It’s so true when parents say that each week gets better and better.  I loved this week! This week Annabelle has started recognizing us and give us the biggest grins when we talk to her or pick her up (way more than last week).  She has the best facial expressions as you can see from some of our pictures this week.  I can spend hours watching her purse her lips, raise her eye brows, and move that little tongue of hers.  She’s also discovering her hands and fingers, and is grabbing onto things.  She’s trying to put her hands in her mouth and suck on them.

Annabelle is officially growing out of her newborn clothes and we’ve started transitioning her into 0-3 month clothes!  I’ve started to fill a box full of things that no longer fit and have pulled out all her new outfits.  Now that it’s started feeling like fall she’s finally wearing all of her long sleeved onesies and pants outfits, trying to get as much use out of all her clothes.  The 3-month clothes are still a little big but she’ll grow into them before we know it.  Dusty and I couldn’t stop laughing at the absolutely adorable picture of Annabelle sitting up (look below) because her pants are so far up past her belly that she looks like an old man who wears high-waist pants with a belt.

Annabelle’s getting better and better at sleeping.  Depending on the night she wakes up just one or two times.  She’s still sleeping in our room in her bassinet.  On a good night, she goes to bed by 9pm and wakes up between 2-4am to be nursed. Then she goes back to sleep until about 7am to nurse again. One of my favorite moments this week was that on a couple of those days in the morning, after nursing her we would snuggle in bed for an hour or two.  She’d fall back asleep and I’d just watch her sleep.

Now I’m working on getting her to take longer naps during the day.  She tends to wake herself up after a while and ends up taking a bunch of catnaps throughout the day, napping for 20 minutes or less and then playing for a bit and then falling back asleep for another short nap.

I’ve noticed this week that Annabelle can tell who I am and the moment I pick her up as compared with someone else, she seems calmer (I secretly love it).  When these kinds of things happen it makes me just a little sad to go back to work because I know she’ll start getting used to someone else and I might not be her one and only lady.

I go back to work in a little over a week.  I’m excited to get back into a schedule and see students but I know it’ll be hard to leave our little bean.  Because I’m not teaching for the rest of the semester and my work schedule is pretty flexible, we’re not sending Annabelle to daycare until January.  We have a friend of ours nanny for us and will be coming to the apartment a few days a week.

Here are a few updates on what we did this week.  Last weekend Annabelle walked in her first Race for the Cure 5K.  This week Annabelle and I bonded a lot.  Dusty was in California for five days so Annabelle and I got a lot of one-on-one time. Monday and Tuesday my sister, Annabelle and I went to visit our family in northeastern Iowa.  Most of my dad’s family lives there.  We wanted Annabelle to meet her great-grandpa as well as the rest of our family.  Grandpa and Annabelle got along just great and they were two peas in a pod.

I love taking pictures of Annabelle yawning.  She’s just so cute when she’s at that point where she’s wanting to fall asleep but just hasn’t gotten there yet, or she’s just waking up and isn’t quite awake yet.  And speaking of sleeping, sleeping babies are so perfect!!! Dusty and I find ourselves watching Annabelle sleep and talking about how sweet she is.  And then one of us will go and give her a kiss on her head before going back to whatever we were doing.  I love the noises she makes and the smiles she gives when she’s sleeping.  In fact, she’s sleeping on my chest as I write this.  I’m taking a break every few moments to smooch her and smell her hair and admire her.

Life with Annabelle is so different each day.  One minute I think I have everything figured out and the next something changes and I start all over again.  Parenthood is getting easier but there are still ups and downs (although many more ups than downs).  I’m trying to write a few things down every couple of days for the blog, but what’s difficult is that every couple of days she’s changed.  For example, she didn’t care to be swaddled the first week or so and it might have been because the straightjacket swaddler was so big and wasn’t as snug but now she seems to like it when we’re trying to get her to bed at night.  One day she’ll like her swing and the next she hates it.  One day she’ll take great naps and then the next she doesn’t want to miss out on anything.  I’ve found myself saying something like “as of today” or “in the last 24 hours” or “the last time I tried” when people ask how she’s sleeping or if she likes something or not.  Because she’s still figuring out what she likes and doesn’t like that I have to remember to try everything more than once.

My weekly baby emails tell me that she can’t focus on things further than about 12 inches from her face until she’s three or four months old  and that she is drawn to contrasting patterns and light sources so we’ve started getting the mobiles out and some of her toys.  I play little games with her and show her toys or books and talk to her about them.  These past two weeks Annabelle’s much more content just sitting in her swing (at least for a few extra minutes).  She’s started looking around a lot more and even paying attention to our faces.  I find myself making funny expressions to make her smile.

My favorite part of these past two weeks is that she’s really starting to make a lot more sounds.  She’s cooing  more as well as making a lot more grunts and gurgles. We talk to her a lot and can’t wait for the day she talks back to us!

These past two weeks have been busy ones for the three of us.  We took Annabelle to another one of our favorite restaurants, Dante Pizzeria, last week and there were no major catastrophes.  I did hold my breathe the entire time, not wanting to disturb our neighbors but we survived and so did our neighbors (they had kids too)!  We also went to a fundraising event that was just a few blocks away from our place.  We strolled Annabelle with us and showed our support.

A few of my co-workers threw me a baby shower/open house this week.  Being back at school got me a little excited to go back to work but it also reminds me how difficult it’s also going to be.  I’m going to miss my little bean!

We did a few other things with Annabelle these past couple weeks, helping her and us both adjust to going out.  Annabelle really likes the baby bjorn carrier, making it really easy to take her places because she loves to “hang” out.  Dusty and I have always been active people and did a lot before Annabelle was born.  Now that she’s here we want her to be a part of that.  We’re hoping that we can create an environment where we spend quality time at home but also do those fun things we did before.  We love introducing Annabelle to our exciting adventures!

One final update, I went for my six-week check up and got the okay to start exercising, now I just have to start!

Annabelle’s officially a month old.  She’s becoming her own little person.  She’s started to grasp onto our fingers with her hands, she’s smiling, and becoming more alert.  I love when she’s laying on me and napping, she’ll grab onto my finger (or when I put my finger into her hand, she’ll hold onto it).  And this week she’s started to smile, not necessarily because she thinks we’re funny but if I talk to her or kiss her on her nose she’ll give me a big ol’ grin.  She’s also started liking her pacifier just a little bit! For the first three weeks the only way she’d take the pacifier was if you’d hold it in her mouth and then after a minute she’d spit it out.

She still really likes being held or in other words, dislikes being in her swing or laying down or anywhere else (especially in the afternoon before Dusty gets home) and there were a few days this week I walked around the apartment with her in the baby carrier.  She liked being held and I was able to get a few things done.

Annabelle and I are starting to get into a routine.  I’m not sure if routine is the right word but let’s just say that I’m starting to understand her wants and needs, and am able to predict them a little better.  Our nice little routine will change once again when I go back to work though but I’m enjoying it while I can.

Last weekend we took Annabelle to her first wedding, and we stayed in the back of the church for most of the ceremony because she was a bit hungry and didn’t want to sit quietly.  I’m realizing how a child’s eating and napping schedule can really determine what you’re going to be doing or not doing.

Annabelle’s sleeping just like a one month old, sporadically.  One day she slept for four hours in the evening.  And then did it again a few days later but most of her naps last an hour (or less).  And she wakes up every three hours in the middle of the night.  A friend gave me a book while I was pregnant on getting your infant to sleep through the night and I finally read it.  It was a great reference to how things could be if you had the perfect baby or the perfect parents but sadly she is not (although we adore her all the same) and neither are we.  I promptly put the book down, called my girlfriends with children and asked how they did it.  Let’s just say that after talking to them, I feel much better.  As with any piece of advice, I’m taking it with a grain of salt and using what information I can, as the best I can.  It has made me want to read more about raising children, just to see what the professionals are saying.

Venturing out for Annabelle’s first wedding wasn’t the only thing we did outside of the house this week, we also went on a lot of walks over the pedestrian bridge, met up with two other new mommies and their two little guys for a walk and some frozen yogurt, and then Dusty, Annabelle and I went to a vineyard with some friends.

So, it’s been a month and we’re starting to live life as a family of three.  Dusty’s officially back to work in full force, working hard to launch Flywheel and move it out of Beta (which they did today).  This week I started adjusting to being a wife, and now mother, with an entrepreneurial husband, and Dusty’s adjusting to being an entrepreneurial dad.  We’ve been married for six years and I’ll admit that it took us both a while to adjust to him not working you’re typical job, and now we’re adjusting again.