Due Date

September 17, my official due date. Here I sit with my 3 week old baby snoozing on my chest and I can hardly believe that we could have not met her yet. It feels like Louise has been in our family forever. I can't imagine our lives without her.

I keep waiting for Louise to "wake up" and become the feisty outspoken newborn that Ainsley was. After 3 full weeks I am more and more confident that that's just not who she is. Louise is calm and quiet. When she is awake (still mostly in the morning and right before bed for longer and longer chunks of time) she gazes around with her big dark blue eyes and takes everything in. She has started to focus on our faces and likes looking up at toys hanging from the arch above her playmat and bouncy chair. Her cry is getting louder and more definitive. Usually she just wants to be held or fed and quiets down immediately. We have hardly had to utilize the pacifier at all. I still don't think she's fussed for more than 2 minutes straight. She is up every three hours at night to eat and I'm hoping to get her down to just two feedings a night soon. She loves to be swaddled but gets very warm and sweaty even in just a onesie. I am hoping the cooler nights will help with this. She is an adorable pudgy baby with a big round face and good chub on her limbs. Ainsley never had much excess fat so it's fun to have a differently built little girl. Louise is already outgrowing all of the newborn clothes we have (due in part to the cloth diapers). We have SO many because we were all convinced she was going to be so small at birth. I'll be interested to see how much she's grown at her one month appointment in a couple of weeks. She was just under 8 lbs at the last one. She does spit up but not nearly as much as Ainsley. Just yesterday I noted that she wore the same outfit overnight and throughout the whole day! I have to stay on top of bathing her and changing her clothes because with Ainsley it was such a frequent occassion due to all of the barfing that it just happened out of necessity.

Today has been much better with Ainsley. She is definitely more whiny than usual but with a bit more effort on my part she's been kept relatively active and happy. We spent the morning at Target getting her a new train book and her first play doh set to play with during Louise's feedings. We came home and went down to the basement where she immediately put them to good use. We then rearranged and cleaned the whole basement. I'm hoping to have the energy (and time) to finally paint the basement this weekend and get curtains made. It's starting to look like a proper play room.

Ainsley screamed when I put her down for her nap and when I went up 15 minutes later to see what was going on she just wanted to snuggle and rock and sing with me. It breaks my heart that she is so starved for cuddle time when I feel like I dont give Louise enough attention as it is. I love that she wants to snuggle though. I'll take what I can get!