4 Weeks

Hasn't quite mastered sitting yet :)

We made it 4 weeks! And since February is a 4 week month, Annie is one month old! It's kind of annoying to have a child born on the 31st of a month, because when are they a month older? I'm just going to go with the last day of every month, regardless of how long the month is :) I think I've said this before, but I really just don't understand people who get sad when time passes and the newborn phase is over... Ben and I can't WAIT until Annie can start recognizing us and smiling... and gaining the ability to entertain herself for a bit, hopefully!

She does definitely seem to be focusing more with her eyes on things, and a few times, she actually seemed to realize that I was shaking a toy in her face :) Her eyes are also looking more blue - I REALLY hope they stay that way! My eyes are hazel, which I like, but I LOVE Ben's blue eyes and I hope Annie has inherited them!

My first Mom and Baby class was on Monday - we made it there reasonably on time, and thankfully the hospital has valet due to all the construction in the area - makes it a lot easier! There were about 6 other women and babies there - Annie was the youngest, and the oldest was 8 weeks. We started off by just each telling our birth stories which was really interesting. There was another woman who's birth was REALLY similar to mine, down to the fact that she just wanted to take a nap after having the baby instead of holding her ;) Ha! It was really great to talk with women going through the exact same thing as me and to hear that we are all facing the same struggles and frustrations.

In Annie news this week, she has been fairly good - she gets in the habit of fighting sleep during the day (and sometimes at night too - VERY frustrating at 4am!) so we're trying to figure out her sleepy cues early. I have been trying to follow the E.A.S.Y. routine (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) during the day, which actually seems to be working pretty well. There usually is a very limited amount of time (20-30 minutes max) where Annie is awake but not fussing, so I try to just walk her around and talk to her during that time. One of my very favorite things to do is have her up on my shoulder and just rub and kiss her little cute face :) Ben has a harder time with activity time - I think he just feels dumb talking to her, so he mostly just holds her and dances around with her (typically either to really loud music or West Wing) and they stare at each other during her awake times :) Whatever works! As soon as she starts fussing, yawning, or otherwise indicating that she's pissy, we swaddle her up and try to help her fall asleep, which eventually works. I feel a LITTLE bad keeping her swaddled so much, but hey, if she sleeps better with it on, who cares?? It's pretty hilarious to watch her try to sleep unswaddled - her little arms flail up every minute or so :)

Sometimes she's REALLY fighting sleep, which is super frustrating - she's fed, burped, changed, etc and just CAN'T pull it together enough to go to sleep! Then we try everything, but no one thing always works - once and awhile her swing will work, sometimes the bouncer, sometimes white noise... and that is when we definitely get super frustrated! Luckily, the more frustrated one of us gets, the more patient the other gets - this has always happened with Ben and I with everything, like when he gets super pissed off at traffic, I don't think it's a big deal at all, and vice versa. Good thing too, because then Annie can be switched to the least frustrated parent :)

Annie is probably the noisiest sleeper ever - she grunts and squeaks and makes one cry and then is still sleeping. It makes our sleep VERY poor - I put the down comforter over my whole face to try to drown her out! As soon as she gets on some sort of predictable schedule and wakes maybe 1x per night, she's going down in her own room and the monitor will be turned down VERY low! When she REALLY wakes up, you can definitely tell (because she's full on screaming), but the problem for us now is that her room is on the main level and we can't hear ANYTHING from upstairs. I'm not sure if you can purchase a baby monitor that only picks up screams but not all the other noises??? That would be excellent :) She has been sort of predictably sleeping from 8pm or so until midnight or 1am, which is pretty nice - that is usually her longest stretch of sleep, so thus we also go to bed at 8pm. I'm really wondering if that will change anytime soon... doubtful!! It's to the point where if it's 8pm and I'm not either feeding her or in bed, I'm pretty pissy myself :)

I'm still tracking every feeding and diaper with my Total Baby iPhone app - I probably don't need to anymore, but I like the sense of knowing exactly how long she ate for and how long ago and also what side I left off on. I don't ever let her go more than 3 hours during the day, and I'm not sure I'd always remember if I didn't track it! Who knows... maybe someday I'll stop being so anal, but not yet :)

I think Annie is starting to really smile - I've seen more and more faces that appear to be smiles, even when she is awake! She also has VERY impressive neck strength, which she shows off especially when she's pissed off :) I don't even feel like we have to do official tummy time, because she is held upright a lot and definitely lifts her head up really well! We took a few outings together this week other than Mom and Baby class - we went to the mall one morning - she slept the whole time (which was an hour- turns out the mall is pretty boring)! I thought that might be a good indication of what she'd do the next day, but oh no, of course not :) On Friday, we met my friend Kelley at the Egg & I so I could finally enjoy Eggs Benedict again - Annie was in a VERY angry mood that morning, but miraculously she pulled it together long enough for me to at least eat (we alternated holding her). I did have to kind of rush out before she full on freaked out, but oh well! The eggs were delicious and worth it for sure :)

Nice huge frown!


Trip to the great-Grandparents' place for a birthday dinner!

In regards to my own recovery, I feel pretty much back to normal now - my post partum check up isn't for 2 more weeks, so I guess I'll find out at that time. I still think my stitches and other things aren't totally healed, but they aren't bothering me, so whatever. I'm feeling more confident in my parenting skills too, and much less anxious. The pit that was in my stomach that I referenced in my 2 Weeks post is pretty much gone, thankfully!

Yesterday, I was away from Annie for about 4 hours when I went with my sister to look at wedding dresses (she found one! yay!), and I definitely missed her and felt really guilty being gone - I thought that wouldn't happen to me, but.... I guess it does! It didn't help when Ben sent me this pic of Annie wanting to eat :( (he had another bottle, but I was on my way home so he held her off for a few minutes - he thought the pic was hilarious, but it made me cry!!) I think I just might end up being a mess when I go back to work! We have family who are SO excited to babysit Annie, which is really nice, because a few hour break really does refresh both of us!