This past month completed your awakening and you emerged into the world fully engaged. You coo, giggle, laugh and grin, especially when you first wake up. You stare up with big saucer blue eyes from the depths of your crib and then I watch your face melt into joy when your gaze latches on something familiar. You’ve even begun to babble a bit, mimicking the sounds of speech when encouraged and kicking your feet wildly.

Sadly though you were sick again this month, with a low grade fever and a nasty, persistent cold. I caught it as well and we sniffled, hacked and coughed up mucus together for the two weeks leading up to Christmas. Directly after the holidays you received your first round of immunizations and terrified me with inconsolable crying and a refusal to nurse for several long hours. A dose of ibuprofen to treat the swelling in your poor little puffy red thighs seemed to do wonders though. After 24 hours of unusually frequent napping, you returned to us hungry and jolly.

All of this continued interruption meant I remained imbedded in the couch in your room , cuddling you frequently and feeding you often. Your favorite place to drift off to sleep became my right shoulder , your butt scooted out and your downy little head snuggled into the crook of my neck. This has presented serious problems since not every activity can be done one handed and since you wake immediately when deposited into your bed, like the infamous princess and the pea. The advantage though has been that I feel like the baby whisperer, able to calm and quite you with a touch. You have made it clear though that the touch must be complete and au natural- you’ll accept no carriers or other people as substitutes and you can not be fooled.

You still love to sit in your crib, wriggling and grinning at Grandma through the webcam and staring at your twinkling Christmas lights. How, however, we’ve introduced you to your play gym and lay happily on the floor, laughing manically at the light up star’s goofy face. You’ve also begun to follow the mobile on your swing in it’s rhythmic modulations, enthralled and unable to stop moving your head in an effort to trace’s it’s path across your field of vision.

In unfortunate developments, you’ve suddenly decided you hate taking a bath, throwing out your hands to the side wildly each time I get in with you and doing an excellent imitation of a panicked downing. I gave up and bought a baby bath so you can sit comfortably and feel supported and that seems to have helped. Now you sit in the warm water, sucking your first and staring calmly at me until I finish torturing you.

There are a thousand little quirks that I wish I would always remember about your babyhood, like the ferocity of your yawns. Perhaps my favorite this month is when I am holding you and we descend stairs. You pulse your little fists against me in time with the descent down each step, , sucking in your breath, as if you are terrified I’ll drop you and your are attempting to hang on. I’ve tried to assure you I’ve got a firm grip and have never been known to fumble a baby in my entire life, but you remain unconvinced.

At your 2 month check up, the doctor informed us that your head has suddenly boomed, going straight from the 25% to the 75% percentile in a matter of two weeks. That’s some serious brain development. Your weight still hovers just below ten pounds but you’re growing quickly in the opposite direction, stretching out of all your footed pajamas with a height in the 75% percentile. A tall baby girl with piercingly big blue eyes, curly tea brown hair with glimmers of red and a penchant for foot rubs. That’s our girl!

Christmas Giggles

Saffron's Favorite Spot

Has it really only been one month since your arrival? It seems that you’ve been here for much longer than that, disrupting my sleep and reeking havoc on our lives. I’m relieved that you are finally healthy and each day you awaken a little more to the world around you.

We’ve begun to try to stretch the intervals between your feedings if only to gain some normalcy in our lives. This has been a point of contention for you and you’ve been vocal in your protests, living you to your “Mrs. Waaaahhh!” nickname.

You’re enthralled with your room and the Christmas lights running around the ceiling continue to be a source of wonderment and calm. You’ll crane your neck and wiggle your head to search the ceiling for their twinkling and lay contented on your changing table or in your crib , staring at their soft, yellow glow.

This past weekend I took Owen out for a mommy date so we could both remember what life without your presence felt like and you stayed home with Daddy for the afternoon. This did not go so well. You’ve begun to be quite attached to my presence and refused to take a bottle. This does not bode well for future outings.

I’ve spent weeks camped out on the tiny loveseat in your room, which is unfortunately not as comfortable as it first appears to be. Dozing fitfully with you on my chest, we’ve done our best to keep the contents of your stomach from resurfacing. You’ve continued to gain weight and we’ve been given permission to officially stop worrying but now we have another problem. An unfortunate side effect has become your inability to sleep long stretches (or any stretches!) in your bed and your conviction that sleep can only be attained when attached to a boob. We’re working on that.

Just yesterday, while watching you drift in and out of sleep,I saw you give an enormous grin and then coo and laugh delightedly. It was so adorable that even in my exhausted state I felt lucky to be holding you, staring into your face in the middle of the night.

It’s been a rough week and it would be something of an understatement to say you’ve given us quite a scare. After weighing in a few ounces shy of expectations at the doctor’s office, we were concerned and spent the first part of the week trying to minimize your tendency to regurgitate the entire contents of your stomach with every movement. We worried your ability to spout breast milk like a fountain was interfering with your equally important need to develop chubby cheeks and fat thighs. This involved essentially chaining myself to the loveseat in your bedroom so we could complete your marathon 45 minute nursing sessions without interruption and then hold you at a 45 degree angle for the next half hour, preferably asleep to minimize disturbance. Since you seem to be hungry every hour and a half, this has made the entire household a slave to the demands of your incessant, tiny stomach.
Towards the end of the week, while your father was conveniently out of town, you began to worry me with a bout of unusually heavy, nasally breathing and projectile vomiting. We brought you immediately into the doctor who confirmed that while you had gained some weight, you were still on track to a lifetime of soda and happy meals. We were given strict orders to return on Monday for another weigh in. Talk about pressure to perform- I’m trying to lose weight while ensuring that you gain it. There must be an easier way to perform the transfer that doesn’t involve quite so many bodily fluids.

We’d barely gotten home, myself already exhausted with worry, when it became obvious that you’d caught a cold. Your nasal congestion cut off your airway and made nursing difficult, leaving you choking and sputtering for breath. By Saturday evening, after a late night trip to urgent care, we’d rushed you to the ER, where they tested you for RSV (negative), poked and prodded and then sent you home to suffer through. We spent some terrible hours between steam bath showers, snot sucking and sauna like conditions in your bedroom, before we finally found relief and you began to eat and breath easier.

You’ve nearly fully recovered three days later and have passed into a stage of ferocious hunger. For the past few days I’ve spent three or four hour stretched doing nothing but nursing you almost constantly, allowing you to sleep wormed into the curve of my chest and shoulder, warm and heavy. All this effort has gained you several ounces and a return to good health, at least for now.

There are other notable things this week besides the excitement of illness. Your fascination with your hands continues and you waggle your fingers and clasp them together often, like an evil villianess plotting some sort of mischief. You’ve begun to smile in earnest now, a gummy, lunatic grin and usually unrelated to anythign in particular. The color of the wall or a particularly interesting bit of ceiling seems to be deserving of a good laugh.

Your brother seems to have hit upon an excellent nickname for you that’s really catching on- “Mr.s Waaaaaah!” He calls you that affectionately, mimicking your cries of outrage when you are cold or hungry. Despite our best efforts, both your Dad and I have found the nickname adorably funny and I think you’re stuck with it.
My best laid plans to put you on a schedule and get you to sleep in your own bed have been thwarted by all the drama and I hope that next week will bring calm and rest for the both of us.

Big Brother

Saffron Anne Weida

Now that your umbilical cord has fallen out this week, we’ve had the opportunity to discover your love of water. When lowered and submerged into the bath, you are apparently transported to baby nirvana. You kick your legs out, relax your head back and open your eyes wide, serenely gazing into the distance. You cry only when removed into the cruel, dry, cold air.

Everyday you are awakening a bit more to your surroundings, beginning to smile and coo in recognition. Although you are still capable of sleeping through the most surprising inconveniences (translates into running a vacuum next to your crib during nap). Recently you slept six and a half hours straight through at night. On a recent shopping outing, I visited no less than 8 stores in 3 hours. You never even lifted an eyelid to inquire about the situation from your infant seat.

You still howl like a banshee at the outrage of being naked though. And you naturally still sleep best in our bed, nestled in my arms and snug under a pile of blankets. You’ve also begun to demonstrate a talent for spitting up large amounts, one of your brother’s most notable traits as a baby. I think you may even give him a run for his money in the volume department.

Tomorrow we’ll visit the doctor to ensure we’re fattening you up like a holiday turkey. I certainly hope he’ll give his approval since I’ve begun to feel like my sole purpose in life is akin to being a dairy cow. Sleep, nurse, rinse, repeat. It’s a good thing I have plenty of practice living life one handed from when your brother was a baby. It’s like having a disability where your butt has been super glued to the nursing couch and you can only use one hand at a time to function in the world. Ready, set, go! But I’m willing to make the sacrifice since the thought of you languishing into skinny malnutrition leaves me terrified. Once we have a green light to try to resume normal life where I’m not nursing one out of every two hours, then we’ll work on transitioning you into your own room and your own crib, to sleep perchance to dream.

You’ve spent the majority of your first week curled in a ball, deeply slumbering. You are rarely fussy, except when the smallest sliver of your bare skin is exposed to the cold air. It’s as if you are fighting to return to your watery dreamworld, dark and quiet.

All this sleeping has your father and I flabbergasted and worried. It seems so strange to cart you around the house snoring while life in its noisy chaos carries on without you. This sleepy, good natured baby is not what we were expecting. In your few waking hours you are difficult to engage and only in the last few days has the milk film and haze dissolved from your piercingly blue eyes. You often seem unable to focus those luminous pools on anything substantial beyond light and shadow. But you seem to know my voice and certain the smell of my skin. When I near you, you turn your head instinctively and begin to root, sticking out your tongue and wiggling your head.

You are a champion eater and thus a champion pooper. Your talent for noisily filling a diaper and peeing exactly when the diaper is removed is rather unladylike and something I hope you grow out of. You’ve also got the most ferocious yawn, like a little lion about to devour something, always concluding w3ith a vigorous shake of your head.

We’ve noticed, perhaps because your head is so tiny, that you’ve got decent control and can turn and lift it surprisingly well for a newborn. As we had begun to suspect from your ultrasounds, you’ve got a serious love affair with your hands and those slender, pointy fingers. You’re already adept at using them to draw things toward your mouth and you keep them folded on your chest or clutched near your mouth when sleeping. Your favorite thing is to hold hands when drifting off to sleep currently, which is rather adorable.

Little Love

Also falling under the perpetually cute category are those little mewing sounds you make when you are asleep , faint like a little kitten. And when we stroke your cheek near the crease of your neck and ear, you giggle and grin as if it tickles. I’ve gotten into the habit of calling you “little love” and it seems to suit your sleepy, cuddly self.

At your three day check in they expressed concern at your weight loss since birth so this first week we’ve kept you in our bed right by my side, eating every hour and a half. I’m sure I’ll regret it later but for now I feel comforted to simply be with you. To know you’re safe and warm and full.

The story of your birth begins the night before Hallow’s Eve. A stormy day full of gray skies and wind had given way to a crisp, fall night. We’d just been carving jack o’ lanterns and finished dinner when the contractions began.

I realized immediately these were different, low, protracted cramping accompanied by back pain. It was Saturday night and as I tucked your brother Owen into bed, I began to track and record. They seemed like a climb up and down stairs, sometimes 8, then 12 minutes apart then back to 8. But they were persistent and growing in intensity. After a oak in the bath, the contractions worsened and we called our midwife, Karen, who told us to head to the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital freshly showered and with minimal fuss, having already packed most necessities and waking your brother from sleep. He awoke immediately, excited and clear headed and full of chatter all the way to the labor and delivery ward of the hospital, just a two minute drive down the street.

It was 11 pm when we arrived, your witching hour when you were always the most active in my belly, kicking and rolling.As I settled into the delivery room and they began the check in process, it became apparent that things were progressing rather quickly. I was dilated to a four and thinning rapidly.The rush to insert an IV and ensure a double does of antibiotics began. By 2 am I was an 8 and the pain of the contractions was no longer something I could bear in silence. While Owen and Dad crashed on the terribly uncomfortable couch in the room, I rode each wave of pain, grateful to crash on the other side. Later, Dad came to help, pressing my knees to try to equalize the pain the splintered through my back. You were close.

When I was finally fully dilated, they let me know it wouldn’t be long until Karen arrived and I could begin pushing. The nurse and Dad assisted in holding my shaking legs back while I pushed and grunted with each contraction. They had to break the water to ease your downward progress. After just 6 or 8 pushes you crowned and emerged, slithering out with a splash of water and a cry into our world.

It was 4:28 am. I felt enormous relief that labor was over and crashed back into the bed, shaking with adrenaline. They sponged you down and wrapped you up. We offered to let Owen cut your cord, but he insisted he didn’t know how and so Dad did it. Owen was the first to hold you though and look into your little face. As Karen finished stitching me up, they brought you to me and I put you immediately to my breast. After a few hesitant mews and some head shaking, you latched and sucked and pretty much stayed there for the next two hours.

Dad says when you were born your back was covered in vernix, the white protective wax like substance that seals in your soft baby skin from your water world, so thick we could have scrapped it off with a spoon. Your hands and feet were wrinkled like an old woman’s , but you had chubby baby cheeks and a sweet downy head covered in long, thick dark brown hair.

You suckled and slept on my chest listening to my heartbeat for those first few dawning hours until the sun christened your birthday. While Dad and Owen crashed into a deep, dead sleep, I snuggled you close, grateful to have those first few silent hours together.

After Birth