Happy April Fools Day

Luckily Esme is too little to play April Fool's jokes on me and I was kind enough not to play one on her today. We did however get a nice long bath, manicure and pedicure out of the way today for Esme so she's all ready for a Friday night out on the town. We're going to a 80's trivia nite at a local coffee shop for a friends school fundraiser but I'm not sure how much help Esme will be since that's like ancient history to her :) Check out this video of her talking to me!

All's good!

We drove back up to the hospital today for my 6 week post-partum check-up and everything went well. Shana, the midwife who delivered Esme, said that I might have to camp out at the hospital next time I have a baby or else who knows where it will be delivered :) I better not joke about that too much huh? Yikes! Esme had some fun on her activity mat today as you can see by the pics below. And we've also been enjoying some of her books. By far, her most favorite activity is looking over our shoulders and out the big window in our family room. I think she likes all the light out there and it fascinates her.

I caught her smiling!

And this is her pooping face :)

Sleeping in class

Driving to Evergreen Hospital for our parent-baby class today was very reminiscent of the drive there on the day that Esme was born - the sky was gray and it was raining out which is a typical Seattle day. I even drove through the same circle driveway entrance to the birth center but the difference this time was that I remembered my shoes and I could get out of the car and walk on my own :) Esme enjoyed listening to all the other babies in the class again but she didn't participate much herself. She slept, then ate, and then slept again in my arms. She didn't have much to add to the postpartum adjustment discussion that we had going on. Ha ha! The class shrunk a little as some kiddos graduated to the 3-6 month group so today there were only 8 mom and baby pairs instead of the 13 like last week.

Sleeping in class

Red little toosh

Today we braved the elements and had a nice walk around Greenlake with Aunty LeAnne. Luckily we missed the rain but were prepared none-the-less. And since Esme was so nice and warm bundled up in her stroller she just slept the whole time. What's new, right? Then we went to Costco so I could load up on some of my "new" favorite veggies since having to give up the broccoli, cabbage, etc. Now it's on to green beans, snap peas, and spinach :)

Esme's got her first little diaper rash so we've stocked all the "diaper stations" (her room, the pack-n-play in our room, and the living room) in our house with diaper creme to lather on her bum. It's slightly better today and hopefully will be gone soon.

Ready to get in the car

All bundled up at Greenlake

Activity mat time

Chunk-A Munk-A

Right now Esme's pack-n-play is right next to my bedside so I can just reach in and scoop her up in the middle of the night to feed. Well before it barely took any effort to lift her but in the past few nights I've had to sit all the way up, brace my legs and heave-ho! According to our home scale she's almost 10 pounds!

Gotta love a sleepin babe

So much puke!

The past few mornings Esme has been sharing all her curdled milk from the night before with me and we've gone through multiple clothing changes before the day even starts. I've already cut out all the gassy veggies cause that seemed to upset her but recently she's been spitting up more, especially in the morning. Well last night I may have figured it out. We usually do our night time feeds lying down so I can still get some rest and she usually just falls asleep right after. Last night I painfully woke her up after her feeds to burp her and thankfully she went right back to sleep. Phew! And there was a dramatic decrease in the spit up this morning since we're still in outfit #2 and it's already the afternoon. So lets hope that that's all it was! Here's one of her outfit changes the other day. I call her Homey Gnomie when she wears this one and Allen says it looks like she has Bieber Fever :)

TGIF

Sheesh, where did the day go already. TGIF........but then again, everyday is a Friday for us :) Here's a pic of our trip to Costco yesterday. Soon she won't be able to fit in this sling in this position.

Daddy's girl

She did it! She finally smiled for Allen! We were all lying in bed together as we were waking up and I got her to smile numerous times but everytime Allen tried she stopped. I told him to just be patient and then this afternoon when we were getting ready to leave the house she gave him a nice long smile in response to his voice. It was awesome! We also discovered that she doesn't have my long legs yet cause her baby leg warmers are still a little long on her. At least she can grow into them :)


Love the leg warmers!

Blanket time with daddy

Baby, baby, baby!

Apparently Esme only likes to smile for me because I can't get her to repeat it for Allen. Either that or she only likes to smile in the morning and during the day but not in the late afternoon and evening when Allen's home. Someday soon..........

Today we went to a parent-baby class for infants up to 3 months old. It's offered at the hospital where she was born and I was really glad we went. We started the class off with a photo shoot of all the little ones and amazingly they laid there for almost 10 minutes. Esme started to fuss so I had to plug her with the pacifier and then she lasted a few more minutes. I think she was still upset that I dressed her in clothes that were WAY too big for her but was in a rush to get out the door so didn't have time to change her again. Ha ha! Then there was a discussion about baby sign language and then an open session for us to talk about anything we wanted. It was nice to be out in public and not have to worry about breastfeeding, diaper changing, fussing, etc cause everyone was doing the same thing and we can all relate. The facilitator just kept going no matter what we were doing so it didn't seem disruptive. It was fun to watch Esme listen to all the new noises and sounds that the other babies made. She was definitely aware that we were somewhere different and she seemed intrigued. She constantly had her eyebrows up and eyes wide open, even when she was breastfeeding. The classes are held once a week so we'll definitely go back next week.


Ready to go to class


Esme's center stage in the bottom of the photo

All smiles :)

More exciting than our first walking adventure around Greenlake today was when Esme smiled at the sound of my voice. Of course that brought me to tears right away cause it was so special. I was walking around the house while holding her in my arms and she started to do one of her spontaneous smiles (like she does when she's dreaming, or has gas, or just randomly :) and I started talking to her and the smile got bigger and bigger as my voice got louder and higher pitched when saying her name. Since then I've got her to repeat the smiles a few more times but I still haven't caught them on camera. When I do, I'll make sure to show you all!

This past weekend her eyes starting showing specs of brown in them. Soon she'll no longer be our blue-gray eyed girl.