Update, mostly for me

I think it's a combination of having a new baby and the onset of summer that has completely ruined the routine I worked so hard to create during the rest of the year. I really have no excuse for not blogging more (or writing more, as I have managed to find time to post videos and pictures) and I am gradually working back to doing all the things I want to do.



However, in the meantime, I still haven't written (anywhere) about what it's been like having a new baby in the house, and Kyla is fast approaching one month old. Shame on me. She'll grow up feeling like a typical third child who didn't get any of mom's attention, not nearly enough pictures taken to prove she had a childhood, and nothing but hand-me-downs from her big sister. To be fair, I am busy and as if to prove the point, I have to go hold the crying baby now and will have to finish this post later.

Alright, back at it...

The past three plus weeks have been everything I knew they would be. I am running on far less sleep than I have been used to having, yet somehow I manage to make it through each day. Kyla has had some good nights and some bad (fortunately, more good than bad). Three nights ago she even slept from 11:30 pm to 5:45 am! Wow! She stirred once around 3:00 and I got her up to nurse her, but by the time I got her out of bed, she had fallen back to sleep. When I woke up and it was starting to get light, I panicked for a quick minute, worried that she hadn't made it through the night. I am really looking forward to the day that all nights are like that. Two nights ago, bothered by a stuffy nose, she woke up every hour or two and had a hard time with both the binkie and nursing. That was a tough night for me. Last night was a little better. More typically, she will sleep three hours at a time and then wake up. I'm not convinced that she always wakes up because she's hungry (she hasn't been the most voracious nurser in the middle of the night), but I feed her anyway. Sometimes she will have a messy diaper, but unlike Damon, she doesn't need to be changed with every feeding (we'll see if that changes). Occasionally she won't make it three hours at a time, but we usually make it through the night with two feedings. I have found that the most tired I feel is always at around 7:00 or 8:00 am when the other two kids want to get up. Of course.

Okay, I know that was probably really boring, but I wanted to have some record of that for the future. Also some things of note:

• Kyla is awake a lot more than Damon and Allie were. From day one, she would have several awake periods a day (usually about 4) where she was calm. I don't know how unusual that is for some of you reading this, but I remember my other babies only being awake and calm right before messing their diapers.
• Now, she can stay awake a little over an hour at a time. Usually by the end of the hour she has started getting fussy, but she loves her binkie and that helps with those times.
• She is almost always awake when I am trying to get dinner ready, and this is one of her "not calm" periods. She doesn't cry a lot, but enough to let me know that she's not going to be comforted unless I am holding her and giving her my undivided attention, which has made getting dinner ready a little bit tricky.
• She also really wakes up in the evening. Sometimes she is happy and sometimes she isn't, but right after the kids go to bed, she is awake.
• Sometime during the evening she gets fussy and I have to pull out all the tricks to keep her happy (bouncing, walking around the house, letting her lay on the bed and have a good cry by herself...). But usually by her last feeding of the day (11:00 or so) she has calmed down and is ready for bed.
• She likes to have her hands out by her face, but slept really well swaddled, so I am undecided on the best way to put her to bed. This needs some more experimenting.
• She took a bottle from Jeff on Wednesday night just fine (yay!) and I'm hoping that will continue. She has always been a good nurser, which is a huge blessing.
• Today she weighed 9 lbs 14 oz at her appointment. I checked Allie's record and she weighed 9 lbs 15 oz at one month (Kyla will be one month on Sunday).
• Not only has she been awake a lot since birth, she has also smiled at us a lot when she was awake. I think this is a little unusual, too, as I don't remember my other two doing that until later on. It may be that she's just awake more so we notice it, but I like to believe that she actually is smiling at us. I love it. For a while I thought she only smiled at Damon and Jeff, but she's been giving me a few beautiful grins lately, so maybe she does like girls, too.

Wow, that ended up being more than I planned on, but I think I will be happy to have a record of it later on. Mostly, I have thoroughly enjoyed having a baby again. Of course it's hard and there are moments when I think I'm going to lose my mind, but the good things far outweigh the bad and we feel so lucky to have been blessed with such a wonderful, healthy little addition to our family.