Ellyanna is 1 month old!

It's hard to believe, but our baby girl is already one month old (yesterday). What a month this has been! In some ways it was the hardest month of my life, but so worth it! We're still trying to figure this little person out. She's such a sweet baby. Any frustration comes from my own lack of experience. She doesn't take good naps yet, which I'm working at. She sleeps great as long as she's being held, but as soon as I put her down she's awake. It'll get better though.

Just two days ago she gave me a real smile. How sweet that was! She's sleeping with us, so I'm not getting real restful sleep and when Sam gets up for work I try to move her over from me a little so I can stretch out and get a little more sleep. Well...that hasn't worked yet because as soon as Sam gets up she starts her noises. She goes through about an hour of stretching and grunting and squeaking...none of which I can sleep through. Two mornings ago after trying to sleep through her noises for an hour I looked over at her and said something about not letting Mommy sleep and she gave me the cutest grin. It was the first time she actually responded to me saying something to her. She's done that several times since and it's so precious. I love seeing her respond to me.

Yesterday she took a bottle from Sam for the first time. We wanted to wait until she was well established with nursing before introducing her to a bottle, but she took it with no problem. I'm really glad because I want Sam to be able to feed her sometimes. It's such a sweet time that I think he should have an opportunity to experience it.

Today Ellyanna and I went to our first New Parent Support group. It was so interesting to see the different babies in all the various stages. I noticed two very distict types of babies. The one has a more long and lean body and bald (or very little hair) and the other has the very short and chubby body with lots of hair. Looking around the room it seems all of the babies fit into one of those categories. Ellyanna has the chubbier body type and holding her I felt like she was a real chunk compared to some of the other babies. Seriously, there were other babies there that were quite a bit older than her, but seemed much smaller. She certainly has no problem in the weight department.

I called Wendy, the midwife, this week and asked her to come by to give Ellyanna one more checkup because she started getting baby acne about two weeks ago and it just seems to be getting worse. I figured it was normal, but knew I'd feel better hearing it from the midwife. Of course, that's what she said and that it will eventually go away, but may take some time. While she was here we had her weigh Ellyanna. I knew she was getting heavier and sure enough she was 10 lbs, 3 ozs. Like I said....she has no problem gaining weight. I love all her little rolls though. I know I'm biased, but she just seems to get cuter every day.

Here are some more recent pictures of our little munchkin -
When we first brought Ellyanna home we were very concerned about how Gabby would respond to her. The first couple of days we watched Gabby very closely when she was around the baby. She seemed interested, but almost like she was looking at a prey. Since then she has become very protective of Ellyanna. When the midwife comes Gabby follows her around and stays very close when she's checking out the baby. Also, Ellyanna's crying really upsets Gabby. She meows and follows us around biting and slapping at our feet. Almost like she's reprimanding us for making the baby cry. We still watch her closely, but I have no concerns about her intentionally hurting Ellyanna, which is a real relief to us.

Sitting with Daddy one evening

The other day I had Ellyanna propped on the boppy for some tummy time and it got really quiet. When I went in to check on her I found her fast asleep on the pillow.

That boppy looks pretty comfortable. You can see in this picture how bad her baby acne is.

I just thought she was so cute sleeping on the couch.





So comfortable in her bassinet.

Hopefully no one gets tired of seeing pictures of Ellyanna, but both of our parents, siblings and friends live far away and this is the easiest way to post pictures for them to see. We are so enjoying our new baby. She's just the most precious gift and we take the responsibility of being her parents very seriously. There is so much we have to learn about her, but it's a process and we're growing each day as parents. We love seeing the (almost) daily changes in her. We would love to be able to share her with our families, but it's hard with us living so far away. We hope they will be able to know her a little through the pictures we post on the blog. Until next time...