Three Weeks Old

Natalie is three weeks old! Time is flying.



She's growing fast and getting chubbier every day. We're so curious to know how much she weighs, but I guess we'll have to wait until her next doctor appointment to find out! Every day she looks more and more like Natalie as she outgrows her "newborn" looks.

Just in the last few days, she's started being really alert during her awake times. She stares at the people who hold her like she's really checking them out and learning from them. She will also now turn her head to look at something. While we were in Tuscaloosa over Thanksgiving, our nephew Austin had a moose that sang Christmas songs and lit up when you squeezed his paw. A few times while Natalie was in Grandma Frances's lap, we'd squeeze the moose's paw and Natalie would turn her head to the left to look at the moose!

She's getting really good at holding her head up and does it every chance she gets. It makes her seem so much bigger.

Today Natalie's umbilical cord stump fell off, revealing a cute little belly button! Since this happened, we were also able to give her a bubble bath instead of a sponge bath. She was sooo cute in her whale tub:



The last few nights she's given us longer stretches of sleep since she's been going three hours between feedings instead of two hours. That extra hour makes a huge difference in the middle of the night, so I hope she'll keep it up!!

Two Weeks Old

Natalie is two weeks old!



We can tell a difference in her size and she is getting some chubby cheeks on her! She's also fitting into clothes that didn't fit last week, so I put her in my favorite little outfit in the picture above. She has long hands and feet, and her feet are already almost too big for the "footies" in this outfit. We don't have a scale at home so we don't know how much she weighs, but we think she must be over 7 lbs now.

She's sleeping well some nights and not so well other nights. We had a good night last night, where she slept for 2 - 3 hours at a time. I wish that would happen every night! She's also gotten fussier than she was when she first came home, which is to be expected. We've read that she'll continue to be fussy until she's about six weeks old, when she should settle down a bit. The good news is that even when she fusses, it's usually not for more than five minutes at a time so it's tolerable.

Her next doctor's appointment is on December 6th, when she is one month old. I think she may have to get a vaccination which should be pretty painful for both Natalie and Mommy!

Unto us a child is born!

As my faithful blog readers (all two of you!) know, our baby girl was born on Saturday, November 6th! Natalie Elise Lizza weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and was 20.5 inches long at birth. She is beautiful and perfect in every way and we could not possibly love her more. She is now a whole ten days old and has been an easy baby so far.

Jeremy was home with me all last week and will be here through this Thursday, which has been a new mama's life saver. He's a natural in his new role as "daddy", which amazes me every day since who knows how long it's been since he's handled a baby, much less a newborn. He holds her in his lap and she stares up at him and studies his face so sweetly.

Natalie has been sleeping in a cradle beside our bed, but we're planning on moving her to her nursery soon (maybe this week!). She makes tiny little squeaks and grunts throughout the night that make it hard for us to sleep (and believe me, sleep is hard enough to come by as it is), and her pediatrician recommended that we go ahead and move her to her nursery.

Here's a picture of Natalie on the day she was born:



And here's a picture of Natalie at 1 week old:

39 Weeks

We're at 39 weeks and, other than stronger Braxton Hicks contractions, there's been no real sign that this baby is ready to leave the womb. But you never know, maybe it will all happen fast!

Baby Center's 39 week update:

Your baby's waiting to greet the world! He continues to build a layer of fat to help control his body temperature after birth, but it's likely he already measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds, a mini watermelon. The outer layers of his skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath.

And here's a picture of your favorite expectant mama from today: