Week 17

Hello and Welcome to Post-Natal Week 17.

She is officially 4 months old now. Although in this photo she is about 2-3 weeks old. It's one of my favorite photos because it has such personality. And her personality just shines through and grows stronger every day. It's rather cool that someone as young as Estella is and without so many of the verbal and non-verbal communication techniques that most of us use on a daily basis can be so expressive, full of thought and feeling. She is a wonderfully happy baby. Her smiles are huge and she is generous with them. She smiles with her whole face. Her eyes just glow. But of course, I am her mother. I am proud that she is so happy. It's nothing that I have done. We just make sure she is safe, warm, fed and loved. It's her choice to share her happiness. Some babies are very stoic and silent. Some babies cry and whimper no matter the situation. Estella likes to join in the party. She wants to know what is going on at all times and tries to be a part of it all. She loves to babble, especially when we are singing together. Although this week she seems more focused on growing her motor skills then practicing her talking. She fed herself with a bottle this past Monday. I was shocked. Eric was feeding her in her bouncy seat and she had a grip on her bottle. He had to get some paperwork for me and decided to see how she would do on her own with the bottle. He let go and she continued to hold it and finished the bottle on her own! My little over-achiever! How great is that? I have no idea how old babies are when they first hold bottles on their own with any consistency, but I know I'm amazed any time she does something new. But all of this is new to me, and that's the most wonderful thing.

Here are some of Estella's likes and dislikes:

Likes: Shower time
Singing her ABC's, Row Row Row Your Boat and Henry the VIIIth
Being naked
Playing with her musical pigs and bunnies
The ladies at the daycare that take very good care of her
Cab rides home from the daycare
Smiling to funny phrases
Standing with Mommy and Daddy
Eating and Sleeping
Reaching for our cats
Hanging out with the family

Dislikes: Bath time
Mommy and Daddy on their computer
Getting dressed and undressed
Sitting in her car seat
Being removed from the milk fountain
Stuffy noses

This week we go to the Doctor for her 4 month exam. She will get some shots (boo!) and she will get all of the vitals taken. I am hoping she is around 11.5 pounds. She may be more, I don't know. She has been eating rice cereal for 3 full weeks and bananas for 2 weeks. She is doing very well with them. I do not want her on formula at all and she is old enough to start introducing some baby foods. I use the rice cereal in my breast milk for the daycare and she gets 1 jar of bananas per day during the week. For the weekends she is completely breast feed. So she could be more than 11.5 pounds. It's been 2 months since we've seen the doctor so we'll see what he says about her growth.

We are in the middle of our very busy 2 weeks. Janice and Frank are now back in Philadelphia for their wedding next Saturday. They arrived this morning and I can not wait to see them tonight! We are going to have a such a great time with them. Eric and I had our birthdays this week. I through Eric a surprise party last Saturday night, which I am sad to say wasn't much of a surprise, but it was fun just the same. We went to my parents house and had cake and ice cream for my birthday. Tomorrow my mom and I pick up our dresses for the wedding and we will get our hair cut and colored. I can not wait to get my hair done! Then it's full speed ahead for the wedding on Saturday. Woot Woot!

That's about all for this week. I will let you all know Estella's stats next week. And as a reminder you can all read or share these emails be referencing my website http://desireesbabyupdates.blogspot.com/ .Until next time, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Love to you all,
Desiree

Week 16

Hello all and Welcome to Post-Natal Week 16

Estella will be 4 months officially on Monday. I'm excited that she is growing up however 4 months sounds so much older to me then 3 months, and I just want her to stay a baby. Obviously she is still a baby at 4 months too, but she is so much bigger and smarter every day that sometimes it doesn't feel that way. Eric was saying to me that he likes to talk to her as if she has his intelligence level. I do the same thing. We are not parents that use baby talk to communicate. We don't shorten or make up words. Her pacifier is just that, it's not a binky. She does not get a baba, she gets a bottle, and so forth. But I suppose if we spoke to her in a shortened baby way maybe it wouldn't feel like she is growing up so fast. Who knows?

So I started back to work on March 2nd. March 1st I was a crying wreck. I thought that I was abandoning my baby and that she would somehow remember me leaving her and putting her in this strange place. I tried to work out in my head how we could afford to live in our house without 2 incomes. I thought that maybe we should move into a smaller house in the suburbs so that I could stay home and Eric would go to work. Sunday March 1st was not a good day for me. Fast forward to the next morning and it's a completely different story. I slept well. I woke up, got myself ready for work, fed the baby and left for work. Estella made it easier by falling back asleep before I left the house. And she was an angel with Eric the whole day. What more could I ask for?

As I made my way closer to the office I became more and more excited. I didn't realize how much I missed the daily conversations about everything and nothing. I felt as if I was getting back to my old life. Having Eric home with Estella the first day was key. It made me more comfortable knowing that she was with her daddy. And I have loved being back at work. 3 weeks now and it's going great. Estella is in a daycare that is 1 block away from my office, so I go in and feed her at lunchtime. It's so nice to get a little Estella fix. Eric still has her 2 days a week for the time being as well. Once he starts working on a wall she will be in daycare full time. The cost of daycare is shocking. It makes sense when you break it down per hour, but we have basically taken on a second mortgage for what it costs per month. It's scary. So the cost is also a major reason why Eric will watch her 2 days a week for as long as he can. (Besides that fact that he loves being home with her too) She seems to be thriving in the daycare as well. The facility is right in Center City and there are parents dropping in and out all day. Everyone is polite and they treat the children well. It's the best solution for a situation that is not ideal. She has a little cold that I know she caught from the other babies, but we were completely expecting that. She's fine just a little congested. I'm not scared of the germs, and I actually glad she's a little ill. Building up immunities is a messy process.

The next few weeks are going to be very full. It actually started this past Wednesday with my first trip to NYC to see a client since my return to work. I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but it all worked out fine. Eric had her for 15+ hours by himself. She was very fussy at the end of the day but everyone got through it in the end. Being a nursing mother it was very hard for me at the end of the day. I pumped for the last time at 3pm and didn't get home until 11:30pm. Needless to say I was looking forward to seeing my little girl that evening if nothing more than for relief. But the NYC trip is just the beginning. I have a shower, NYC again, birthdays (mine is on Tuesday! Yay 31!, Eric's is on Thursday! Yay 30!) taxes, Janice and Frank are coming home, hair appointments, dress appointments, bachelor/bachelorette party, shots for the little girl and the wedding of the year! It's going to be busy. Lots of fun, but busy.

I think that's about all this week. Everything is going very well. Estella is a blast and all I can so is smile when I think of her.

Love to you all!

Desiree

Week 15

Hello all and welcome to Week 15,

So Estella is 15 weeks old, nearly 4 months. I can't believe she is this old already but she is still so tiny. I see all these other babies that are around her age and they all could crush her. Especially the little baby boys. They have pounds on her. A good 3-4 pounds. It's crazy. But I love my tiny baby. She can stay small for as long as she likes.

Earlier in the week I sent you all a recount of her birth. That was an incredibly long retelling. I had no idea how much I wrote until I looked it over the next day. This will be a much easier read! I'm just going to give you all a quick rundown of the highlights of Estella:

- She smiles all the time. We love it and I can't get enough of it. She is a very happy baby most of the time. She started smiling at about 5 weeks and laughing at about 10 weeks. We try to get her to laugh all the time. Eric is much better at it then I am. He seems to have the magic touch with a lot of things including naps. Eric can get her to sleep like no other. He currently has her 2 days a week and she takes 1-2 hour naps in the morning and 3-4 hour naps in the afternoon. Every once in a while she will sleep like that for me but not often enough. Eric thinks it's because she knows that I have the milk and there is too much excitement that surrounds the while milk thing.

- Poop has become a daily conversation for me and Eric. When she was first born we had to take her to the ER because she didn't poop for 5 days. The pediatric nurse said there could be a problem with her bilirubin so we to the hospital we went. She was 6 days old and we were waiting in the ER for 8 hours while they took an x-ray, felt her stomach and said she was fine. Thank goodness. But it freaked us out. The next day she pooped and Oh Boy did she make it count! To the belly button with her mess. Since then, it's all about the poop.

- She has this lower lip huge pout thing that she does that we just love. It is the cutest thing, but it only comes out when she is about the wail. We don't care, we love the lip.

- She was a nice big baby but has followed the 5-10% growth pattern since. Again, I am happy with my tiny baby.

- We are the luckiest parents in the world because Estella slept through the night since the beginning. We started with getting 5.5-6 hours a night all the way to 9 hours a night. She has had 2 bad nights where she wouldn't fall asleep and wouldn't stop crying, but that is it. She's the best!

- She was never much of a bobble-head baby. She pretty much was able to hold her head from the beginning. Of course we always held her head, but it didn't take long at all for her to be able to lift it by herself, just a week or two.

- She rolls over from belly to back and has been doing it for about a month now. Apparently she does it all the time in day care because one of the other mothers was commenting to me about it today. She hates being on her belly and has mastered rolling to her back because of it.

- Estella is just a lot of fun. Eric and I couldn't have asked for a better baby.

Now here are some interesting post-baby things about me. All the moms will understand.

- Nursing takes a toll on your energy but is great for putting your body back in shape. I am within 3 pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight but my body isn't shaped the same way. I have actually gone up a size in jeans because my belly hasn't gone back to its original size. And the skin isn't as springy as I hoped it would be. It is just going to take some time.

- I think the extra 3 pounds still on me is in my chest.

- Cracked nipples are very painful and they take forever to heal.

- However nursing is absolutely wonderful, so it's going to take a lot more then a cracked nipple to deter me.

- While pregnant your sense of smell is ridiculously acute. After you have your baby every sense is acutely tuned to the baby.

I think that's about all for this week. I'll keep you all posted on all the cool baby news. She's about 12 weeks here in the photo.

Love,
Desiree