Sweet Anna Love,
You are the best and easiest baby. It's probably because I have SO much awesome help from your siblings!! Seriously, they are the BEST!! You are a lucky girl, because they love you like crazy!! You never cry. You never get have a chance to cry. Someone is always willing and waiting to care for you!! And let's talk about your Daddy. That man is pure gold!! He takes such good care of all of us!!
My oh my, you are growing SO fast!! You are still wearing a size 1 diaper and size 0-3 month clothing, but now you are certainly filling them out better. This past Thursday we had an appt with Dr. Jeff. I was shocked to discover that you now weigh 10 lbs, 2 ozs, and are 22 inches long. You had a great check up. At the end of the appointment you got your first round of immunizations. It wasn't fun, but you are such a sweet girl and barely cried after receiving the shots. Sadly I could tell you didn't feel so good and your little legs were sore for about 24 hours following the shots. Boo!! Poor baby!! Just look at these grumpy faces you made when you weren't feeling well. Bless your little heart!! At least you are still a doll even with a grumpy face!
You are still nursing like a champ. During the early part of the day, you'll last 2-3 hours between feedings. In the afternoon and evenings that gap closes and sometimes we are down to just an hour between feedings, but they you'll go back to longer stretches throughout the night.
We typically put you down for bed around 11 or 12, then we do the things we need to do to get ready for bed. By the time I am ready for bed, it's usually time to feed you again. That time varies a little depending on what how much I try to accomplish, but regardless when I am fully ready for bed I get you up for a final feeding of the night. You nurse well and barely wake at all. Then we all go to bed and you'll sleep 3-4 hours. Usually Daddy goes to sleep a little before me, but he SO deserves it. He doesn't ever get naps and he is always up before us! A lot of times the bedtime/night time routine looks something like this: feeding at 10 PM, bath by Daddy at 10:30 PM, feeding at 11 PM, 11:30 PM you go to bed, 1 or 2 AM I wake you for a feeding and then you go back to sleep immediately, finally we all go to sleep until about 6 AM. After 6 AM we just get whatever additional sleep we can get! It's a crazy schedule, but I have always been a night owl so it's working pretty well for us. Oh and YOU are a night owl too!! Your best play times are always at night after the big kids go to bed. You also play so well after bath time that you are sufficiently wore out and ready for bed!
You still nap a lot during the day, but day by day you have more wake time. You coo and talk and smile at us, and we all just melt!! You smile all the time, but I'm having such a hard time getting a great picture of you smiling. It seems you were born smiling. I kept waiting for the time that I knew for sure that you were truly smiling in response to something we said or did, and honestly I just never realized that first magical moment. You just always smiled. Everyone wanted to be the one to make you smile "for real" for the first time, and we really don't know when you gave us the first "real" smile. One thing is for sure, you are definitely giving us real smiles and you smile in response to things we say and/or do.
Even though they aren't the best pictures ever, here are a few of the smiley pics I've captured so far. No doubt someone was playing with you in these pics.
Speaking of getting good pictures, we've been taking less of those for the past few days, because you have a TERRIBLE case of baby acne!! It's the worse case I've ever seen. You can't tell too much in your pictures, but it looks bad! I even asked Dr. Jeff if he thought it was for sure just baby acne. It showed up right around the time you turned 5 weeks old. That seems to be about the time that it occurred for your siblings too. I sure will be happy when it clears up. You look plum pitiful!!
Fortunately that acne had not yet made it's debut when we decided to take a last minute trip to see Grandmother. There were lots of pictures taken that day!! The Saturday after you turned 1 month old Daddy had to work, and we just decided to make a quick trip to see Grandmother. The weather was great and the entire trip turned out wonderful!! Uncle Wendell and his family ended up dropping in on Grandmother too, so you got to meet them for the first time. I hate that I didn't get any photos with you and them, but I love these pictures of you and Grandmother!
Here's a few other pics from the photo shoot that we played with at Grandmother's house.
Grandmother and I could go into business together with a little more training, the right equipment, money, and oh yeah LOTS of free time on our hands. We'd have plenty of willing helpers too. From getting babies to smile to helping with props, Luke, Grace, Mary Ruth, and really everyone would jump on the opportunity to join in the business! Oh well since we don't have big list of things we'd need, guess we'll stick with taking pics of you for now!!
I don't have any photos to show it, but another fun outing for me and you occurred this week when we went for my 6 week appointment with Dr. C. Who else considers going to the doc a fun outing? Ha!! I LOVE everyone at Dr. C's office, and I was so excited to show you off to them. Love Bug, they have taken such good care of us, even prayed for us while you were still growing in my tummy. I have made friends with everyone there!! After seeing them so often for the past several months and really years, I'm sad that I won't be seeing them as often anymore. We ended up being at the office for like 4 hours and part of that time was because I was talking and visiting and showing you off!! We'll have to be sure to visit every now and then!
Another big excitement was getting to see Nana. She joined us at my 6 week appointment. I was SO happy to see her!! I'm pretty sure she enjoyed herself quite a bit too. Unfortunately family situations have caused Nana to be out of town pretty much the entire time since you were born. She came back into town on the same day I had my appointment, so she met us there and held you during my actual appointment. I don't think she minded holding! She had to leave town again less than 24 hours after arriving.
None of the grandparents have had much Love Bug cuddling yet!! This must change!! Just for the record at 6 weeks old, our only outings have been a few doctor appointments and 1 trip to Grandmother's house. We have been very careful to keep you home and out of the public. The goal was to stay home for at least the first 6 weeks. We wanted to avoid germs, but also I just wanted us to have plenty of time for cuddling, resting, and getting breast feeding off to a great start. The other kiddos have had a few other outings, but mostly just to church and even then only on Sunday mornings. With the other kiddos we've often planned to stay home, but we have not always stuck to it. I'm very pleased that we did it this time. It's been a wonderful and relaxing 6 weeks!! Now that you are 6 weeks old and spring is here, I'm sure we will be getting out more. Starting with more trips to see grandparents and other family and friends.
So like I said in the beginning this week was pretty eventful, and I didn't even post about having company for dinner, running a few errands after our doctor's appointments, or the every day fun with school and housework! Whew, I'm tired just thinking about it all!! So I'll leave your adoring fans (aka the grandparents) with a few more precious pics, and I'll close by saying once again we love you SOOOOOO much, Sweet Love!!
Looks like someone is ticklish!! Daddy is the one who is getting the smiles in these pictures!
This next picture is just to show off the hair!!
Here's one last one for size comparison. Left side is coming home from the hospital. Right side is headed to pediatrician for 6 week well check. The difference is a about 3 pounds and 1 1/2 inches.
No comments:
Post a Comment