The "C" word.

Colic.  Ew.  That dreaded word that all new parents fear.  We were in denial about it for quite a while, but now we are just facing the music.  Blakely has colic.  Granted, not as bad as a lot of babies.  She does have some happy time.  But judging by the way this girl acts, her life stinks right now.  She's just not that happy to be here, she'd prefer to go back into my belly, and she'd like everyone to know about it.   Right now I am battling two very painful mouth sores- stress induced.  I love this girl, and when she is happy, there is nothing more fun than playing the face game with her, watching her look around at everything, listening to her noises, etc.  We are those googly parents that think everything she does is just adorable.  Stephen has gone into total dad mode.  He gets out the camera for just about everything, bath time, play time...diaper change.  Kidding.  But sometimes diaper changes are the most entertaining thing we do.  Yesterday this girl pooped with such force that if I hadn't held her diaper up just in time I am positive it would have shot straight across the hall into our bedroom.  Stephen said "Where's the camera when you need it.."  We have been watching a lot of America's Funniest Home Videos.  I frequently think, after she does something, that we could totally win $10,000 if we could just video tape everything she does.  She is way funnier than all these people's silly pets. 

BUT.  She cries and is fussy all. the. time.  I know it is hard to believe when you look at this picture, but it's true.  And could someone please teach this girl how to keep the paci in her mouth?  I even googled whether it was normal for her to be completely incapable of keeping it in her mouth for any length of time.  It's normal.  The only thing that calms her down 90% of the time is Stephen doing lunges with her down the hall.  I do it occasionally, but his glutes were much more prepared for parenthood than mine.  I remember back in the good old days when we could barely keep her awake.  We put her to sleep in her crib, had to wake her up to eat, and she rarely cried.  Those days are long gone (a month gone...).  These are the days of crying in her sleep, only sleeping for 45 minutes at a time, eating every 2 hours, and having gas like she's on an all bean diet instead of milk.  Seriously.  This girl could make even the most crude person blush with her toots.  This could be related to her colic, but who really knows.  Babies need that machine that the gorillas get that speaks for them.  If only she could just tell me what she wants...I'd gladly do WHATEVER it is. 

But these are the things we bargain for when we become parents, whether we knew it or not.  No one tells you that 8-12 diaper changes a day is the AVERAGE...that means some days it will be 20.  (yes, we have changed 20 in a day...)  Who is the lucky parent of the kid bringing DOWN that average?   Maybe my child is a messy eater...but we also go through 20 burp rags a day.  I got in bed last night and Stephen told me I smelled like milk.  I had even just showered.  Very attractive.  In the time it took me to type the last 3 sentences I have put her pacifier back in about 10 times.  I was committed to helping her form good sleep habits.  Falling asleep on her own, in her crib and staying in there until the end of naptime.  HA!  I thought I was so good those first couple of weeks.  Little did I know it had nothing to do with me...she couldn't help but sleep in her crib for 3 hours.  Now we just decide which bad habit we will continue to reinforce.  Will we let her fall asleep in our arms, on our chest or in her swing?  Actually, we let her decide.  Awake an hour early?  No problem, just get in our bed.  A friend admitted that she tried to help her daughter find her thumb so she could just suck on that instead of having to get up to give her the pacifier.  GENIUS.  I tried it immediately. 

It's a good thing God makes us wait 9 months (8 for me..) to have our babies.  He makes us REALLY want it.  Most of us really want it long before that, but just to make sure we are good and desperate, he adds on another 9 months.  It is a nice reminder in times of frustration to think back to how badly I wanted her to be here when I was pregnant.  It's also good that I didn't know this was how it would be.  Had I known my days would be filled with attempting to calm a crying baby for most of the day, motherhood might not have sounded so fun.  But that's just it.  It IS fun.  It is so worth it.  And I'm glad that I get to attempt to calm this crying baby.  She's perfect.  

I know I'm biased...

...but she is SO cute!  And believe it or not, the camera just can't seem to do her justice! 

She is 6 weeks old today.  I am positive she is over 7 lbs...sometimes she feels like 10, but Stephen assures me this is not possible.  Today we got our new best friend.  The Starlight cradle swing.  We have only had it for 2 hours and we LOVE it.  It calms her when she is fussy, puts her to sleep when she is tired, entertains her when she is awake (she gets bored with me after about 10 minutes).  And, yes, we have already used it for each of those things!  She's a busy girl.

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me!  This shirt is dry clean only.  This time I've learned my lesson.  I even gave her an hour after she ate and she still gooped all over me. 

I have decided if I can help it, I'm not having another baby in the dead of winter.  This poor girl will be lucky to experience fresh air by the time she is 6 months old!

Too Fast

Everyone said the first months of being a parent go by SO fast.  I knew they were right, but I had no idea how right.  Each day Blakely gets a little bigger, but it is so hard to appreciate just HOW MUCH babies change in such a short amount of time.  She is almost 6 weeks old, and as I look at pictures of her first days of life I am almost sad because I feel like I missed it!  Stephen reminded me that we didn't miss it, we were there.  :)  But seriously!  We were so busy just trying to survive those first couple of weeks that we didn't even realize how much she was growing.  When we went in for her two week appointment we literally did not believe the scale was right when she had gained a whole pound.  I am so thankful that she isn't little bitty anymore, but I really wish we had taken thousands more pictures and videos of her doing anything and everything (sleep, eat, look around for a brief moment, sleep again.)
Here is her very first picture in life.  I actually saw this for the first time just a couple of days ago.  I will never forget when they laid her on my belly right after she was born, but I think I did forget just how small she was.  I can hardly believe she is the same baby.

I decided I need to sit down and write some stuff out including the whole detailed story of how long we tried to get pregnant, the pregnancy itself, and of course labor and delivery, before I forget! 
Let me just show you how much this girl has changed:

5 days old

5 1/2 weeks old

And just for a laugh:

We were normal people for a night and went over to some new friends' house for coffee and desert.  (By normal I mean I put real clothes and makeup on.) Five minutes in to wearing my new Jcrew (dry clean only) shirt she spit up on me.  So this is me back to my regular old t-shirt with my hair back on top of my head where it belongs.  I don't even change when she spits up on this shirt.

Fatty

What's Blakely up to these days?  Getting fat!  This girl doesn't skip meals.

Who is really in charge?

I always wanted a "real" baby doll when I was little.  I was 3 when my little brother was born and he was teeny tiny just like Blakely.  For a 3 year old this was awesome because he was just what I was looking for in the world of baby dolls.  My mom says she had to tell me NOT to pick him up.  She'd turn around and I'd have Micah tucked under my arm and I would say "but he looked like he was about to cry!"  I was just helping.  Now I have my own real life baby doll- that poops, pees (quite often, I might add..) eats, cries, etc., just like I always wanted. 

While I was pregnant I read lots of parenting stuff.  Baby Wise, Baby Whisperer, tons of articles.  My main take away was to teach the baby that as the parent I am in control, not her.  Ha!  Who was I kidding?  And who were they kidding, more importantly.  These books give the illusion (especially in those first few weeks) that you have an ounce of control.  Maybe I'm a weakling, or maybe my baby is especially strong willed, but I have virtually no control.  These books make you think that you can make your baby eat, make your baby go to sleep, make your baby be awake.  Sorry, but my baby does each of those things ONLY when she wants to.  If she wants to sleep, there is nothing in the world that you can do to keep her awake.  If she's not interested in eating, you can shove it down her throat but she's not going to swallow. 

She's thinking "MOM!  Get off me!"

And let them cry?  I don't know who these people are, but what parent with their first baby, and in the first couple of months of their life, can actually just sit down the hall and let their baby cry for more than a few seconds?  I get it if your baby just can't be satisfied and they just cry.  At some point, for your own sanity, you have to walk away.  Like I said, maybe I'm a wimp, but I just can't do that.  Not yet at least. 

So, who's really in charge?  Blakely.  At least for now. 

Happy One month!

Blakely is one month old today, and two days past her due date!  It's crazy to think that she could have still been in my belly.  And boy am I thankful that I got to push out a 4 and a half pound baby instead of an almost 7 pound one! 

I put her in the same outfit as her one week pictures to see how much she has changed.  I think all her weight is going to her cheeks and her double chin.  At her one month check-up yesterday she weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long.  She is in the 4th percentile in her weight, but that's pretty great considering she was below 1 percent when she was born!  I can't believe how much she has changed in the last month!  When people see her they comment on how small she is, which is funny because I feel like she is HUGE!  I am so glad she isn't the puny little thing she was when we brought her home- she seems a little more durable now.  :)  But she is still just now the size of a normal newborn, which is just so crazy to me. 

Look at that girl.  This is a pretty typical Blakely expression.  Probably concerned about her next meal.  My brother pointed out that Blakely looks either like an alien or a dwarf due to her head to body ratio.  Though I didn't appreciate it, I can't disagree. 
Blakely is still sleeping in her bassinet at night, and we are working on getting her to sleep in her crib during the day.  For some reason she hates that thing.  It's baby prison for her.  She never stays asleep for more than 45 minutes in it.  She is eating about every 3 to 4 hours- occasionally sooner.  At night she will go anywhere from 3 to 5 hours.  Twice she has taken a bottle with over 4oz.  Should a one month old be eating that much?!  I don't know, but she is.  I can only assume that is how much she eats when she nurses.  She is a grunter.  And it really doesn't sound like a cute normal baby noise.  I doubt there is a noisier baby out there.  Sometimes she will grunt for an hour and Stephen swears she is sleeping.  It drives me crazy! 

She is more alert than ever, and has also entered into an unusually fussy stage.  It seems like she just can't be satisfied the past few days.  We are really hoping she grows out of this soon.  Stephen thinks it's the cloth diapers.  Some of them are a little big on her (and by big I mean they are so bulky that her clothes don't always fit just cause of the diaper) and Stephen thinks it makes her uncomfortable.  Psh.  She finally fits into her newborn clothes and is too big for preemie clothes.  She is even almost too long for some of the newborn clothes (even without a cloth diaper)!

I think she smiled at me last week.  We can't be for sure, and it hasn't happened since, but I am counting it!  She has also recently learned the art of grabbing.  When she is mad, that girl has a death grip.  She grabbed my hair today- ouch!  I can't believe she is already a month old!