Homecoming, Milestones and Visitors: Julia's first 3 weeks

Julia,

You were born on October 11, 2012 (10/11/12- coolest birthday ever!)

And on October 15, 2012 we finally got to bring you home!

The homecoming was initially very hectic. We walked in the front door and Preston came to greet us and his eyes were all cloudy and blue! Did he go blind in 4 days? Will he be okay? What's wrong with him? So, I unloaded the car really quickly and immediately took Preston to the vet.

Turns out that the Turkey just got into something and irritated his eyes. So I got antibiotics and eyedrops for him and came stumbling home. He was going to be just fine, and his eyesight was perfect.

So, then I got to come home, and Aidan came home too, and we got to enjoy our homecoming night together.

Your brother liked having a car seat in the house again. And swore to protect it with his life.

Over the next couple of days you had visitors galore! We were happy to welcome them, and they were happy to hold you and meet you!

Aunt Nessa:

Henners (Mommy and Daddy's College buddy!):

Mommy's co-workers:

Neighbors too!

Kai and Cole:

Dorothy:

Bryan, Tammy and Luke:

Uncle BJ and Aunt Kari came by again too!

You even got to meet Aunt April, Uncle Taff, Autumn and Addison - they came in all the way from Houston to meet you! Aidan had so much fun playing with the cousins, and you mostly slept, but you will LOVE playing with these guys too!

Of course, you got to spend a lot more time with your grandparents, especially Yaya who stayed with your Mommy and Aidan when I had to go back to work.

 

Now, you didn't think your little brother would have left you alone, did you? No way! A lot of your time at home is spent with your big brother! He wants to hold you, sing to you, read to you, cuddle up to you, talk to you while you're eating (Eat it, Julia! Nipple, eat it, Julia!), kiss you, lick you (yes, you read that correctly), and he really wants you to sleep in his bed. But don't worry, you're safe sleeping in your co-sleeper and cradle with Mommy and Daddy...for now.

With all these visitors and family members, it may seem like your homecoming isn't really about you, but, baby, it is. Everyone wants to just hold you, be with you, meet you and get some of that baby magic!

Being home is the first new beginning. You get to try on and spit up on as many different adorable outfits as you want! Some days you go through more outfit changes than a fashion model! And your Mommy and I do definitely have fun playing a bit of dress up, and adoring you

in hats....

6 days old!

in bows...

5 days old

in pinks...

7 days old! A grab from our photo shoot-- more on this later!

and yellows...

10 days old!

 

2 weeks old!

And these first three weeks have been filled with milestones:

• You had your first bath (with a very concerned big brother watching closely):

• At your 5-day check up we discovered that you had regained birthweight (7lb 13 oz)! 




• At your 14 day  doctor check up you had almost gained a pound and grown .5 inch taller. 8 lbs 10 oz; 21 inches tall- Putting you in the 75 percentile (and putting you in a class of champion eaters and growers: by 14 days, most babies are only expected to have just then regained their birthweight!)



Day 14!

• On day day 19, - drumroll please- your umbilical cord fell off and you started really holding your head up super well!



Look at that cute Belly Button!



Hold you Head up!

• Compared to your big brother at the same age, you're sleeping like a champ! Granted, you have your moments, but for the mos part, we're all getting pretty good sleep. We were the Walking Dead by this point with Aidan!

In some ways, I can't believe it's already been 3 weeks. It sems just like yesterday you were born, and just the day before that we were peering at your sonogram trying to figure out who you'd be.

In other ways, I can't remember life without you, and it seems like you've always been here with us.

You're an amazing little wonder already, and we can't wait to share this road with you. Together, as a family!

Sleeping, Love Train and Down The Drain

Sleeping is one of the general areas of life that isn't going so well right now.

It seems you have - over the past couple of days - developed a 100% aversion to sleeping in your bassinet, the cradle or even your Little Lamb Swing for more than 10 minutes. This means, in short, that you must be held to sleep. This means, in shorter, that the adults in the house- and even the dogs, for some reason- are all sleep deprived.

Now, it's not that you have any difficulty sleeping when you're on somebody. In fact, this type of sleep seems to make everyone in the whole house very happy, because everyone can catch some shut eye. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. In fact, this sleep parade actually takes on some pretty dern' cute forms sometimes.

This one is called "The Love Train":

And a close up of the "Love Train" reveals the "Baby Butt Pillow" formation:

But nighttime, in-the-crib sleeping is still lacking. So, your Mom put out an SOS APB ASAP yesterday to all the Moms she knows and got some helpful advice that seemed to work marginally better for last night's sleep. Each night is a bit better than the one before it, and we're open to trying new tricks. So, we haven't given up all hope of sleeping going down the drain.

Speaking of down the drain (nice segue, right?), an oft-mentioned trick to get baby to sleep is to give him a soothing bath before bedtime. Up until your one-month-iversary, we couldn't give you a soothing bath...only a complicated sponge bath thing, because your umbilical cord stump hadn't fallen off yet.

But, when the cord went out the window (figuratively), we decided we could finally give you a big boy bath. And despite an auspicious start and some early crying...

...the warm water, and your Mom's bathing techniques slowly made you a little less wary...

And finally comfortable!

So by the time we were ready to dry you off, you were fully in happy land!

Well, maybe that's not the exact face of "happy land," but it's definitely "not crying land," so I'll take it!

Oh, and this whole soothing bath thing totally did NOT help you sleep any better on Sunday night. But, at least you're clean now, from head to toe!

We'll try the soothing bath in conjunction with our new night time tricks soon and see if we can't get you sleeping a bit more comfortably, so that not everyone's sleep will be slowly spinning down the drain!