Elena Gets a Bad Case of the Chomps

WHAT?!?

Okay, so I did the math and recently Elena is nursing for about 40% of the day. And eating additional formula- often about 6 ounces. Super fun for everyone. The upside is that she is starting to eat less at night. I think... I hope? She has also started smiling which is super sweet and gummy. And I'm not talking food coma and gas related smiles, just nice smiles. She is also spitting up less but still gets some nasty vicious hiccups.

On an episode of Friends, Joey asks Susan how much milk she can make and Susan says as much as the baby needs. This is a big fat lie. Make a note of it if you are unaware.

A friend of mine recently asked how it is to have two little ones. I answered that it is straight up insanity. I simply do not understand how anyone has ever decided to have more than two children. Not only is Oskar super whiny as of late, but somehow he lost the ability to sleep through the night. Of course he wakes up as I'm putting Ellie back down after being up with her for about an hour and a half. They are already conspiring against me. They are winning.

Some of you may not have received our Christmas card. We just can't send it to everyone. Here is the feature picture from this year's card. It was very difficult to get. She really isn't that orange, but yes, her hair does look to be red.

For those who are wondering, it is pronounced Ellenah. Not Elayna. We chose the name because we could agree on the name. I wish I could say there was more meaning behind it, because I really like names to have meaning or a story, but it doesn't. Who knows what we would've come up with had she not been two weeks early. Probably the same thing. Elena had been in my mind since I was pregnant with Oskar, but early in this pregnancy I was not feeling it at all. I came around on it about 10 minutes after she was born when we still had no name for the poor thing. I would have loved to have found a family name to use but they were all either too common, too weird or would have brought down the wrath of some German Russians who didn't like their names in the first place and would've thought it ridiculous that anyone should consider using it again.

A look of extreme concentration (pooping).

For the middle name we were between Joy and Juliet. Juliet would have been nice because then all of our names in the family would have had six letters except for Oskar and Elena which have five. However, this was not enough of a reason to commit to saying Elena Juliet over the course of a lifetime. Seriously, it's a mouthful. So we went with Elena Joy. It suits her well and rolls off the tongue. She has picked up quite a few nicknames including Ellie, Elle, Baby Lady, El-tag (rhymes with dog, it's the German word for day), El Dorado, Ellosaurus Rex, Chompette, Chompita, Stop Eating and Go To Sleep. Okay so those last two are just commonly said phrases but they are said so often that they just kind of typed themselves.

This is Oskar singing along to Carmina Burana. He has done better,
but it's hard to get it on video because he gets distracted. I still find it
pretty cute though.

I'm not a fan of new year's resolutions. I think people make too big of a deal about them. I have the same resolution every year: to floss more. And until this moment I think Dan was the only person that knew that. I always fail, but regardless of the year turning over, this is a constant goal of mine. This year I will be joining the legions who are trying to lose weight, but this is mostly because I'm ready to start exercising and it happens to be almost January. By six weeks after having Oskar I was back down to my normal weight. This time I still have about 15 pounds to go. Apparently my BMI is still healthy, which is crazy because I feel just terrible. I'm a little worried because I have only been able to lose weight three times in my life. Two times I was pregnant and one time I was incredibly sick and unable to move for a week. Hopefully these things will not be occurring. I will have my gym membership turned on again and I plan to start making freezer crock-pot meals as well so we get some variety in our meals and start eating a little better without having to spend an hour cooking in the evening because that is just not possible right now. As organic as it may be, Oskar has far to much mac & cheese in his diet.

Seven weeks old and already an old soul. Either that or she's bored. She's
so good at using her arms to prop up her head. It's quite impressive.

Part of the reason that I'm not down to my normal weight is that we have more money right now than we did when I had Oskar, so my food choices are not always great. Now I'm working on getting rid of all my crappy food, but I'm not someone who just throws out food that isn't good for you. That would be wasteful and generally, food that is bad for you is delicious. So I eat it. I love peanut butter M&Ms. I have a party bag quantity of peanut butter M&Ms to consume and I am enjoying every bit of it. I've also decided to drink less V8 fruit juice. It does have servings of fruit and vegetables, but it is expensive and single serving cans aren't great when you consume the quantity that I do. This is also in an effort to get me to drink more water. Nursing seems to go better when one is well hydrated so maybe if I'm not drinking so much juice I will drink more water, which is less caloric and free! In addition to the M&Ms Dan got me a box of wine for Christmas. This box of wine is equal to four bottles of wine. Hehehe. So here's to 2016- the year of water and wine, people!