Hard to believe, but this time last week I had just given birth to our sweet baby girl! Tessa was probably still screaming her head off while getting her bath :)
Not much has changed in a week - our girl still screams quite a bit when she's getting her bath. Of course, her "biblical" chord (as Will calls it) is still attached so she's just getting cold and wet sponge baths for the moment. I guess I wouldn't like that either. Funny note about the umbilical chord - you know how they tell you when you leave the hospital that ugly little thing will fall off in 10-14 days? Well, BOTH of our boys kept theirs for like 4-6 weeks. Will's actually fell off the night before one of his pedi appointments, but was still green and oozy underneath. And the pediatrician took Brooks' off because it was so gross looking. BOTH boys had to have that crazy black silver nitrate put on their bellies to dry it up completely. I guess you could say our kids just can't cut the chord??? I'm praying Miss Tessa gives it up before it gets to that point...
I have to say though, other than bath time and very few others, our girl is pretty content. I guess I could be jinxing myself by writing this, but I really want to document her true behaviors. So far, she's our easiest baby. I really think I deserved an easy baby after Will's crazy reflux and Brooks' constant colic and I'm starting to think that God gave me exactly what I needed. She isn't easily rattled. She's definitely used to hearing her brother's screams and voices because she doesn't even flinch when one (or both) are having melt downs or literally going to blows over a toy. She doesn't even jump when one of them (or her daddy) drops some loud object on the hardwood floor or even when her brother Will decides to serenade her with his "flute" (think 5th grade recorder) while she's already sleeping.
She's a great sleeper so far. Now I have enough experience in the baby department to know that these things can change very quickly, but we've really been blessed with a girl who likes her zzzzzs. So far, she sleeps in her Snugabunny Infant Seat or her swing, or even on a cushion on the sofa (depending on where we are). If she gets REALLY sleepy, she'll even snooze in her car seat which is something her brothers would never do. She hasn't really decided if she likes a paci or not. I'm thinking she likes it more than she doesn't, but she just hasn't gotten to the point where she can't do without it yet. We've had to try several different brands - the gumdrops, the Avent, the Nuk. I think she likes the Nuks the best, or at least she has better luck keeping them in her mouth.
I'm afraid to write about the night time sleeping because I'm afraid to speak too soon, but I really want to be able to look back and see exactly what she was doing, so here goes - from day 1, she's been a great sleeper at night. She loves to be swaddled tightly at night and I'm glad she does - we don't swaddle her during the day (unless I get really desperate) and those little arms are constantly getting flung around until they usually wake her up or knock a paci out. For the last two nights, she's gotten a bath around 10:30, fed and put to bed around 11PM. Both nights, she slept until 4:30AM, when she woke up and got fed and changed and went right back to sleep until 9:30AM. Yep - you read that correctly, TWO five hour stretches in a row. We'll take it!!
During the day, she eats every 2.5-3.5 hours. Sometimes I even wake her up to eat, depending on how long she's been asleep. Just like her brothers, she's not too crazy about car rides unless she's sleepy and then she'll drift off to sleep and she's golden. While her brothers screamed bloody murder from the time of entry to the time of exit, Tessa is a little more tolerant. She usually gives it her best effort and then starts crying shortly into any trip in the car. It's funny, when she starts wailing in the car, Brooks will shout from the back "Baby crying! Hush Baby!" and Will usually doesn't even stop talking....
The bath, the car and a few gas-induced belly aches have been the only sources of true hysteria from our girl. She's really more of a grunter. When she's ready to eat, you'll know it from her grunting, chewing on her hands, and her disgruntlement with her paci. This is also how she wakes up. Instead of waking up crying, she'll be grunting (which she does throughout her sleep) and when you notice that she doesn't grunt.stop.silence.grunt. and it's more like grunt.grunt.grunt.grunt. then you'll look at her and she'll be awake. Like I said - pretty chill girl so far.
The boys are still in love. Brooks is really starting to become obsessed with her, which is a little difficult because he can't be reasoned with. He wants to "hold da baby" or "burp da baby" or "feed da baby" every single time I pick her up. If I'm sitting down to feed her, he's literally trying to rip her out of my arms while screaming "I HOLD DA BABY!!" Will is more reserved with his affections - he'll kiss her little head or tell her how much he loves her. One cute thing Brooks does is sing to her - when I let him hold her (which I have to do pretty often) he'll sing the B-I-B-L-E to her. It's precious!
We went to the pediatrician on Wednesday for her first weight check and she had only lost one ounce. Not bad considering bigger babies generally lose more weight after birth than lower weight babies. Since she was doing so well and not jaundice at all, he gave us the green light until she's a month old. Good news!
And I'm feeling pretty well I guess. I'm not sure if it's because this was my 3rd delivery, or if it's because she came so fast, or if it's because of the surgery on the day following her delivery, but this has been my hardest baby to recover from. I'm 7 days into it and physically, I feel like I had her two days ago. I'm still taking 800mg of motrin as regularly as the medicine will allow and usually at least one half of a pain med each day. Each day I hope to feel significantly better, but so far I just haven't made that turn yet. While little bit isn't too much of a problem physically, I'm still having a hard time keeping up with my big boys - you know chasing them to put clothes on, picking them up from boo boos, pulling them off each other, fighting them to time out, and even them crawling up in my lap for books.
Today was daddy's first day back to work, so you may be wondering how I had time for such a lengthy post. Well, like I said - she's a good sleeper and her brothers are at grandma's today. Will begged to spend the night with his Gram last night and because he starts 4 year pre-k next week AND it was daddy's first day back to work, I obliged them. This is really a special treat for the girl and I. We slept in until 9:30 and starting on Monday, we'll have to have Mr. Will at school by 9 :/
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