Happy 1 month, Paisley Rae

Yesterday Paisley was 1 month old! Happy 1 month, little girl! She is such a joy in our lives and it really feels like we are adjusting well to being a family of 4.

Sleeping

We start bedtime for Paisley at 7pm. Judah and Jeremiah hangout with us as she gets changed into her jammies and swaddled up in her blanket. Then I feed her in our room and she goes to bed. She sleeps for about 4 or 5 hours straight and then wakes up to eat. She wakes up to eat every couple hours after that and starts her day at 7am. She still sleeps in the bassinet in our room. We moved Judah into his own room around 6 weeks but, I'm not sure how long Paisley will be in our room. I guess we'll just have to see what feels right.

Eating

Paisley nurses every 2.5-3 hours during the day. If she's napping, I wake her up to eat. She is doing great nursing!

Personality

I feel like Paisley is starting to be a little more content. She has some happy awake time during the day but, she still is pretty fussy in the evening. She takes a pacifier and that really calms her down. It's handy right now but, I worry about it becoming too big of a habit. Also, she likes to look at Judah and watch her mobile.

New things

Paisley has been smiling at us!!! She has smiled at me a good number of times and she's also smiled at Judah and Jeremiah. Her smile is absolutely the most adorable thing and it makes me so happy.

She is so precious and I'm so thankful she's part of our family!

Judah's 1st snow day

This morning, while we were eating breakfast, it started to snow. I was so excited! Judah hasn't experienced snow and I've been hoping that this would be the year where we'd get to play in the snow for the first time together. I picked him up, took him to the window and showed him the snow. He was amazed and said "WOW! Pretty snow!".

As soon as Paisley went down for her nap, I bundled him up, threw my jacket on and double checked that the baby monitor was working, in case she woke up. It was absolutely freezing outside but, we had a great time playing. I love that he had his first snow experience today and that he even learned how to knock snow off his mittens. It's the little things like learning how to brush snow off the mittens or push snow down a slide that make snow days so fun.

Of course I need to throw a picture of Paisley in this post. Here she is, laying on the floor with Judah.

Today

Today was one of those days. It started out really well and then the afternoon got tough. When Paisley gets over-tired, getting her to sleep is so hard. I never knew it could be so hard to get a newborn to nap during the day. She's sleeping pretty well at night but, during the day, I can't let her be awake for too long or everything goes down hill pretty fast. She won't nap and she gets so sad and grumpy.

She got over tired this afternoon because a well meaning neighbor stopped by when she was almost asleep. The sweet lady came in and insisted on sitting and holding her. Paisley was happy but, didn't go to sleep. Time went by and before you know it, the babe had been awake for almost 3 hours, which is way too long for her. So, it just spirals down from there....grumpy baby that won't nap, grumpy mommy and a toddler that is being disobedient because he knows that mommy isn't able to give him full attention.

Anyway, we survived and both Judah & Paisley were in bed on time. It feels so good to sit down and just do nothing!

On a positive note, I feel like I'm really beginning to get used to being the mother of 2 small children. We are getting into a bit of a routine and it feels great.

Judah's shadow

The other day, Judah was playing in the kitchen with his train. The sun was shining perfectly on him and his shadow looked so precious to me.

I love how I can even see his eye lashes in this last picture.

Having Paisley has made Judah seem so much older to me. He's still young but, it's been hard to realize how much he's changed, in less than 2 years. I can't believe that he was just a little baby, like Paisley, not very long ago. It's true, when you have children, life starts going by way too quickly!

Cousin pictures

Today we took my sister and her family dinner because they had their new baby just 3 days ago! While we were there, we took pictures of the cousins. I love this one of Judah and Noah looking at their tiny siblings.
Paisley, 3 weeks old. Levi, 3 days old.

Judah was 5 weeks old here and Noah was 2 days. They sure have grown!

2 weeks, 1 day

Who she is....

Personality
Right now, I like to describe Paisley's personality as spunky. She's obviously not as laid back as Judah and it's ok! Everybody is different. She isn't terribly fussy but, she does get frustrated and when she gets tired, she gets grumpy. She likes to look at our faces and she likes to lay in Judah's crib and listen to us talk while I change his diaper.


Sleep
The girl needs her rest and sometimes she fights it! During the day, I have her nursing every 2.5-3hrs, then she's awake for a little while and then she gets tired. She has a little bit of a hard time settling into a deep sleep but, once she does, she takes a good nap. I've tried to shorten her awake time to make sure she's not getting over stimulated.


For night time sleep, I think she's doing pretty well! Last night she slept from 8:30pm until 1:30 (5hrs!) and then she was up every couple hours after that. The first night after she was born, she wouldn't settle down to sleep until about 1am. This didn't really surprise me because she was very active in my tummy during the evenings while I was pregnant. Each night since she was born, we've managed to get her down to bed a little earlier so, I'm happy. Judah is in bed by 8pm and we've been getting her to bed right after him and it's working. Soon, it'll probably be earlier but, I feel like we're on track.


Eating
Paisley is a great nurser! During the day, I often have to wake her for her feedings but, she's been gaining weight well and she has tons of wet and dirty diapers. I actually can't believe how many newborn diapers we're going through! She was born at 8lb, 8oz and when she was 10 days old, she weighed 8lb, 15oz. She takes her sweet time eating and I remind myself that it'll get faster. Sometimes Judah and I watch Barney or Mickey Mouse while I feed her to help keep him occupied. Other times I read him books or he just plays, doing his own thing.


How Judah is doing
Judah loves Paisley. He is learning how to be gentle and he doesn't really have it figured out yet. Sometimes he touches her really softly, other times, he just grabs her and it's so frustrating. I have to watch him so closely when he's around her because he moves so fast and he just wants to love on her. The bottom line is that he really does seem to like having her in our family and that makes us so happy!


Here they are before church today:

Paisley Rae's Birth Story

Saturday, October 23rd, I was 6 days over due. I woke up at 4:30am to use the bathroom and couldn't seem to fall back asleep. After laying there for about 15 minutes, I realized that I was having some light contractions, about 7 minutes apart. I waited for awhile before waking Jeremiah up to make sure that I just wasn't imagining the contractions. Indeed, it was real. Hooray! I was actually in labor!!!

I woke Jeremiah and told him that I thought something was definitely happening. We got up, had some coffee and some breakfast. While I ate my Cheerios, the contractions started getting more intense and closer together. I called my midwife about 5:30am and told her I was in labor. She was excited and warned me not to wait at home too long because she knew how fast my labor with Judah was. I told her I wanted to take a shower and get ready and then we'd head off to the hospital. I called my mom, told her to head on over to our house (to be with Judah) and then got in the shower. Contractions increased and got more painful. I got ready and I could tell that we really needed to leave the house soon.

We left the house about 6:45am and got to the hospital slightly after 7am. The drive there wasn't very comfortable but, it seemed to go fast (maybe that's because Jeremiah did go fast!). My sister was also on her way to the hospital to support me during labor. My midwife, Natalie told the front desk that they didn't need to monitor me in triage because she knew that they'd be keeping me. So, they went ahead and took us to our room. Natalie met us in the room and told the nurse that she didn't need to prep me for an IV, I loved that! I can't stand IV's, they totally gross me out and I didn't want ANYTHING being placed on me or in my veins. Yuck.

About 8am, I finally got into the jacuzzi tub. I worked through contractions in there with towels on me and Jeremiah and Sally in the room. They brought me tons of water to drink and a Bakers cookie to eat. If you know me really well, you know that I have a thing for Baker's Cookies, it's quite ridiculous. The nurse only came in to monitor Paisley's heart beat about every 15 minutes and each time, it showed that she was handling the contractions just great! Contractions were very close together and it was very intense. At one point, Jeremiah turned some music on and we listened to "Lifesong" by Casting Crowns. Going through a contraction while listening to that song was really emotional, in a good way. It made me cry and it was such a special moment.

At 8:50am, I told the nurse that it felt like the babies head was basically between my legs. She ran to have Natalie check me and sure enough, I was fully dilated! I remember saying "Thank God!!". It had been so intense that I'm glad I progressed fast. I got on the bed and pushed for 3 contractions and then Paisley Rae was born at 9am!!!! 8lb, 8oz and 18.5 inches long.

She is perfect and so healthy. Jeremiah, Judah and I are totally amazed by her.

I'm back!

The last week has been one of the most amazing and hard weeks I think I've ever had. I gave birth to our amazing little girl on Saturday, October 23rd and she is just precious and perfect. I will be blogging all the details about her soon. Then on Sunday, the 24th, a MOPS friend lost one of her amazing daughters to SIDS. It's been so emotional to be experiencing such joy over our new daughter and then such extreme sadness for my friend. When I sit and nurse Paisley at night, I can't stop thinking about the grief this other mom is experiencing and it just makes me cry.

It's also been really emotional to have my attention divided between Judah and Paisley. Jeremiah was home with us all last week so, Judah got used to "Daddy" helping him with everything while mommy takes care of the new baby. It was super helpful to have Jeremiah home but, really emotional for me when Judah started wanting Daddy to do everything with him. I've felt so bad, like he feels I've abandoned him.

It's a new week though! Jeremiah is back at work and Judah is starting to spend good time with me again. I feel like I'm beginning to get into somewhat of a routine with both kids and it feels good. It's amazing how a person can experience such joy and sadness at the same time.

I've thought about blogging a lot lately but, I've felt like I have writers block. I don't know how that could be since I have a 1000 things I could blog about. I think it's just that there have been too many emotions.

It's a new month now and I'm happy to be back. I'm starting to feel a little more like myself and it feels good!