Kulia is so incredibly cute right now. Her chubba-chubba checks and big owl eyes. She loves to streeeeeach her little arms above her head after she wakes up and is beginning to coo with her sweet little voice. She is, quite simply, adorable.

She is also a handful. In fact, she broke her father today. Having learned from Leina, Kulia is already on a schedule. Wake up, nurse, awake time, then sleep. This make life much easier for all. So after a nursing, I packed up Leina and a shopping list and headed to the store leaving baby sister with her father to enjoy. He played with her and then, when she got sleep, attempted to put her down for a nap. Attempted being the key word.

When Leina and I returned, we found an exhausted father and a small child who had steadfastly refused to go to sleep. Kevin was broken. He had resolved that she was just going to have to cry and learn to sleep. And then, after a nice nursing, he held her little warm body in his arms, watched as a gummy little grin broke across her face, and Kevin….mended.

It was kind of fun to watch because I break and mend several time a day. At the end of an exhausting battle to get her to sleep, I too vow that I’m just going to let her cry. But after I calm down and hold her sweet little self in my arms, I find I have a little more patience and stamina than I thought. And once again I’m ready to do battle over napping. I don’t why is has to be so hard but I guess it’s why she’s so cute. Good thing too.

Eventually she will have to learn to fall asleep on her own and there will be much protest crying but for now we are helping her along with as much snuggling and holding and rocking and cuddling as possible. Sweet baby sister. I had forgotten what it felt like to fall in love with your child but it’s happening again. And it’s wonderful.

You’ll notice from the new counter to the right that tomorrow is the “halfway to Tutu” point. The day on which Tutu has been gone just as many days as the number of days until she comes back. Now, I know 15 days without Tutu may not seem like many, but to those in the throws of baby-dom, it’s a lifetime.

Please also note, that some people out there – I don’t want to name any names, but they live in San Diego and have 2 adorable little boys – get Tutu so frequently that they don’t even need a Tutu counter on their website, and even if they had one it wouldn’t go above some insanely small number, like 4!

But I’m not jealous. No not me.

Poor Kulia.

She has caught another cold. Leina was three months before she had her first stuffy nose but poor baby sister is on her second in only 5 weeks. Leina brings it home and Kulia suffers through it. As if it isn’t hard enough being a newborn now she can’t breathe! It seems to be worse at night because she’s waking every 45 minutes to an hour crying and totally stopped up. This makes for a very crabby child and mother. Her last cold took her three weeks to kick. I can only hope this one passes through quicker but it doesn’t look good.

Poor baby sister.

I came downstairs today pretty cocky. I had survived Thursday on my own all day long and no harm had befallen either of my girls. One whole day, thank you very much. So today, I was riding my win.

“Good morning sweetie!” I lilted and bent to kiss my big girl’s forhead.

“Mommy, you smell.” Leina said solemnly.

“I smell?” I replied. “What does momma smell like?” I was expecting her to say “sweet” or “pretty” or maybe even “like a flower.”

“Stinky,” Kevin pipped in.

“Stinky,” Leina parroted. “Momma smells stinky.”

So all day today, Leina would run up to me, give me a sniff and proclaim, “momma smells stinky!”

Yes, but I survived kiddo! Two days without help and I didn’t place either child into the recycle bin even though it was, technically, recycling day. Ha! Sleep, showering, eating leisurely, who needs that stuff. Not me! Oh no, I’m a mommy!

I can’t believe my mom is leaving me tomorrow. I just can’t believe it.

She’s part of the routine….part of our household. The idea of facing the day without her is so foreign. It hit me tonight that I’ve never given Kulia a bath without Tutu. I took Leina up to her crib today alone without my mom and Leina looked at me perplexed and asked, “where’s tutu?” Even she has come to expect her. For the first two weeks after Kulia’s birth, I wasn’t suppose to lift anything heavier than Kulia. This ruled out Leina. So my mom would come upstairs with us at nap time and lift Leina into the crib for me. The first few times she did this, Leina look at me with confusion and maybe a little fright. This was not how nap was done. By the end of the first week, Leina would run to Tutu and say “up…up” when naps came. Leina had totally accepted my mom into her daily life. At dinner, she names chairs. “Momma, Daddy, Tutu!” she exclaims pointing to each seat in turn. I feel the same. I just know that tomorrow, after Tutu has headed out the door, there will be a giant hole in this house and in all our hearts.

Kulia continues her descent into the realm of sleeplessness. She is following in her big sister’s footprints. She awoke last night at 2am and we haven’t been able to get her back to sleep for more than 20 minutes. It is now noon. This means my youngest daughter has been awake and fighting sleep for about 10 hours. When I named her Kulia, which means endurance or to stand firm, I never imagined she’s stake her ground so early in life.

So my mom has been watching me slowly freak out over the last week as Kulia slides from sleeping sweet newborn into overtired and shrieky baby. She says I have to change my mind set and tell myself to think positive. So instead of saying, “I can’t make it through six months of this”, I need to say, “It’s only six months, that isn’t very long.” Easy for her to say, she leaves in two days. I’m the one stuck waking up three times a night for the next six months and dealing with an overtired screaming infant all day long. But, in a way, she is right. I don’t have a choice. Kulia is Kulia. She doesn’t sleep during the day and only sleeps for two or three hours at night. This is just who she is and all the panic attacks and anxiety won’t change her. It will just change me. So I guess for the forseeable future there will be two sleep deprived and crabby people in this house.

Poor Kevin. Poor Leina. They’re going to be stuck with two grumps for quite a while!