Three Weeks

First, huge congratulations to my good friend, Deanna, on the birth of her beautiful baby boy! I am so excited for her and her husband, since we have had parallel TTC and infertility journeys. What a blessing that Evie and her son be born within a month of each other. Please visit her and offer congratulations. In other friend news, Jen has a new blog. Go over and read about her life raising my 9-month-old godson while pregnant with #2.

This morning, Evie turned three weeks old. It feels like yesterday that I posted her two week information. Yikes. My mom has been here for almost two weeks and left yesterday morning, so now J and I are on our own and trying to figure out how to be parents and still get laundry done. It didn't help that Evie chose the first day without grandma to be awake for almost 4 hours straight (I didn't think that was possible) in the afternoon/evening and then refuse to go to bed until an hour past her normal time. Do I need to mention that babies who are awake for 4 hours get really fussy? I didn't think so.

What I want to remember about this week:

• Now, instead of making barnyard sounds, Evie makes ferret noises during feedings to tell us she's happy/hungry/not finished yet/done burping. I simply cannot describe the chittering, laughing sound of a happy, playing ferret. You'll just need to go to a pet store and play with one, or come visit us during bottle time, to understand what I'm saying. Jen and I used to own two ferrets, named Cricket and Bina, when we were in college at U.Va. and living together during our third year. So, Jen knows exactly what I mean. Anyone else own ferrets? We ended up giving Cricket and Bina to a kind, crazy old lady in the local area because neither one of us could keep them (Jen found herself to be allergic to them and J refused to allow them when we got married). This old lady had turned her house into a ferret paradise and let them run wild and play together 24/7. I digress...


• I love the new awake Evie. (When she's been awake for more than an hour, I'm not fond of fussy Evie.) However, awake Evie who communicates with me through her dark gray/blue eyes and sticks out her tiny tongue at me is more fun to watch than a new Project Runway episode. Seriously. Unfortunately, I can't take advantage of her awake times to play very much because usually they come right after a feeding and if I play with her too much she gets so excited that she spits up everywhere. On the rare occasions that she is awake and happy right before a feeding I immediately take advantage of the situation by putting her in her play gym for tummy time. I lie down on the floor with my face about 15 inches from hers (since the books say that's her best seeing distance), talk and sing to her and show her toys. So fun! But usually her awake time is right after eating and so I just cuddle her and talk to her while she lies propped up on my chest or cradled at a 45 degree angle in my arms.


• I've started noticing her react to the sound of my voice by looking in my direction when I come into a room and someone else is holding her.


• When she's upright in a "hug hold" on my chest, she's started practicing her neck control quite a bit. Before, her head motions at my shoulder were always the "peck, peck" of baby rooting, but now she holds her head steadyish an inch or two from my shoulder and looks around the room. I am so proud.


• She's more patient when she wakes up. A few times I've walked by her P@ck 'N' Pl@y and found her lying there awake, happily gazing at her mobile.


• She still "talks" to Rabbit when she's being changed. In the middle of the night when she's sleepy she'll keep her eyes closed for part of the change, but then at some point her eyes will shoot open and she'll quickly turn her head to the wall to make sure Rabbit is still there. She's also started looking at other parts of the mural; specifically, she likes to look at the trees. She also has an overhead light shaped like a sun (from Ike@) that she looks at quite a bit.


• Evie doesn't like it when adults eat. She always fusses, wants to eat or needs a change when we're sitting down to dinner.


• I'm not really a super-punctual person and have to make an effort to be on time even without a baby (although I'm not that bad; I'm not always late), but Evie exacerbates my nature by frequently deciding that just when we're walking out the door is the perfect time to spit up or poop.


• Cloth diapering is going well; I'm still struggling with poop stains, but other than that I'm happy. I tried soaking overnight in Oxycle@n but it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Now I'm trying a wet pail with vinegar and washing poopy diapers every other day; we'll see if that works. In general, we're using "All-in-Ones" when we go out of the house, "pocket" diapers for nighttime and prefolds with various types of covers ("plastic," fleece and wool) during the day. I put her pretty one-size fitted diapers on when she's wearing a dress, since they are too bulky to fit under onesies or pants, and when J changes her he tends to put her into a "pre-fitted" since the snaps are simpler and he isn't intimidated by them. :) Here's her prettiest diaper, a "3SR" from Muttaqin Baby:


• Evie is quickly drinking her way through the breast milk donated from our second "milk mommy" as she is still drinking 1/2 formula, 1/2 breast milk bottles during the day and all formula at night. We picked up about 100 oz. of breast milk from our third donor this past week and that should see her through a few more weeks. I thought the breast milk would go further, but she is drinking about 10 oz. of it a day. I've decided just to be grateful for the benefits she's getting and not stress out about how well we'll be able to keep this up.
  
• We've set a date for Evie to be baptized at our church: November 2. My parents, J's parents and Evie's birth family will be there. I called G yesterday to invite him and he sounded eager to come. He also mentioned that his mother and perhaps other members of his family would like to attend. He said that R might come, too. Great! I'm looking forward to getting some pictures of the group of us. My mom and I tried to shop for a christening gown while she was here, but didn't have much luck finding what we wanted. With only a few weeks until the baptism, my mom is going to look into patterns and might make one. Although it would be a lot of work, it would be wonderful to have a handmade gown that can become an heirloom piece.


• Finally, our friend Becca finished Evie's portrait shoot on Wednesday and dropped off a CD of all of the pics today. I'm going to post a few, but there are 141 total. If anyone wants to see more, send me an e-mail with your e-mail address (my e-mail is over on the left sidebar) and I'll send you an invitation to our Snapfish group room for Evie. (The pictures with Rabbit and in her Muttaqin diaper, above, were also taken by Becca.)
  

She was a cute little "angry fairy" for this one and had to have her pacifier:


In honor of October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month:
***ETA: Almost forgot to mention, we went to our first baby yoga class this morning, in which I held Evie during the beginning and ending stretches and gave her a massage. It was a good workout for me and she seemed to enjoy it, too. I bought a 10-session pass and plan to go every week if I can.