One Month: Happy Thanksgiving!

Baby Hollie turned one month old the day before Thanksgiving. She is much more like a little person now (instead of just a little eating/sleeping machine), and we really enjoy her chirps, grunts, baby dinosaur noises, and the way she smiles big and giggles in her sleep (but no WAY is she going to smile or laugh when she is awake. She is all grunts and grumbles when she is awake).


We really wanted to go to Houston to see family for Thanksgiving, but we had to make the difficult decision the morning of to stay home. Hollie cried through the night on Tuesday, and there was no way we could make the nine-hour drive with three or four hour-long feeding breaks somewhere in the middle. We were second-guessing our decision until Hollie had two poopy blow-outs before noon--we decided then that it was probably best we weren't cleaning poop out of a carseat somewhere in the middle of Texas. It was still sad not to be able to come, though.

We did get to take Hollie to some friends' house, however, and she was pretty well-behaved. She wore her cute romper handmade by our cousin Jane. I must say, she looked pretty adorable.


P.S. I know this isn't my most eloquent post ever, but what can I say? Sleep-deprivation has given me, among other things, minor aphasia and a delirious sense if reality. We're putting the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard, if you know what I mean.

Two Weeks

Uncle Will holding Hollie next the pumpkins he and David carved.

Everyone said that the first two weeks are the hardest. Well, we made it! And it's true: the Baby Blues have dissipated just enough that I don't have weep for no reason as soon as the sun sets, and I'm only half as anxious as I used to be about Baby Hollie surviving the night without my watching her every breath. I owe a lot of thanks to David and my mom for encouraging me to stop reading so many baby books and looking up scary baby problems on the internet. Sometimes it's best just to look your scrappy little baby in her big blue eyes and say, "You really are one tough little peanut."

I don't try to count how many minutes I sleep each day. I've decided that will do me no good. The adrenaline keeps me alert even when I do drift off, so I am usually tired without being drowsy, which really isn't so bad at all.

Today I went back to school and left David with a bottle of breast milk for Hollie. It was tough, but it felt good to be back in class (read: It felt good to not feel one MORE week behind) and it ended up that Hollie ate well and was good for her Daddy for the three hours I was gone.

I think what has made these past two weeks the most fun, though, is our three a.m. family home midnights. Hollie loves to have her quiet alert time in the middle of the night, and it is nearly impossible for me to get her back to sleep after the three a.m. feeding. Sometimes she'll fuss a little bit and wake David up, or sometimes we'll accidentally wake David up when we're walking the perimeter of the house and stepping on all our creaky wooden floorboards. David usually has to get up early to tutor in the Writing Center so I try to let him sleep as much as he can, even though he swears he'd rather be up with us.

Anyway, we've been getting progressively more tired, which makes us significantly more goofy at these three a.m. rendezvous. The other night I was singing gibberish to wide awake baby when Davie got out of bed and started doing a dance for us in the doorway of Baby Hollie's room. There was a lot of booty-shaking going on, and David swears now that he doesn't remember any of it.

The next night I woke up to feed Hollie and found a plate of cookies and rolls on the table by the glider. I'm not kidding: my husband is the best. I can't wait until Hollie learns to giggle at how funny her Dad is. He needs to know how much his girls love him, especially at three a.m. when we need him the most.


P.S. A super-big thanks to all our family that was able to come for Lil' Hollie's baby blessing on Sunday. David gave her a beautiful father's blessing, and he said that Hollie was wide-eyed the entire time, quietly listening and looking at all of the men as they held her during the blessing. We are so in love with our little family, and we feel so blessed to have each other.