Our Little and Littler Honey: New Normal

I keep waiting for some level of "normal" to come back. It still doesn't feel normal to wake up three times a night and soothe, feed and change a child. It doesn't feel normal to nap during the day as a necessity, or to ignore my emails because I have something (or rather, someone) more important to attend to. It doesn't feel normal that there is a co-sleeper in between my wife and I in bed, and that in order to kiss her good night or cuddle with her before falling asleep, I have to get up and go to "her" side.

What does feel normal is looking into our Bailey's beautiful face during her alert time. It feels normal to worry about her. It feels normal to make our plans knowing that she'll be coming along. It feels normal to know that every day for the rest of our lives, we'll be the parents to this child who will become a woman. It feels normal to think about the second child...

Tuesday, I had a doctors appointment. My incision is healing well - that is to say that it is pretty much healed. I still have some internal pain, but not much. I'm definitely improving by the day. We ended up having a long wait at the doctors. My doctor was over at the hospital delivering a child. The benefit to a small town doctor is that you get small town service. The detriment is that you are not always at the top of the priority list. Kelly and I used the time to start thinking about when we'll start trying for our second child. Having more than one, and having them relatively close together, has always been our dream. We've agreed to table the discussion until Bailey is 6 months old. Then, we'll start planning in earnest...

Yesterday, Bailey had her 2 week check up. We are happy to report that she has gained back all of her birth weight...and then some. She weighed in a 10 pounds, 12 ounces. LOL! Guess she's getting enough to eat. She has not grown in inches, but she's already at the top of all the percentiles...and is above average for her size. Everything looks good. She is healthy in all ways.

The only problem we were having is that in the last couple of days, she's very fussy, spits up and has lots and lots of gas. It seems like her formula was not working for her. We switched her to a gentle formula, with extra carbs and the whole proteins are already broken down some. We've already seen a huge, huge improvement. Other than her usual feeding times, she slept through the night last night and we've not had any long-term gassy episodes. Also, she's not had any spit up since we switched her. We're holding our breath!!!

Finally - yesterday, we got an AWESOME gift in the mail!!! Miss. Bailey got a nature sounds cradle swing from some good friends of mine in California! We didn't have a swing (well, not true...we had a second hand Graco that she was too small for), so we were way excited. We put her in it immediately after we had put it together and wouldn't you believe it...she slept solid for an hour!!!!! I was able to get the dishes done, the house picked up, dinner made and the bottles sterilized! PERFECT!!!! Thank you so much, Karen and Richard!!! Pictures are on the way...

Speaking of pictures...here are couple of new ones!

The Loves of My Life