My Favourite Things

Well, she's six weeks old now. And what a week it's been. There have been difficulties - several days of nonstop crying on her part and pain on my part ended with a trip to the breastfeeding clinic where we were diagnosed with thrush, and a further trip to the doctor to get medicine. We're now slowly getting better, although we're all exhausted from the broken sleep. I also maybe overstretched myself a bit by going on several walks and by walking into work a couple of times now that we've got the pram business sorted, causing some nasty abdominal pain and bleeding. It's hard to make myself remember that I'm recovering from surgery. I'm just so keen to be outside again, gales or no gales!

I don't want to talk about those things, though. I want to talk about good things, like how beautifully blue her eyes have gotten.

 And how playful she's becoming. She reached up to grab at the snail rattle that hangs from the baby gym the other day. She'd been staring at it for days, it's her favourite thing, and then she just reached out and grabbed it, all pleased with herself.

Her 6 week check with the health visitor went well. She's doing brilliantly for her age. She's now 10lb7, she watches everything and she's SO strong! She pushes her head and shoulders up, and even rolled over!

One of my favourite times is when we take a nap together in the afternoons.

I spend a lot of time talking to her, I find it very bonding. I find if I drone on about anything and everything to her it helps her to sleep.

And more sleep is something we can all appreciate!

Another thing I'm loving lately is tiny hands, and tiny feet in snail slippers from Grandad Steve.

And I love that she's big enough now to wear some of the hand knitted clothes I made for her while I was pregnant.

Sleep tight, Audrey Bea!

Leave a comment and let me know 3 of your favourite things, to help me stay positive!

Weekend

The past couple of days and nights have been rather tough for all of us. Audrey has been very unhappy, barely sleeping and crying a lot more than normal. She seems a little better today, but we have a doctor appointment this afternoon just to be sure that there's nothing wrong. I think it's probably just a growth spurt.

Ian and I are absolutely exhausted at this point, having had something like 5 hours sleep over the whole weekend. Audrey must be tired too, bless her.

Ian was great and spent a lot of time with her, especially when I was feeling overwhelmed and struggling with the constant feeds.

We also had a bit of a breakthrough with the pram. We discovered that Audrey likes it much better when she's in the carseat attachment rather than the pram-style attachment, possibly because she can see more of what's going on around her, or possibly because she's slightly more upright this way (she doesn't like lying flat on her back). Whatever the reason, we managed to get all the way to the supermarket and back yesterday! Yay for finally being able to go grocery shopping!

At Tesco, she woke up and fussed a bit so I nursed her and she promptly settled back to sleep. Tesco have a baby room where nursing mums can go sit down more comfortably, with changing stations to change nappies, which is a nice point in its favour. The pram base was really useful for storing big packs of nappies (she's on the second size now!) and cat litter etc. for the walk home.

The weather was perfect - sunny but blustery and cool. The sound of the wind sends Audrey straight to sleep. Today it's raining and blustery has turned into goodness-I-hope-that-tree-doesn't-blow-over, which is a little intimidating considering we were supposed to be going on an adventure into the shelter today. I've been going in on odd days for a few hours at a time, just to get Audrey used to it and to ease myself back into things.

Unless the weather changes, though, I don't think we'll be going anywhere today. Just snuggling up safe and sound in the nursery listening to the rain noises outside.

The pink quilt is from Isabelle, one of the volunteers at the shelter and a stellar seamstress! As is the adorable bunny top. The hat is a hand knit from Louise, one of our adopters and supporters at the shelter.

So pretty, Audrey Bea!

Video

Some little video clips I've not gotten round to putting up on here yet.

5 weeks already - time flies

Little girl had a rough day today. We went to Patchwork, the parent and baby group run by our local health visitors, and it was all a bit much and she had a big cry. We came home and snuggled under a blanket in a dark room and nursed while listening to some white noise, and she eventually settled and fell asleep. Poor little thing. Still, she got weighed there and they found she's 9lb14! A huuuge weight gain in a week! She's looking much bigger now than when we first brought her home, and she's way more alert and interested in what's going on around her. Plus she now fits some seriously cute clothes - check out these little lime green giraffe-print socks, a present from Nana Pat. I just love them! Plus the tiniest jeans ever - so adorable.

I could stare at her all day. She makes me so happy. Can you tell?

One thing I've noticed lately is just how much she loves her dad already. Last night she was sleeping when he got home from work, but she heard him singing to himself and started to smile and grin in her sleep. When he holds her, she stretches her arms out and puts her little hands on him and gives him a big hug.

Check out all that auburn hair! In the evenings she hangs out with her daddy while he uses his computer/my laptop, at times when I'm not feeding her. It's wonderful to see them bonding.

She got to meet Great Uncle Peter yesterday too! It was really lovely to see him, although there are no pics of Uncle Peter and Audrey as he had a sore throat and didn't want her to catch it. Hopefully next time he can have an Audrey-hug and we can get some pics!

In the mean time, hugs to you from me, Audrey Bea!

13th May - One Month On

One month since she was born. It's been the quickest month of my life. People really aren't lying when they say it goes fast, way too fast. She's already so much bigger than she was. In fact, the health visitor came round yesterday and weighed her - she's now 9lb4! Up from 7lb12 when she was born.

People say it goes quickly. People also say that it's tough work. It is tough, but I try to make sure I stop and appreciate it as much as I can - I try to be really present in every moment with her. I constantly remind myself that one day she'll be grown up and I'll look back on this time and wish that I could have ten minutes of it back, ten more minutes with my tiny baby. I remind myself of this especially at 3am when she's crying again and wants feeding again and I'm so tired I could start crying too!

One of the wonderful things lately has been that she has started to try to smile. She's almost there - look:

Uncle David and Aunty Katy came to visit last weekend. It's so wonderful to see family - I'm so happy that Audrey has all these people that love her. I keep thinking back to my own childhood, seeing uncles and aunts and cousins and spending summers at my grandparents house visiting everyone... it's brilliant that Audrey will have all these things too.

So it turns out 1 month old is a pretty fabulous age. Full of naps and hugs and early summer and almost-smiles and mornings with dad.

Looking beautiful, Audrey Bea!

4 weeks old!

It's been a hectic week. We've joined the library (Audrey has her own library card), gone to a breastfeeding group, taken a trip on the bus into Morningside to visit friends, and had lots of visitors here at home too. I've had a bout of mastitis, which was NOT fun at all, and Audrey has had a bit of a growth spurt and is in the next size up of clothes officially now. She's sleeping better at night, and her day time sleeps are coalescing into proper naps with proper awake time in between the sleeps.

She's been practicing with the pram. We can go on short walks now with her in it before she starts protesting. The other day Cori and I took her for a walk around the park, carrying her part of the way.

She still sucks her thumb from time to time, but less often lately.

She looks around her more now, and especially likes different types of light - beams of sunlight, rainbows reflecting off the prism edges of the mirror, the cool light shade in the nursery.

She got some new clothes today, now that she's grown so big. Here she is in some of them, looking so adorable.

Night night Audrey Bea!