Step One: Observation Juliet is chewing her hands, spitting out her pacifier and crying. It has been about two hours since she last ate, she must be hungry. Step Two: Interpretation & Preparation I prepare zee bottle. Step Three: Distribution I give the bottle to Juliet, she appears to be drinking it, but when I check it almost no formula has come out. Then, she passes out to snooze.
Ok....
Step Four: Reevaluate
Ok she must not be hungry. I set the bottle down on the coffee table and don't put it back in the fridge so I don't have to heat it up again when she actually is hungry...which should be soon because it's been 2 hours since she last ate.
BUT I only have one hour before it goes bad..............
Step Five: Attempt to Move On
I put her in her chair to sleep. And attempt to get something else done. 20 minutes go by.
This week she started PLAYING!! Which has been amazing and soooo dang adorable.
Check this out:
Also cutesy:
This is the sort of stuff that makes all that hard work of her first few weeks WORTH IT!!!
And things have been getting better. She is sleeping for longer periods of time and we are BLESSED with lots of help from her loving Grandma and Nana who have been stopping by to help out so Daddy can work on his dissertation and Mommy can go to sleep or get some stuff done around the house.
We are soo sooo lucky to have their help.
In fact, this weekend Juliet is spending the night at Nana and Pop Pop's house for the first time so Mommy and Daddy can go to a dinner party and sleep in Sunday.
WE. ARE. SO. EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am going to miss her like Whoa but...
It is gonna be AWESOME to sleep in Sunday morning....
Thanks in advance Mom & Dad!!!!
Here are some more pictures. I have a bit of an addiction to taking pictures of my beautiful girl:
She had her One Month doctor's appointment yesterday and she now weights 9.5 lbs. So that is right on track with a 2.5lb weight gain since her birth. She is also now 22 inches long. Doc says she looks beautiful and healthy. She also had her 2nd does of Hep B vaccine yesterday which of course scared Mommy WAY more than Juliet (probably because Daddy held her hands the hold time :) helping with her bravery).
The first few weeks of Juliet's life were a giant haze that felt like one REALLY long weekend. Everything meshed together and if I wanted to know what day of the week it was, I needed to check my phone.
BTW where the heck is my damn phone?
It took me about 4 weeks to finish this post, as I had to start and stop it several times because our little lady would cry every time I got near the computer. ;)
We have had a parade of visitors which was crazy but so touching how many people love our Juliet so much!
Here are some pics:
Nana and Pop Pop
"Auntie" Susan and "Uncle" Justin ( Juliet's Godparents)
"Hey you are pretty awesome, will you be my godparents?" XOXOXOO -Juliet
Aunt Brittney
Uncle Jarrod
Grandpa
Grandpa & Grandma
Grandma & Nana
Cousins Cami & Mady
AND.... Let me just say that ALL of the stuff people tell you about newborns.....is Freakin true!
Here are some examples:
1. You're lucky if you can get a hot meal or take a shower.
I thought how hard is it to take a shower? or eat I'll just set her down and get it done while she's sleeping....YEAH RIGHT.
Someone (ahem Juliet) doesn't really like to sleep unless she is being held.
Shower: Can happen with Juliet (especially since she peed in her hair again) which means I can wash my hair with one hand and only use 2 in 1 shampoo which leaves my un-blow dried hair full of static electricity and amazingly unattractive.
OR I can take a quick one during one of her naps in the bouncy chair which are all at different times of the day so sometimes I'm showering at 9pm.
My food:
My diet now mostly consists of poptarts (un-toasted which pretty much makes it a frosted cookie not a delicious warm poptart) eaten with one hand on poptart one on baby.
2. Mommy brain is worse than pregnancy brain.
When I was pregnant, I thought, "How can it get worse than this?"
LMAO.
That shiznat was NOTHING!
Since Juliet's been home, I've burned 3 meals, forgot to turn the oven off once and can't be trusted to have an important conversation that lasts for more than 2 minutes.
Scratch that. One minute. ;)
ETC.
3. When you are with your newborn all day long you will instantly hand her to your husband when he gets home and say "All yours!".
I thought no way! I'll want to hold my baby 24/7 all day. Not so much after doing it for 14 hours with only an hour nap. As much as I love holding her, every night once Steve walks through the door "Here you go Stevie!".
4. Breastfeeding is hard.
100% true, but this is a bit of an understatement. I'd say if you are a Mom like me that it didn''t come easy to, I'd like to change this statement to:
Breastfeeding is FREAKIN hard.
My Peanut wouldn't latch (screamed her little head off every time we tried) so now the only breast milk she gets is what I'm able to pump.
The Crap I didn't know (or hear about):
How hard it is if your newborn has feeding issues because of the pressure from the lactation consultants at the hospital and everyone around you that breastfeeding came easier to that is "trying to help" by offering their two sense. My lesson learned here: My boobs are my boobs and I'm going to do with them what is best for me. I'd offer the same advice to any new Mom who is struggling with this. That and, It Gets Better...
5. IT GETS BETTER
As we are coming to the one month mark the baby blues have gone away, we've adjusted to the fact that Juliet is getting formula and pumped breast milk and she is on a "sort-of" sleep schedule that Steve and I are doing our best to work with. Example, my bedtime is now about 7-8pm.
Oh Yeah. I like to party. ;)
6. IT'S ALL WORTH IT!
The first time she smiled in her sleep and made a noise that wasn't a cry...a bit of a coo or an ahhh it is the cutest damn thing EVA! I can't wait for the next few weeks when she starts interacting with us more.
Here are some videos of our Peanut!
More pictures, videos and blog posts to come soon! (Or as I can get to the computer LOL)
