Luciana is five-weeks-old at this point, and with Jeremy's paternity leave behind him and the last of our house guests/babysitters gone for the moment, I'm looking forward to settling in to some sort of "routine." I say that lightly because the idea of creating a routine with a newborn is laughable, but this mama and the strong-willed almost three-year-old of the house NEED routine. Because honestly, without it, we're both grumpy, sleep deprived and all sorts of out of whack, and that just does NOT make for a happy household.
Luciana's been doing a whole lot of growing and measured in with these stats at her one-month doctor's appointment.
Weight: 9 lbs 7 ounces (a gain of two pounds in two weeks!), 57th percentile
Length: 20 1/2, 26th percentile
Part of her NICU stay involved figuring out that she has silent reflux, which means she takes a hefty dose of Zantac three times a day. Based on her growth (which the doctor was extremely happy with), she's obviously doing well on the medicine, but she does have days and nights where she seems extremely uncomfortable. I don't know if it's the reflux or just her immature digestive system, but I've never seen any baby poop and pass gas as much as she does. The poor girl is always grunting, pushing and working on something, and OMG does it look uncomfortable to be a baby. Newborns are so sleepy and cute and cuddly, but man can they be strange.
She's eating about every two to three hours, and if I'm lucky, she'll sleep a stretch of about four hours at least once during the night. She has about two to three wakeful periods during the day where she's up for two hours at a time, and lucky me, she cluster feeds at night from about 7 to 10 p.m. where she eats every single hour. Right now she loves her baths (seriously, she never cries during a bath) and is starting to enjoy playing (well, laying) on her playmat. And this girl has been genuinely smiling since about two weeks old.
What's gone unmentioned here on the blog is that I left my job of eight years at the end of August to officially "stay at home." It's a major adjustment for me (and for our income ... yikes!), but one that I am excited to explore and make my own (with routines, routines and more routines).
Maribelle is undergoing a change of her own as well, as she drops down from three days of daycare a week to only one day. We have absolutely loved the home daycare that she's been attending for the past three years, and the provider has been out-of-this-world wonderful. But, the drive to and from the daycare location from our new house is insane and would mean that I'd have Luciana in the car for potentially four hours a day on daycare days. Not ideal. So for now, she'll be home with me for the majority of the week while we try to find her some sort of preschool situation for the coming year. I'm slightly terrified, because this feisty girl needs entertainment and to be socially and mentally engaged in ways that I just can't find the time for at the moment. There's been a whole lot of movie watching going on these past few weeks (she's obsessed with Disney movies at the moment), but I'm hoping that once I get my bearings with this whole "staying at home with two kids" thing, I'll be able to provide Maribelle with the stimulating experiences she needs. And some days, I know that's going to be a tall order to fill.
