Emma’s Week 6 Report
We made it to six weeks! This is the magic time, when all of our newborn challenges disappear, and our baby starts sleeping through the night and giving her parents huge, beautiful smiles as if to say “thank you, thank you for hanging in there for six weeks- I will now grant you a full night’s sleep for the rest of your lives & I won’t even think about underage drinking or sex before I’m 30.”
Well, no, not really. Here’s a more accurate portrayal.
We made it to six weeks! …..hmph… snore! Whoops, sorry, I fell asleep at the computer because I only got five hours of sleep last night. Max now knows the names of all of the major and minor characters on the morning children’s shows, and his first words upon waking are “can you put me on a show?” Emma isn’t smiling yet, even though Babycenter says many children do “reward their parents with a gummy grin by six weeks”. Damn that Babycenter. They might as well say “The children of the GOOD parents flash big, gorgeous smiles before cooing softly and falling into calm, deep sleep for ten to twelve hours. This allows Mommy time for her morning Pilates and made-from-scratch bran muffins, before showering and dressing in freshly laundered and ironed clothes, in her pre-pregnancy size, of course.”
Emma IS sleeping pretty well, but I’d like to put out a big, public call for an END to ALL inquires of this nature:
“What a beautiful baby! Is she sleeping through the night?”
“So, how’s that baby doing? Is she sleeping through the night yet? Our little Billy slept nine hours a night from 4 days on.”
Emma sleeps for pretty long stretches, they are just not necessarily at night. We’re doing well though – we have a rhythm of sorts – I wake up pretty refreshed for the first night feeding, then pretty groggy and grouchy for the second one. If we need a third night feeding, she knows to expect nothing from me aside from a grunt and a nipple, and she might get a lecture on “why Mommy needs to sleep”.
Other news: She is morphing into quite the chubby baby! We love it! Her newborn clothes fit now, and the cloth diapers are working perfectly. Yay, she has some baby acne (or could be a heat rash or a reaction to something – jury’s still out). Her eyes are still dark grey-blue. She still loves Max’s voice, and tolerates his rather exuberant kisses and hugs with grace. She is currently trying to break her Daddy’s heart by deciding that she’s desperately hungry every single time he tries to hold her. She LOVES her baths, and apparently they also make her poop. She is lovely and little and we love her every minute, even when we’re exhausted and grumpy and trying to do ten things at once. Then Max puts one arm around Mommy, one around Daddy and leans over to give Emma a kiss and says, simply, “Let’s do a big hug.”
Big hugs to you all!