I'm One Month Old!

As I am writing this I am already crying! How can she already be a month old??? It feels like we just brought her home. Here's what has gone on during the past month.

 

After Thanksgiving everyone went home. My family left on Friday, and Martin's family left on Sunday. I am off work until March 11th...16 weeks!  Martin is actually off of work until December 29th, a total of 6 week! Before Emory was born we decided that we wanted our families to be here for the first week, but after that we wanted to figure things out on our own. We were very fortunate that Martin could take off work for so long, so we decided to try and learn things together.

After the first week this whole baby thing started getting easier. I started worrying less... I stopped staring at her all night and actually began to get some sleep :) Emory's sleeping patterns changed from night to night. Some nights she would fall asleep, wake up to eat and be changed, then fall right back to sleep. Other nights she would hardly sleep at all. At first we had her sleeping in our room, right by my side of the bed. The bad thing about this was that when she woke up she woke both of us up. So I ended up taking the Pack N Play and sleeping in the bonus room with her. I figured why should both of us go without sleep? Since I'm breast feeding, there really isn't much that Martin can do at night. So I decided to let him get a good nights sleep, that way he could watch her during the day while I slept. This has seemed to work out pretty well for us.

Changing a diaper is becoming second nature. Before Emory came along I had never changed a single diaper....I had no experience with babies. I didn't even hold my first baby until 2 years ago who I held Summer's baby...and boy did I look awkward! Martin and I have both been peed on almost daily...and pooped on multiple times. One of the things I will always remember was hearing Martin yelling from upstairs, I thought something bad had happened to Emory! I sprinted up the stairs only to find Martin changing Emory, with poop all over the place  :) And of course, as I laughed at him...it happened to me the next day. Again, its true that you learn as you go and those parental instincts start to kick in.
                                  

 

 

Like I said, every week it gets a little better. This week has been really good actually. Lately she has been falling asleep around 8...then she wakes up to eat and be changed, and falls right back to sleep. We also started giving her a bottle this week. This has given me a little more freedom. I am able to leave the house if I want, and Marin can feed her. Also, Martin can wake up in the middle of the night to feed her now. The only problem with that is  I am SUCH a light sleeper. I hear every noise she makes. So even though I'm not getting up to feed her, I still wake up and can't fall back to sleep until she does. I guess that's the "motherly instinct" that I've heard so much about.

Every thing else has been going well. She has started getting a little fussy and screams for no apparent reason...but even that has been better the past few days and we are slowly learning how to calm her down. The weather has been nice enough that we have even been able to take her on a couple of walks!
                       
   

Don't let this face fool you...she was screaming before that pacifier was in her mouth!

                                                   

Our friends and the people from church have been great! Gina and Cam, Ricky and Erin, our neighbor Ali, and 5 people from church have brought us dinner over the past month. This has been so nice! Not having to worry about cooking makes things a lot easier. From now on when my friends have babies, I will defiantly be bringing them a meal now that I now how helpful it is.

It really is crazy how much she has changed over this month. She's awake for most of the day now...whereas before she would sleep about 20 hours of the day. I love holding her and just watching her look all around the house. Her eyes just wander every where, and you can tell she is taking it all in. I love that she is getting more vocal now...she makes all kinds of noises and each one gets a little cuter than the next. I have also come to love giving her a bath! When she was about 2 weeks old we gave her the first real bath...we had been doing sponge baths until her cord finally fell off. I was nervous that she would hate bath time, but she actually doesn't mind it. She hasn't cried at all...she just sits in the bath and looks around. I love when she starts kicking her feet in the tub...its precious. I think she gets cuter and cuter every day.

                                                               

Time really is flying by. Martin goes back to work in 2 weeks, and I'm not looking forward to that. He's been such a huge help! He has cooked dinner, cleaned the house, finished a lot of projects around the house, and of course been a big help with Emory. Once again, I didn't think that I could love him anymore than I already did. But after seeing him with Emory, I love him so much more than I ever thought possible! My heart melts every time I see him with her. (yep, I'm crying again) He's been so supportive of me...Emory and I are blessed to have him!

 

 

Well, I guess that about sums up the first month. For someone who literally had ZERO experience with babies, I think I have done a pretty decent job. I'm sure things will continue to get easier as time goes on. The crazy thing is, that even when I get no sleep at night I don't mind it at all because I get to spend time with her.

 We are off to Atlanta for Christmas next week....expect lots of Christmas pictures when we get back!