J squared + 1: May 2011

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

One Month Old!

Today Eliza is one month old and dang it has flown by! She and I survived last week when Jeremy was out of town, with grandma here to help (thank goodness!) We had a few video chat sessions which were fun and made it go a little faster. This weekend we had lots of family in town, so Eliza got to meet a bunch of new people. In the past week or so she has really started focusing on things around her – it’s so cute to watch her take everything in! On Saturday we weighed her at our doula’s office and she was 10 ½ pounds! She’s growing like a champ :-)

Here are some shots from the last couple of weeks

Since the first day we brought Eliza home she will stare at the monster above her changing pad, fascinated. I think it must be the contrasting colors. Recently she has started to “talk” to the monster while she’s being changed – grunting, cooing, etc. It’s pretty much the cutest thing in the world!

Meeting Anton, her Great-Godfather

Cozy and ready for bed!

Her hair is wild these days

Grandma and Grandpa torturing our little girl by sticking her feet in clay – can’t wait to see the results!

Checking herself out in the mirror

Meeting Auntie Barbara

Chillin with Daddy

Winston has gotten over his jealousy of the baby and now chooses to pretend she’s not there and sit in my lap anyway :-p

Four generations of Sanderson women!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Doctor's visit and 1 week photo shoot

This Tuesday we took Eliza to her two week well-baby appointment and the doc said she looks great! Her jaundice is almost gone and her hematoma (a bruise on her skull) is on it's way down. Most importantly, she is growing like a champ! This made me very happy as mothers who exclusively breastfeed their babies are often told to supplement with formula if they are not making their growth targets. Little Eliza did not want to risk having that happen and showed the doctors by gaining twice as much as is "expected" for breastfed babies :) She weighed in at a hefty 8lbs 15oz and grew a full inch to 21" long. It's hard to believe that someone that little can increase their mass that quickly!

My cousin Erin came one week after Eliza was born and took some amazing photographs (as usual!) Below are some of my favorites. You wouldn't know it from the pictures but Eliza was a little fussy-britches for most of the shoot. Erin's pro skills make her look like she was an angel the whole time :-p (and yes, the bowl is one that Grandpa made - so sweet)

Thank you Erin for the gift of capturing our little love bug!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Sniff Sniff

Today is a bittersweet day as Eliza turns two weeks old. Two weeks already! I really can't wrap my head around it, everybody was right that time is going to fly from here on out. I know it's silly, but what makes me the saddest is that now when we go out and people ask how old she is I have to start referring to weeks instead of days :( Though Jeremy thinks I should just keep it up with the days - "she's 147 days old today!" :-p

Mom came back down and stayed with us for most of this week too. Poor Jeremy had strained his back so bad while I was laboring (just being tense, then crouching over my bed to coach me while I was pushing, followed by a night on a hard bench at the hospital), that he had to go to the doctor. He hadn't been taking it easy at all - since I was restricted from lifting more than 15lbs for two weeks he had been lugging around the carseat and doing any other lifting that was needed around the house. He has also been playing in a tennis league which didn't help at all. The doctor put him on restriction and said no more than 10lbs of lifting - so back grandma came to help us out!

We've been keeping pretty busy - a lot of that has to do with the fact that Jeremy and I get antsy staying in so we've gone out every day. The weather has been fairly gloomy so any time that sun peeks out we try to run outside and get a quick walk in. It should clear up by Tuesday this week so I'm looking forward to that.

Eliza goes in for her 2 week checkup on Tuesday - they doctor said breastfed babies need to get back to their original birth weight by two weeks and I think that little miss has well exceeded that goal - I could barely get her into one of her original onesies this morning!

Lastly, Jeremy has another couple of days off and then is back to work - time for me to figure out how to do this on my own! Of course I'm sure my mom will be down all the time to help out, but it will definitely be different. The biggest bummer is that Jeremy has to travel to New Jersey a week from Monday for five days. I don't know who it's going to be harder on - me not having him here or him having to be away from Eliza!

Alright, enough rambling - enjoy the pictures!

(My cousin Erin came and took some amazing photos of Eliza last week - will get those up shortly!)