Sleep

I can't believe it.

My daughter slept for 7 hours last night.

I woke up thinking she was dead...

She went down at about 11:00pm.  I woke up a couple of times throughout the night convinced she would be up any minutes but kept going back to sleep siting that whole, "Don't wake a sleeping baby" thing.

At 5:45am I heard, "Mommy!!  Mommy!!"

That's the wrong child, I thought.

The Boy was up but The Girl still wasn't.

I ran into her room at 6:00am and ripped her out of her swing and un-swaddled her.  She was breathing (and looking at me like I was crazy) but still sound asleep.  She would have slept longer if I hadn't busted in there.  She had a clean diaper as well, so I was convinced all of her systems had shut down for the night.

But now, almost 4 hours later I am happy to report that she has eaten twice, pooped and peed.  So all systems seem to be a go.  I have been told that once a baby reaches 11 pounds they are physically able to go 8 hours without eating.  I guess it is possible that my little porker could be 11 pounds, but man...it still feels like she is too young for this.  I am sure it was a fluke thing and this won't continue to happen every night, but still.  She will be 6 weeks old tomorrow.  She's an overachiever my little peanut.

10 Things I Couldn't Live Without (Part 2)

Thank you for returning for Part 2 of the things that helped me survive the first weeks of parenting a newborn.  Without any further mumbo-jumbo, I will go right back into my list.

• I did a post a few days ago on The Five S's.  One of those is swaddling.  When you have your baby, your nurses at the hospital will make that whole swaddling thing look so easy.  Then you will get home and realize that without the nurses, or those old hospital blankets, your child has somehow gained the ability to break out of every single swaddle that you manage to put them in.  The Swaddle Blanket saves the day.  There are lots of brands of these out there, but I prefer this one.  Reason being is that it doesn't take a website to teach you how to make it work, and I like the velcro.  It is easy, just a couple of steps to get them in there, and with the velcro, they aren't going anywhere.  It also comes in different fabrics.  I have one in fleece for when it was cold, but also a couple in really light cotton for now, when it is warmer at night.
• I have also mentioned this one before, but I seriously would not be able to survive without Babies Bliss Gripe Water.  It is an all natural liquid that helps soothe upset tummies.  It works for gas, and general tummy upset, and apparently also teething (although I never used it for that purpose...).  You can give it to your kiddo directly out of the bottle (but be prepared for some gagging and angry faces--it tastes like black licorice), or else you can mix it into either a bottle of formula or breast milk.  I pump every other day just so that I always have about 2 ounces of breast milk in the fridge to use to mix with this stuff.  My baby HATES the taste of it, but will happily gulp it down when mixed with about 15-20 cc's of breast milk (about half an ounce).  Get it.  And give it to your kid every 4 hours.  You can thank me later.  :)
• This next item is something I am sure you have heard from anyone who has ever been a parent.  You need to have lots of plain ol' diaper rags.  The old school kind that our parents actually used to diaper our butts.  And when your parents come over they will look at them with nostalgia and tell you all about how they used to have to use these for pee and poop and use A PIN to put and hold them on and wash them out in the sink and...  well you get the idea.  But for our 2009 purposes, they are great for spit up, to throw over your shoulder when burping, for laying under the baby during tummy time (they always barf a little during tummy time, don't they?) and for ten thousand other little uses.  I am still using the ones I bought with The Boy for wiping his nose when he gets a cold so he doesn't get the red-kleenex nose, and for dusting his room etc.  You can never have too many nor will you ever tire of coming up with little ways to use them.  They rule.
• I hesitated to put this next thing on this list because it really does vary with each baby.  But this is my list and I am talking about my kid so...here it is.  You really need a swing.  There are TONS of different kinds of swings, and if your baby ends up to be a swing baby, then I doubt it matters which kind of swing you have; just that you have one.  Again, The Five S's state that swinging or swaying your baby helps.  I use it when I would like to sit the hell down after standing and swinging/swaying a baby for hours.  I also use it for sleep at night.  I used ours for The Boy and now for The Girl.  They both slept in it.  I personally use this little travel swing because then I can bring it with me from room to room with little trouble.  I use it out in the living room during the day and then move it back into her room at night.  This goes along with The Five S's, but it has been a must have for us.

So those are my 10 Things that I can't live without.  I am going to recommend two other items that have been really helpful, although I wouldn't say they qualify as "can't live without."  The first one is this fabulous baby monitor.  It is a video monitor like I have with The Boy but this is the new version of it.  It has great color and it also has zoom!  You can move it around the room from the handheld portion of it, which is just cool.  It is quite expensive (I used a gift card to Target from one of my clients), but you will use it forever (I am still using the one we bought for The Boy and he is three and a half...) and is definitely worth the investment.

The other recommendation is a white noise machine.  Again, this goes along with The Five S's concept.  But The Boy used it forever, and now it seems to be great with The Girl.  She sleeps much better on the nights that I put her in her room and turn that on.  Again, I wouldn't categorize this as "can't live without," but it is a nice thing to have.  This is the one I have and it has lots of different noises on it.  The Boy loved the water one, but so far with The Girl I have just used the "white noise" portion.

Okay, hope for any of you out there that are expecting or hope to expect in the future that this list has helped.  All of these things have made the first 6 weeks of my daughter's life much easier to deal with.  And now, since you made it through the end of this post, as a reward, I have some pictures.  First, the "don't bother me, I'm trying to sleep" pose...

And finally, my big baby girl in her bath tub.  She is staring at the faucet, which is apparently much more exciting than looking at Mommy.  
Thanks for reading!

10 Things I Couldn't Live Without (Part 1)

The little Peanut has been in my life for almost 6 weeks now.  In that time there are several things that I simply could not have lived without.  For those of you who read my blog who are either expecting now, or who hope to expect in the future, I thought I would give you a list.  Being a parent of a newborn is hard.  No question about it.  But these 10 things made it a little bit easier for me.

• The My Brest Friend nursing pillow.  Some people prefer the Boppy.  You simply must have one of these.  After trying both of them out and actually using them both, I would say that I prefer the Brest Friend.  I like that it attaches on to me physically and I like that it has the little bumps where the baby's head lies.  It is a breast feeding must.
• Comfort Gel Boobie pads.  For sore nipples and boobies, these are a MUST!  One of my nurses told me about them in the hospital and they are a life saver.  One package contains two sets of pads.  Each set of pads lasts about a week.  In between uses you can store them in the fridge so when you put them back on...pure bliss.  Seriously.  These things saved my life.  Last time I ended up with cracked nipples with blood blisters.  This time?  Not at all.  I think it is thanks to this product.  Definitely a must have.  (Tip: search around on the internet.  The price varies greatly on this product.  The link I provided is where I found them cheapest but that may have changed recently...)
• Nursing bras.  Okay so these are very particular to each person depending on what type of bra you usually wear.  I have rather large girls (When not pregnant I wear a D cup) but I prefer to NOT have underwires.  So this bra is perfect for me.  Medela has a ton of different bras and styles and I would recommend checking them out.  They also have this fabulous one for sleeping that I use every single night.  Shop around, but definitely make sure you get a nursing bra that works for you.
• I don't know about your baby, but my baby?  She poops.  A LOT.  Like sometimes I am not sure if it is normal to poop this much a lot.  And her poop?  Well it is bright orange.  And half the time it tends to shoot out the side of her diaper.  So the next few things address this particular issue.  The first thing you must have are puddle pads.  Believe it or not, these things are relatively hard to find.  I have only found them at Babies R Us and wish I had bought a lot more.  I put one on the changing table to catch any run-a-way poops or pees, I put one under her in her bassinet for when she blows out while she's sleeping, and when she's laying on the floor play mat, I put one under there.  These are a lot easier to clean than whatever item she is laying on.  And she will poop out of her clothes and onto whatever she's laying on.  It's a given.  Trust me.
• My next item is also in relation to poop.  Like I said above, my daughter poops all the god damned time.  And because of this, her poor little butt gets trashed.  Anything that has to sit with that much poop on it all the time would.  And I change her whenever I hear her poop, or every single time I feed her (which is every two to three hours), so she gets changed frequently.  Anyway, each diaper change I load her butt up with Aquaphor.  It isn't as hard-core as something like a Desitin (which I did use when after a particularly rough couple of days she looked like it was getting worse...) or an actual treatment for diaper rash, but it does help.  Without that, her poor butt would be toast.
• The last item on the poop subject is a random one.  When the little peanut poops out of her diaper onto her clothes, you wouldn't believe how tough it is to get that shit (pun intended) off without leaving a stain.  First of all, get it to the sink...quick!  If it dries, you're screwed.  But if you rinse it relatively quick, it should come out.  I use this dishwashing soap on it and run it under cold water and scrub.  That seems to get it out every time.  I am sure there are other methods, but without this, I would be ending up with a lot of stains on a lot of very cute clothes.

I am going to pause here and publish this post now and finish it tomorrow.  This is ending up to be a much longer post than I had originally intended, so I will split it into two posts.  For now, I will leave you with a picture of my little peanut.  Notice how chubby she is getting.  Look at the rolls on the arms.  And those cheeks...oh man, those cheeks.  I could just NOM on them all damn day long...  (part two coming soon...)

Works for Us!!

As I have mentioned, The Girl has a fussy time every night.  It is usually from about 6:00pm until around 11:00pm.  It isn't horrible...  I wouldn't call her colicky or anything, but basically she wants to be held.  If she isn't being held, she is usually fussing and then all out crying.  My mom and step dad are still coming over every night and having dinner here so that has been my saving grace.  If they weren't doing that, it would be rough.

Even so, they usually leave by around 7:30 and I have to get The Boy into bed and deal with The Girl until I go to bed for the evening.  Most nights The Girl is crying as I brush teeth and read books and sing songs with The Boy.  I refuse to alter his night time routine so if she has to fuss a little while The Boy gets his Mommy time before bed, so be it.

I was complaining about this to a friend who reminded me about The 5 S's.  I vaguely remembered about it from when The Boy was little so I went out and bought the book yesterday.  The book I am talking about is "Happiest Baby on the Block" by Harvey Karp.

**Here is where I post my disclaimer:  There are SO many different parenting books out there and each and every baby is different.  So while one might work great for one person, it could be a horrible thing for another.  So please understand that I am only expressing what works for my baby and am not judging anyone who think this book is a crock of shit, or who simply knows that another book is better...

Anyway, I refreshed myself briefly with this book and remembered why I liked it so much.  Then last night as I was bouncing around a fussy baby and wishing I could put her down so that I could fold a load of laundry and write a thank you note...I remembered the book and gave it a shot.  I won't go into loads of detail here, but the idea is that for babies under 3 months old, they are most comfortable when you imitate how they felt when they were in your womb.  The Five S's are:

• Swaddling
• Sucking
• Side/Stomach laying
• Shushing
• Swinging/swaying

I have done all of these things individually to some degree of success with her over the past 5 weeks.  But this book reminds you to combine as many of these as possible for success.  At about 9:45pm I decided to try it.  First thing I did was swaddle her (I did this for the first couple of weeks when she came home and then it became apparent she HATED when her arms were restrained so we sorta gave it up).  Then I picked her up and held her in my arms while making sure she was on her side.  Then I started swaying and rocking her back and forth.  Finally I gently "shushed" in her ear.  (I left out the sucking part because frankly, she didn't need it, and really she isn't a big fan of the pacifier at this point).

I am not exaggerating when I say that she quieted down immediately and within 2 minutes her eyes were droopy and within 5 minutes she was asleep.  Seriously.  She had been fussing since around 6:30 and within 5 minutes was calm and asleep.  Of course I made sure she was full (she ate from about 9:00 until like 9:20) and her diaper was changed before I did any of this.  But I didn't even put her into her jammies because I was convinced she would be up again to eat around 11:00 and her jammies were in that load of laundry I was trying to fold...

But seriously.  Worked like a god damn charm.  Amazing.  After the first five minutes I sat down in the rocking chair and rocked her while continuing to "shush" her.  After about 10 minutes I took her back to her room, put her in her swing and turned on her white noise machine and left the room, shutting the door behind me.  That was around 10:00pm.

I went to sleep at like 10:30pm and did not hear her until 2:30am!!  Holy crap!  I fed her from like 2:30am until 3:00am and put her in her jammies (that I had been able to fold...hooray!!), swaddled her back up, put her back in her swing and turned back on the white noise machine.  She didn't make a peep until 6:00am.

This book rules.  It makes perfect sense when you take the time to read it and understand the concept behind doing these things, but I love it.  For those of you out there with little ones, or ones on the way (C, I'm talking to you...GET THIS BOOK...or I will get it for you).  Give it a shot.  Like I said, it may not work perfectly for every single baby, but it worked great over here!

Holy Crap

Yesterday we went to a BBQ at my Dad and step mother's house for Memorial Day.  After the baby was passed around from person to person (only being returned to me when she needed the boob) and therefore sleeping soundly and lovingly ALL EVENING LONG, we returned home.  I was about to put The Boy to bed when she woke up in her car seat.  And started crying.  That was about 8:30pm...

She cried, and then ate, and then cried some more.  Then had another little snack...  And then cried and then fussed, and then cried...  (get the idea?)  She was a fussy monster and was NOT happy no matter what position, where I held her, how I "susshhhhed" or what I tried.  I even gave her a Gripe Water bottle at like 10:15pm or something that didn't help.  I didn't want to feed her any more after that because surely she was going to explode and barf up all that good food I had stuffed in her in an effort to quiet the monster.

Finally I moved her back to my bedroom around 10:30 and I was at my wits end.  Not to mention a little tired.  So I went to my last resort: Put her in her room and let her just cry.  Watch the clock, let her cry for 10 minutes and then go in and comfort her.  In the past (2 times this has happened before) she exhausts herself and when I go and get her and comfort her, she finally falls asleep out of pure exhaustion.

So I put her in her swing in her room, turned on the white noise machine, closed her door, closed my door and went in my room.  10:52pm.  Check.  She can cry until 11:02pm when I go and get her.  I turned on the video monitor (do you know the new ones have ZOOM?  So cool...) and turned off the sound on it and picked up the phone to call my mother.  I needed a little reassurance of "you're not a horrible parent for leaving your child in another room crying for 10 minutes after 2 1/2 hours of nonsense..."  I chatted with my mom who assured me I wasn't a horrible parent and after a few minutes I turned on the sound to check on her and she wasn't crying anymore.  After about 5 minutes she put herself to sleep.  Glorious!  I immediately hung up the phone and layed down to try and get a few minutes of desperately needed sleep under the impression that she would be back up in a couple hours to repeat the entire process.

Imagine my surprise when I was dreaming that I was sleeping on rocks and I awoke to look at the clock and realize that, holy crap, it was 4:15am.  And no, I didn't happen to be sleeping on rocks, those rocks were my boobs that were screaming out because they hadn't been drained in almost 6 HOURS!!!

I checked the monitor and realized she was breathing and then decided to come out and pump one boob and let her eat off the other one when she got up (which would surely be any moment).  So there I was at 4:20am, pumping one boob while reading all of your blogs.  I pumped 5 ounces out of that one boob (the left one is an overachiever...) and then went back to my bed.  I went back and forth between trying to go back to sleep and let her wake up on her own whenever she wanted, to waking her up to eat.  My rationale being that if I woke her up to eat then, A) I was already awake and ready to feed, and B) I could (hopefully) feed her and get her back down and give myself another solid hour of sleep before The Boy got up for the day.  But you know that old saying of never waking a sleeping baby?  Well I decided to just go in and check on her, so I did and I touched her little hand while doing it and that was enough to stir her and make her realize that she hadn't been fed in HOURS!

So she ate for a good twenty minutes and was back in her bassinet by 5:30am.  The Boy got up at 6:20am and I hung with him until 6:40am when I put on a movie for him and climbed back in bed.  I slept again until 8:00am when The Girl wanted to eat again.

Minus the whole screaming for hours thing, I would call that a DAMN successful night.  Love it!

The Things We've Learned In The Past Month

HAPPY ONE MONTH BIRTHDAY MY LITTLE PEANUT!!

I can't believe you are finally here and you have been a part of our lives for a whole month already. I wasn't sure we were going to make it through the end of our pregnancy together, but we did, and I like you SO much more on the outside than I did on the inside. :)

Here are some of the things we have learned together over the past month:

You like to eat and to grow. When you were born you were 7 lbs, 12 oz and 18 inches long. When we left the hospital you were down to 6 lbs, 12 oz. And as of your appointment today, you are 9 lbs, 10 oz and 21 inches long. You are in the 50th percentile in both height and weight. Your head was 36 3/4 centimeters which is in the 25th percentile. After my experience with your brother and growth charts, it makes me more happy than you know to see you doing so well. Keep eating girl!!

You have really "woken up" in the past month. When we got home from the hospital, if you weren't eating on the boob, this is pretty much what you were doing...

Now you are staying awake for longer periods of time. This last week you are even starting to track things with your eyes and I went out and bought you a mobile for your crib (even though you aren't sleeping in there yet). I swear in the last day or so you have given me a real smile. You look right up at me and make eye contact and then give a little grin. I don't care if it isn't real yet, it still melts my heart. We have also learned that you are indeed my daughter and will most likely end up a crazy little girl. In fact, we have already started practicing taking pictures for your mug shot. So far, we think this one is best...
You have learned that your big brother LOVES you with such a ferocity that it is a little overwhelming sometimes. You love to watch him, although when he insists on giving you 50 kisses, IN A ROW, while you are trying to eat...well sometimes you wish he would lighten up on the love a little bit. You are mesmerized by his actions and are learning to watch him and sometimes wonder what exactly he is doing...
You love you some boobie. Mommy wasn't so sure how the breast feeding thing was going to go, but as luck would have it, you have taken to it quite easily. You learned to latch on pretty well while in the hospital and we have both gotten better at it as time goes on. Mostly we still do the "football hold" at every meal. However recently we have learned to do the "cross cradle," although we have really only mastered that at the right boob. On the left boob you think you should only latch onto the tip of my nipple and therefore get pulled off every time. We will keep trying though. We have also very recently discovered the whole "Mommy laying on her side on the bed and shoving the boob into your mouth" hold. We do this right before our afternoon naps together. I lay down and give you one of the boobs and you suck it until you fall asleep. Then I shut my eyes and we sleep together for at least an hour. If I don't give you the boob you lay there and fuss and refuse to sleep with me until my nap time is up and I end up not having slept at all. I am very proud of this new technique and plan to utilize it during our middle of the night feedings sometimes soon.

Speaking of those, we do pretty well in the middle of the night, although at this point you still refuse to sleep more than 2 1/2 or 3 hours at a time. This usually results in a feeding somewhere around 11:00pm, somewhere around 2:00am and somewhere around 5:00am. Then your big brother gets up around 6:00am. So that isn't much uninterrupted sleep for Mommy. However, on most nights you can get up and eat and be back in your bassinet in the period of time it takes for me to watch one DVR'ed episode of Sex and the City. So overall it isn't too bad.

It still blows my mind that I am providing you with all the nourishment that you need right now. The closeness that we share while I am feeding you feeds my heart as much as it feeds your tummy. And that contented "milk coma" you slip into after eating is enough to make all nine months of stress worth it.
Baby girl, I know in the future when you read my old blog posts you will see that I was a bit tentative about your arrival and about the fact that you are a little girl. Let me assure you that you are exactly who you are supposed to be. You are my precious little peanut and you and I were meant to be together. Your big brother and the two of us are the family that I have always dreamt of. We are finally complete. The three of us will ALWAYS be together and loved. And you have enriched my life in ways that I didn't even know were possible. Thank you my daughter. Thank you for the past month and thank you for all the future months we have to come. I love you more than life itself. You and your brother make my life worth living. Here's to many more months of love and happiness!!

It Finally Happened

The thing that inevitably happens when one has a new baby...

I...

am...

so...

unbelievably...

tired!

So far in our little journey together I have been really lucky in handling the newborn/lack of sleep thing.  The Girl has been really good at waking up once or twice a night, but eating rather quickly, and then going right back to sleep.

Yeah, that isn't so much happening anymore.

Today she is four weeks old (holy crap!!) and she has officially "woken up."  She has much longer awake periods of time and with that comes the infamous "fussy time."  I feel bad for her when it happens.  She clearly gets tummy aches and will be sound asleep and will just jump up with a start and begin screaming.  She grunts and groans and pushes and her little face gets all red and, when successful, she blows out a huge fart or poop.  But more times than not, she works and works at it, but you can tell that she just isn't getting any relief.

This happens for her now on a nightly basis between like 9:00pm and midnight.  During the day she seems to be fine.  And truthfully, that is a pretty convenient time for it to happen.  The Boy is in bed and I have the time to be able to devote to just rocking her and changing positions and trying to make her comfortable.  Any other time of day and I would be busy dealing with The Boy and/or dinner or something else.  So if she has to have a fussy time, I am happy this is the time of day that it hits.

The one thing that seems to work is Gripe Water.  But here's the catch...  Gripe Water by itself tastes like black licorice.  For a baby that has had nothing in her little mouth except for breast milk, it is a far cry from something she considers tasty.  So if I try and use the dropper and give it to her directly she gags and spits and chokes and almost all of it ends up coming back out.  So the best way to give it to her is mixed with breast milk.  I used Gripe Water with The Boy, but he was getting bottles.  So I just mixed it in and we were good to go.  Well it isn't that easy with The Girl.  She is exclusively breast fed, and although she does get an occasional bottle every couple of days (to ensure she will take one when/if I have to go back to work), she will absolutely NOT take one from me.

So IF my mother (or anyone else actually) is around, we are cool.  I just pump a little breast milk and mix it in with the Gripe Water and have someone give it to her in a bottle.  Then she is usually cool.  BUT!  When there is no one around but me?  If I try and give her a bottle she acts like I am shoving a flaming hot poker stick into her mouth.  How dare I try and torture her like that?  Don't I understand that I am boob lady and only boob lady?  So getting her to actually TAKE the Gripe Water is rough.

Saturday night I was home alone all night.  So getting her to take her Gripe Water was beyond hard.  She cried from 9:30 pm until almost midnight.  Finally around 11:30pm I used a dropper to give her the mixture of breast milk and Gripe Water.  It took a full half an hour to get it into her but I finally did.  And once I did, she finally went to sleep.  So she fell asleep at like 12:30am, and then was up to eat at 4:00am and was fussy and didn't fall back asleep until 5:15am.  Then The Boy got up at 6:30am.  I was up with him for around a half an hour until I put a movie on for him and tried to go back to sleep.  Then The Girl was up again around 8:00am.  Then we were up for the day.  And no nap for me yesterday.  When The Boy was napping, The Girl needed to eat and was fussy and just wouldn't let me sleep.  Sigh...

Then last night my cousin came into town (she is still doing work for me on Mondays and Tuesdays) so I thought I was in the clear.  She would be able to give her her bottle.  And she did!  The Girl got fussy early.  So she got a bottle around 8:00pm and had a relatively decent evening and night.  We all went to bed after the Survivor Finale at around 11:30pm.  Well of course at that time The Girl decided that she was going to have a tummy ache and started bitching and moaning.  Around 12:30am it was clear she needed another dose of Gripe Water.  But of course by this time my cousin is nicely tucked away in bed so she wasn't there to give her the bottle.  So I tried everything in the book to calm her down.  Finally around 1:00am I went out to mix up another concoction of Gripe and milk while holding her and bouncing her etc...  By the time I got it ready and headed back to my room with the dropper I realized she had passed out on my shoulder.  That was around 1:30am.  So I put her down and went to sleep.  Then she was up from 4:00am until around 4:45am.  Then she got up again at 6:30am and ate for about 5 minutes and passed back out.  At this point my boobs felt like they were going to explode so I came out and pumped for about 10 minutes (and got 4 ounces!!) and went back to bed.  The Boy got up at 7:00am and then The Girl woke up again at 7:30am (what?  That whole 5 minute feeding an hour ago didn't hold you?) and ate again.

All of this is to illustrate that I am beyond tired.  I have to be up now and get The Boy off to school.  I also have to get work done during the day today.  And also feed Fussy McFussy pants at her every whim.  And if there is a God...there will be a nap in my near future...because I am so tired I might die...

Here's a shot of the princess getting her beauty sleep while sitting with my mom.  Note:  She will pretty much always sleep when sleeping ON another human being.  So helpful...

Random Tidbits...

The Girl and I spent quality time together every three hours while breast feeding.  I should take this time out to note that I love breast feeding.  I never thought you would hear me say that.  I didn't breast feed The Boy and I never felt like I was missing anything.  I would marvel at all of those women out there that beat themselves up because for some reason breast feeding didn't work for them or their child.  My theory going into having this baby was that I was going to give it a shot but if it didn't work, I wasn't going to sweat it.  I would pump like I did with The Boy.  But now that I am doing it, I have to say that I can't believe that I pumped exclusively for 5 months with The Boy.  I was tied to my house and that damn pump.  Now we just head on out and live life and if I need to feed the baby, I stop somewhere and feed her.  I am not packing the diaper bag with frozen bags of milk, or with 3 different bottles and all the stuff that goes along with it.  "Have boob, will travel."  I love it.  And I absolutely love looking down at that little face eating and see the contentment she has when she has a full belly.  It really has been a magical experience and for anyone out there pregnant, my advice would be to make a really strong effort to make it work.  It really can be as great as all those people say it is.

During the day while The Boy is at school I am trying to get some work done at home.  It makes me bitter to even have to write that.  My baby is only three weeks old.  I should NOT have to be thinking about work at this point.  But since my end of pregnancy required that I stop working two months before giving birth, my finances dictate that I have to work.  It makes me cry to feed my daughter and then put her right back down in her bassinet and go back to my computer.  It makes me feel horrible.  But I am trying to find a balance that works for both of us.  I am by no means working full time, in fact I am lucky if I am able to bill 3 hours during the day, but at least it is something.

The Girl still is sleeping exclusively in her bassinet.  I wheel it around the house with me wherever I am.  I love it.  In fact it was only yesterday that I even put her in her crib for the first time.  I bought her a mobile because she is starting to look at things and I had to install it in her crib.  So I put her in there while I was working on it.  I laughed when I realized that it was the first time she was in there and she is over three weeks old.  Of course I snapped a picture for you all...

Don't you just love the polka dots?  She had crapped through her first two outfits and it was kinda hot so I just threw her in a onesie.  I didn't realize she would match her crib, but she did.  Speaking of crapping, my dainty little flower of a daughter knows how to CRAP!  Man, does she ever.  She grunts like a sailor and then lets these BLASTS out of her delicate little self that would make a grown man proud.  She literally craps out of at least two outfits a day.  I assume it means her plumbing is all working well and I am very proud.  :)

Let me say a little bit about single parenting at this point.  My situation is different because when I did this last time, I had a partner.  But, that partner wasn't necessarily someone who made the situation a lot easier for me.  So if I am being totally honest, it really is easier this time around doing it by myself.  The only place where I feel the hit of being a single parent right now is financially.  That sucks.  Having a mortgage and all the bills and no one to help out makes it hard.  But other than that?  Not a problem.  Of course I still have my mother helping out and she does as much, if not more, than I spouse would.  So I don't really have a clear picture of how hard it will be.  Right now, we are doing well.

When I started this post I had several little things I wanted to talk about, but as usual, I feel like this post is coming out garbled and lame.  So I will cut it short.  One of these days I will feel like I can compose a post that is meaningful and readable again.  I look forward to those days.  Until then, I'll just throw a couple more pictures your way and call it a day.

Here is The Girl passed out cold after breast feeding.  She falls asleep in the position that she falls off the boob.  I love how she is using her little hand to prop herself up in this one.
And just so that it doesn't seem like I have forgotten about my first born.  Here is a picture of him with a "pop" that his Mom brought him back from Disneyland.  I have a post brewing in my head about an update solely focused on him.  I want to update you all about the stuttering (still there) and how he is coping with all the changes that are going on around him.  But that post deserves to be well written and well thought out.  And clearly I can't seem to manage that right now.  So it will come sometime soon.  In the meantime all you need to know is that he is still here, he is still the most fantastic kid on the planet and he is still the major love of my life.  I adore this little dude, even though he isn't getting as much "air time" as his sister.

Our Version of Mother's Day

When you're a single Mother and your kids are under the age of 4, there isn't much pomp and circumstance around Mother's Day.  I mean it isn't like there is someone else here to "take over" so I can sleep in, or bring me breakfast in bed or anything.  So the day really focuses on the joy that I get out of simply being a mother to these two amazing kids.  And that is what my day was about yesterday.

Our first stop was to celebrate with the step mother, who lost her son a year ago this last December, so we spent the day with her to try and help her through the day.  The Boy usually LOVES to play with his cousins but was uncharacteristically glued to my legs the entire time.  I think he is reacting to the changes that have been going on.  Yes, he loves his little sister, but the last few months have made HUGE changes to his life.  The biggest has been that his Gigi (my mother) basically moved in to his house and spent all of her time focusing on him and making sure that he was taken care of.  Gigi went back home on Thursday of last week, so we have been on our own all weekend long.  For The Boy, the biggest change during this entire process was NOT the birth of his sister.  It was when my mom left and went home.  So I think he was feeling a little funky about that and therefore was overly clingy to me.  Poor sweet heart.  If I could wipe away all the confusion and changes that came along with this process I would.  But I can't.  So I spend some extra time with him and give him some extra love and we soldier on.  And still, it was a little bit sweet to have my first baby needing me so much on Mother's day.

After that stop I decided that The Boy needed a "Gigi fix" so we headed over to my mom's house to have lunch.  He immediately became his old self once he spent some time with her so that made me feel better.  He ended up staying with her at her house because he was "helping" Poppy plant the flowers and busy getting his outfit sopping wet in their water fountains.  I took The Girl home and tried to clean up the house that I had left in shambles in my attempts to get out of the house on time earlier in the day.

Once The Boy returned from my mom's it was time for nap time for everyone.  He went to sleep, and I put The Girl on a blanket on my bed and fell asleep with her little hand holding onto my finger.  I heard her squeaking and making her baby noises during our entire nap together.  So unbelievably sweet.  Once she woke up and needed to eat I decided to try and put together MY present for MY wonderful mother.  She wanted a picture of my two kids together.  So I put a white blanket over a chair and her bouncy seat and sat The Girl down and started snapping pictures.  She was actually awake and had her eyes open at the time so I had to take advantage of it.  Babies make hysterical faces.  I took over 60 pictures in all and they all pretty much make me laugh, although only about 20 of them would be at all interesting for anyone besides myself to look at.  In the middle of all of that, The Boy woke up from HIS nap and I tried to bribe him into taking some cute looking pictures with his sister.  He allowed it for a very short period of time and then needed (his words, not mine) to go and play with his helicopters.  And so he did.  Here is one of the many shots I took of The Girl yesterday, all fancy in her Mother's Day little dress...

She looks like she is spying on you, doesn't she?  Like nothing is going to get by this girl!  Don't try and sneak in anything!  She cracks me up.  I could put like 15 more pictures of funny faces up of her, but I will spare you all.  Needless to say, baby faces are the best!  

Here is one of the shots of the two of them.  Those pictures were the hardest to actually accomplish.  If The Boy was looking, then The Girl was about to fall over in the chair.  If The Boy was actually smiling, you could bet it was his "fake smile" and therefore looked like he was going to plot her murder.  Now I know why I spend so much money letting the professionals make the pictures pretty...  I am not so good at it.  Here is an example of my attempts:
After we finished "shooting" the pictures, I had to load them on the computer, and try and edit them into something that would pass as a decent picture.  Then I had to print a bunch out for my mom to put in her card.  Then I had to take a moment and write something meaningful and loving inside her card, and of course then I had to factor in time to cry.  Cause a girl doesn't get enough time to cry in a day.  After that I realized that it was late and perhaps The Boy might need to eat.  

Upon confirming with him that, yes, he did think eating dinner would be a good idea, I had to prepare such dinner for him (thank God for frozen spaghetti meals).  Of course when his dinner was ready and the table had been set for him, his sister started screaming because, of course, it was time for her to eat as well.  Crap.  How the hell am I supposed to manage this whole two kid thing?  So I put The Boy into his seat at the dinner table.  Then I used the fancy new pillow that my sister had loaned me earlier in the day and actually sat at the dinner table with The Boy and breast fed The Girl while he ate.  I am rock star, multi-tasking Mommy!  As I was sitting there smug with my accomplishments, I heard my own stomach growl and realized that I hadn't eaten since brunch at my sister's house earlier in the day.  Shit.  Who has time to eat?

While I was contemplating this concept there was a knock on the door and my mom, my step dad and my grandmother came in.  They had all been out to a nice "adult" evening out for Mother's day.  They were stopping by after dinner for their kid fix.  I gave my mom her card with the pictures, which she LOVED (pretty easy to please a grandmother), handed the baby off to my grandmother, and sat back and thought about being a mother.  

It is easily the most exhausting thing I have ever taken on in my entire life.  But it is also by FAR the most amazing and rewarding and magnificent thing I have ever done.  And in honor of all the glory that is being a mother, I am breaking my rule of not putting my own picture on my  blog.  Just to illustrate the awesomeness of motherhood and how in MY family, the love of being a mother has been passed on for generations and generations, I present to you a picture of my family.  Here is four generations of mothers (provided The Girl eventually grows up to be a Mommy herself).  My fabulous 86 year old grandmother, my (number left out at request) mother, my 34 year old self and my two kids.  The Boy and The Girl.  The reason that I get out of bed each and every day and the true loves of my life.  Happy Mother's Day!

Some Firsts

Today my mom and I took the kids (hee hee, I have kidS!  As in plural!) to the Nordstrom Cafe for lunch and for a little shopping.  As we were waiting in line for our food a nice couple came up to me and commented on the baby and asked how old she was etc.  They then looked over to The Boy and commented on his hair (that happens ALL the time) and asked who had the red hair in the family (I sometimes loathe this question because, YES damnit, I DID have red hair until I was about 6 years old before it turned brown.  But his donor Daddy had red hair until he was almost 30.  But people look at me and immediately assume the Daddy is where his hair comes from.  Anyway, I digressed...)

But the part that made me stop was their comment as they were walking away.  They smiled at me and said, "You have beautiful children.  Happy Mother's Day."

Children.

As in I have two of them.

And just in case you were worried that all of my hormones had passed...yes, I cried.

It was a small comment, but one that means so much.  I have always wanted "children."  Not just a child.  I was greedy enough to want the "children."  And when I was blessed enough to get The Boy I always knew I wanted him to have a sibling.  And then when things fell apart with The Ex...I just didn't know if I would ever get to see that dream become a reality.  And even after I decided I wanted to go ahead with trying to have another child, I had to find a donor, and make an agreement with him, then actually achieve pregnancy, and then actually live through a pregnancy (not as easy as it seems...), well sometimes it just seemed like it would never happen.  And it did.  I made it.  And my two beautiful children have made it.  They are here and I can't believe how lucky I am to have them both.  It was a great moment to have a stranger confirm my dreams.

The other first for today was that I breast fed out in public.  When The Boy was little, I pumped but only fed him bottles.  So when he was first born I was never "allowed" to be away from my house (and therefore my pump) for more than 3 hours.  This meant that I actually only ever got 2 hours to go anywhere.  I remember being frustrated that I could never do lunch and shop, or do anything that took too long because I needed to get home to pump.

Today I fed The Girl a "topper" off of one boob at about 10:30am.  The Boy had an 11:00am haircut and we left for that at 10:45am.  After his haircut we went straight to Nordstrom and had lunch.  After lunch The Girl was hungry so I went into the fancy "mom room" in the ladies restroom and sat on a swanky chair and fed her.  It was about 12:45pm.  She ate for like 20 minutes (during which my mom took The Boy to the candy store and he got a piece of chocolate), and then we headed out.  We proceeded to continue shopping and buy The Boy some new shoes and me a cute new shirt and finally headed home after that.  We got home at around 2:30pm.  That means I was out of the house from 10:45am until 2:30pm.  That would NEVER have happened with The Boy when I was pumping.  And it was just SO nice to be able to go about my day and stop and give The Girl some boob when needed and keep going.  We came home and all three of us took a nap.  We got up at around 4:00pm when The Girl needed to eat again.  How fabulous is that?

And finally...will my baby's cord EVER fall off?  Dear God, this thing is HUGE and I swear it is going to stay on until she is 3.  Because of that she hasn't had a full on bath yet.  I wipe her down with a wash cloth and wash her hair every third day or so, but she hasn't yet had a real bath.  And it is a shame.  Her cute baby hair looks SO much different when it is clean.  And even after I wash it, it gets greasy SO fast.  Her hair is actually a blondish color, although it looks much darker when it isn't "just out of the bath" clean.  Behold some examples.  Here is her hair on a "normal" day, just chillin'.  Looks pretty dark:

And here it is right after a bath.  Behold the blond cuteness:
She actually has a great head of hair right now.  I am not sure if she will lose it or not, but right now she has quite a bit of it, and like I said, when it is clean, it sure is cute.  It is not the bright red color of her brother's hair (different donor Daddy's), but there is some strawberry blond in there.  It will be interesting to see how it ends up.
Hope all of you Mother's out there have a fabulous Mother's Day.  I will try and do a post on that soon.  But not sure if I should post about MY fabulous mother, or if I should post about being a new-ish mom to my new little girl and my fabulous boy.  We will see where the mood takes me.  :)

My Little Piggy

When The Girl was born she weighed 7 pounds 12 ounces.  Not too shabby for my little 5 foot 3 inch body.  Not to mention that we were worried she would come too early and be too small.  So I was thrilled when I heard how "chubby" she was.

Then while at the hospital, I didn't supplement her because I was breast feeding so for the first three days of her life she only got my colostrum.  Her pediatrician said he wouldn't be worried as long as she didn't lose more than 10% of her body weight.  Well on the day that we were scheduled to go home from the hospital he was worried.  She had lost a full pound.  I was told that I needed to supplement her after each feeding with at least an ounce of formula (or breast milk).  My milk had finally come in that day (I gave birth on a Monday, and my milk arrived on Thursday morning) so I decided when I got home from the hospital I would pump and have the "toppers" be breast milk as well.  He also wanted to see her back at his office for a weight check in a few days.

So we got home on Thursday the 23rd of April and took her back to the ped's office on Saturday the 25th of April.  When she had left the hospital she was down to 6 pounds, 12 ounces.  That first weigh in on Saturday she was back up to 7 pounds 5 ounces.  A decent gain, but obviously not back up to her birth weight.

Then we went in for her one week appointment on Monday April 27th and she had gained a little more and was back up to 7 pounds 8 ounces.  The doctor was not concerned at all anymore and said I could stop with the "toppers" and just let her eat.  I also didn't have to wake her up at night every 2 to 3 hours.  I could let her go up to 4 hours at night if she wanted.  He said that they wanted to see them back up to their birth weight by 2 weeks old and he was sure she would get there based on the last few checks.  But he told me if I wanted to make sure that I could bring her in anytime during the lunch hour for a weight check.  We were cleared until her one month appointment.

So today we took her in for that weight check.  Monday was her two week birthday so technically she should have been back up to her birth weight by then.  Since she is exclusively breast fed, I honestly have no clue how much she is eating and if she is getting enough.  Her cheeks seem quite chubby and her little thighs looked like they were getting a little hefty, so I wasn't too worried but I figured it wouldn't hurt to get her checked.  And honestly?  I needed a little outing.  So off to the doctor for a weight check we went.

She is two weeks and two days old today.  Her weight?  8 pounds 8 ounces.  Yeah, I would say she is doing just fine.  My little porker.  I am so proud...  Just to show my pride, here is a shot of her little thighs that are beefing up appropriately...

And here is a shot of the look she gives me when she deems it is time for a little boob-age.  The tongue is a helpful hint to Mommy that she would really like a little snack right about now.  But either way, I am thrilled to know that my little peanut is gaining weight and eating like a little champ.  If you read my blog regularly at all, you know that The Boy isn't so good at the eating and gaining weight thing, so I am pretty happy that we are off to such a good start with number 2.  Hope everyone is having a great week!

Oh the Hormones...

Good lord, the post pregnancy hormones are KILLING me!  I am such a freak.  My moods swing around like a pendulum on a clock and go from one feeling all the way over to the opposite feeling within minutes.  It is exhausting trying to keep up with myself.

Sunday night my Mommy went home.  (Cue sad music...)  My mom had been staying here at my house with me since I got home from the hospital.  She would stay up with me and keep me company until the last feeding of the night and then go to sleep in my room.  I stayed out in the living room and slept on the couch (post c-section it would have been too hard to sleep flat in my bed anyway) since all the baby gear was out there anyway.  I have always been the only one to get up with The Girl in the middle of the night, but my mom would get up with The Boy in the morning and get him ready for school.  This helped me immensely when The Girl would be up for feeding at 2:00am and then again at 5:00am and then The Boy wakes up at 6:00am.  That allowed me to go back to sleep and sleep through when The Boy got up.  So while I was still dealing with the baby exclusively, she was there to help me out with the older one and also to just emotionally be there for me.

I remember over 2 months ago when I got put on bed rest I was SO irritated at the fact that all of a sudden there were all these people in my space.  My mom was here all the time, and all of "my time" seemed to vanish.  Now, thanks to these wonderful hormones, the thought of being alone again totally petrifies me.  I don't want everyone to leave.  Whereas before bed rest, I was perfectly content to put The Boy to bed at night and then have a couple hours to myself before I went to sleep, now the thought of putting him to bed at night and then sitting ALONE in my living room until "bed time" and then dealing with the baby all night long alone makes me burst into tears.  I have always been honest about the fact that I don't do change well.  I suppose this is just my version of that.  

Plus, as I have spoken about before, I am a planner.  I would plan my entire life right down to the very last detail if allowed.  And so the last few months have really thrown me for a loop.  My plan when I got pregnant was to work almost until the baby was born, then take 3 months off after having the baby (using money that I had carefully planned for and set aside for just this purpose) and then put the baby into daycare a couple days a week and work from home a couple days a week and get into the perfect groove.

Well that all went to shit when they put me on bed rest at 29 weeks.  By the time I had the baby I had already taken 2 months "off" of work.  And the money that was so carefully set aside for my maternity leave?  Yeah, didn't so much work out that way.  My one client who promised me a decent bonus totally screwed me and paid me half of what I expected, my tax refund ended up mostly having to go back to the tax man, and pretty much everything bad that could have happened ended up happening (financially at least).  So all told, the three months that I was supposed to have "off" widdled down to around one month.  And then I had to take two months off PRIOR to even having the damn kid.  All of my planned be damned.

So now here I am, 2 weeks after having my baby and the truth has hit me hard.  I pretty much have no money.  There is no way that I am going to be able to take off 3 months.  Most likely I will be able to stay home for THIS MONTH ONLY and then have to get back to work.  That makes me cry.  I feel so gypped.  I feel so cheated out of time with my daughter.  Plus, my biggest client is no longer my client, so not only do I have to go back to work, but I have to FIND new work in order to do so.  So everything is up in the air.  

Again.  

Still.  

My "planning" self is rifled with uncertainty.  And it makes me anxious.  And then the hormones kick in and I cry.  Because why not?  Apparently it's what I do right now.  And then I will look over at my beautiful little girl and my heart will swell with immense love and pride and joy and I will think, "Screw the money, screw the stress, LOOK!  LOOK! at what you did.  LOOK! at what you carried and brought here safely..." and I will end up patting myself on the back and the tears become tears of joy because of all of the love and wonderfulness that is in my world and...and...oh God.  What exactly was it I was crying about?

These hormones are insane.  My little princess is two weeks old yesterday.  And she is perfect and she is beautiful and when I wrap myself up in her smell and her essence and the connection between her and The Boy (yes, it is there already) I weep with joy and happiness that I fought for this little family that I have created.  And I am so damn proud of myself and so thankful to all the people around me that helped me achieve this goal that I think nothing could ever deter that feeling of love and accomplishment.

And then literally like 2 minutes later my mother will tell me goodbye as she heads home back to her life and her husband (which, you should probably know is only 10 minutes from my house and her leaving only means she will be gone a number of hours because she is still coming over every night for dinner right now...) and I will fall down in my hallway and cry from the loneliness and scariness of it all.  How could I possibly have thought I could do this alone?  How am I supposed to get back to any sense of a normal life?  How in the world am I going to afford to stay home long enough to heal from surgery and bond with my daughter?  What in the world am I going to do for a job?  When I find said job, what in the world am I going to do with my brand new daughter?...  It goes on and on...  I seriously exhaust myself.

I think it may be time to make an appointment with my lovely therapist to discuss this myriad of emotions with her.  How long does it take for one's emotions to return to "normal" after having a baby anyway?  Because seriously...I need to at least stay away from work until that happens.  I can just see myself sitting at a clients office trying to balance their books and weeping uncontrollably when I am $0.05 off on a reconciliation.  Good lord...

On a happier note, here is my little peanut on her 2 week birthday.  She spent the day yesterday with more awake time than she has ever before.  I know I am a bit biased but I think she's pretty damn cute.  I guess she is worth all these hormones...

A Whole Lot of Nothin'

That's what has been going on over here.  Well to clarify, it has been a whole lot of feeding and some napping.  But that's pretty much it.  And you know what?  It's blissful.

I don't know why this is so different the second time around, but I am completely content to sit on my ass in my house and just hang with my new baby.  Now that doesn't mean that I didn't do that with The Boy, but I was just so nervous the first time.  I was worried about every hiccup, every sneeze, every facial expression, pretty much everything The Boy did, I was concerned about what it meant.  And that just isn't the case this time around.  I really haven't worried about anything.  I am just soaking in all of the moments of being at home with my newborn baby.

I know that one big difference this time around is that I am single.  My particular relationship was flawed to begin with at the point when The Boy was born, but looking back, it is amazing how much it affected my newborn relationship with my baby.  The dynamics of a two-mom household is tough with a newborn.  I think that when there is a man and a woman at home with a new baby, the roles are more defined.  But when you have two actual women, both of whom are supposed to be the mothers, it is tough to figure out who does what.  I remember last time with The Ex that I was SO consumed with making sure that she got as much out of the "mothering experience" as I did, that I really cut myself out of a lot of the fun part of being a new mom.  And more specifically about being a new bio mom.  There are certain things that really "belong" (for lack of a better word) to the bio mom.  Breast feeding is one of them.  I blatantly didn't even try last time because I didn't want to limit the feeding experience to just me.  But I was still very adamant about The Boy having mostly breast milk.  So I pumped.  And I pumped.  And I pumped some more.  And I could never leave the house for more than 2 hours at a time.  And really, I rarely got to actually feed my baby because as soon as I was done pumping, I would hand the goods off to The Ex who would feed him while I washed all the parts and got prepared for the next go-round.  

And the actual hours of just sitting, cuddling with my baby and looking into her eyes and watching those facial expressions, and snuggling her up on my chest to smell her baby-ness and falling asleep in that position...well I didn't revel in those last time either.  I would make sure to not "hog" the baby and give him off to make sure The Ex was having those moments as well.  And now?  Looking back?  She wasn't even having the moments.  She would sit with him, and there is no doubt that she loved him, but she didn't have that bonding like I did.  Probably because he didn't come from her body.  Probably because she never wanted to be a mom like I did.  I tried to force her to feel what I was feeling and I don't think she ever did.  And in the process, I was just taking away from my own experience.

Now don't get me wrong.  I LOVED being with The Boy and up until this experience, I would have never said that I missed out on anything.  I have loved motherhood from the moment he was put into my arms.  And I really enjoyed all of the beginning parts of being with The Boy.  But it is just now...with a contrast in front of me, that I am realizing how much I actually DID miss.  And all of the moments that I "gave away" in an attempt to share this experience with someone else.  And the bitterness creeps in...  The Ex told me when The Boy was 4 months old that she wasn't sure that she loved me anymore.  She told me that I hadn't lived up to my end of the bargain ("the bargain" being that we wouldn't lose ourselves and our relationship in the process of having a child).  She basically made me take those first moments of my son's life and make it all about trying to save my marriage.  And on THE DAY that he turned 6 months old?  She moved out.  And she walked away from our relationship, but mostly she walked away from being a mother to our son.  And all of those moments in the beginning when I tried in vain to make her feel and share this amazing journey of motherhood?  Wasted.

Whew...sorry...caught up in some old emotions there for a minute (gotta love those post partum hormones...).  My point in this post wasn't to take a trip down memory lane.  It was to show how very different this experience is.  And how very much I am enjoying it.  I am doing what I want this time around.  I am following my gut feelings.  And I am taking all of these moments for myself.  I am breast feeding my little peanut and LOVING how that makes me feel.  I never would have thought that it could and would be this powerful.  I still pump once a day to give the boobs some relief and create a "back log" of frozen milk for emergencies and for when I go back to work (don't even discuss it...I can't even think about it right now).  But other than that?  It is all she and I.  Just time for the two of us.  And when she's done eating and falls off my boob with the milk dribbling down her chin and snuggles in to my chest?  Well I just curl her in towards me and suck in her little baby smell and close my eyes.  And sometimes we nap.  And sometimes we look at each other.  And sometimes I just look at her.  But all I know is that I am not concerned about ANYONE else in the world and how this experience is effecting them.  This is a newborn experience between my daughter and myself (and The Boy to some extent, but he is still at school all day long during the week so we are having some quality time just between the baby and myself).  

So if we are doing a "whole lot of nothin" and just waking up, feeding, napping together, and doing it all over again an hour later?  No problem.  And if we're up four times during the night and I don't get more than 2 hours of straight sleep?  No biggie, we can nap during the day.  There isn't anything better in the entire world.  I will never get this time back.  And this is my last child so I will never get to experience this again.  I don't want to miss a thing.  And selfishly?  I don't want to share it with anyone.  So I am not.  I am living it up and taking it all in and just enjoying this precious time between the two of us.

And since it goes against all blogger rules to have a new baby and not post pictures, here are some pictures from this last week.  First of all, lest we forget who is the biggest boy and best big brother in the world, here is a shot of The Boy enjoying some chocolate cake after dinner...  He refuses to use a fork because he says that cake time is "finger time!"

And here is a shot of my little peanut after eating, when I sat her down on the ottoman in front of me to wipe up my boobs and secure them back in their bra...  She curled herself up in a little ball and just looked so sweet.  Plus, check out the outfit.  The little "feet" on the sleepers kill  me!
And finally...here is a shot of her wrapped up in a blanket that my sister in law made for her.  My sister in law LOVES babies and is known around the family as "the baby whisperer."  This is because as soon as she gets her hands on a baby, they become putty in her hands and immediately fall into a deep sleep.  She has a gift...truly.  Anyway, it appears that the blanket she made for The Girl contains this same quality.  All you have to do is put this blanket around her and she falls into a deep sleep and is as content as they come.
PS--I am working on the birth story.  Problem is that every time I sit down to write some of it I totally cry.  Not sure why given that I wasn't all that emotional when it was happening, but something about going back and trying to write about it brings all the emotions out.  So I sit here in front of my computer sobbing like an idiot trying to get it out and it all just becomes too much and there is a sweet baby nearby that I could hold and snuggle instead of crying and well...  Anyway, it is coming.  I'm working on it...