Lullaby and Good Night

I'm so happy to say that Stella is starting to sleep longer periods throughout the night. For awhile there I was starting to think there was no hope and that I would never sleep again. That sleep was becoming a privilege and not a right. Before, she would sleep all day only to wake up to eat (girl doesn't miss a meal) and come 10 pm to 5 am it's time to par-tay at the Hester house....a party of 2 that is. Since Clint's back at work it's pretty much up to me to stay up with her and I started to think that functioning on 2-3 hours of sleep was becoming the norm. Don't get me wrong, I try to sleep during the day. It's just hard when she's sleeping and it's quiet not to try and get stuff done around the house because when she's up there's no doing any sort of house work, she has my undivided attention. Plus, when you're nursing every couple of hours you don't get into a good deep sleep. Sleep or no sleep, little miss is worth it....every non sleeping bit of it.

Her favorite position. Sleeping on Clint's stomach all stretched out.

And how are we doing now? We are making progress! We are starting to get into a night time routine. Most nights we take a bath (every other day or so), we put lotion on and put on her jammies, we get a bottle (about 5 ounces, I try and get her nice and full) then we play on her play mat and do tummy time. I'm trying to adopt to the philosophy of eat, play, sleep....not to be confused with eat, pray, love. ;) A friend of mine was telling me about "Babywise" and had mentioned that it helped with her little boy. I haven't read the book yet but figured I'd try some of it out. Then we sit in the rocking chair and read Good Night Moon and the Very Hungry Caterpillar and sing lullaby's, after that she's usually out. She normally goes down around eleven or midnight and then is up again around 2 or 3 for another feeding and then she's usually down again until she wakes up for good at 6, so progress in deed! Now don't get me wrong we still have our long nights but they are getting fewer and farther between.

A couple days ago I was getting really sad. Stella at her last appointment was almost 9 pounds and seeing how she never stops eating, she's probably closer to 10 or 11 pounds now (we'll find out for sure Wed at her 2 month appointment). Needless to say her newborn clothes are tight! I'm talking so snug you could barely peal them off of her, so I put them in a storage box and put them in the garage. Not to mention she's officially out grown the newborn piece in her car seat and she's no longer in newborn diapers. Where did my baby girl go?

Her head and feet are hanging over the newborn insert.

Sup.

Not only is she getting bigger but she is smiling a lot more now. She's been smiling for about a week or so now just never at me. I always get the frowns and was starting to take it personally, and finally she smiled at mama :)

Look at that grin.

And another one! She's defiantly becoming a lot more animated.

In addition to laughing, she's also discovered her tongue.

And here she is contemplating the great mysteries of life.

Just to see how much she's grown, the left picture is Stella at 3-4 weeks and the picture on the right is Stella at 7 weeks. She's starting to look so different! Her face is filling out more and she's getting chubbier! Not to mention her personality is starting to emerge. I love how she kicks her legs around when she's eating like she can't stay still enough to focus, thank you A.D.D afraid to say that's my contribution (hence why it takes 40 minutes to nurse her properly) and how she dramatically throws her head around when she's trying to get comfortable or how she looks you straight in the eye and coos like she's telling me about her day. Such a blessing, a wonderful wonderful blessing.

Just wanted to post a picture of her birth announcement. The hospital photographer did this for us as part of our package and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I love how it looks like she is winking. Love that baby girl.