One Month Older And Wiser, Too

Reese seems to be getting so big so fast. (Above: Will in the green shirt was taken a day or two after hospital discharge, Will in the Grey shirt was taken today) She was four weeks old this past thursday, and today is her official one-month birthday. A landmark this past week is she grew out of her first outfit that was too big for her at birth. She's also getting pretty good at holding her head up, even though she sometimes looks like a bobble-head doll.

This week the woman in the extended Heath family threw Reese a baby shower. I requested that this party occur after her birth so that more people would be able to see her as little as she is than probably would have been able to otherwise. Thanks to Aunt Sally for generously hosting the get-together.

One gift was an infant rocker. This chair is fabulous. It slides on the carpet easily, so now I can drag Reese to whatever part of the apartment I'm at and I don't have to pick her up if she's fallen asleep. If I'm cooking, I can drag her to the kitchen entrance. If I have to do laundry, I can drag her to the laundry room. If I'm putting on my face, I can drag her to the bathroom. So much for a rocker, they should advertise this thing as a sled.

A very helpful neighbor, Cheri Brewer, lent us some mittens to keep Reese from scratching her face. Yesterday Cheri asked me how they were working and I gave her the thumbs up. Then today Reese decided to take advantage of her mitten-less-ness on the way to church and gave herself a nose scratch. Rats.

This video isn't very exciting, but I thought that I would post it anyway to keep a memory of Reese and her cousin, Katie. Actually I think Reese sneezes towards the end, so that's pretty exciting.

To me, this video is slightly mroe exciting, if you can tell that she's holding her head up by herself.

They Grow Up Too Fast- Not Quite A Month Old

Today I tried to put an outfit on Reese that was pretty big on her the day we brought her home from the hospital. It didn't fit anymore. How in the world did she get to big so fast?

Reese and her cousin, Lillie. Lillie is about 6 months older than Reese. You can't tell very well from this picture, but when they were side-by-side, Lillie looked twice as big as Reese. Do they really grow that much in such a short time?

I don't know why she's so shy; I think that the dress is adorable. (It's also courtesy of a Gymboree gift card given to her by aunt Melissa- Thanks!)

Happy BYU football season! Due to the game, a lot of my mom's family was in town and we had a game-day party. That's when I got this great four-generation shot. Great-grandma Evelyn Christensen, Grandma Leah Faber, Mom Anna Heath and Baby Shareese Heath.

Our Bishop challenged us to get to the temple at least once per week. When we were very first married, this is a feat that we actually accomplished. Things have gotten a little more complicated since then....

Luckily, you can still visit the temple without spending an hour or two doing ordinances, so that's what we did, and we brought Reese along.

Reese obviously enjoyed the sweet spirit of the temple grounds, as evidenced by her peaceful expression.

Then again expressions don't say everything.

On Sunday we made it all the way up to Bountiful to attend the mission report of Reese's first cousin once removed, Justin Faber. He just came home from the Accra, Ghana mission. During his mission, he sent great emails with stories about eating dog (and keeping large portions of it in the freezer) catching Malaria multiple times, and sweet conversion and baptism stories.

Reese got passed around because she's so popular. Here she is with Great-grandma Faber.

And here's Buck, Justin's food storage.

Her Mouth, Feet and Eyes

Reese has been doing great. At her two-week doctor's visit, she weighed in at 8 pound, 10 ounces, and is otherwise passing all the health tests. She seems to be growing like a weed already, and I feel almost like I was always meant to be a mom- though I think it helps that my baby is an angel.

We're beginning to get in to a routine now. After last week's visit to the lactation specialist, we discovered that Reese's incorrect latch was the cause of some painful sores and cuts on mommy. We rented a pump for a week while I healed, and I fell in love with my husband's (and other's)new ability to feed the baby. We ended up renewing the pump rental for another week while I continue to practice a proper breastfeeding latch with Reesey.

My mom, Grandma Faber, was excited when it was discovered that Reese will take a pacifier. I didn't know this, but apparently I have a niece that didn't take one, and I guess that makes a baby difficult to soothe. Unfortunately, Reese has not yet developed the ability to keep the pacifier in her mouth for extended periods of time, and she gets even more upset when she loses the pacifier. Sometimes she just drops it, other times she spits it like a projectile. I think I'll appreciate that pacifier more when I don't have to get out of bed every couple of minutes to put it back in her mouth.

Reesey's skin is still getting used to the dry climate outside of the womb. She was all wrapped up in a blanket when I decided her feet needed some lotion. She ended up wiggling in such a way that the blanket covered her head, and she just had her little feet sticking out.

Just yesterday I noticed that her eyes have started following me as I move. I don't know how well babies see soon after they are born, but I've assumed that they see in blobs or blurs. I think she must be recognising images now, and I'm glad one that she follows is my face. It's a new feeling to see her watching me instead of staring in one direction.

One Week Birthday

Today is Reese's one-week birthday. I still feel as clueless as the day we brought her home.

Luckily, the day she came home from the hospital we were invited to spend the weekend at my parent's house. It helped a lot to have all sorts of support and people to hold Reese. But since we were not at home, we discovered that we had a lot to learn about packing for a baby. Will had to run home at least three times to get things that we had either forgotten or not brought enough of.

Feeding Reese has, by far, been our biggest challenge so far. She did great at the hospital, feeding on average for between thirty and forty minutes at a time on the colostrum (the pre-milk milk). But the day we got her home, my milk came in and we started having problems. It started taking an average of twenty minutes just to get her to latch, and then we were lucky if she would feed for twenty minutes total. Plus I'm all cracked and raw and it hurts like... something that hurts a whole lot. So were throwing Reese's one-week birthday party at the lactation specialist's office. Hooray!

Reese has decided that her most favorite time to be awake is right after her late evening feeding, usually between ten and eleven at night. She sleeps most other times. But when she is awake, she's usually an angel. She can be happy just being awake and looking around. I love her eyes. I can't help but just stare and admire her (a lot of the time, but especially when those bright eyes are open).

She got her first at-home bath this week. She cried straight through her bath at the hospital, but seemed to really like the bath at home. I thought she would be screaming, as she does whenever her diaper gets changed, but we were pleasantly surprised.

We've also received a lot of help and support from family, friends and neighbors. In the past I've volunteered to bring meals to new moms through Relief Society sign-ups, but I never realized what a blessing it actually was until I was on the receiving end. I wish there were a way to adequately express my gratitude.

I love watching Will with Reese. You can tell how much he likes her.

And she likes him.

We were halfway through the bath when I remembered the camera. At least this time I remembered before we were all done.

She looks upset here, but enjoyed the bath for the most part.

And then she got dried in a way cute ducky towel, courtesy of my lunch lady friends from Freedom Academy.

Great-Grandpa Faber came to visit Reese

Reese gets socks on her hands so she doesn't scratch her face. She was born with claws.

We use undressing her as a method of keeping her awake in the middle of feedings, so we have a lot of pictures of her in a diaper. I thought I would post this to prove that we do, in fact, dress her.