Baby Update

Annabella is doing great. We are traveling for Thanksgiving, and she's met a lot of her extended family. She's smiling and cooing more and more.

Here's a picture of Annabella and Auntie Corrie. She likes to grin and coo now when you tickle her chin, which you can see :)


She's traveling pretty well. She's only cried for about 45 minutes of the car rides so far.

Annabella is growing like a weed. We think she's close to double her birth weight now, but we won't get another official weigh-in till December 8. She's almost outgrown some of the outfits that were swimming on her originally though.

Jason and I are doing well too. Each week is a little easier than the last, and she's sleeping more and more consistently through the night. It's quite a struggle to get her down for bedtime, but once she's there, she usually sleeps 5 or 6 hours straight. Jas and I definitely appreciate the extra sleep.

I need to get back to family stuff, but I thought I'd give a quick update. I owe people phone calls, emails, thank you notes, and baby announcements (not to mention Christmas cards...) I promise I'll try to catch up on all of that soon!

Quick update

A few mornings back Annabella woke up in such a good mood, which was nice since she'd been a sour-puss the night before. I carried her down the stairs and talked to her as I went, and her entire face broke out in this great big smile, and she held it for several seconds. Totally melted my heart. Was nice to see that maybe my child does love me, especially after she'd screamed at me so much the day before.

She's also cooing a lot more, which is also super nice. For the first so many weeks babies only make upset noises; so hearing them make happy noises is surprisingly relieving. You start to feel like maybe you're not messing them up, at least not too bad.

Jason and I are starting to be able to laugh at her sometimes when she's angry, which I think is good. Especially since we can only see to one of her needs at a time. If we're already changing her diaper, and she's screaming because she's also hungry, she's just going to have to wait a couple minutes to eat. So she'll scream for a minute and then she'll stop and pout. She sticks that lower lip out like a champ. And it's just too cute not to be funny. (We've tried to get a picture of her pouting, but she doesn't hold it for long, and she has to be mad to do it...and we're usually trying to make her happy when she's mad instead of trying to take pictures of her angry. Maybe we'll catch a pout one of these days though.)

Our sweet little girl is also working her lungs more these days. I'm not sure why, but she's fussy quite often. She seems to be fighting sleep. That last hour before we finally get her to sleep at night is especially rough. In fact, I'm on the phone with Jason right now and I can hear her screaming in the background now.

I'll try to update more soon, and I'll include a new picture next time!

First day back

I went to work today for a half day.  I didn't realize how nervous I was about it, but now that I'm back home I can feel that familiar low that means a bunch of adrenaline is leaving my system.

Work was good overall.  I felt like me, and Jason had a good morning with Annabella.  Being away from Annabella was very hard though.  I don't know how I'm going to cope when it's time to put her in daycare.  Knowing that Jason was home taking care of her was what made it all okay today.

We've taken more pictures, but haven't uploaded them to the computer yet.  When we do, I'll try to put some more up here.  Until then, if you want to see what pictures we do have posted, shoot me an email and I'll send you a link to where some are posted.

For those looking for Annabella updates:  Annabella is 6 weeks 1 day old today.  She is more and more aware of the world around her and likes to watch her mobiles.  She doesn't like bright lights and puts her little hands in front of her eyes to shield them.  She's starting to smile in response to my smiles, which melts my heart every time.  She's cooing more and more, and is more able to wake up mid-nap and go back to sleep without us comforting her.  Her favorite trick seems to be waiting to go pee until the diapers off her butt during a change, which causes many costume changes.  These mid-change pees sometimes have distance, and she's managed to pee all over Daddy's clothes the other day.  She's starting to like to nap on her swing, which is nice because it gives me a break to eat lunch and blog sometimes!  She grunts really often, but especially when she's trying to break her arms out from being swaddled.  Even when she's fussy she's the cutest baby I've ever seen, though I might be biased.