One month

My how time flies when you are caring 24/7 for a little human!  Ellie is now officially one month old.  Horrah! At her one month doctor visit she weighed in at 9lbs 8oz and has grown an inch (21.5 inches long if you're interested). She is waking up to her world and is spending more and more time awake and alert.  Sometimes at the inconvenient hour of 3am! She is especially fascinated with the wall above her changing table and the ceiling fans.  I'm not sure what she sees exactly but they are mesmerizing to her. It melts our hearts when she catches our gaze and smiles.  Technically babies don't social smile for another few months, but it sure seems like she's recognizing and smiling at us. I'll let myself believe that she knows she's looking at me. She seems to recognize our voices and we're starting to understand her different cries as well.

We are still having a hard time with breastfeeding and I am pumping and bottle feeding her for the time being while we (we being the team of doctors and specialists whom I now talk with on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis) figure out the complex nature of these ever-so-hard-to-kill infections. Fingers crossed that we can get her back on the boob once this is all sorted. It doesn't seem to bother her however and she is thriving all the same. She sleeps pretty well for a newborn -  she usually takes two hour naps during the day and sleeps three to four hours at night. However on Saturday night she slept for six hours and Sunday night for seven! The first night we decided to wake her up because I was worried she would be starving and cranky when she did finally wake up.  That was a huge mistake because she was cranky anyhow and ended up staying awake for the next three hours.  My parents  have nicknamed these cranky periods "Kraken episodes".  This nickname was lovingly given to me by my grandfather who likened me to the legendary sea monsters of giant proportions. Apparently Ellie takes after me in this regard.  The good news is that I eventually grew out of it and hopefully she will too. 

We are growing accustom to life as a family of three and life with a newborn.  This past month has been a whirlwind of diapers, projectile spit-up, bottles and doctor visits but we are finally getting into a routine. I've gotten really good at doing things one handed - eating, washing my hands, typing on the computer, making a bottle... you get the idea. We've started venturing out of the house more often and have gotten brave enough to take Ellie out with us shopping and even out to eat a few times. It usually takes us all day just to get out of the house for one outing. Ellie really likes her stroller and we both enjoy taking walks around the neighborhood.  We are looking forward to taking her on longer trips so we can visit family and friends. Chico will likely be our first destination. It will be interesting to see how she does on long car rides.  I suspect we'll be stopping a lot!  Tom insists that it will be fine because we can listen to Marketplace Money on the way there, and apparently Ellie likes Marketplace Money.  She may look more like me right now, but she's definitely going to turn into a little Tom. :) Below are some pictures from the past month. Most of them were taken with my phone (one handed, ahem) so sorry if they are a little fuzzy. Hopefully in the coming months we'll get better at this.

One month

On papa's hand

Awake

I love my chewpie

Tom trying to sleep - Ellie demanding otherwise

Power fist

Wide eyes

Ellie on her throne