Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! The three of us celebrated a 'quiet' turkey day at home. We took a break from watching football and decided to get out of the house for our daily walk around the block. It was a beautiful sunny day in the upper 40's, so we bundled up.



For some reason, Reese's favorite (most calm) thing to do is to hang out on her changing table. She seems to be training her legs for biking by kicking.

Reese is really getting big. Last Thursday, she went in for an appointment and weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces. On Wednesday, she weighed in at 8 pounds 7 ounces - 10 ounces in 6 days!!! They say that they should gain an ounce a day, so she's certainly packing on the pounds quickly.
Reese sleeps great at night. She typically eats at 10-11pm and then doesn't wake again until 3am, then goes down until 7am. So, she is going about 3-4 hours per feeding at night, however, she doesn't really sleep much during the day. We're thankful that we get reasonable stretches of
uninterrupted sleep at night. Last night she slept for 5 hours straight!

What we've learned in our first 4 weeks as parents:
1) Breastfeeding is REALLY difficult - the cover of this breastfeeding book shows a lady in bed on her side, smiling, and baby is feeding on its own. We've come to realize that the cover of this book is completely made up and that the 'baby' must be a doll and the mom is obviously a model who has never breastfed before (otherwise she wouldn't be smiling).

2) The authors of the parenting books that say babies sleep 16-20 hours per day, obviously have never had children. I think that this is a typo and should read, "16-20 minutes per day".

3) "Sleep when the baby sleeps". Great advice, but when does this 'sleep' actually happen?

4) Congestion - Babies sound like Darth Vader, and apparently this is completely normal.

5) Back Pain- Nobody told us that we should have done back exercises prior to having a child.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Sunday Smile

Reese gives a smile to mom.
Reese is growing so quick! She's already approaching the 8 pound mark after dipping down to 6 pounds 8 ounces a few days after birth. Reese doesn't seem to like to sleep lately. Aren't babies supposed to sleep 16+ hours per day?

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Grandma Loretta and Grandpa Roy to the Rescue!

After a week of sleepless nights, we made the "911" call for reinforcements in the form of Grandma Loretta and Grandpa Roy. They were kind enough to make the long drive over from Montana and arrived just 36 hours after our distress call. It was really great having the help, and we are very thankful for their help watching Reese and getting Mom and Dad back to eating three square meals again.
Reese was a little unsure what to think about Mom and Dad's experiment to settle her down....

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Monday, November 17, 2008

Hiccups

Reese has hiccups a lot.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Reese Cristina is Born - 10/31/08

Reese Cristina was born on 10/31/08 at 5:37pm . She was 7 pounds 3 ounces and was 20" in length. Mom and baby are both recovering well.