Eight weeks.

Your seventh week! You are smiling and chattering like crazy. Your pop often entertains you while he gets ready for work. You wake up for real around 8 am, cooing and screeching at my still sleepy form, telling me all about it. You are starting to intently focus your eyes and it is clear to us and everyone else that you are a tiny baby sponge, soaking up your existence. We took long walks and naps together this week, enjoying the preview of spring to come. To my disbelief, you're about to outgrow your basket... not that surprising I guess, considering you wear size 6 month clothing already. You have a bald spot on the back of your head where the (reddish!) hair has rubbed away as you look around. Your tiny fists have unclenched and are opening up into tiny hands.

You had lots of naked time this week for us to get in tune with you... you seem pleased when we respond to your cues with a potty opportunity. We average about a catch a day now! Post Valentine's, Steven made me a beautiful necklace, the stones perfect for tiny hands to grab while eating. In a moment of mom genius I hung a mobile over the kitchen counter and you stare and coo at it from your basket for hours on end, freeing up my arms to get some housework done. I moved this mobile from apartment to house over the last five years and now you finally get to stare at it, drifting off to sleep while holding your lovey giraffe.

While taking a walk with Snickett we figured out how to breastfeed in the wrap- a major discovery. You were totally content, being both fed and walked at the same time. One afternoon we ventured out to Wendell Smith's for lunch where the waitresses all exclaimed at the size of your cheeks and general cuteness. I ate there about once a week while pregnant so they were tickled to see the end result. There was a dinner one evening with friends, including sweet baby Vincent. You slept through the whole thing! We feasted with pot pie, a salad with beets, and a vegan vanilla custard with berries on a gingersnap crust. We visited the Farm on a gorgeous Saturday for your last checkup. Everyone was thrilled with your chubby-ness- all 13.9 lbs of it! You've gained nearly five lbs and grown three inches since you were born. Good girl!

We are looking forward to your two month birthday and to ticking off more milestones. To warmer weather and longer walks. To travelling in the near future. To reading books together. To more visits with friends and family. To gardening. To all the newness that spring has to offer, so perfect to enjoy with an almost brand new baby.

Seven weeks.

Your sixth week has us reeling while we adapt to your constant growing- you change from minute to minute. We have started to venture out of the house some and this week wore us both out with visits and walks. You enjoy being in the outside air while Snickett plays fetch, often falling asleep after taking in the new sights sounds and smells to be had. You held your rattle this week and seemed to grasp it with purpose, bringing it to your mouth and shaking it when it wasn't the boob you wished it was. When you're awake you stay awake and look around with great wonder, absorbing all the time. Sometimes you smile back or make ridiculous faces at our attempts to amuse you. You talk to us with various coos, goos, and moos. At the end of the day you fall asleep hard, not waking until daylight breaks. You fall asleep easily on your Pop.

We visited Pop at work and we ate lunch, showing you off to many coworkers who were eager to meet you.

We spent a morning with Becca, eating bagels and walking the greenway- you slept in the Ergo the entire time!

You stayed at home on Valentine's, hanging out with your Grandpapa, while we went out to dinner without you for the very first time. We missed you but it was nice to eat hot food and have both hands free to eat!

You met a future friend, sweet baby Neve, who was born at home to our friends two weeks ago. We have connected to her wonderful parents through our childbirth class and beyond. We can't wait to watch you girls grow up together.

We are in the middle of the fourth trimester now. You are becoming very acrobatic and have started kicking like a little swimmer while you eat. I have to pin your legs under my arm. When you aren't being fed fast enough you thump your tiny fist on my chest and then grab my necklace as you gulp away. You nurse every two hours at least, but you often sleep six or eight hours straight. I feel the new normal emerge bit by bit during the days where everything syncs up and much is accomplished. I am humbled by the entire days spent on the couch with you, never ending nursing and napping- I soak it all in, reminding myself that this time is entirely too fleeting and you'll be on your feet before we know it. 

These first three months are a healing effort... much time is passed nourishing you and myself in turn. Processing your birth has been on ongoing experience, sifting through the details continually, working on a written birth story piece by piece. We will make our last official trip to the Farm next weekend and plan on burying our placenta near the cabin in which you were born. I'm looking forward to this, as hard as it is to move farther away from our pregnancy and birth, taking on the roles of mother and father after so many abstract imaginings. It only gets better, our hearts expanding more than we ever thought possible. You are becoming your own little person, so easy to love. 

Six weeks.

Your fifth week was a blur, full of new skills on your part... it was Friday before we knew it. Our daily rhythm centers around your needs and is subject to change from moment to moment. Our mornings are spent slowly greeting the day after saying goodbye to your Pop when he leaves the house at 7:00 am. You eat and we both fall asleep again. We wake in earnest at 8:30 to be changed and start our day. I make the bed while you hold your rattle- a new talent! I pop you into whichever carrier suits us that morning and we let the animals romp in the yard while enjoying some cold air. It's good for our lungs. I wear you while I make breakfast and tidy up, while folding clothes and diapers, while walking the dog- a first for us this week. You seem to enjoy the view from my level and fall asleep easily smooshed against my chest. The day proceeds and I find snippets of time to accomplish basic tasks. Sometimes Mimi comes over and you sleep in her lap while I vacuum. You probably remember the noise from the womb while I do this and you never wake up. Later, you spend more and more time contently awake and even put yourself back to sleep one afternoon with the aid of your left thumb. 

You eat like a horse these days and I find myself on the couch with you at least every hour. Late in the afternoon after you drift off I eat lunch and you nap next to me or in my lap. I won't pretend that there hasn't been food dropped on your head. You like to sleep on your tummy and I let you, even though all the books say this is the worst thing you can do, ever. But they say that about everything. We watch TV after lunch- the X-Files or a movie seen a hundred times. Pop walks in the door at 4:15 and we are all excited to see him. We sit down on the couch together and watch you grow.

Night comes quickly. Sometimes we go out, walking to a new restaurant where you are pretty much always the topic of conversation, but mostly we stay in. You hang out with Pop while I make dinner and we take turns changing you, rocking you, walking around in circles. We eat with you in one arm and our plate in the other. You eat and eat and eat. And then we look down to realize you're out like a light and into the bed we go. You don't wake up until almost daylight, giving us only the occasional grunt in the middle of the night that means "change me!" or "boob please!" During your first few weeks I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for some karmic sudden sleeplessness to come crashing down on us, punishment for all the torture I put my own parents through. I've stopped holding my breath though. 

Our current parenting philosophy (if there is such a thing)... once we find something that keeps you happy we just do that thing until it doesn't work anymore. Luckily for us you are just plain happy most of the time. Keep those smiles coming, we're basking in their glow.

Five weeks.

Five weeks of baby girl and the fog has mostly lifted. 

You are wearing your three month onesies already. Your eyes recognize our faces and perhaps you count on us more assuredly to keep you warm, dry, and fed. We celebrated your one month birthday with dinner, champagne, and friends, including downstairs neighbor baby Vincent. You, of course, remained mostly unaware of any celebration and enjoyed your own dinner, falling asleep promptly afterwards. 

In the early mornings we listen to the radio and lay in the sun. I find time to cook good meals while you sleep. Too much television gets watched as you nurse like the hungry growing baby you are proving to be. Your first and second baths happened... so bittersweet as we washed away your new babyness. Wide eyed, you certainly seemed to enjoy the sensation of water with lavender and olive oil- we knew you had relaxed seeing that you peed and pooped in the tub! Floating- your favorite part... perhaps bringing back sensations from existing in more watery environs a mere five weeks prior. You grew quiet and still, chirping occasionally, as you do.

I've been able to take a few trips on my own into the big world out there without baby. It is interestingly painful, leaving a part of you elsewhere for a short while. Although it felt oddly exhilarating to make the trip to the grocery alone, I breathed more easily upon returning home even though she was in excellent hands with her pop. We aren't ready for any separation of motherbaby and I feel ever grateful knowing there's no rush to speed up this new normal. Having Birdie in-arms, constantly responding to her, feels like the most sacred, essential, and ancient task. Later we will rely on sounds, eye contact, words. Right now, learning her through the never ending flow of touch is all we need.