week three

This child is growing at a rapid pace! I can not believe how big she is getting already. Newborn clothes stopped fitting her in the middle of week 2 and she is growing into her 3 month clothes! It's so surprising when you stick an outfit on a baby and it either doesn't fit at all anymore, or used to be way too big and has all of a sudden started to fit. Eleanor has begun to spend larger chunks of the day awake.....most of the time she is happy and content, but occasionally she is mad and only wants to nurse. We still have yet to get ourselves into any kind of routine but we have started trying to push her night feeding to every 3 hours just so that eventually we'll be able to get some sleep. We've had a few nights where Eleanor wakes up to nurse and then decides to stay awake for a while and that is super frustrating for sleep deprived parents, but it doesn't happen all that often and for the most part she nurses and then goes right back to sleep at night.....there's just a lot of that!

I was really worried while I was pregnant that Eleanor was going to be like Charlotte was during the first months (colicky and never slept during the day) but so far that is not the case and at this point......almost 4 weeks old I doubt she will have a complete change in personality and start non stop crying. Phew! One of the biggest complaints that I have about this baby is that she seems to always nurse, poop and then immediately falls asleep. Which is excellent in the sense that she isn't having trouble pooping, or falling asleep, but it's not fun to have to wake her up to change her diaper after she has already fallen sleep, and then usually I have to start all over again and nurse her and then put her to sleep. It's not really a bad thing, I just wish she would get the pooping done before the sleeping! :o)

Overall things are going really well! Eleanor is a great baby and she seems to fit right in. We've been pretty busy since she was born and she really has a go with the flow attitude. I can tell that her first smile is getting close and I'm really excited for when she becomes a little more responsive and can interact with the girls.....I know they are looking forward to that as well. Dan and I are tired, but that is to be expected and in the long run doesn't last very long. It has been really nice having my parents here, they have been such an amazing help to us. I am really bummed that they leave tomorrow and if I'm honest I'm a little bit terrified of having to do this all on my own! I know it will be fine and we will adapt, but I don't doubt it will be a bit hairy for a while. If anyone wants to come and visit/stay with us, you are more than welcome! :o)

Eleanor never gets left alone unless I put her in her bed

Mad face

Sisterly love

SO awake

I LOVE this picture!

I was wearing her at the pumpkin patch
She seems to really like the 2 wraps I've had her in!

Tummy time
I really don't like tummy time when they are so little!
It makes me sad to see them face planted.

A little fairy dust

Maddie had decided this summer that she wanted to be a butterfly for halloween. She also decided that grandma was going to make her costume. :o) And of course Charlotte wants to do whatever Maddie wants to do, so we had two little girls who wanted to wear wings. Well costume ideas changed over the last few weeks and Maddie decided she wanted to be a tooth fairy (she was obsessed with the tooth fairy and losing her teeth for a while) and then after watching the new Tinkerbell movie she decided she wanted to be a fairy. Good thing grandma is adaptable!

We had some major halloween excitement around here.....YMCA trunk or treating on Thursday, Lake Benson halloween festival on Friday, Hill Ridge Farms pumpkin patch on Sunday and we closed out the night with trick or treating around our block. The girls had so much fun dressing up and eating way too much candy. I was really strict with the candy consumption up until Sunday night, but after we got home from treating I told them they could eat as much candy as they wanted until bedtime (30 minutes). Maddie's response was "Oh thank you mama, thank you!" They didn't actually eat very much but neither has asked for candy at all since that night! lol I remember trick or treating as a kid and my parents let us eat whatever candy we wanted on halloween night and then it was rationed after that. I think our candy will be around for another week or so and then it will get thrown out or donated to their preschool.

I think the girls were super cute in their costumes this year and I'm glad that we made some fun memories while grandma and papa were visiting!

Week two

Life has been a whirlwind of baby holding, diaper changes, breastfeeding and middle of the night wakefulness. I have the best of intentions of posting pictures but life is exhausting right now and the days are flying by. Baby Eleanor is getting big and filling out more every day. She is still a great eater and things are going really smoothly with nursing. We currently have no schedule.....every day our sleeping habits are unknown, some nights Ellie goes to bed at 10:30 and some nights no one goes to sleep until 1:00 in the morning. Yesterday we went to the fair and the baby literally slept ALL DAY long! She was maybe awake a total of one hour over the entire day. Today on the other hand she has been awake a good deal and generally pretty happy! We've had some gas issues the biggest one involving copious amounts of garlic, but we bought some Mylicon drops and they seem to be keeping the gas in check. There is nothing worse than listening to a baby hollering because of gas!! The big girls are doing really well.....it feels like we are starting to find a new normal, although my mom is currently here visiting and my dad will be arriving in a couple days and staying for a week, so we'll have to adjust for real after they both leave. But they are being good to Eleanor, loving on her and taking a big interest in taking care of her. Charlotte is currently giving Eleanor kisses and hugs while she's in her swing and then running over to me and telling me, "I kissed her and hugged her.....I'm a big sister now!" It's pretty cute! I don't feel like we are dealing with any rivalry at this point although we may in the future, and my girls don't appear to feel neglected by my taking care of the baby, although that may be an issue in the future as well. For right now we're doing the best we can in our exhausted state to take care of everyone's needs and make sure that all our girls feel loved. I'm looking forward to Eleanor starting to sleep for longer intervals in the future (fingers crossed it happens soon!) and for us to get on some type of schedule. I'm not looking forward to my mom leaving, but I'm not going to think about that right now.....we still have 8 days.

In most of these pictures Eleanor is doing
what she does the most, and the best.....
sleeping!

Baby toes

She likes her swing

Can you tell that she has siblings?!? lol

Wool diaper pants!

Don't you just want to smooch those cheeks?

Week one

These are just some random pictures I have from Eleanor's first week. We're closing in on week two here, so I'm a bit behind but time is currently at a premium. I feel like I'm not capturing enough pictures and have to remind myself to pick up my camera every day. The days are just flying by and before I know it, it's evening and the lighting is bad and I haven't taken any pictures. I can't get these days back and I don't want to miss anything so I'm going to try harder to remember to photograph my sweet little baby!

I can already see physical changes in Eleanor.....she is filling out and getting more butterball-ish. At one point a couple days after birth she was 7 pounds 14 oz. and she felt so light to me, but she is now weighing quite a bit more. I'm curious to see what her stats are at the doctor on Thursday. She is also changing in personality and temperament. She is awake more......usually for about an hour a couple times of day and really mellow during these times. She'll just sit and look around. She still does a crazy lot of sleeping though! She has also gotten a bit crankier.....when she wakes up and is hungry she goes from zero to hollering very quickly where before she would just kind of fuss. She is still an excellent baby, sleeping well, eating well, pooping well and she really has a lot of patience with her overly loving sisters. It is amazing that Eleanor is already almost 2 weeks old.......time goes by too quickly!

She doesn't take a paci very often,
but this is the one she likes

MAD! Can you say hungry?

Such a sweet little face

This is my life all day long. Charlotte is constantly in Eleanor's face lovin' on her!

The doting sisters

Rub and dub dub

I gave Eleanor her first bath a couple days ago. Her belly button stump has not fallen off yet so it was a sponge bath. The baby does not like to be naked so needless to say she did not enjoy her first bathing experience. This first bath reminded me of when we brought Maddie home from the hospital and I was faced with bathing a newborn for the very first time. I was so nervous about it that I made my mom do it so I could watch and learn how not to break my newborn infant! I'm pretty comfortable with the whole process at this point so it went smoothly but it's generally not a very enjoyable experience for new babies. Eleanor has the most hair of any of my babies (I guarantee she will lose it and be bald soon enough) and it was fun to wash it and have sweet smelling baby hair. Once the water part was done Ellie was calm as can be and didn't seem to mind being dried and lotioned. Freshly washed little babies are lovely!