6 month update

Our little girl is 6 months old! It is incredible how fast she is growing. We will get her height and weight at her Doctor's appointment later this week, but our arms tell us that she is definitely getting heavier! Sleeping has much improved over the last week or two - we are routinely getting 8-10 hour nights (although we are waiting for the 6 month growth spurt to kick in and cause a few sleepless nights...hopefully only a few!). This was a big month - Amanda started solids (rice cereal) and seems to really enjoy it; we held her baptism, which went wonderfully; sitting up is now second nature, which opens up all kinds of new avenues for play; and we started introducing a few baby signs, which we hope will help Amanda communicate with us before she is able to speak. We are trying to get organized for Christmas, which is harder than usual with a baby in the house! We're really looking forward to sharing the holidays with our beautiful girl. Looking back over the last six months, life is definitely more challenging these days, but so, so rewarding. We are so proud of the little person that Amanda is becoming - she makes us smile and laugh every day and brings so much joy to our lives!

5 month update

We can't believe that Amanda is 5 months old already! Time is flying by. At five months, Amanda weighed 17 lbs, 5 oz and was 26" long. We are still struggling with sleep issues...we usually have several terrible nights, then just when we think we can't take any more, she'll throw a really great night at us, just to keep us on our toes. We are going to visit the doctor to find out what we can do to improve her sleeping. In other news, Amanda sat up for the first time in early November, about a week before her 5 month birthday! We were surprised that it happened so soon. It was kind of an accident the first time, but then each day we could see her getting stronger and now she can easily sit up on her own (well, she can't get herself into a sitting position obviously, but she can hold it if we sit her up). She has also discovered her toes and likes to grab at them (especially at inopportune times), but hasn't quite figured out that she can put them in her mouth. She is now sitting up in a highchair and shares mealtimes with us, although she has not started eating solids yet. Also, we recently bought a Jolly Jumper which she loves! It cracks us up because she looks like she is Riverdancing. We hope to get some videos up on the site soon, including one of her "Jolly Jumping". We are making plans for Amanda's baptism, which will be held on November 27th.

Just over 4.5 months update

Finally, after almost two months, Amanda's sleeping has improved again and she is sleeping a 6-9 hour stretch each night. Heaven! We finally figured out the problem - she is teething! Although her teeth haven't come through yet, she has a couple of little "tooth buds" on the bottom, which appeared after a few particularly sleepless nights. It looks like now we get a brief reprieve until the next teething incident begins. Mandy now sleeps in her crib in her own room - a transition that has been much harder on us than on her! She is quite happy in her room and especially loves looking at the animals on her wallpaper border. However, we have found it hard getting used to her not being right next to us all night. Amanda's giggles are getting stronger and easier to encourage, and she is so happy and friendly - just loves having lots of faces to look at. We had an exciting first Halloween - Amanda dressed up in her adorable ladybug costume and helped us hand out candy at the door. She also wore the costume to our Mom & Baby group, and to do some visiting with work friends. Had to get lots of wear out of it! I visited a couple of friends with brand new babies this week (congratulations to Pip on the birth of Jennifer, and to Cynthia on the arrival of Erich!) and was stunned to realize how small newborns really are. As someone said to me, you swear you will never forget how small your baby was, or how tiny she felt in your arms, but you do! But each new stage brings such joy...this parenting thing is really bittersweet!

Almost 4 months update

The last month has been an exciting one! Currently Amanda weighs just over 16 lbs and is almost 26" long...meaning we will have to move her into a new carseat in the next few weeks. We thought we would have a bit longer before that step was necessary! She is awake now for most of the day and hates to nap, although she is getting a bit better. At three months, Amanda hit a growth spurt that made our once-wonderful sleeper wake up every 1.5 - 2 hours every night! Shortly afterwards she caught her first cold, and her stuffy nose and sore throat didn't do much to help her sleep. Finally, more than three weeks later, we are starting to see improvements in her sleeping again (finally Mommy is starting to feel human!). Soon we will have to move Amanda into her crib in her own room, although we are so sad and will miss hearing her little baby snores tremendously. Unfortunately she is getting too big for the cradle, so it has to be done. In other news, Mandy rolled over from her tummy to her back for the first time last week, and she has started giving us huge, hilarious belly laughs when she gets giddy. They are so much fun to listen to! Her current favourite toys are her Lamaze cube (fondly referred to as Cubie the Cube) and Mr. Pinky the elephant. Don't ask...I guess every toy gets a name once you have a baby! She also loves her soft stuffed lamb (named, you guessed it, Lambie) who sleeps with her at night, and her exersaucer. We have been keeping very busy attending Mom & Me groups, moms' movies, and library storytimes. It is amazing how fast the time goes! We can't believe that our tiny baby has grown so much, so quickly.

2 1/2 month update

Amanda continues to grow at a somewhat alarming rate! At 9.5 weeks, she was 13 lbs 5 oz...meaning she has gone from the 50th percentile at birth to around the 95th percentile now! At her 2 month checkup, the Doctor said she is doing fabulously and even commented on what a beautiful baby she is. She sailed through her shots without too many problems (Mom had a harder time with them than Amanda did!). Slowly we are starting to fall into more of a routine, although Mandy throws lots of surprises at us just to keep us on our toes! She continues to be a great sleeper...at around two months, we even had four straight days of 6-8 hour stretches at night (although we then went back to our normal routine with a 4-6 hour stretch each night). One struggle is that it looks like Amanda will be a thumb-sucker...just yesterday she seemed to finally figure out how to separate her thumb from the rest of her fist. Up until now the whole thing had been going in her mouth! We've been desperately trying to get her to take a pacifier instead of her thumb, but so far it's not going too well. Although she doesn't mind the pacifier, she can't figure out how to keep it in her mouth, so unless we stay with her and hold it in, she quickly loses it and goes back to her thumb. She is a remarkably happy and friendly baby...loves to be held by lots of different people, and rewards Mom and Dad with huge smiles and giggles now. It's so nice to get such a wonderful reward for all the hard work of the past few months!

1 month (and a bit) update

It's hard to believe Mandy is already over 1 month old! The time is flying by. We have had a bit of a step backward in sleeping...the past few nights she has been up a lot at night which is hard on Mom and Dad! She doesn't sleep much during the day either, so this could be a contributing factor as she just gets grouchier over the course of the day. When she is awake and rested she is very pleasant - she is "talking" and cooing a lot now and makes so many different facial expressions. We see lots of smiles, although right now they are random and not yet directed at anything or anyone. Hopefully in the next few weeks we will start to see some real smiles! Of course we believe she is the smartest baby who ever lived (our standard catch phrase is "advanced for her age") :)...but she does seem to be catching on to some concepts we thought she wouldn't understand for quite a while. We were playing with her Ocean Wonders Aquarium this week and she seems to have figured out that when she touches the aquarium, it makes a noise! At first it was random, but after a few minutes we could see her straining to get her arms over to the aquarium (of course her motor skills aren't too great yet, so this is more difficult than it sounds!). She was getting very excited every time she got it to make a noise, and once she even seemed to giggle a bit! She continues to gain weight at an astounding rate - her official 1 month weight was 9 lbs 14 oz - over a 2 lb gain from her birth weight!

3 week update

Mandy is now 3 weeks old and is doing great! She is sleeping longer stretches (5-6 hours) at night... however, we make up for this with more frequent feedings during the days. She has more awake periods as well, which is lots of fun. So far she loves music and is particularly fascinated by her mobile and her musical dragon. We've had several visitors, and have taken Amanda out lots of places (walks in the park, the mall, Canada Day at Rocky Point, Grandma & Grandpa's house, church, and even lunch at White Spot!). Her personality is also starting to become more apparent...in her "upset" face we can see what she will look like during temper tantrums at 2 and arguments at 13! She is gaining weight very well, and at 16 days had already surpassed her birth weight (8 lbs, 5 oz). Although we are tired we are enjoying (almost) every moment and trying not to let them slip by too quickly.

Amanda's Birth

Birth 3
Originally uploaded by JenJeff.

This wiggly little monkey is our beautiful little girl. Two years later her favourite word is SELF SELF! Ahh.. those days are gone.

At home

We were discharged from the hospital in the early evening on Tuesday, June 15th. Since we arrived home Amanda has been doing very well. She is an excellent sleeper, and despite some early challenges, is also feeding very well. She is a very pleasant baby and we've been surprised by how quickly we've adjusted to the new routine (if you can call life with a newborn a routine at all!). We've already made a few trips out to the mall, Doctor etc. and they have been trouble-free so far. Amanda loves to be in the carseat and has slept through most of our outside trips so far.

Amanda's arrival!

Jen was awakened at 3 am on Saturday, June 12th (right on Amanda's due date!) with contractions, although they weren't regular or too painful at that point. By the time Jeff got up at 8 am or so, they were becoming more frequent, and at around 11:30 am they were 4-5 minutes apart and definitely stronger, so we decided to go to the hospital to be checked out. Our timing was perfect, because by the time we got there the contractions were around 3 minutes apart and required a lot more concentration to get through. We were moved into a labour & delivery room, and things progressed very well from there. The nurses were amazed - we went from about 1 cm dilated at 1 pm to 10 cm by 5:30 pm - much faster than a standard first-time delivery.

Unfortunately, although we pushed for over three hours, it became apparent that Amanda was not going to arrive by the standard route. We found out that Jen has a pelvis that is an unusual shape, which makes it very difficult or impossible for a baby to get past the pelvic bones. Finally we made the decision to have a C-section. It took around 30 minutes to prepare for the surgery, and Amanda was finally delivered at 9:35 pm. In the end we had a beautiful, healthy baby and that is by far the most important thing! We are thrilled with our beautiful daughter and have been spending an inordinate amount of time just staring at her as she sleeps. She changes by the day and it's hard to imagine what we did before she came along!