Snapshots & Sunshine: All about Rose

Having a newborn is great! I'm sure other mothers can relate to the fact that I just sat down to write this and as I was getting all set up Rose was sleeping soundly a couple feet away from me, but as soon as she realized I was not holding her anymore (or that I was doing something other than paying attention to her) she woke up and started crying. But I'm going to see if I ignore her for just a minute if she'll go back to sleep. Fingers crossed. (She'll thank me later when she has a detailed record of what she was like as a baby...)

Before I talk about Rose I'll just take a moment to catch you up on Ryan and I. Ryan has been working two jobs since summer started and he has worked every. single. day. for weeks. It's been kind of lame, but adulthood has to be lame sometimes. One of his coworkers quit the other day so even on his days off he has to go in. :( Luckily, Sam's Club offers a 6 week paid paternity leave, that he can take anytime after the baby is born, so that starts next week. He'll only work his other job for a couple weeks and then we'll have a few weeks of fun. As for me, I spend my days with a little baby.

All day every day.

I have gotten away a couple of times in the last week though. Ryan and I finally went on a date with just the two of us last week to Heber City. We ate at a little cafe and then got milk shakes and we happened to be there on the night of their farmers market, so I also got cotton candy. (I have a thing for cotton candy... and Ryan loves me so he always gets me some when we find it.) I have also gone to the grocery store twice without her and to a girls night at Denny's. Other than that, I am pretty much always with her. Which is fun, but a little exhausting.

Now, onto what you really care about: Rose.

She's almost 7 weeks old. (I'm not punctual enough to write one of these every week or every month at a specific time, so you'll just have to accept getting 7 week old updates or 3 3/4 month old updates whenever I get the time or the motivation to write something.) We still think she's super duper cute. I can't get enough of her. (Actually, sometimes I can, and that's when I hand her to Ryan and let him comfort her.)

I don't have any other 7 week old babies that I spend literally every single day with to compare her to, so I don't know what is unique to her or pretty general 7 week old stuff. But I'll tell you all about her anyways because I'm sure you're just DYING to hear all about my cute baby.

Let's see:

She sleeps GREAT at night. I've only woken up to feed her in the middle of the night once in the last two weeks. She almost always sleeps from 9:30 PM until 5 or 6 AM. (We are so grateful for that.)

She is always hungry. When I burp her after a feeding she head butts my shoulder like a little woodpecker to let me know that she was not, in fact, finished. (Also, I'm pretty sure that she spits up in order to make room for more food. The stinker.)

She prefers to nap with her arms and legs free. She likes to keep her arms up by her head.

She stretches all the time. She's in a constant state of stretching.

At night I make her sleep in her pack n' play but in the morning when I feed her I'll let her lay next to me and fall asleep on her side, like a little adult. I think it's the cutest thing ever.

Ryan and I do everything we can to get her to smile, and sometimes she graces us with some really cute smiles (dimple included) and other times she raises one eyebrow and looks at us like we are idiots. The times that she does smile are normally because she thinks she is about to eat some more, but I think she is starting to smile occasionally because she likes us.

She kicks her legs a lot. She has very long and powerful legs for a baby. When she's happy/excited she kicks them straight up in the air really fast. When she's mad she just kicks me. (She has a gift for kicking me the most when I'm hurting, for instance, I got sick this week and found out I had mastitis. So, I had a migraine, I felt dizzy, and my boobs hurt and all day she just cried and kicked me in the chest. It was just one of those days...By the way, I feel much better now.)

We've trained her to fall asleep to Enya. Our house sounds very much like a spa sometimes. (Doesn't feel like one though.)

She only poops like once a week, which is fantastic for me (and perfectly normal according to the pediatrician, so don't worry.)

We started taking her to the pool and she is okay with the water. She actually took a nap the whole time we were there last time. However, getting into and out of her swimsuit is pretty much the worst form of torture we could inflict upon her. The world ends every time.

She is a very noisy eater and sleeper. She snores, she grunts (like an old man), and she breathes very quickly.

She has a receding hairline, which makes me sad, but I'm told her hair will grow back, so I'm hoping it will grow back quickly.

Ryan and I are super excited at how well she is doing at holding her head up. I will be so much less worried about her once she can hold her head up on her own. We make her do tummy time frequently to help her develop those muscles. Like her mom (and grandma), she hates exercise, but it has to be done.

She can sense anytime I am about to eat something, because that's when she decides to be must upset and most hungry. (Literally every single time I go into the kitchen to find something to eat, she finds herself in the depths of despair.)

She has her mom and dad totally and completely wrapped around her teeny tiny perfect little fingers.

Well, that's Rose for you. She's really super duper cute, sometimes we joke about sending her back, but we never actually would. I can't wait for her to recognize me as her favorite person ever and to be excited to see me when I come and rescue her from her naps, rather than crying more to let me know how displeased she is with me leaving her alone for any amount of time at all. And I can't wait for her smiles to be for me and not just for my milk.

Until then, I'll just keep being her mostly patient mom and feeding her every 30 minutes all day every day and trying to help her understand that when I suck the snot out of her nose with those little snot sucker things that I am doing it for her own comfort and well being, not to ruin her life. I'll keep talking to her like she understands everything I'm saying and letting her kick me. And I'll keep watching her for hours on end while she snores in her sleep because I would rather not do anything else. Because somehow, even though being a full-time mom is very different (and sometimes difficult) from the ways I spent my time before she got here, something about her makes it absolutely 100% worth it, and watching her sleep seems like a perfectly reasonable, acceptable, and pleasant way to spend my time.

I mentioned the one eyebrow raise...

Milk coma.

I mentioned she likes to have her hands free. At night this is supposed to swaddle her (like a straight jacket), but she wiggles around until she gets her hands free and then she'll fall asleep.