Lucy has succeeded in convincing us that she is the cutest baby ever. I always thought that people with newborns couldn’t get anything done because of time-consuming diaper changes and baby care and sleep deprivation. But the truth is, we just want to spend all of our time looking at her. Here are some of my favorite antics of hers:
* chewing on her blanket “collar” when she is swaddled
* snorting and rooting around like a piglet when she is burped in mid-feeding
* gazing wide-eyed at our venetian blinds or at the high-contrast art on our wall (“Noguchi’s Garden,” created by Cam Anderson; see photo)
* banging her head against my chest during a post-nursing snuggle
* just sitting there with her rock-star hairdo
* giving little practice “smiles” in her sleep (Jon and I get so tickled when we see these)
* slurping on her hands when she accidentally finds one of them near her mouth
* relaxing peacefully when we shampoo her hair (I can’t wait until we can get pedicures together! she’s going to love it)
Of course, we have trying moments too, like when she is crying and we have no idea why. But even then, we can’t resist her. When she isn’t in full-blown cry mode, she cries with little falsetto squeaks mixed in. She is so funny!
And does anyone else think their baby smells like crème brulée after she is done nursing?
Babies make the funniest – and sweetest – faces! When you’re staring at her, do you ever catch yourself imitating her expressions without thinking about it?
Remember when we talked about “Following Your Bliss” and I said that the biggest surprise for me was that we didn’t go out after Gabriel was born not because of not having someone to watch him, not because we are homebodies by nature… but rather, when given the choice we just wanted to hang with him. Nevertheless – it IS very important to follow your bliss… check your list if you still have it… so you can remember things you enjoyed before having Lucy and just loving each minute of her. : ) Each thing, at least one time in the first year… not so easy now? You’ve got some time obviously, she’s still so fresh from the oven…
Deborah, I totally imitate her expressions! it is fun. Jon is working on his Lucy impression daily.
Allison, I agree about following your bliss. Jon and I were just talking about how we miss being together just the two of us sometimes, but, as you say, Lucy is pretty fresh from the oven. Our plan is to try to get her to take a bottle of expressed milk when she is three weeks old, and then our options will open up a bit. In the meantime, we’ll just try to enjoy the present moment, and hopefully we’ll have lots of “us” time in our future — in addition to lots of Lucy time. :)
Sometime around 12 weeks old, Benjamin started going to bed early – like 7 or 8 pm. It was so nice once that developed because all of a sudden we had “us” time every evening. We still enjoy that time each day when he’s down for the night and “all is quiet” in the house.
Benjamin was never a big fan of taking a bottle, but we figured out ways around it – for example, I would feed him and leave him with my mom, we would go out to dinner and then come back, feed him again and put him to bed, and then go see a movie. Of course now that he’s weaned I’m enjoying the freedom that comes with it!