This past month with Nora has been wonderful. We love our sweet baby girl.
One of the best parts of having a newborn again is remembering Elijah at that age through Nora's expressions and sounds. Some of her same cry faces I remember vividly as Eli cry faces. It was hard in some ways to go back to newborn days though. I looked at Rob one night and held Nora up and told him, "She doesn't know anything!" "She can't do anything cool, yet!" Her kind daddy took up for her and said she knew a lot... and she'll do fun stuff with us one day. Rob also says her cuteness is a survival instinct. I tend to agree. I think I actually heard that in a college sociology class.
I am shamelessly waiting so impatiently for her first real smiles. Oh, toothless grins send my heart over the edge and make all the work of a newborn more than worthwhile. Her little flutter smiles help me bide the time until then.
She is a strong girl - holding her head up for small bits of time since she came home from the hospital. I'm guessing she'll be close to 10lbs by her 1 month appointment. (Update! Turns out Nora was 10 lbs 12 oz at 5 1/2 weeks!) Sadly, she's already grown out of her teeny tiny newborn clothes and is into the 0-3 month ones. She is a WAY WAY easier baby than Elijah. And, I think a good bit of that is Rob and I are at least somewhat smarter...
For instance, little girl has to cry longer than Elijah ever dreamed of. After 2 secs of merely a "wha" with him, he was in my arms and I was feeding him, changing him, or soothing him. This girl is told many times a day as I attend to the needs of both babies, "hold on, little sis", "reign it in sister", or "get in line baby girl - mama's moving as fast as she can." I also allow my self the opportunity to go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, or pour a glass of water, whether baby girl is crying or not. I don't think I went to the bathroom until Eli was 5 months old. I'd hold it all day until Rob got home just in case Eli started to cry. I was sure he'd suffer from some awful disorder if he cried longer than 1 minute - With Nora, I've relaxed a lot. It is for sure, little sister's growing up in a different world. Often times by the time I do get to her, (which let's face it may be an eternity in newborn time - but in the real world it's only a couple minutes while I change Eli's diaper or get him a snack) Nora will many times have worked it out.
This girl can also sleep through the biggest of Eli noises and patiently suffers his good-natured smoother kisses, wake-up pokes, and hand holds. Can't fault a brother for loving his sis. Poor girl can't keep a hat on her head. Hats draw in Eli like moths to a flame. He gets a crazy look in his eye and darts over to her and yanks off the hat like it was offending him. I'd love to know if it's some sort of capture the flag game in his head.
She sleeps like a champ and I am following my mother's advice to, "Never wake a sleeping baby." When I told her I was waking Nora Cate up every 3 hours to eat, she said, "Girl, you're grandma would tell you to leave that baby alone and let her sleep." After the first 2 weeks, I've stopped waking her up at night and Nora's gone for a good 5 hour stretch for a couple nights. This is vastly different from our experience with Eli.
We did have a rough week, week and a half of sleepless nights. Nora Cate seemed to be having some gas, reflux, colic tummy troubles. I thought, oh dear, here we go again. But, we discovered a homeopathic remedy called Colic Calm. It changed our life.
It's seriously the best product in the world as far as I can tell.
It was so much fun to have a Holiday Baby. We really enjoyed Christmas festivities in a different way. We put a low priority on cooking and baking, i.e. we did none. We ordered a honey baked ham picked up sides from Kroger and called it a day. Done and Done. We focused on taking care of babies and having fun. We went to the train exhibit at UT gardens Christmas Eve, church Christmas morning, and to see lights one evening. We bucked current tradition and opened presents Christmas Eve so we wouldn't be so rushed Christmas morning. We also played a rousing game of find the belly button stump Christmas Eve, eww.
Baby girl may dislike having her birthday so close to Christmas in the future, but for us this first year it was a blast. We were able to have so many family and friends come and see us over the holiday weeks. There was a relaxed, cheerful, holiday spirit all around: at the mall, on tv, and the people around us. We really enjoyed our new tiny baby during the Holiday Season
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