One Month with Abby

Our baby girl is just over a month now, and it's been such a fun, busy month! I can't believe how quickly it's flown... and this is just the beginning.

We're loving having a daughter, and she's already the apple of her father's eye. I love watching David hold her and talk to her... he's quite smitten. Jonathan also adores his little sister. He's just wonderful with her, though we're working on a better understanding of the word "gentle." He is sure to tell her "bye bye Baby Abby" when he's headed off to school, kisses her good night, and loves to hold her and rock her in my rocking chair.

A few notes on Abby at 1 month...

We're amazed at what a wonderful sleeper she is! If I haven't mentioned it before, Abby and Jonathan are different in almost every way. While he preferred to be held all night long until the day he turned two months, Abby is relatively content to sleep in her bed between feedings during the night. Jonathan was quite upset when I needed to change his clothes (I guess he didn't like the cold?). Abby doesn't like me putting her arms into her onesies, but is happy as a lark laying on her changing table in just a diaper. With Jonathan I owned about 3 burp cloths. I wash at least 6 a day for Abby. When Jonathan was a baby I thought every baby must move all the time. He continually had at least an arm or leg moving around or flailing about if he was any bit awake. It looked like I had a live squirrel under my shirt when I tried to nurse him in public! When I nurse Abigail, she just cuddles up to me and drinks, sometimes dozing off, and often just looking up at me with sweet wide open eyes. They look a lot alike, but that's about where the similarities stop.

Abby's not a fan of her car seat. I thought by this time she might decide it's a nice place to hang out and nap, but not so much. It pretty much takes hitting 60 mph for her to pipe down. I'm hoping this phase doesn't last long, because unless the cop's a Mommy herself, I don't think I'll be able to talk myself out of a ticket by explaining that I had to speed up because my newborn wants me to drive faster and that I'm going to go nuts if there's any more crying in this car :)

[Well... took me til she's 6 weeks old to finish this post, but by now Abby's even more fun:]

We're loving her smiles. She has the greatest whole-face grin that lights up her face and scrunches up her eyes. It's a little lop-sided, sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other, and is just adorable. She's also "coo'ing" now, and it's so much fun to hear her little "agooo" when we talk to her! We fall more in love with her every day.

She slept all night last night. Now as a pediatrician, sleeping through the night is sleeping 5 hours in a row, which is nice, but we all know that isn't really sleeping through the night, is it? But I mean ALL night. I mean I put her down at 9:30, and Jonathan woke us up at 6:30, at which I panicked that something had happened to her, but no, Abigail was just starting to stir... probably starving, but well rested. She's even just fallen asleep a few times. By "just fallen asleep," I mean without the extensive rocking, swaddling, pacifier pushing efforts that coaxed her brother to sleep. I laid Abby down in her crib a few days ago to watch her mobile while I picked up the bathroom after her bath. I came back, and the little girl was sound asleep in her bed! Entirely by accident! She slept for an hour and a half. Today she watched the little toys happily in her swing for a few minutes, and then... just fell asleep (with her brother running circles in the living room with a pop toy!). We've had it for 2 1/2 years, but I've never seen a sleeping baby in that swing. I took a picture.

Jonathan meanwhile continues to entertain us with his antics. Highlights from this week:

Last night Monkey had his first real dinner. Jonathan was playing outside and came in to ask for a spoon, which I gave him. He returned asking for a fork, then for green beans and "chocolate" (Nutella... which I gave him after tightening the lid!). I see him running back and forth between his room and the backyard, and then he returns to the kitchen to tell me that Monkey, and "Monkey's Mommy" (Max and Mimi also go by "Monkey" and "Monkey's Mommy" these days, depending on the setting) and "Monkey's Daddy" (aka Lion... this is a new role for him) are eating green beans for dinner. It was too cute. He'd set them up in chairs with a big bowl of little rocks he was spoon feeding them, apparently a meal of green beans and chocolate.

I've been singing with Jonathan at bedtime. I'd hoped the songs would instill in him an early understanding of God, but I'm afraid they've created a little confusion. He has asked me to sing the "Jesus is a rocket" song and the "God rolls my shoes away" song, both of which are his understanding of "Jesus is a rock, and he rolls my blues away." Either way, he really likes singing the next line with me: "bop shoo bop, shoo bop, woo!" We've had a little more success with "My God is So Big." Jonathan tells me, "God is so big... so big and mighty... like... like... like a bulldozer and Mighty Machines!" It's at least a little closer than "Jesus is a rocket!"

He's also started asking me to read from his toddler Bible stories "Mommy, read the God stories?", and I've found it quite a challenge to present Old Testament stories on a 2 year old level. How do you explain that it was okay for David to throw a rock at Goliath's head to a boy who is often being reminded we can't throw rocks or toys because they might hurt somebody? I've got Daniel and the Lions Den down, though: "This man is Daniel. Some mean people put him with lions, and the lions were angry and scary. But Daniel knew God would help him. God sent an angel to tell Daniel not to feel scared. Then God made the lions happy, so they weren't scary any more, and Daniel wasn't scared. See the picture of the happy Lions and happy Daniel?"

Jonathan enjoyed making a little puppet yesterday with the craft kit his Nonnie had bought us. This is Pappy the Puppet.

We were also super excited to have Aunt Heather visit over Halloween weekend while David was on a church retreat. Both the kids and I really enjoyed having her here. We miss her and can't wait to see her again in a few weeks!