8 Weeks Old!

As I write, Julia is trying to put herself to sleep. She is making little grunting noises with the occasional sigh and whimper. And just now she had a little giggle that scared her awake. I know that we should move her into the nursery at some point, but I will miss all of those little sounds. Except for the grunts she makes after the 4 am feeding when she is trying mightly to pass gas. I still have to figure out if I can hear her in the nursery if I am back in the bedroom when she cries. And I don't know if I can trust the cat yet.

We have our two month check-up on Tuesday where Julia will get five shots. We've been warned by other parents to bring along some infant tylenol for afterwards. And that she might sleep the rest of the day, waking only to eat. I guess that would be the infant way of dealing with trauma. We weighed her yesterday and she is 13 lbs! And 23 inches long! She is already fitting into some of the 6 month clothes that relatives and friends sent; and looking extremely cute as well. Which makes her yelling when she is upset all the cuter...cute little baby dressed in cute outfits trying to look like she is angry.

Tonight was dinner with some friends from church. They have an 11 month old, Bridget, who is adorable. And such a contrast to Julia. Bridget was crawling all around, playing with Julia's toys, making babbling sounds, trying to open cabinet doors and lots of smiles. It is exciting to see what we have in store for us. I was also comforted by Cheri saying that Bridget was also an intense baby. She said that Bridget was also very aggressive when nursing, but grew out of it in her third month. Cheri also said that Bridget ended up hitting her developmental milestones before other babies her age. So we have an intense little baby that seems to be ahead of the curve. Another friend, Carmen, said that Julia probably realizes that she is a baby, but doesn't want to be one....instead she wants to already be walking and talking, etc.

We have some video of Julia on her 8 week day, but I haven't figured out how to download it to the computer yet. She is smiling more and more, especially when I sing to her. The subject of singing came up in our PEPS group on Wednesday. Some of the other mothers couldn't remember the words to classic baby songs. I remember the words, but I end up making up new ones. Like "This little light of mine" has become "That little bum of yours" and the other day we sang about "Slip, Slide into the Onsie" to the tune of "Slip Sliding Away". Plus there is the classic "Air Bubble in the Belly Blues". Dan knows that I have this terrible habit of making up songs about anything I happen to be thinking about or doing. I think it drives him crazy sometimes. And my coworkers know that I am always singing or humming or whistling in the lab. Thankfully it doesn't drive them crazy. But the ability to sing and make up silly little songs is coming in very handy now with Julia. It doesn't seem to drive her crazy yet.

On the picture front, here are a few shots from Mother's Day. And a special note to Gramma and Nanny...we are waiting for some photos to arrive in the mail and then your gifts for Mother's day will be on their way.

Seven Weeks!

Happy Mother's Day!

Only a day late, but that is alright. We still haven't mailed out the cards and gifts we made for our mothers (sorry Gramma and Nanny). But we had a nice day yesterday...Dan made breakfast and had bought some cinnamon monkey bread from the Macrina Bakery. It was delicious bread; we kept calling it the Chunky Monkey bread. Then we went to church, sat through the 1.5 hour long mass with only a single nursing break. They were giving out flowers after mass so I was the recipient of a beautiful peach rose. The mom handing them out said it would perk right up in water and it did. We then headed home to get ready for our afternoon at the zoo!
Julia was waiting for me in the bouncer seat (Dan had gotten her changed and dressed for the afternoon) with her Mother's Day gift tucked neatly in her left hand. I didn't see it at first and Dan had to point it out. She picked out a nice pair of earrings with little blue flowers, which shows that she has excellent taste at a young age. We then spent the next forty minutes looking for a parking space at the zoo. Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo is very cute; for such a small zoo they have a lot of interesting animals: tigers, lions, bears (oh my!), snow leopards, gorillas, emus, etc. Julia didn't pay attention to any of them. She nursed for 40 miuntes when we got there and slept the rest of the afternoon. But Dan and I had fun. We were both really tired when we finally got home though. Julia was nice to me last night and slept from 9pm to 3:30am. Which meant that I slept from 9:30pm to 3am.

Now we are into Attempted Sleep Week #2. Since she will be going to daycare in another eight weeks, I've decided that she needs to learn how to fall asleep on her own. She can do it every once in awhile, but not consistently. I have another motive though: I would love to be able to get one of those elusive naps every afternoon. My baby sleeps, but only when I wear her in the sling or if we go for a walk. Neither option allows me to doze. Last week was somewhat successful in attempted sleep, with Julia taking a few naps during the week. Not every afternoon, but at least twice. The problem is that I usually have more things to do when she is asleep (like calling Delta about infant fares) and I do not get to nap. So from now on I am just going to lay down right away. Right after the laundry is folded. And the chicken for dinner thawed. And the mailed sorted. I promise.

Anyway, here are some more pictures....

The lineup from our Childbirth Class Reunion (l to r) Maggie, Julia, Connor, Zev, Chloe, Lucy, Johan, and Theo.

A little fuzzy, but much cuter that way.



Oh and thank you to Tina and Amy for the comments...it was a growth spurt, but she still eats about 10-12 times a day. Which would explain why she weighs 12.5 pounds. Luckily she is 23 inches long so she carries it well.

6 Weeks Old

We're a little late with the pictures this week. And we really don't have an excuse because Julia's Nanny was here from Maryland and we should have had plenty of time to get the pictures posted. Oh well. More smiling this week, although they disappear whenever the camera comes out. And Julia seems to be going backwards in her feeding times. She used to be good for at least 2.5 hours from feeding to feeding, but lately I am lucky if she makes it to 2 hours...it is more like 1.5 hours. And now she is sleeping less at night as well, which is heartbreaking. Mainly because it means I get less sleep and end up more frustrated. I've been trying to break her of her habit of using me to fall asleep (she likes to nurse until she is sleeping), but have had no luck thus far. It seems like every time I think we are making progress, we move two steps backward. She gave us six hours of sleep the other night, but we haven't come close to repeating that since then. Add to that the fact that she most definitely smiles more with Dan and saves the pouty lip face for me and it is pretty demoralizing. At least she can hold her head up.

First Smile

May 2, 2006

How do I know it was a real smile? I smiled back. She cooed. I cooed back. She promptly burst into tears.

5 Weeks Old!

Well, and a few more days. It seems that the time with Julia is passing more quickly than ever and that I have less and less time to myself. Today was full of big acheivements: our first experience nursing in the car (she behaved very well), putting her down for a short nap while she was just drowsy (she slept for about 1.5 hours and I only had to go in once at the beginning to get her to settle down), and several feedings without the crying/burping/screaming circle of dread. Tomorrow we get to attempt our first lab meeting and a doctor's visit for me. It will be a busy morning.

We've been getting out for walks around Green Lake fairly regularly now with the other girls from childbirth class. Today we walked with Jen and Theo and their dog Dixie. It rained for the first half of the walk, but we perservered in our raincoats. Wednesday we have our PEPS group again in the morning. And rounding out our week, Dan's mom arrives on Thursday for a visit. We weighed Julia yesterday and found out that she is a whopping 11.5 lbs! I had to wash some of the clothes that everyone has been sending us because I think that they will fit soon. Some of them are marked for babies up to 12 lbs, so she will not have long to wear them. If you are a kind friend or relative waiting on a thank you note, they are coming. And we mailed the annoucements on Thursday so you should have those soon too. We set a date for the baptism, June 10th, and are looking forward to welcoming the family that is coming out for that event.

Here are some pictures from the last week: