The next 2 scrapbook pages are finished!
 What Riley has been up to...
And here she is, staring at herself in the mirror above her swing...  And in case you didn't get enough pictures...    See that last picture? Can you see the red ring around her lips? Thats from sucking the life out of her bottle... see video below... hear those sounds? Baby sucking. Maybe time to change the bottle nipple??  Today was Riley's first real big outing since she's been born. As in, we left at 7:20am, and got home at 12:15 pm... And let's just say Mark and I learned a thing or two about outings with a newborn. It went something like this... Alarm went off at 6:25am, I woke Mark up and gave him Riley so I could take a quick shower. I packed all our stuff the night before, so that was already done, thank goodness. Our goal was to get out the door by 7:30 at the latest to make it to Riley's doctor appointment by 8:30. I fed Riley at 7:00, we got all packed up and made it out the door early! She fell asleep in the car, no problems! Then things got interesting... We showed up to her appointment a little early, they took us back to the exam room and Riley was still fast asleep. Then the doc came in, and to examine her foot, he needed her to be partially undressed. Cue baby crying... she did not like being woken up, much less being undressed and poked and prodded. He said her foot looked great, which is a plus, but he wanted to check her hips as well, which meant she needed to have her diaper off. Cue baby peeing/pooping ALL over the exam table, and all over her clothes. Okay, to be expected, no biggie. So he leaves, I try and get her cleaned up and into new clothes. In fact I was quite pleased that I packed a spare outfit for her just in case something like this happened. So she was all clean and dry, her foot was looking great, and we were off to our next stop. But by this time she was hungry, so we drove to McD's to get a chai tea (for ourselves), and I fed her in the car... well, that was easier said than done. I mean, feeding her was fine, doing it semi-discretely was, umm, challenging. But she was satisfied, so I was still feeling good about this outing. Next stop... visiting Fiona and Hugo! Mark started to burp her before we put her in the carseat, and we even put a bib on her to keep her outfit dry, when all of a sudden we heard the loudest noise... poop. I joked to Mark about how she better not have pooped out of her diaper because we didn't have any more clothes, when, sure enough... ALL over her clothes. So, I change her, take off her soiled clothes, so now I have a naked baby and no new clothes for her. So I put a bib on her (hey, better than nothing?) and stick her in her car seat and we drive the 30 seconds to Hugo's house. Luckily Fiona was kind enough to lend us some of Hugo's old newborn clothes so Riley didn't have to stay naked!! But of course, Hugo is a boy, and so Riley looked like our little baby boy today!! See??  But she looks so cute staring at her daddy, no?  My cousin suggested we take a picture of our munchkin each month sitting in the same spot, or with the same toy, or something so we can see how she's growing each month. We were going to do this on her one month day, but she was so fussy so I didn't feel like taking a picture of her crying, ya know? She was definitely having a growth spurt, eating all the time, and not really sleeping. BUT. After such a long day of trying to make the crying baby happy, around 8pm she took a 2.5 hour nap, which was more than she had slept all day combined. And THEN, she slept for 4 and a half hours straight, got up to eat, and slept for 2.5 more hours. Which means, hello, I got SEVEN hours of sleep! Hallelujah. Seriously. Anyway, the picture... Check out her very first dress!  Oh and in other happy news, yesterday I upped my running to FIFTEEN minutes, half of which were uphill! I wanted to keep going because I felt really good, but I don't want to push it and overdo it too early. So today is a day off from running, and I'm going to do a P90x workout. A modified version, of course. :)   Today, Riley turned one month old! On one hand, it seems to have gone by really fast, but not too fast... while she is getting less sleepy as she gets older, this means she is getting more alert, and more fun for us. She seems less fragile, and we are getting more confident, which means we worry less about every little thing. And we have definitely loved the past month, and are enjoying every moment with her, but we are excited with each new thing she is able to do as she grows. Now we are just waiting for all these social smiles to appear regularly! Anyway, as of today, one month out, we have gone through A LOT of diapers. Lucky for us, our parents were generous enough to supply us with quite a few diapers, so I personally have only spent about $15 on diapers so far. But just to give you an idea, in one month, I calculated we have used over 300 diapers! We've gone through three packs of 84 diapers that my parents brought from the US (256), and then used the diapers we got from Mark's mom at my baby shower AND the pack of diapers that I bought (about 60). Holy. Cow. And we've also gone through about 5 packs of 90 wipes. Is it just me, or does that seem like a lot... she's still a little peanut, and in size one diapers, and we still have about 300 left so we should be good for another month, but jeez that's a lot of diapers. Now we just have to hope she doesn't outgrow these size diapers before we can use them all! They are supposed to be good for babies up to 14 pounds I think, so we should be good for a while, but you never know. We also had Riley's one month check-up today... Here are her STATS: Weight: 3.73kg (8 pounds 3 ounces)... 28th percentile Length: 55cm (21.6 inches)... 68th percentile Head circumference: 37cm... 49th percentile Weight for length: 2nd percentile!! Long skinny baby! Also, a new milestone... Riley has officially started sleeping in her crib. While I did/do love her sleeping with me, it's starting to get to a point where neither of us are sleeping as well. As long as we were both able to sleep well like that, I was keen to keep doing it, but now I'm waking up more, and she's waking up more, and so we decided to try her out in her crib. Now, we are sleeping her in the snuggle nest inside of her crib so it's a little more cozy, and she seems to be doing pretty well. It's a slow transition, so she sleeps part time in her crib, and part of the time with us, but it's been pretty smooth so far! And the video monitor we got has been amazing, I am so glad we decided to get it. See? Baby is fast asleep!  Riley has also decided to celebrate being one month old by going through a growth spurt. As in, she is eating ALL the time, and sleeping very little. Quite exhausting, I must say. She's pretty fussy, which is unusual for her usually happy little self. But growth spurts don't last forever, so we're hoping the fussiness will pass in the next day or so. Here she is, about to scream her little head off...  The other day I was apparently feeling really ambitious or something, because I offered to host our prenatal coffee group at our house. These are all the couples in our childbirth class, and we try and meet up every other week to chat and hang out. Well, this is the first time we've really all met with babies NOT in our bellies... there are still a couple women still pregnant, but most of the have had their babies already. And I decided it was a good idea to invite all THIRTY people over here. To our little house. With their babes. I must have been suffering from sleep deprivation, because I'm not sure what I was thinking. See, our little living room is, well, little. We pushed the couch against the wall, brought in every chair we own, and still we could probably only seat about 14 without people having to sit on the floor. And then of course I realized (1) this is a coffee group but we don't have any COFFEE (much less a coffee machine) so we had to go buy that instant coffee and (2) we don't have enough mugs/cups for everyone! So off to the supermarket again to buy some styrofoam and plastic ones. Which of course ended up being all for nothing, as I think only ONE person actually drank coffee. On the upside- everyone who came brought some kind of snack... and left the left overs for us! I suppose that's not too helpful for my weight loss, but oh well...
But anyway, so out of the 11 babies born so far, TEN of them have been girls!! Poor little lone baby boy Zach is outnumbered big time! I think there are two more women who are still pregnant, but I think both of them are expecting girls! What are the odds of 12 out of the 13 babies being girls?? Lots of little friends for Riley! And it was so nice to get together with all these new moms and dads and hear about their experiences and what they are going through... it makes me realize how lucky we have been with Riley! So many of the moms are having serious trouble breast feeding- either their milk supply is really low, or the baby won't latch, or they are in a lot of pain... I almost felt bad telling them that all was going really well for us! And they also mentioned how sometimes their baby would be up all night, or for 5 hour stretches at a time just fussing or crying... I think the longest Riley has been awake in one stretch is 2 hours, and that was TODAY during the coffee group! She obviously didn't want to miss out on the action! We can pretty much always count on her to eat, play for a little, and then sleep. And I was also surprised how many people had difficult deliveries- forceps, vacuum, C-section, and other complications. So I am very lucky and very thankful that we've had it so easy! I wish I had taken some pictures, but I totally forgot, so maybe next time. We meet with these moms and babies every two weeks for now, then when all the babies are born we are going to do weekly meetings to chat and hang out! Riley is going to have more friends than me! Oh and I have to add in, my husband gets huge bonus points today. After the coffee group, not only did he take Riley so that I could get a nap in, but he (1) got her to sleep in her crib for the first time for about an hour, (2) put back all the furniture from the coffee group, (3) vacuumed the lounge and kitchen and (4) did ALL the dishes. He rules. Ok well, I didn't really lose any weight again this week, BUT...I don't even care because I went for my first jog yesterday!! Yay! Yay! Ok well, I jogged for 5 minutes, but you have to start somewhere, right? I have been going for 30 minute walks around the neighborhood when it's not raining, and today I did a 5 minute jog in those 30 minutes. Tomorrow if I still feel good, I'm going to jog for 10 minutes, and keep increasing slowly until I can run for 30 minutes. Now this "jog" is more of a walking-pace jog, but a jog is a jog, so it counts! Now that I'm getting back into exercising, I'm actually excited about this weight loss plan... Well, as excited as you can be about something like weight loss. See, I like to exercise, but I also like to eat. And if I can't exercise, and just have to limit what I eat, I get cranky... and I'm not very successful, as you may have noticed. Now that I have a better idea of what to expect as far as weekly weight loss is concerned, I now can set smaller goals for myself... like, losing one pound per week. I have 5 weeks until we head back to the US, so my goal is to be back to pre-pregnancy weight by then. Wish me luck! And pray for good weather to continue! And sorry, no pic this week, since I didn't lose any weight and I look the same as last week, in my opinion. And I also blame my lack of weight loss on Mark... he keeps feeding me! (See root beer/coke float below...yum)  Anyway, let the real weight loss begin!
Happy 4 week birthday to our little bundle!!  What our super baby can do now at 4 weeks:
   And a little video... just some of the little sounds/faces she makes when sleeping. And a video of her wide awake! We caught one with the camera! Love love love those little smiles! My heart is melting... :)  Well, Mark has been back at work pretty much full time this week, which leaves me home with Riley full time. Mark leaves before 7am, and gets home between 3 and 4ish most days, and then a couple days a week he leaves at 5:30 to go to soccer practice. So I get Riley bug all to myself most of the day. And I am now realizing how exhausting it can be to be a stay at home full time mommy! Mostly Riley is a really good baby. She eats, is awake for about 30 minutes to an hour, and then sleeps for about 2 hours. But since she'll mostly only sleep in my arms, it's pretty tough to get things done! I'm working on mastering the sling, so that will help, but it seems like I spend all day taking care of her, then when Mark gets home, he takes her, and I run around the house trying to do laundry, dishes, vacuuming, and take a shower and make dinner. And then I take Riley back so Mark can do more work or go to soccer! Quite tiring! I can't even imagine what it would be like if we had a fussy baby! Riley maybe spends 30 minutes a day crying... 10 or so of those are during diaper/outfit changes, maybe 5 are when she's getting hungry, and the other 15 are random cries of fussiness or gas. Like I said, we're lucky. She sleeps 14-15 hours a day, and is awake for the rest, although spends about 3-4 ohours eating. And the rest of the time is spent staring at us with those big blue eyes! Sling success today...  Tomorrow Riley has her 4 week appointment, where she will get weighed and measured to see how big she's gotten. She looks and feels so much bigger to us already, so we'll see! I think she'll be 3.8 kg (she was 3.56 last week). That's about 8 pounds 6 ounces I think. Stay tuned... |
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