I've spent way more time helping Juliet learn how sleep the past month than I would ever wish on a parent I will think of my leave with nothing but a warm heart.

Sweet Baby J - Mama is going to miss you but we will be a-okay.

Minnesota Sickation

Well our week in Minnesota was one for the books due to the following who ALL were taken down by the flu: Amelia, Juliet, Mark, Uncle Loren, Nana Gayle, Cousin Chris, JuJu, Poppy and Cousin Dylan. Yes, that is NINE family members who were getting sick at various times of the trip. It is safe to say that the Mark Lang side of the family picked up the flu at our daycare and took it with us to Minnestoa. It was a 12 hour bug that hit hard and left the victims exhausted for a couple of days after. Those of us that didn't actually catch the flu were exhausted from being nurses and our bodies fighting off the flu. Chad and the Anderson family timed their trip perfectly as they showed up later in the week once the flu had mostly passed.

Juliet, being the youngest of all the victims had the hardest time recovering from the flu. After 24 hours of continually being sick and showing signs of dehydration we made a trip to the emergency room. Luckily she was on the cusp of coming back from the flu so they decided to not give her fluids but they did find an ear infection so we are working through a prescription of amoxicillin for that.

I think it says a lot about the Backlund family as even with all the ailing family members we still managed to smile, laugh and even dance (that Ellie has some killer booty moves) a lot together!!! Thank you to JuJu and Poppy for the awesome week at the lake and to the Minnesota crew for welcoming us. I sure hope we are allowed back and if so we promise to leave the flu in Chicago!

Poor Juliet was kept outside and without clothes on as the flu clean-up was much easier that way.

Amelia loved relaxing on the dock and the water was so high she could sit on the dock and splash water.

Lulu, Amelia, Brady and Ellie enjoying the hammock.

Amelia attended her first baseball game by cheering on the Alexandria Beatles. This is small town baseball at its finest. Dylan was the most excited for the game but came down with the flu that morning. He was a total trooper and made it through the game with lots of water and Sprite!

Juliet's first boat ride. She slept the entire time....

Um, apparently while becoming a mom to two I lost my common sense. What do you do when you on an inner tube behind a boat and the front of the tube starts to go in the water? Yes, you shift your weight back. Nope instead I allowed Lulu, Amelia and myself to do a nose dive into the lake. Amelia was SO excited to finally try the tube after watching all the big kiddos. Thank goodness for life jackets and the fact that we were going slowly as Amelia was pretty freaked out. Lule on the other hand thought it was hilarious. Sadly the weather didn't cooperate again as I really wanted her to try again just maybe with her dad.....

The kiddos who aren't old enough to roast their own mashmellows "calmly" waited for their s'mores. While they calmly waited they busied themselvs fighting over who got to sit in which chair. Too bad we don't live close to Lulu as in a few year she will be the best babysitter ever!

Amelia and JuJu enjoying the weather and great food at Gayle and Greg's restaurant.

Before joining us at the lake Jill (Mark's cousin) explained to Ellie that Amelia is her cousin and is also two so they will have lots of fun together. Ellie responded, "I don't want to share two." Bless their hearts as sharing just didn't come real easily to either of them. After a long day of "MINE" they made up while watching the sun set over Lake Le Homme Dieu