Miscellany

Today I have some miscellaneous photos to share and a couple of anecdotes. Tomorrow I'm going to start a series of posts about our adoption experiences pre-blog.

Let's start with a pic of Evie, happily wrapped in her miracle blanket. We love this blanket; it is the only swaddling blanket we've heard of or found that actually keeps a baby's arms swaddled, since it's their arms that tend to wake newborns up when they startle in their sleep. The first time we used it, Evie fussed and seemed to hate it, but now she relaxes as soon as we start to swaddle her and seems to love it. This in combination with a super-absorbent diaper and a full tummy equals up to seven straight hours of sleep. Yay! (The polka-dot bib is for the feeding that is about to happen in this pic, it is not part of the blanket.)
Here's a pic of my dad with Evie; my mom just uploaded it to Snapfish yesterday and it's better than the pic I posted before:

Our little fish-face:

Evie as a ladybug on Halloween. She hated the costume so much that we never got any really good pics of her in it. Darn.

Such a cutie pie:

Here's a pic of Evie as she is being baptized:

And a couple of close-ups of her looking angelic in her christening gown:

Finally, the anecdotes:

A month or so ago, J said something funny that I meant to mention and kept forgetting. We were talking about Evie's neck and how stressful it was to always be worrying about supporting her head. J said he didn't think it must be that important since the hospital lets you take a newborn home without putting them in a neck brace first. Maybe it's only funny to us, but we cracked up at the idea of an aisle in Babies 'R' Expensive full of infant neck braces in beige, light pink and baby blue.

Finally, I've been meaning to mention a strange nightmare/delusion that I've had several times in the past weeks. What happens is that I'm in a deep sleep and cuddling a pillow (I must have a cuddle pillow in order to sleep well) and Evie will start crying from her crib or moses basket. As her wails intensify and begin to wake me up, I somehow believe that I have been co-sleeping and cuddling her and that she is trapped inside my pillow. Yep. I start kneading my cuddle pillow, believing that I can feel her little body inside it and searching for an opening to pull her out before she suffocates. Finally, I wake up enough to realize that she isn't inside my pillow and I get out of bed and go tend to her. Thankfully, as the weeks have gone by I've had this nightmare less and I've woken up/come to my senses more quickly. It is so strange to have my emotions go from panic to embarrassment so quickly! I always feel silly once I realize that I'm having the same nightmare again, but in the moment it is terrifying to feel that she's in danger. Has anyone had any similar nightmares?