Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Baby’s Big Day out, the incredible growing baby, and more…
Let’s us start with an update for those of you who has been waiting anxiously to learn more about Gia’s bodily functions J. She is much more regular now… pooing most days and while she still has lots of gas, it rarely seems painful. Hurrah!
Night time has gotten so much easier! For the last several days, she has stayed in bed the whole night (i.e. Drew hasn’t had to get up with her for a while to soothe her back to sleep). She is by no means “sleeping through the night,” but Amy is able to nurse her lying down and still get some sleep. Even though Gia stays in bed, boy can she be noisy. We never knew babies could make such loud sounds that aren’t cries! Nevertheless, we are all getting much more sleep.
Gia had her 1-month pediatric appointment last week and is in prefect health. The big surprise is she grew a whopping 3 ½ inches in 5 weeks! To give you more of a feel for how much that is, she went from the 25th to the 65th percentile in length. Can you imagine growing 18% of your height in 5 weeks! We are really starting to notice her fitting in our arms in a different way. Things move so fast…
Gia is learning to smile “socially” and every now and then we are rewarded with a beautiful full smile. It just melts our hearts. She is also much more alert and sleeps a lot less during the day.
Drew’s parents left on Saturday and we bravely decided to take Gia out for fun for the first time. We all went to Santa Monica, had lunch at Urth Café and then went for a walk on the beach. We got to use many of our new masterful parenting skills. Amy nursed Gia in the car (while parked) and Drew carried Gia in the Moby Wrap the whole time. Drew’s back now knows why someone invented strollers! Nevertheless, it was a fun outing.
Night time has gotten so much easier! For the last several days, she has stayed in bed the whole night (i.e. Drew hasn’t had to get up with her for a while to soothe her back to sleep). She is by no means “sleeping through the night,” but Amy is able to nurse her lying down and still get some sleep. Even though Gia stays in bed, boy can she be noisy. We never knew babies could make such loud sounds that aren’t cries! Nevertheless, we are all getting much more sleep.
Gia had her 1-month pediatric appointment last week and is in prefect health. The big surprise is she grew a whopping 3 ½ inches in 5 weeks! To give you more of a feel for how much that is, she went from the 25th to the 65th percentile in length. Can you imagine growing 18% of your height in 5 weeks! We are really starting to notice her fitting in our arms in a different way. Things move so fast…
Gia is learning to smile “socially” and every now and then we are rewarded with a beautiful full smile. It just melts our hearts. She is also much more alert and sleeps a lot less during the day.
Drew’s parents left on Saturday and we bravely decided to take Gia out for fun for the first time. We all went to Santa Monica, had lunch at Urth Café and then went for a walk on the beach. We got to use many of our new masterful parenting skills. Amy nursed Gia in the car (while parked) and Drew carried Gia in the Moby Wrap the whole time. Drew’s back now knows why someone invented strollers! Nevertheless, it was a fun outing.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Talking Dirty
WARNING: This entry contains talk about poo and pee. If this is too much information for you then we suggest you skip this entry and know that we are all doing well :). For those of you that are not faint of heart, come journey with use to the land of diaper changes and poopy talk…
Let us start by saying one of the most remarkable things about parenthood is how suddenly our days have becomes full of talk about bodily functions. Burps, farts, poos, pees...you name it, and we talk about it. For the first 2 weeks, we kept careful records of every diaper change. When did it take place? Was it a wet diaper? Was it a dirty diaper? Was the poo at least a quarter in diameter on the diaper (according to our doctor it if it is less than that it doesn’t count)? Now, frankly keeping track of what was what became moot after about 1 week because every diaper change was wet and dirty. All ten diapers a day! But something funny happened a week ago. All of the sudden, there were no more dirty diapers. Lots of wet ones but no dirty ones. After a few days, we became worried. She seemed to be feeding very well, but where was it all going? We did some research and found out that it is actually not that uncommon for breastfeed babies to go up to 8 days without a poo! Can you imagine not having a poo for that long? Apparently, breast milk is so perfectly formulated for the baby that there is actually very little real waste. Much of what they poo out is simply what they can’t use right away. At least that is what some people say but who the heck knows! What we do know is Gia wasn’t letting any of it out. At the same time, she seemed to have much more gas. This was especially unpleasant at night because it would keep her up crying (which of course meant that we were up as well). Day after to day went by and still no poo. Finally, today we struck the mother load. The fullest diaper she has ever had. It was quite a relief because we were planning to call the doctor tomorrow. So, we celebrated. Yes, that’s right folks. We celebrated our daughter’s dirty diaper. They say parenthood changes you, we had no idea…
Let us start by saying one of the most remarkable things about parenthood is how suddenly our days have becomes full of talk about bodily functions. Burps, farts, poos, pees...you name it, and we talk about it. For the first 2 weeks, we kept careful records of every diaper change. When did it take place? Was it a wet diaper? Was it a dirty diaper? Was the poo at least a quarter in diameter on the diaper (according to our doctor it if it is less than that it doesn’t count)? Now, frankly keeping track of what was what became moot after about 1 week because every diaper change was wet and dirty. All ten diapers a day! But something funny happened a week ago. All of the sudden, there were no more dirty diapers. Lots of wet ones but no dirty ones. After a few days, we became worried. She seemed to be feeding very well, but where was it all going? We did some research and found out that it is actually not that uncommon for breastfeed babies to go up to 8 days without a poo! Can you imagine not having a poo for that long? Apparently, breast milk is so perfectly formulated for the baby that there is actually very little real waste. Much of what they poo out is simply what they can’t use right away. At least that is what some people say but who the heck knows! What we do know is Gia wasn’t letting any of it out. At the same time, she seemed to have much more gas. This was especially unpleasant at night because it would keep her up crying (which of course meant that we were up as well). Day after to day went by and still no poo. Finally, today we struck the mother load. The fullest diaper she has ever had. It was quite a relief because we were planning to call the doctor tomorrow. So, we celebrated. Yes, that’s right folks. We celebrated our daughter’s dirty diaper. They say parenthood changes you, we had no idea…
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Spitting like there is no tomorrow
When we were preparing for Gia’s arrival, we took stock of what clothes we had and what we might need. It seemed to Drew that 2-3 of everything was plenty – after all how many times does a baby change clothes in a day? Amy disagreed. “Drew, we are probably going to be changing her clothes 2-3 times a days and do laundry every day!” So, we got lots of extra clothes. Well, for the first 3 weeks of Gia’s life, we were feeling pretty silly because we changed her clothes pretty much once a day and then only because it seemed like the right thing to do, not because her clothes were dirty. Well, that has all changed. It turns out that recently, Gia’s favorite activity is to spit up. We aren’t talking about a little spit up rolling down her face; we are talking spit up getting everywhere - coming out of her nose, soaking her sleeves and soaking our clothes. And, just when we think she is done and change her clothes – BAM all over her new outfit! We now give burp cloths to everyone who visits and wants to hold her. (For those that might worry, we are reassured that this is normal and more of a laundry and social problem then a medical one.)
Gia continues to eat more often then she used to and just loves to let us know that she is hungry just as Amy is about to do something she has been waiting all day to do like step into the shower. You can probably imagine how exhausting that is for Amy. Most of the night feedings now take place lying down, so we are all getting more sleep at night, although the last few nights Gia has had a lot of gas. This is difficult because when we burp her it puts pressure on her belly which it good for getting burps out but painful for intestinal gas. As a result, Drew does a dance between putting her over his shoulder and lying her flat so she isn’t in too much pain. We are hoping that this is just temporary because it is no fun for anyone.
Amy’s sister, Wendy, was with us the last several days. It was wonderful having her here. She was great with Gia and very helpful. One day, she offered to go grocery shopping for us and to our surprise brought home twice as much as we had on the list and paid for it herself! Wendy, thank you for your generosity and for being such a wonderful Auntie. You can also all thank Wendy for most of the pictures in the Week 4 gallery.
Wendy made a wonderful suggestion to us regarding our next journal entry. A number of people have asked us (and her) how to pronounce Gia's name so we thought we would settle any heated debates that might be going on. It is pronounced JEE-ah.
Wendy departed yesterday, so once again it is just us three; however, Drew’s Mom, Karen, comes in on Friday and his Dad, Mark, next week so you don’t have to worry about us getting lonely!
Gia continues to eat more often then she used to and just loves to let us know that she is hungry just as Amy is about to do something she has been waiting all day to do like step into the shower. You can probably imagine how exhausting that is for Amy. Most of the night feedings now take place lying down, so we are all getting more sleep at night, although the last few nights Gia has had a lot of gas. This is difficult because when we burp her it puts pressure on her belly which it good for getting burps out but painful for intestinal gas. As a result, Drew does a dance between putting her over his shoulder and lying her flat so she isn’t in too much pain. We are hoping that this is just temporary because it is no fun for anyone.
Amy’s sister, Wendy, was with us the last several days. It was wonderful having her here. She was great with Gia and very helpful. One day, she offered to go grocery shopping for us and to our surprise brought home twice as much as we had on the list and paid for it herself! Wendy, thank you for your generosity and for being such a wonderful Auntie. You can also all thank Wendy for most of the pictures in the Week 4 gallery.
Wendy made a wonderful suggestion to us regarding our next journal entry. A number of people have asked us (and her) how to pronounce Gia's name so we thought we would settle any heated debates that might be going on. It is pronounced JEE-ah.
Wendy departed yesterday, so once again it is just us three; however, Drew’s Mom, Karen, comes in on Friday and his Dad, Mark, next week so you don’t have to worry about us getting lonely!
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
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