Fiona is already over three months old. Unbelievable! She’s growing so fast and definitely not my tiny, squishy newborn any more. Now she’s my tiny, squishy baby. She’s very chatty, much more so than I remember Meredith being, though it’s hard to remember so long ago. She’s starting to be able to roll over fairly consistently on soft, flat surfaces, and occasionally on hard surfaces as well. She can sometimes balance a little bit to sit unassisted for very short periods too. She reaches for things and will play with toys. She already seems to adore Meredith, and smiles and reaches for her. Unfortunately, often she ends up with a hand full of hair. So far Meredith has been really understanding, and will normally just tell her “No grab my hair, Nona!” and pull her hair out. (Meredith calls her Nona or Nenona or sometimes Kiona. She can’t pronounce “f” yet.)
Meredith still seems to be doing well with Fiona, though she is going through a bit of a difficult (for us) phase right now. She seems to be much more sensitive to things like being hungry or tired, and as a result has a lot more tantrums. (I don’t love the word tantrums because it has such bad connotations, but I’m not sure how else to describe them in a way that’s obvious what I mean. I feel very similar to this author about tantrums and what causes them though.) And now when she has tantrums, she will often scream when we’re trying to talk to her or help her, and if we come near sometimes she will hit at us (though she hasn’t actually hit us yet) and scream at us to go away. It makes it especially difficult, because often when she’s really upset, all I want to do is hold her in my arms. Once she’s feeling better, she will usually let me hold her and I try to talk with her about how she’s feeling and why she’s feeling that way. Thankfully, so far she hasn’t taken any anger out on Fiona or the animals, though if Sorcha or Sebastian come over to see what’s wrong sometimes she will tell them to go away too. She hasn’t yelled at the kitten at all yet. These more intense tantrums are a pretty new development just in the last couple of weeks. We try and explain to her that it’s hard to help her when she’s screaming and we don’t know what she wants, and I’m hoping this phase is short-lived.
I’ve discovered too just in the past couple of days, that if we go out earlier and get home before 2 or 3, she seems to do a lot better. If we’re out around 2:30, she will often start getting upset over things that normally wouldn’t upset her, and is often inconsolable. If we’re home, that’s the time that she wants to do something quiet, like reading a book, cuddling and watching a movie, or even just playing alone in her sand box. So I’m going to make an effort to do things earlier in the day so that we can be home and have some quiet time in the afternoon.
Of course, most of the time, she’s still very sweet and I just love watching her imagination starting to take off (she’s making me all sorts of different foods and juices in her play kitchen as I type this 
) and continuing to discover the world and learn and grow. We recently repeated the toddler science experiment we did last spring, and it was once again a big hit with the kids.
A lot of people tell me how much Fiona looks like Meredith. I don’t really see it. To me, Meredith looks more like Kris and Fiona looks more like me. But I’m bad at seeing those things anyway. I found a picture of Meredith around the same age Fiona is now. Fiona definitely has more hair. I thought Meredith had a lot too but hers was lighter so not as noticeable, but looking at the pictures there’s a difference in the amount too.
Fiona around 3 months
Meredith around 3 months
Lastly, our kitten is really awesome and I think he was a really good choice for us. He’s fun and friendly and loves to come cuddle on our laps. Meredith can be a little too much for him sometimes, but then five minutes later he will be following her around looking for attention. I hope he stays so friendly and social as he grows.
I have lots more to write about and some things bouncing around my head I’d like to say. We’ll see if I actually get to them or not. I’d like to start posting more regularly again. I see this blog as somewhat of a journal for myself to look back on. I want to be able to come and have a timeline of when we did things, and what’s going on in our lives at any given time. But I don’t want to spend so much time on the computer that I miss my girls’ real lives either.
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I use my blog more as journal for myself than for anything else. I love to look back at old posts and see what I was doing this time last year or look at pictures of the garden and see how it grows. I’ve also been using it as a place to store my recipes. I hope you get a chance to blog more, I enjoy reading your posts
Thanks Natalie! I feel the same way. I love to get comments and know that people actually read it, but really I’m not blogging for other people. It’s fun to go back and see how my ideas and perspective have changed over the years too. I definitely use it as a place to store recipes too. Otherwise I waste time the next time trying to remember where I got a particular recipe.
That screaming is how Sam was last year, and has started a bit more mildly again recently. It did pass after about 2 months, and this time round she is easier to reason with (i.e. she will listen when we talk to her about how everyone feels cranky when she goes straight to screaming). But I find it really tough to take, especially right now when I am more tired than usual already. I wonder if it is the season, with longer days, more intense playing outside, and less sleep.
That makes a lot of sense Jen. We’re out more and for longer periods, she’s been getting up earlier, and, of course, she’s growing and figuring out her own mind. I’ve definitely noticed a huge improvement if I can be inside again by 2:30 or 3 and spend some quiet time. She seems to be pretty okay in the mornings and then again in the evenings.