Saturday, August 8, 2009

Just a few pictures for your enjoyment

Life with a baby just continues to live up to what everyone told me it would be like: sleepless, exhausting, wonderful. Being a mom has been the biggest challenge of my life in many ways. Have I mentioned that I am sleep-deprived? Because.I.Am. But she's worth it. She's my first born daughter, she's beautiful and she's perfect. And even when she cries for long periods of time (last night for about 3 hours while she was wide awake and nothing seemed to console her) I look at her and feel an overwhelming amount of love and awe when I look at her and know that she is mine...all mine. 

Little miss Brooklyn is now:
* occasionally taking up to 4 oz of formula at a time
* having consistently bad gas
* getting a little bit of what looks like cradle cap and baby acne (of course this happens the day before we take her in for her first set of professional pictures!)
* staying awake for an hour or more at a time
* smiling more often, although still involuntarily and usually in her sleep
* developing a very strong temper, I mean, personality
* taking quite well to her pacifier
* sleeping for 4 hours a night on some nights
* getting chubbier
* enjoying real baths now that her umbilical cord is gone
* discovering her voice and making all sorts of cute sounds
* raising her head frequently and holding it up for a long time
* making mommy and daddy SUPER happy and proud!

Those are just a few things little miss Brooklyn has been up to lately. She changes on a daily basis and is probably well over 10 pounds, probably close to 11. I don't even want to think about what it will be like when I have to go back to school. It's already hard when I leave her with my parents for short periods of time to go run errands and do things I actually enjoy doing. Going back to work is neither a short amount of time or fun so that will make leaving her that much harder! 

One issue we have had lately that I'm not sure how to make better is that miss Brooklyn likes to do her "business" while taking her bottle. I don't know why she does this but as soon as that bottle pops into her mouth, the grunting and struggling begins! She grunts and moans and pushes and her face turns bright red all the while continuing to suck on her bottle and drink her milk. The problem is that when she's grunting and pushing, she has a hard time swallowing her milk so she ends up spitting milk out or crying because she's so frustrated with it all. I feel really bad for her and I don't know what to do to make it better for her. I've been giving her gas drops (generic Mylacon) and gripe water which seems to help with the gas, however, pooping is what seems to be her problem. It's hard to watch her be in pain but I hear this is just part of newborn life. 

So here are a few pictures of her from the past week or so. I've put some of these on Facebook so if you're on there, you have probably seen them already. Either way, enjoy!




2 comments:

Lydia said...

It sounds like Brooklyn is doing really well. I'm sorry about the crying in the middle of the night. That's no fun!

Don't you just love being able to do real baths?

I can completely sympathize about going back to work. On the bright side, at least your parents are keeping her and you don't have to do daycare. The first week of taking Garrett to daycare, I cried every day when I dropped him off. The first day I was actually sobbing, the director had to help me out to my car. It is really hard to leave your 8 week old baby with strangers, even if they take care of babies all day.

Aileen said...

Good post! Yes, Brooklyn is adorable and beautiful and we're
(geempaw and I}happy and blessed to have her as our grandaughter! I intend to enjoy her as much as possible as she grows and changes! I'm sure that every phase will be fun and she will be cute and just exceed our expectations!