Off to Michigan!!

We leave this afternoon for Michigan for the next 6 days!!  I'm soooooooo excited, I can't wait for my parents to see Elsa again and how she's changed and grown!  And my grandparents get to meet her, too, that will be so cute!!!  Yes, I'm so super excited!!!

Elsa also gets to take her first plane ride today!  I so hope it goes okay.  I think it will, so I hope I'm not being overly optimistic.  My hope is that since I'm so relaxed about it, she'll be so relaxed as well.  And I have Elsa's little baby passport all ready to go, it's so cute!

Oh yes - and Happy 2 Months to my little girl!!!!!!!!

Love Love Love Love Love

Dec 16 - Elsa discovered she could bat at her toys!!!

I'm so in love with this little girl!!!  I've been thinking about it the last couple days.  She's only 8 weeks old and I'm so attached already.  What will I be like when she's 4 months old, 8 months old, 2 years old?!?  It's almost scary to me because right now I can of course easily protect her and keep her close to me always, but in a couple years she'll start slowly becoming more independent and I'll be having to already let go a little.

So yes, this little girl has so captured my heart.  I love every little sound she makes.  I love every little face she makes.  I love all her different expressions, all her different moods.  I love the way she stretches huge when she's waking up.  I love the chirping sounds she makes in her sleep.  I love the way her little legs kick out when she's playing on the floor.  I love the way she rubs her eyes.  I love the way she spits out her pacifier and then immediately wants it back, and turns her head to the side opening her mouth for it.  I love the excited expression she makes when she's hungry and knows she's about to get food.  I love the way she keeps opening and closing her little mouth when she's really hungry after a very long sleep.  I love the way she smiles and laughs when she's in her little gym.  I love the silly milk-drunk face she makes after eating.  I love the way she stares at the big painting behind our couch.  I love her little face when she's laying on my chest and looking up at the painting.  I love her little grunts when she's trying to push out a fart.  I love how silly it sounds when she pushes out a big poop explosion.  I even love the smell of her poop - yes, I did say that and yes I do, it smells sweet and so her so somehow I love it.  I love the little curve of her nose.  I love how her whole eye area, from eyebrow down, turns red when she's upset or tired.  I love her expression of disgust when I give her her medicine twice a day (I understand, when I taste it on her pacifier I make the same face).  I love the sound of her half-upset cry.  I love how she calms down and stares at me when I cradle her tight, hold her hands and keep her pacifier in her mouth.  I love the loud sailor burps she has sometimes.  I love how she grasps at me with one hand while she's breastfeeding.  I love how soft the top of her head is.  I love how perfectly plump and soft her little cheeks are.  I love her excited kissy face.  I love her silly pirate face.  I love love love her stretching-back-and-to-the-side face (I still haven't captured that on camera, it's one thing I NEED to capture).  I love her little arms.  I love her little legs.  I love her little feet.  I love her little belly.  I love how she's loud in her sleep sometimes (not because it's fun for me but because it's something that's her so it's so cute to me).  I love how she laughs and smiles for me when I talk excitedly to her.  I love how she cries while I'm sucking out boogies but is immediately fine afterward.  I love her smell.  I love how she loves me doing baby bicycles on her.  I love holding her when she sleeps.  I love kissing her and her little various expressions when I do.  I love how she loves her bounces and jumps.  I love being close to her.  I love looking at her.  I love my little daughter so much.  My heart is so full.

My silly girl!!  :)  December 15 - almost 8 weeks old

Now to more deep and sad thoughts, but thoughts that come because I realize just how strong a mother's protective and unconditional love is.  I sometimes find myself thinking of all the mothers who ever existed who lost their children and how absolutely awful it must have been for them.  I don't know why I have these terrible thoughts sometimes.  When Elsa is having a bad stretch sometimes and is wailing and wailing in my arms, it's awful and stressful for me but I deal okay - but I find that when she's crying like that and I'm not holding her, it's almost painful for me and I NEED to hold her to try to soothe her.  It was during one of her first baths at home, when Jody was giving her the bath and I was taking photos and she was wailing - and I was telling her it was okay but she was just looking at me wailing away, that I suddenly thought of all the mothers whose babies were torn from their arms and the babies were wailing and the mothers were powerless to go to them - I can't imagine that pain as a mother, not being able to hold and soothe your baby and let them know they are loved and protected and safe.  My mind went to the Holocaust for some reason, and mothers with babies who got off trains, and probably had their crying babies torn from their arms before they were sent to the camps alone - and their last view of their babies was their babies looking at them wailing, begging to be rescued and held and loved and instead it was the opposite.  I started tearing up right there during her bath when these images and emotions started flashing through my mind, and I managed to bring myself back to reality but it's stuck with me and I've thought of it a number of times since.  Jody watched a documentary recently and in it, a woman and her friend were murdered in their house and her infant was in the house at the time, and that has stuck in my head, what this woman must have been thinking when she knew she was going to be killed and she couldn't get to her baby to protect it, and also knew her baby would grow up without her.  I'm certainly not thinking about these terrible scenarios and situations all the time or most of the time, but I guess it's my way of acknowledging that in some ways, it's scary to love someone so much and feel so protective of them.  My heart so goes out to all the women throughout history who have had to go through awful situations of having their children taken from them or hurt, I truly can't imagine the pain and in some cases, how they could go on.

So back to happy thoughts and reality!  Last Thursday, December 16th, Elsa first batted at a toy!!  I was so excited and proud and she did it over and over again!  They were the toys that hang down on her bouncer, and before that day I'd had the toy bar taken off so that was the first time she was sort of sitting up with toys hanging in front of her (as opposed to laying down in her gym with toys hanging above her head - I often take her little hands and show her how to bat at the toys, but she has never done it on her own before).

Elsa is also becoming such a good little sleeper now!  She usually sleeps at least 5 hours in a stretch at the start of the night, and in the last week she's had a number of nights with 6 or 7 hours in that first stretch!!  So nice for me!!!  And she's so cute when she does wake up then, cause I pick her up and she's immediately opening and closing her little mouth and rooting towards me, it's so adorable!  And if I take too long to get the pillow adjusted and get everything set, she starts fussing!  So I'm usually up with her for an hour then, I first feed her and burp her, then change her, then feed her again, and then it takes awhile to lull her back to sleep (I stay very quiet the whole time and don't talk to her, and when I have her settled in my arms afterward I put her pacifier in and then I do my own thing - reading news on my phone, etc. - while she is quiet and eventually falls back asleep.  After that, though, we don't have as long stretches.  She often wakes up two hours later, sometimes a little more but sometimes a little less, and that's painful for me cause I'm back in a deep sleep.  I don't think she's usually hungry then, she either has gas, or she just wakes up and can't fall back asleep.  I usually try giving her her paci first and half that time that gets her to fall asleep for another half hour or hour, which is good enough for me.  Then after that I'll usually pull her over next to me (she sleeps in a bed that's attached to our bed so she's the same level as me) and have her breastfeed while we're both laying down - I couldn't do it when she was littler cause it was too hard to get her in the right position, etc. but now we have it down, I just lay facing her and I turn her on her side facing me, and have her at the right level as my boob and she finds it and latches right on, it's fabulous!  And then we often fall back asleep after that for sometimes a couple more hours.  I'm so not a morning person and I think it would actually be easier for me to wake up at 5 a.m than at 7 a.m. cause I fall into a really deep sleep early in the morning and it's really hard to wake up from it, all I can think about is getting back to sleep for just a little while at least. 

Over the past week I've been finally really selecting all of my favorite photos I've taken of Elsa and uploading them to smugmug for our families and friends to be able to view anytime - and I can share many more photos that way, I like that!!  And it's been so cool to see the changes already in her!  I started with the most recent photos - December photos - and I've just finished and uploaded all the final November photos.  Next I still have to make an album and choose the photos for October, her birth and her first week and a half!  Today I looked at a few photos from when she was a week old!  I can totally tell it's Elsa, she still looks the same to me in many ways, but of course more filled out, too.  What really struck me was looking at some photos from last week of her in her gym and remembering similar photos I took when she was 2 1/2 weeks old.  I need to show what I'm talking about here:

November 9 - 2 1/2 weeks old

December 14 - 7 1/2 weeks old

Now I realize the lighting and color are different, and she's making a little more of an excited kissy-face in the first one, but look at how much her little face has filled out!!  That's amazing!!!  I love looking at this now cause on the one hand I can tell she's growing and getting bigger - her legs are a little thicker, she's grown 3 inches since she was born, I know she's filled out, etc. - but on the other hand she's still my tiny baby and doesn't seem to have changed THAT much to me!  So this is amazing to see!!!  She can still wear her Elmo PJ's, too - so because she still fits in almost all her newborn clothes I still feel like she's teensy!

Okay that's all for tonight.  Lots of sweet thoughts and depressing deep thoughts!  I've been meaning though to write about the depressing thoughts cause it's part of what this experience is for me, so I want to document it - and really it's about realizing just how deep and strong this love is.

I'll add in a couple more cute photos!!

December 14 - laughs for mommy!!!

December 14 - laughing in her gym!

December 14 - this was RIGHT before she rolled over for the first time - tipping over to her side, then tipping onto her side, then tipping and rolling back to her back!  And she did it again right afterward and then 3 hours later for daddy!

P.S. As I was just adding in these last photos, Elsa was starting to make lots of pushing and grunting noises in her sleep - she's in her bouncer right next to me.  A big loud blast of poop came out a minute ago, and now she's pushing out a bunch of farts!  :)  So cute!!  She still hasn't fully woken up, her eyes haven't opened yet, but she keeps pushing out farts.  That's good, she's been really farty all day so the more she can get out right now on her own, the better, and then I'll help her with baby bicycles and presses when she wakes up (but she'll want to eat first, then I'll change her diaper, and I want her to go back to sleep pretty quickly, and also after she eats it's tough cause the presses sometimes push out spit-up - so hence me being happy that she's pushing out a bunch right now on her own!)!

I'm back!

I haven't updated this for awhile!  I didn't mean to not write, but I think I didn't because after my last post I wrote out Elsa's birth story but was waiting to add in the photos and then post it, and somehow I felt like I had to finish that before posting anything new.  But today I decided to get back to regular posts anyway and I'll post that whenever I can.

7 weeks old

Elsa is almost 8 weeks old!  Wow, I didn't even think that tomorrow is Thursday so we're so close to 8 weeks (Fridays are the start of new weeks)!  And a week from today she'll be 2 months old!  I see her changing all the time now, learning new things and I think also growing a little bigger.  She smiles very often now and even laughs, too!!!  That's one of the coolest things ever, to get my little girl to give me so many little baby smiles!  And it's so funny to see her playing in her little gym and looking at all the hanging toys (Mr. Parrot is her favorite right now) and smiling and laughing away at them!

7 weeks old, smiling at her little lambs going around!

 She is also looking at people much more now.  She looks at me when I talk and looks at Jody when he's talking, and will turn her head to look toward our voices if we're not holding her.  And she looks at other people who are holding her, too.  She also holds her head up better every single day!  I love that I can put her on my shoulder now and walk around with her that way, and she can look out over my shoulder or off to the side - I still have my hand on her head if she's wobbly or just behind to catch it, but she's so much more sturdy than when she was brand new.  And her legs are so strong!!  She even ROLLED OVER yesterday!!!  From her tummy to her back.  The first time I'm sure it was an accident, she tipped to the side, then tipped further and was on her side, then tipped backward and was on her back.  But then she did it again right after that, and then three hours later she did it for Jody when he came home!  So she's doing well with her large motor skills!

The fine motor skills are coming a little slower.  She grasps onto my shirt or bra when I'm feeding her, and grasps my hair or shirt when I hold her upright, and she'll sometimes grasp something if I put it in her hand (usually by prying apart her little fists), but she rarely will hold something for long and often won't grasp it at all.  She's also not studying her hands yet or even batting at things.  I feel fine though, she's just a little slower in getting that part but I know some babies get that early, some right on time and some late.  And she's doing other things (like the rolling over) early, and most things she's right on schedule with so I'm so happy with all she's learning and how she's progressing!

7 weeks old

7 weeks old - I love those little legs!!

So a brief update of the last couple weeks:

"Extreme fussiness/colic" - that's the term used in the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby.  The author/doctor gave the standard definition of a colicky baby but for the first time I saw that it didn't have to be 3 consecutive hours, just 3 hours a day (of trying to soothe a very fussy baby), 3 days a week, for 3 weeks.  I had been wondering if Elsa was a little bit colicky.  From I think about Week 3 to Week 6 or so, she was really fussy especially in the evenings - usually we'd have at least 2 hours of her being overly tired and really fussy.  I wasn't sure though if I could call it colic because usually you hear about screaming babies being colicky, and granted we had a few meltdowns and often would have a short one just before she finally fell asleep, but most of the time it was just really fussy (and she would start crying if we didn't work to soothe her or change things up for her).  But as I read his discussion of colicky babies, and read some accounts of other parents in his book, I knew that Elsa had a mild case of being an extremely fussy/colicky baby.

What I like about this author is that he talks about how, for most babies, the fussiness is more the problem and not constant crying, because they can be partially soothed by their parents.  And he also terms it a sleep disorder more than anything else.  And that so fits Elsa - sometimes, especially in the evenings, she just can't go to sleep.  She'll be so tired, her eyes will try to close many times but she always pops back awake.  She's often awake for 5 hours at a time, and usually that is in the evenings.

The biggest thing that this book gave me was a sense of relief.  Yes that sounds crazy, but I finally knew that it wasn't my fault, it wasn't something I was doing wrong, it wasn't anything wrong with my milk (sometimes (before we learned about this and also started using the pacifier) she would keep telling me she wanted to eat but then not really eat or seem to fight with the boob and end up crying, or just soothe on the boob instead of eating much), and it also wasn't anything wrong with her ultimate personality.  It's just something she has now.  And this book also gave me a kind of game plan.  Not too different from what we were doing, but I know now that at the first sign of her getting sleepy, or if she's been awake for an hour and a half or two hours, I start soothing her and getting her in a calm state to try to get her to sleep.  Often she won't fall asleep for a very long time, but I get her still regardless and have her sucking on her soother and let her have her "quiet awake" time until she eventually falls asleep.  When she starts fighting it and getting fussy, I just hold the soother in her mouth, gently hold her little hands against her, and talk quietly or do the "shhh, shhh, shhh" to her until she calms back down.  It doesn't always go perfectly but I feel like I'm generally more in control now and know what's going on and what to do, so knowledge is power and confidence here!

The author also said that all babies' fussiness peeks at 6 weeks from their due date.  That was so good to know!  And really, Elsa is so much better already.  Or else we're less affected by her fussiness and more used to it.  Or we're better at controlling it - thanks to the wonderful pacifier!  Or all three!  I actually don't think she's even that fussy anymore now - well she still has some fussy times during each awake period, but they are minimal now and only occasionally do we have some serious fussiness or weeping.

We still go mostly by her schedule of when she wakes up and when she naps, but now I have a little more control of the awake times.  I feed her and change her, then we play at the beginning cause she's usually pretty happy and loves laying in her little gym or on the floor with me showing her toys, or I walk her around showing her things.  Then I'll start more soothing things, so sometimes she's happy to sit in her swing and watch her little lambs go around, or I'll hold her and read her books or sing to her, or just hold her and let her look at things and have her quiet awake time.  And then by the end I'm just holding her and being quiet and keeping the pacifier in her mouth and letting her get sleepy.  Sometimes she'll go in her swing or bouncer when she's like that and I stay by her and she'll sometimes eventually fall asleep - other times she'll nod off and pop back awake.  But having the progression from fun to calm is good and I know she needs to just stay as calm as possible and eventually sleep will come.

The book says that the biggest risk of parents with overly fussy babies is that when she's fully past it, we don't start teaching her good sleeping habits.  So by 4 months, we should be doing normal things.  For example, right now we can't put her down when she's drowsy or she'll pop back awake and just get upset - that's normal for colicky babies.  But by 4 months, we'll have to be having a schedule and getting her drowsy and then putting her down to bed so she learns then to put herself to sleep and to have a schedule.  But it wouldn't work now, which really made me feel so good cause we'd heard other sleep experts say (on audiobooks or podcasts) that you need to be putting your baby down with it's drowsy so the baby learns to put itself to sleep - but whenever we tried that it so didn't work and we were slightly worried that we were already making mistakes and training her wrong!

So anyway, she's doing much better now, we're able to deal with it better and control it better, and we'll watch for when we can start teaching her more.  I've even noticed a change in the past week - she will sometimes now sit or lay quietly by herself when she's awake, and that's amazing because before she always needed to be held!  And over the past few days she's fallen asleep in her bouncer or swing more and they were deep and long sleeps.  Oh - and she's generally sleeping about 5 hours at the start of the night!  That's great if I go to sleep right when she does, but often I don't (and the last few days she's fallen asleep really early in the evening so the 5 hours starts then).  Twice she's slept 6 and 7 hours which was fabulous and amazing (although at first I worried that a) something was wrong with her or b) I didn't wake up when she was fussing).  But then the second half of the night is not so good.  Then she's waking up every 2-2.5 hours, or sometimes even less.  So the early mornings often suck.  I think often she wakes up because of gas, not because she's hungry.  We have a constant battle with gas.

Okay I'm going to end this, this is really long.  I should have just been posting all along and then I'd have a bunch of short posts and not this super long one.  Anyway today Elsa was really pretty good.  She was awake a lot but generally calm, just a few slightly fussy periods.  She took a number of short naps during the day which was nice (that doesn't always happen), and tonight she had a bath and hated it but we cuddled a lot afterward and I LOVE that!  And then she fell asleep around 8, which is so early for her norm (although the last couple days she's fallen asleep early - I think she's going through a growth spurt).  It's 11:30 now so she'll probably wake up anytime in the next hour and a half, and then I just hope that she'll have a quick feed and change and go back to sleep nicely.

And one final thing for this post - she is so cute and sweet!!!!!!!  I love this little girl so so so much!!!!!  :)  And now I'll get back to posting regularly!  :)

6 weeks old - her excited look!

6 weeks old, big smiles!!!!!

I LOVE her little excited looks so much!!

7 weeks old - she loves to spit out her paci and then immediately start fussing cause she wants it back, silly girl!