Four Weeks and a Few Firsts

Nora hit the four-week mark today.  Oddly, it seems like just yesterday that we brought her home while - at the same time - I feels like she's always been a part of our family.

For my own records/memories, I'm going to record some "boring" details about our days.  Nora is doing well and is slowly working her way toward a schedule.  She eats about every 2-3 hours during the day.  At night, she usually goes for one semi-long stretch (4-5 hours) and then wakes up about every 2-3 hours after that.  We've started a bedtime routine that includes a bath and bedtime feeding around 9:00, and she'll usually sleep until 1 or 2.  Although lately, after a few long days, she's been waking up closer to midnight. She tends to wake herself up a lot during the night, usually by flailing her legs around.  We swaddle her, but our little Houdini manages to get her arms and/or legs free at some point most nights.  She's been a "grunter" since day one (which makes for sleepless nights for her parents), but I think it has started to get better.  At least that's what I'm telling myself. 

She's gotten more active during the day, which has resulted in some stressful days (for a while "being awake" was synonymous with "pitching a fit").  But yesterday she seemed to turn a corner and today she's been happier during the wakeful hours.  She's not great at "self-soothing" yet, but she's working hard to find her thumb, so I'm guessing once that happens she'll be on the road to calming herself down.  She also seems to love being on her tummy, so we do a good amount of "tummy time."  She likes to sleep on her stomach (which is against the rules), but I let her do it sometimes during the day when I'm holding her or right next to her.  I think that once she is able to roll over she'll be a tummy sleeper. 

Now, on to the "firsts" and some pictures.  Over the past week or so, we've had some milestones.  Nora had her first bath, which she tolerates most of the time:

Not loving the first bath (later ones were better tolerated)

happier when wrapped up in her towel

She also took her first bottle like a champ:

She's had a few other firsts, which we did not capture on camera.  She made her first roadtrip to Tuscaloosa on Friday (I had to go for work).  She did great in the car.  I can only hope this attitude continues, especially on those long drives to Lafayette.  She also has started smiling.  At first, she was smiling in her sleep, which doesn't really count.  But a couple of times lately, she has smiled while awake and in response to us talking to her.  Today I was holding her and suddenly felt something warm on my lap - she had teetee'd through her diaper.  After we changed her, I left her with Marc while I changed clothes.  Apparently, Marc was talking to her about what she had just done and all of a sudden she grinned.  So proud of herself.

Here are a couple more pictures from the past week:

getting ready to go on a walk