Our little missy is 6 weeks old now.
It is flying by. Having been a mom for 10 years now, I know (pointing to head) that the time flies...so why is it a surprise that it is happening again with this precious bundle?
It feels as if she's always been here.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but during those months of working on paperwork (that turned into a year and a half, ahem), I never could have imagined anything as perfect as this little bit. It blows my mind. She is supposed to be here. The Lord always knew that she would find her forever home with us. He takes the hard things of this world, the "bad" things, the broken things...and He works them for good for those who love Him. He ordained before the beginning of time that we would have the privilege of parenting her. That our kiddos would get to be her big sisters and big brothers (and be great ones at that). That she was a SHE, even when we thought our next treasure would be a HE!
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| We are having so much fun with her being a SHE! This picture is one case in point: her onesie in this picture says: "this is my little black dress", big headwrap with flower and huge rhinestone in the middle, polka-dotted pants (with an adorable ruffle on her bottom that is not visible), and zebra print/pink ruffled shoe/socks |
"Little" Miss is not so little anymore...hovering right at 10 pounds now (she was 9lb 13 oz at last appt, which was a week ago, so she is very likely over 10 pounds now).
As her papa (my dad) put it nicely the other day, "She hasn't missed any meals since she came home!" Ummm, no she hasn't. She makes quite the "pig-hogger" out of herself daily (the very expressive term LK coined last year). About the only time Miss Abigail will really cry is when she is hungry...and is ready to eat NOW!
When we went to the library yesterday, our favorite librarian, Mrs. B (a wonderful African American woman) - after she got a peak at the snoozing Miss A in her car seat - said "Ooooh, she's getting fat!" I take that exactly as Mrs. B meant it: a compliment. Abigail is thriving on her homemade formula, and I love it! I love the rolls on her neck. And her thighs? So scrumptious!
We are having fun with her. The kiddos are enthralled with her. Noah says over and over, "She is just so precious!"
As these pictures show, Abigail has begun smiling. She began at about 3.5 weeks. That seemed so early to me that I wasn't sure at first, but at 3.5 weeks we knew for sure. Here is the first official picture we caught of her smiling:
Picture 5 or 6 of us practically standing on our heads to get that smile...and you'll have it about right. But we were rewarded for our efforts...she was tickled.
The picture is not great....I took it with my phone. I suppose that is one of the downfalls of being a baby these days: many of your pics will be taken with phones instead of actual cameras.
Here is another phone pic I took:
Missy is multi-tasking: smiling and drinking at the same time. She does this often - has to stop drinking because she is smiling so big! It is adorable! I was specifically trying to catch a picture of it here.
My kiddos love using my phone to snap her picture. I never know what I'll find on my phone when I pick it up. Here are some of the cutest...and I have no idea who took these:
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Miss Priss just goes where ever we go in the house during the day. We love the bassinet that Dr. Kathy gave us...I don't know what we'd do without it. She sleeps in it in the master bedroom at night, and then we wheel it out to the family room (or kitchen) during the day.
She just snoozes away, right there in the middle of all the chaos of us.
Abigail has started being awake more during the day, so sometimes she just hangs out with us while we're doing school:
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| See her in the lower right of the picture? She looks like a baby doll, doesn't she? |
Or she hangs out with me while I'm working during the children's afternoon rest-time:
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| D isn't asleep, just having a "moment" with A |
And Abigail loves to cuddle with them!
One thing Abigail is not too crazy about is her baths.
But once we're done and laying down and getting her lotioned up, she calms down quickly.
When pulled to straighten it out, Abigail's hair is over an inch long. We haven't needed to start "doing" anything to it yet, according to this great site. But I am beginning to read lots more on the site, gearing up for doing HAIR!
Truthfully - happily - he loves her. He hasn't shown one iota of jealousy. (Don't get me wrong - he's a rascal about plenty of other things...but she isn't one of them.)
He asks multiple times a day to hold her.
At first he called her "Ahgail".
But about a week ago, all on his own, he began enunciating very carefully: "Ah-Bih-Gail!"
Cute, but sad at the same time.
Abigail likes G (and the rest of her siblings) right back!
Gabriel always wants to help with Abigail (not that he always gets to)...from feeding her...
...to supervising diaper changes:
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| The kiddos are very concerned about A's outie belly button (it is actually bigger now than in this picture). The doc says there is nothing to be concerned about...but they're not buying it. |
Abigail got to bond and spend loads of quality time with Nai Nai during her recent visit.
Nai Nai flew here from Colorado to meet her newest grandtreasure (her 12th).
While Nai Nai was here, we had Abigail's dedication at church.
...and she'll have to take our word for it, because she slept/ate her way through the whole thing.
Sissy had her days and nights backwards for a while at first. She would snooze away during the day, sleeping for sometimes FIVE hour stretches. I would just let her sleep, and be amazed that she could/would go that long. But then....she'd be awake eating like a mad woman during the middle of the night: It wasn't unusual to be awake for 2-3 hour windows, with her just eating, going to the bathroom, eating more, going to the bathroom more, eating more...
I finally (duh, Joli) realized that I needed to feed her every 3 hours during the day, whether she woke up on her own or not. That has helped tremendously...and now it is all going much better (read: we're all getting more sleep during the night!).
Abigail is settling into a routine. A typical day looks like this...
6:30 or 7 a.m - drink a bottle
11:00 a.m. - bottle
2:00 p.m. - bottle
5:00 p.m. - bottle
8:30 p.m. - bottle
2:00 a.m. - bottle
She is taking about 5 ounces at a time now...so that equals about 30 ounces in a 24-hour period.
She will be awake for a little bit here and there....but really not very much yet.
The above routine looks good now that I look back at it. But wow, has the sleep part (or not sleeping part, actually) been painful. Is it ok to say that out loud?
I apparently blocked out this part with G...I don't remember the sleep deprivation being this hard. But I was breastfeeding him, and I know he was waking up more than that during the night and I know it had to have been just as hard and probably worse....and I apparently blocked all that out. And that makes me very hopeful that I will block all of this out in the future and only remember happy, well-rested thoughts about A's infancy!
Because this won't last long....
...and I want to treasure it all!
How is she six weeks old already??? That went way too fast! She's precious. ... so happy to hear that everyone is adjusting well to her :)
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