Time is moving so fast! Stella is now over 6 weeks old and has met almost all of her immediate family except for Pop (she can’t wait to learn what her special song will be) and she has met many friends. After her Mana, she had a great visit with auntie Liz and her cousins Z, & I (who was a great baby holder):
Uncle Adam and auntie J along with cousins J, & O followed with more baby holding (and matching outfits):
E & I are now adjusting to life without 24 hour help and so far, we’ve been doing okay. I am longing for eight hours of non-interrupted sleep but I suspect that it could be a while before that happens. We don’t know how much Stella weighs or anything but my arms tell me she is getting bigger every day. She likes to smile and enjoys looking at lights, fans, and anything moving around her. So far, she has enjoyed car trips (we have a 4+ hour trip planned in two weeks to test her car ride endurance) and is a pretty good baby when we are out in public. She especially likes trees and will just gaze up at them in amazement. She is also unfazed by her older, hairier brother:
My Mom (aka Mana) arrived yesterday and is taking great care of the four of us. Stella is getting lots of holding and diaper changing, Miles is getting lots of walk, and E & I are getting fed great meals.
We got a visit from E’s brother Rob today! He got to change a diaper (preparing him for his own first child arriving around Christmas), make faces, and hang out with Stella. He also brought along several girly outfits which were gifts from his in-laws. Other than pink onesies (handed down from Stella’s friends Hedy and Maggie), these are her first pink items of clothing. I still prefer clothes with squirrels.
I know I still owe a post on the goings on around here but the days go surprisingly fast these days and I end up being very sleepy at night and I am having problems composing full setences at any hour. We are still getting good care from the in-laws but I can’t wait for my own family to meet this girl before she gets old…she is almost 6 days old now!
We’ve added a new family member this week…Stella Kate! She was born on Tuesday at 1pm and weighs in at 8 lbs and stretches out to 20 inches. I will have more to say on this wonderful girl and the amazing mom that gave birth to her as well as the patient puppy that is learning to live with this new creature but for now check out the photos while I go take a nap!
E and I are still waiting to meet Rufus. Actually, we are not anxiously waiting or anything but we just feel more and more ready to meet this kid. Also, E has a tough time finding a comfortable sleeping position and the baby keeps moving further down on her bladder which makes sleeping through the night impossible. However, we do need at least another week so that Shannon and Sarah can visit and we can attend the party Anne is throwing for us!
We’re educating ourselves on this whole baby thing. We went to a breastfeeding class this past week where I got my instructions (in a pamphlet called “To the Father of the Breastfed Baby”) and E got hers (if it hurts, something is wrong, let the baby do the work, football holds, etc). Today we’re going to infant CPR class and then next week we have our Dog and Baby class. Of course, by now I have already forgotten about the breathing methods we learned in our childbirth class…so I don’t know how much information I am retaining from these classes but it does contribute to the overall sense of feeling prepared.
I think that E and I are both showing signs of “pregnancy amnesia” and generally lethargy related to weird sleeping habits, summer heat, and preoccupation with the arrival of this baby. This extends to keeping this blog updated, posting pictures, remembering birthdays (Happy Birthday Jeannette, Hedy, Danni, Isaac, Jonah, Chuck, Jennifer, and Andrew). I even mailed a father’s day card (on time) without a city, state, or zip!
If you don’t see activity here, check on Twitter (I am dnw), Flickr (link at right), or Facebook. E is addicted to word games on Facebook and is there quite often. In fact, yesterday she figured out that we went to school with Charla and Mirna from The Amazing Race…Mirna was in E’s French class!
E & I are ready for this baby now that our trips have been taken, the baby room has been painted, and the baby stuff has been put away neatly in drawers.
We had painting help from this guy (not the one in the gokart):
I just finished up a fun long weekend with the four generations of men in Kansas. We toured parts of Hutchinson, Lawrence, Prairie Village, and Kansas City! More photos and highlights to come.
We’ve made a lot of progress on the baby gear front. My parents were in town last weekend and got us all set up with a car seat (which is one of the few items that we have to have–we aren’t allowed to take the baby home without one). They also helped us pick out a possible color or two for our baby room (one is “April Sky” which looks darker and grayer on our sample) and they bought us several UNC shirts for our clothesline.
We are now trying to figure out the diaper situation. Considering we have a very limited amount of diaper experience between the two of us, we’ve been soliciting recommendations. In the past week or so, we’ve heard about these flushable gDiapers from several different sources. I am a little weary of about the “swishstick” that you use to stir your toilet like a pot of soup and I am suspicious of products that named using a lowercase letter followed by an uppercase letter…but then again that letter isn’t an i or e. However it sounds like these diapers are the poop! We’ve also heard you can use cloth diapers with the gDiaper liners without any problems and then just use the flushables for when you are traveling (and have access to industrial strength toilets, hopefully).
We are off to the midwife this morning for E’s Rh immune globulin shot. She found out after her first blood work that she is O negative and I am A positive so the baby is likely to be positive. The shot keeps E from having a reaction to the baby’s blood (or something like that). I guess this used to be a big problem back in the day…modern science is pretty amazing…
