Two Week Update!

Hello Friends and Family!!


On Tuesday, Lorelei turned two weeks old!

I can't believe two weeks have already gone by! It seems like it went by so fast! Little Lorelei is gently worming her way into our hearts as we get to know more about her every day. She still sleeps a lot during the day, interspersed with feeding and crying, and a few short awake/alert periods. These are my favorite and I can't wait for them to be longer and more frequent. When she's awake and content, she looks all around her with big, wide round eyes. She looks right in your face, and then darts her eyes off to look at your edges and the light from the window and the lamps. She seems to particularly like looking at the line were the wall meets the ceiling as well as the hall way light fixture.

We gave her a bath on Sunday afternoon and she seemed content through the whole thing until the last few minutes. The room was sunny and warm and she'd just woken up form a nap, so that probably helped. Part of the scab fell off her belly button while I was drying her off, and the rest fell off this morning, so this Sunday we will probably be able to give her a tub bath instead of a sponge bath. She'll hopefully like that better.

Our Dr. appointment on Monday was rescueduled because Dr. was sick, so we'll go see her on Thur instead. Hopefully Baby Girl will have gained some more weight. Andrew has weighed her by stepping on the scale holding her and then not holding her, and subtracting the two weights. By this method she weighs about 8 pounds. I hope the Dr. office confirms that tomorrow. :) She would then be 1 pound heavier than she was at birth.

Her facial expressions have broadened, but still aren't always connected to the events in her life. This morning, I swear it looked like she was "practicing" emotions in the mirror, like and actor might do. She did Confused, Startled, Angry, Interested, Happy, and somethign that I can't really label but has a halfway curled lip and a furrowed brow. She ran through all of these in less then a minute and had me laughing while I tried to settle her for her breakfast. She still makes her little turtle face when we pause in nursing for a burp. She purses her little mouth like a beak and stretches her chin up and the the side and opens her eyes really wide... just like a turtle stretching it's head out of it's shell for a look around. :) I've tried to get pictures of a few of these, but the camera focusing on her sometimes distracts her and she frowns.

This afternoon we did a little "photo-shoot". Here are some of Baby Girl's close ups. :) Isn't she cute!? :)

This one is why I think the nickname Duckie fits her so well. :)

We're still working on breastfeeding. I'm starting to pick up some of her hunger cues. She starts licking her lips, and opening and closing her mouth and making little fussy noises. Of course these little fussy noises may also mean that she has a dirty diaper, and some times she just goes right to crying, but I have been very happy that a few times Andrew and I caught her little signs and got her to the breast before the wailing started. :)  The last two days have been a little difficult because Lorelei's had a really gassy tummy.  When you hold her you can feel the bubbles moving across her tummy.  She seems so uncomfortable.  She cries and scrunches up her legs and when she burps or passes gas she seems to calm down a bit.  So I'm trying to hold her more up-right when I feed her and burp her more often.  We're doing light tummy massages and lightly bouncing her when we walk.  That all seems to help a little bit.  I guess we'll ask Dr. Bero about other things to try when we see her tomorrow.

On the happy side, Lorelei is very snuggly when she's sleepy. At night, Andrew will tuck her into the blanket on her lap and they'll sit at his computer while I shower and sneak in an hour of sleep before he brings her up for more feeding. They look very cute wrapped up together playing games or surfing the web. :)

I'm doing pretty well too. I'm mostly recovered from giving birth, but still am not allowed to lift "anything heavier than baby" so no carrying the laundry basket up and down the stairs for me. Andrew is being so helpful about that. I'm not as sore, and most nights we're getting more sleep so I'm feeling more energetic. The weather has been cold and icy/snowy, but yesterday and today I was able to go out for a brief walk.  Today  it was even sunny.  It's very, very nice to be a little more active and to be out on my own for a little while.  I still get a little weepy at times, usually for no real reason, but that's much less now too.

The Spring semester began today for faculty at Jefferson Community College. It was a little weird not to head into the office this morning, but my two online classes are up and running and students are already interacting. Until the breast pump we ordered arrives I can't leave the house for more than 2 hours, because Lorelei needs nursing, but once the pump gets here, Andrew can do some of that and I can run into the office for a meeting or to the library or such. In a few weeks we'll take Lorelei in to visit as well.

That's all for now from the Lonsbary Family! :)