Growing, growing, growing

7 weeks old today. Whoaaah! Where IS the time going?



Yes, her left arm IS purple. We noticed this shortly after our little photo session. Oopsie!

Daisy has had a pretty good week with not very much to report. Sleeping about the same, puking about the same, blowing out our diapers about the same, coming out in rashes about the same. The only two things that seem to have increased are our length (we no longer fit in most newborn clothes because we're too long but we're not yet fat enough to fill-out most 0-3 month clothing) and the amount of cuteness!

Coupled with this, she is definitely getting more aware of her surroundings, smiling more, and making little "cooing" sounds when she is entertained, even by the most banal things (like a ceiling fan or the sound of my voice.) She can now quite easily entertain herself in the swing, awake, without supervision now for 20 minutes at a time. Of course, it's not ANY 20 minutes, you gotta pick the right time, but it's 20 minutes more than we had before, so we'll take it!

Last night we had another episode of the mysterious night-waking battery toy. You may remember the episode with the Bloody Bear, well last night it was something else entirely... only this time at 1am! The little lights/music soother we have attached to the bars on her crib for when she gets older suddenly, and inexplicably, decided to turn itself on at 1am, waking our sleeping little girl and then, of course, us. It was a pretty harsh reality to only get a few hours of sleep vs. our usual 5+ and we still have NO IDEA what caused the toy to jump to life in the wee hours of the morning. All I know is, we're taking the damn batteries out of that thing tonight.

Finally, today marked the return of Nanny, who is currently half-drunk in her hotel room near San Francisco Airport (she'll kill me for telling you that!) Since there was NO WAY any of us were going to brave pre-holiday traffic on a Friday afternoon out of the city, we're jumping in the car at 6am tomorrow to bring her home. I can't wait for her to see Daisy after her 3 weeks away - she has grown so much in just that short span of time.

Thanks for keeping up-to-date with our little Daisers. Here are some more pics from this past week to njoy.

















xoxox

Spit-up, Nannies, and what we've learned so far after 6 weeks of parenting

Click here for more pics from weeks 5 and 6.

Update from the house of Daisy McDaid, Week 6

Spit-Up

Unfortunately our spit-up has progressed to GER, or infant reflux. It's almost every feeding now. Ok, so it's EVERY feeding and sometimes an hour after, but we're just getting better at keeping her at the right angle to hold it in. So off to the pediatricians again this past Thursday. I swear, we're we're really chill, calm parents (hey, I negotiated a green poop incident with nothing more than a quick Google search!) but the little lady seems insistent on throwing curve-balls at us at least once a week.

Our pediatrician is also pretty chill and non-interventionist but she is a tad worried about two things: (1) the fact that she only put on one ounce in the past week (whereas it had been 16ozs in 10 days before) and (2) the potential for the acid in the consistent spit-up/puke harming her esophagus (yes, just like in that commercial for the purple pill) and discouraging her from feeding more. (You know, she remembers it hurts after every feeding so she gets fussy even before she feeds... the viscious cycle we want to avoid.) So, we've been prescribed Zantac to neutralize all that tummy acid. Unfortunately there really is nothing on the market to stop newborns spitting up/puking - aparently nobody yet considers this important enough to invest in medical research over, say, cancer - so all we can do is cover our shoulders, laps, and furniture with receiving blankets, have a soft flannel in-hand for facial wipe-up, keep her at 45 degrees, and practice our lightening-fast reactions to catch it when all-else fails.

The downside of this is that I tend to always smell like sour milk. Oh well, the things we do for love.

Nannies

Less than one week left until Nanny (with a capital "n") arrives back in the U.S., but in the meantime we have hired a nanny (with a small "n") to look after our little Daisy 2 days a week. Unbelievably this is less expensive than sending her out to daycare AND we don't have to deal with all the bugs and viruses that tend to get passed around in those places.

Our nanny is called Brandy and she previously nannied for three kids but was laid-off because the mother was laid-off from Intel (the trickle-down effect of the economy at work first-hand.) She lives literally just around the corner (2 mins by car) and has an adorable 7 month old daughter called Lizzie who she would be bringing with her, which I think will be great for Daisy as she gets older and needs another baby to interact with and learn from. She'll be with us 2-days a week here in our house while I work upstairs. Meanwhile my Mum (aka: Nanny) will take Daisy for the other 3 days (and that's the LEAST amount of time she would accept!)

Which brings me to the end of my maternity leave. My official date for return is now June 4th, as set by me. The 4th is a Thursday, which gives me two days to catch-up with what's going on, get a feeling for how the heck I'm going to be a mommy AND work, and then a weekend to panic about it all before I go back full-boar on Monday. I can't believe 8 weeks has almost passed, it seems like, in a blink of an eye. It's gone SO FAST and yet, at the same time, I'm ready to move back into some semblance of reality. I ADORE Daisy but mommy needs her mental stimulation. Of course, it's all made so much easier for me by the fact that I do work from home and can have her cared for here; it's not like she'll be gone for the day, I can just come downstairs whenever I want to see her and will be on-hand if Mum or Brandy have questions or need assistance.

But don't write me off yet. The first act of my return will be to submit two vacation requests, the first for Labor Day week (when we have a wedding to attend in SoCal) and the second for Christmas/New Year. I'll be using some of my Paid Family Leave (or Baby Bonding time) for this.

What we've learned so far about parenthood

Hubby and I have made a number of amusing observations about our new life in the last six weeks and so we wrote them down on the back of an envelope over the last couple of days to share with you.

• Whenever you're sitting down with her, it doesn't matter how well you've padded out your seat you always need just one extra pillow.
• The drink you prepared and put on the side table is always just out of reach.
• The spit-up cloth is never in the right spot and/or cannot usually be found at the opportune moment.
• There's not enough... of anything: bottles, pumping supplies, blankets, towels, time...
• There is ALWAYS laundry.
• Between the consistent laundry, the increased use of dishwasher and the need to keep baby's room cool, our electricity bill will never be the same again.
• No amount of Oxyclean can get out some poop stains.
• Some residue poop stain becomes acceptable on your clothing at some point.
• Even if you had the time to shower, it doesn't matter because, by lunchtime, you're a cornicopia of poop, spit-up, and expressed breast milk.
• There is no such thing as one outfit a day - for you OR her.
• Ironically, doing dishes and laundry while your husband/wife watches the baby is now considered a "break".
• Facebook IS your social life.
• Where before you never had time to read and respond to all your emails, now you're watching your computer, desperately waiting for your friends to contact you.
• Monday is the same as Friday. There is little excitement about Saturday.
• Coffee NEVER tasted so good.
• Bed NEVER felt so delicious.
• Fast food salads are considered nutritious eating.
• The TV always seems too loud (although we resist the temptation to turn it down too much and tiptoe around the house.)
• The dogs (or should I say FRANKIE) always bark just as the baby is drifting off into sleep.
• When you get home, take the garbage out. Yes, every day. (This was Hubby's primary input.)
  
• 8pm feels like midnight. 7am feels like 3am. Time is an alien construct.
• Any phrase can be turned into a song. Any commercial jingle can be adapted to a Daisy song. IE: "Yipee kayay, mini sirloin Daisies!" (I kid you not.)
• You do, at some point, start to wonder if all those vampire flicks and tv-shows you watch in the afternoon with her will eventually penetrate her psyche and result in the need for a shrink later in life.

Otherwise, life as a parent is becoming more the norm and less of a shock to the system. The best time of day is the morning when she is just fed and super happy. Daisy has begun to smile more often and make happy gurgly noises when you talk and sing to her, and definitely has gained an interest in brightly colored items, like the plush sunflower that hangs over her head when she's getting her diaper changed.

Even though she didn't gain much weight in the past week, we can definitely see that she is getting bigger, especially in the car seat because we have to keep moving up the infant cradle to fit her in. More than anything she is super long, especially when I look at her compared to her friend, Mackenzie, who was born 2 days later. She is all arms and legs, which can make her hard to hold sometimes; while many babies at her age are just a ball of flesh you can cradle, this kid likes her long limbs to be dangling and moving all the time. She also has crazy-good control of her head and neck for her age, which means she tends to move that around, frantically, in unison with those arms and legs. Although her control is not SO great, so she'll lose it when you're least expecting it, resulting in some scary head bobbing incidents.

Other little Daisy quirks we have noticed are that she has loooong fingers (a piano player perhaps?) and monkey toes (meaning they can grip your finger almost as good as her hand!) She loves to go out and about with her momma and will typically sleep best in the loudest, craziest places. She likes the car but, if nobody's in the back with her to replace the binkie, will cry at stoplights, resulting in mommy crossing some dubious yellows when really desperate.

Her nicknames so far are: Munchkin, Munchkinator, Daisy Poopy-Pants, Daisy Farty-Pants, The Pukester, Sweetie-Pea, My Little Minx, and Little Girl.

Thanks for keeping up-to-date with Ms. Daisy this week. Over and out!

My good baby

Sleeping on her Grandad's shoulder. Do I spy some errant snot coming out of the right nostril? Dang, I need to Photoshop that out...



Getting a baabaa (aka: bottle) from Daddy. (Yes, I am officially a stay at home mom - everything has a baby name. Shoot me now!) You can also see some of the rash on her poor little face here... more on that later. And YES, she is in pink. In my defense, someone else purchased this cute dress for her.



Enjoying the mobile on her swing- something that lasts for... ohhh... 5 minutes.
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Well, week 5 of Daisy's life has been an up-and-downer.

It started off pretty miserably, saying goodbye to Nan at the airport on Sunday. We took Daisy with us to wave her off and she did remarkably well on the 90 minute drive to-and-from San Francisco. BUT, it was one of the saddest days of my life to stand there holding her and watching my Mum get further and further away as she snaked through the security line and finally disappeared out of sight. On the way back to the car I clung on to Daisy, smelling her sweet little head for comfort and hoping that, by the time Nan returned, Daisy wouldn't have changed so much that Nan's immediate soothing tactics would no longer work.

The last couple of weeks Mum was here we had a really good time, heading out on little trips together with Daisy to build my confidence in going out with her and, of course, to get out of the damn house. After 15 years of being apart, except for rushed visits, Mum and I finally found our friendship groove again and that only made it even harder to say goodbye. She also taught me a lot about being with my daughter and, in uncharacteristic Carter style, without a single word of "advice." She just "did it." Meaning, I would hand Daisy over to her and she would play with her, soothe her, and get her off to sleep with such calm and ease that one couldn't but help pay attention and take notes. It's no exaggeration to say that almost all of the techniques I use to calm Daisy down when she's fussy or play with her when she's awake, come from watching my Mum do what comes naturally. One of the things I'll always remember from this time as I look back is how much I appreciated her help, her patience, her love, her sense of humor, and the fact that she never once told me what to do or not do. Even when it looked like I might be losing my marbles, she didn't coddle me OR tell me to pull it together, she just understood that I needed some time and took Daisy while I checked emails or took a shower. In all honesty, that's all I needed, just some non-baby time so I could "find" myself at some point each day.

The good-news footnote to this tale of woe is that she was so miserable back in the UK that she has already booked her flight back here and will be in the US on May 22nd. That gives us a whole week together again before I head back to work (at least that's the plan right now.)

In the meantime, I'm really lucky to still have my Dad around and he has been coming over for a couple of hours a day to look after Daisy while I eat, shower, and do some laundry (which is even more of a never-ending task now that we have hundreds of socks the size of pea-pods to wash!) Even so, I have been trying to push-out my boundaries each day to force myself to cope alone. Not that I'm trying to be a martyr or refuse available help but more, as I said earlier, to build my confidence and just to force myself to figure out how to get things done without having to hand Daisy over to someone else. Heck, single mothers manage to do it somehow, so it has to be possible and I need to know how to do it and that I can do it, even if I don't really have a need to do it all the time. Hopefully that makes sense. This is just something Daisy and I need to figure out.

And on the whole, we've had a pretty decent week. On Tuesday, Hubby didn't get home until 7:30pm and I had bathed her alone and already put her down for the night before he walked in the door. I was pretty proud of myself that night, especially when she slept five hours straight. Then I got up with her for just one hour and she went back down for another five hours. Overall, this has been her pattern this week - note that I'm always careful to use modifiers since we're constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop here: I'll breastfeed her, we'll bath her, she'll get another 2ozs of formula, one of us will soothe her to sleep, we'll swaddle her in her miracle blanket, wait for her to drop out her binkie and do the "open mouth" (as seen on first picture in this post) and then pop her in her crib and close the door. Then begins the process of cleaning the bottles, the breast-pump accessories, folding laundry (depending on the hour), and (if we're lucky) watching back our favorite shows on the DVR. (Here Hubby deserves Kudos - he is the bottle and breast-pump washer.) Usually we're in bed by 10pm, I'll get up once with her and then she'll sleep until around 7 or 8 o'clock. (Yes, note that Hubby is NOT getting up in the middle of the night right now, even though, if she got up a second time, it would be his turn. Lucky *%@tard.)

As I said ***disclaimer alert*** that has been the pattern this week - who knows what next week will hold. We're taking it one day at a time and appreciating the good bits because we know from listening to our friends that babies do the old switcheroo on you just when you think you've "got it down." Thus, we have promised ourselves never to consider our chickens hatched.

Yesterday I got a good reality check at a new mom meeting, held by my medical group in the hospital where she was born. It's a free open meeting for new moms to share their experiences and mediated by a certified child care expert (or something - she was really nice and not at all patronizing, so who cares?) I went with a new friend I made from our Lamaze class, Natalie. Hubby and I made friends with Natalie and her husband, Nick, during the 6 weeks of classes because we had similar outlooks on pregnancy and motherhood, and because we were the type to always make fun of the homely people on the educational videos they showed us - haha! (Seriously, do you remember my post about the 300lb guy with the shorts and black socks?) By a stroke of fate, Natalie gave birth to her daughter, Mackenzie, when we were still in hospital with Daisy, and their room was just four doors down from us.

Anyway, I digress, I'm at the meeting... There were about 15 of us in the meeting, that is 15 sets of moms and babies ranging from 4 weeks to 7 months, and each of us took turns in sharing our experiences or problems. As it happens, I was on the side of the room that meant I would be going one before last, so I got to hear everyone else speak before it got to me. (Well, I say I heard them speak - Natalie and I spent most of the meeting chatting amongst ourselves but, again,I digress.) I was at least listening enough to hear that the majority of moms in the room were having major problems with getting their kids to sleep. And let me tell you, so far, I've got it good.

Many moms, months into motherhood, still have their kids in their beds, sleeping in a swing, in their (parents) rooms, and were only getting a few snatched hours of sleep at a trot. Now, the whole co-sleeping thing or where you put your bassinet is a personal choice, if you like it there, who cares? I have a friend (probably reading this blog) who has her kids sleep with her in the first year or two and it works for her, but I'm talking about women who want to transition out of their current arrangement and seem unable to for some reason, ie the baby will only sleep in their bed or the swing, won't sleep in the crib, or some emotional attachment the mother is unable to break even though, rationally, she knows she needs to for her own sanity.

Honestly, I just can't relate and can't even imagine, so I'm counting my lucky stars. We got home and spent two nights with the pack-and-play in the living room while we slept on the couch (more because we didn't know if I could make it up the stairs with my incision than anything else), then two disrupted nights with the pack-and-play in our bedroom before I threw up my hands and said "This kid needs to sleep in her own room, her own crib... I'm going insane!" Every breath, every sound, and I would wake up and, I might add, visa versa for her - hey, even I can't sleep through Hubby's snoring! She would still be asleep but I would be up and then it would take 30 minutes for me to go back to sleep, usually getting into REM right as she was due to wake up again. It was insane! I figured she slept just fine in the horrid plastic bassinet in the hospital and in the nursery where other babies were crying, so her room had to be a step up, right? So, off to her room she went, and there she has (thankfully) stayed. Since her door and ours almost kiss one another in the hallway, I don't even turn up the baby monitor - we just have it on for the video part. We tried having the sound on for a couple of nights but it was just like having her in the room and was defeating the purpose. It didn't bother Hubby so much but, after a couple of nights, I got so sick of waking up to the slightest noise that I growled at him to "turn the damn thing off!" because I could have got another 30 minutes of sleep if it hadn't of been bleating static in my ear. Now, if he's on shift and gives it to me, I just turn it off and roll over. Clearly, the ability to hear her so much as cough or sneeze with our naked ears, even with both doors ajar, enables me to do this without worry... I'm not completely void of mommy anxiety, you'll be happy to hear.

Anyway, by the time it got around to me talking, I really just wanted to keep my mouth shut. Here was a room of mothers tearing their hair out because they were sleep deprived and frustrated, eager to share my misery with me, and all I really had to offer is that she's slept 7 hours straight 3x this week. So, I focused on the negative: TMJ, tongue-tie, rash, you know, poor me and all that. Inevitably, however, the question of sleep came up and I couldn't lie because I had Natalie right there and she would have known it. I kid you not that the room fell silent when I said we were getting 5-7 hours straight right now. I could almost feel the hate (I don't mean this literally, of course) and envy seeping out of their pores. Of course, I rushed to say that we didn't expect it to last (because there's always some downer mom who wants to say "Ohhhh... that will change!") Fortunately, the meeting was running long and I had to cut it short and leave because I had to drop Daisy home to my Dad so I could go for my massage. UNfortunately, that's exactly what I said to all those Moms. Yes, that went over like a ton of bricks. Here I am getting 7 hours of sleep AND a massage!!!!??? In all seriousness, everyone seemed very nice and I'm sure were just happy for me but there was definitely an undertone - if I was them, I'd be cursing the bitch that had THAT luck!

Needless to say, I came away with a newfound perspective on my mommy life right now. There will be bad days, bad weeks, bad months, I'm sure. It's still a ton of work, often frustrating, and it KILLS MY BACK but right now I can for sure say that I have a good baby and I'm very thankful for that.

On the down side, our little Daisy has a really rotten rash on her face. It started out at the end of last week with a few little pimples on her cheeks and, by yesterday, had progressed to a mad, red rash on both cheeks, around her ears, up on her scalp, around her neck, and a little on her chest. Thankfully (right now) it doesn't seem to be bothering her in any way, although it's bothering us to look at it - her beautiful little face!!!!! We went to the pediatrician yesterday and she told us it was Cradle Cap which, when it extends beyond the scalp, is known as Seborrheic Dermatitis. Yes, if you look at that link, it's pretty nasty looking; that photo of the baby is only a little worse than Daisy right now. Bottom line it's one of those baby things as their bodies figure out the right level of hormones etc... and adjust to life outside of the womb. I was going to say that these babies should stay in longer if they're not really "cooked" by 10 months but then I realized just how loooooong my pregnancy felt already.

In terms of treatment, there isn't much we can do except for keep it clean and avoid soaps, washes and detergents that may irritate it. If it does start to get dry and itch (at which point it would be considered eczema - a likely progression) then we can use Aquafor and a mild steroid cream for relief. The worst part is, this could go on for another three or four months before it clears up. Sniff.... all her baby pictures are going to look like she's 5 weeks going on 17 with bad acne! I guess neither Hubby or I should be surprised given that I had eczema as a child and his family has a history of skin problems, from eczema to psoriasis.

Finally, in closing, people have asked me many times in the last five weeks what has been the biggest surprise about motherhood. Up until now I haven't really had enough experience or time to reflect in order to provide a real answer. In reality, it's mostly been what I expected with a few curve-balls thrown in for good measure. It's not like I had a rose-tinted view of mothering a newborn or my anticipated abilities as a mother, so the bar was set pretty low! However, yesterday, as I was driving home too fast from my massage appointment, windows open, and the radio blaring rock music full boar, I had that rare moment of being completely turned off from my mommy self to reflect. What I realized was that the biggest surprise is how hard it is to be 100% present, in the moment for your baby and how there really is no other choice. For me, with a brain and body that likes to multi-task, this has been the hardest thing to surrender to. I want to hold her and eat, do the laundry with her in the Baby Bjorn, or respond to emails with her bouncing on my knee, all of which are only possible when she's happy and not fussing. Even watching your favorite show on TV can be a problem if she's fussing, you find yourself catching every other five minutes and getting to the end of the show without ever really having understood what happened. Thank GOD for DVR!

The second surprise is that, no matter how GREAT your husband (and let's admit, I have a GREAT husband) and how much help you have around you, as a mother you somehow wind up as the primary care giver. There's not as much a sense of 'sharing' the burden as I would have imagined. (This is not in any way a criticism of anyone else.) People help, provide relief so you can shower, pee, don't strangle her, that kind of thing, but the buck always seems to stop with you. They do their bit, even Hubby, then are done and return to doing or being themselves when their stint is up. There's always this sense that you only get to hand her over when you're at the end of your tether, or to do necessary tasks like shower or eat, and that you have to get your period of respite or doingness done quickly so that you can take her back asap and don't overburden the other person. There is very little ability to do the same and return to being yourself. I guess the reality is that this is your new "self" and that's a pretty hard pill to swallow right now. I really didn't think that I would feel this way, especially with as much support as I have, but I do and it's definitely a surprise. Based upon my chats with other new mothers, it's also not uncommon, especially if you're someone who had a pretty good sense of who you were pre-motherhood, enjoyed your life, your career, your independence, that kind of thing.

So, 5 weeks in, that's the news report over here in the house of Daisy McDaid, or at least as much as I have time to remember and/or report on. Off for a second cup of coffee before my little munchkin wakes up...

Bloody Bear!

Time to share a funny parenting story.

After three frustrating attempts, we finally got Daisy down for her first sleep of the evening at 8pm last night. By 8:30pm we were breathing a sigh of relief as it seemed as though she might actually be out for a few hours. (Considering she hadn't napped more than 90 minutes all day, relief may be a slight under-exaggeration.)

At just about that time, while Hubby was doing some dishes and I was indulging myself in a trashy magazine, I heard a weird sing-songy noise that I thought was coming from the TV. I looked up briefly because it didn't seem to fit the show (House) but the noise seemed to stop and so I went back to reading about Jennifer Garner's fabulous new life and how she manages to cope so well with her two kids and look so fantastic at the same time (ummm yeah, like MONEY!?) Ten minutes later the sing-songy melody returned and I realized to my horror that it seemed to be coming from the nursery. Given that the nursery door was closed and the tv was on (and not quietly,) it had to be one loud noise! So Hubby went bounding up the stairs, flinging the nursery door open in a panic to find whatever it was singing at the top of it's voice before we lost our tentative adult time. Seconds later he came down the stairs, two at a time, holding the above bear (which was indeed singing at the top of it's voice) like a quarterback going for the winning touchdown. Desperately trying to get the bear out of earshot of Daisy, he ran to the farthest corner of the house, drowning out the din as best he could.

Then there was a pause as we both held our breath and waited for the wail.

Silence.

Strange.

We then made the mistake of taking a deep breath just as Hubby placed the bear on the dining table and, just as he did, the bloody bear screamed "TUMMY!" With the TV off and the rest of the house quiet, we thought that this time we were definitely SOL.

So I grabbed the video monitor, ready to play rock-paper-scissors with Hubby for baby duty, and what did I see? A sleeping baby who had not even moved a muscle.

I kid you not. I can barely sneeze most of the day without waking her out of her delicate snooze time but Daisy somehow managed to sleep through an impromptu "Bloody Bear" concerto at full boar, twice, plus her Daddy flinging the door open, grabbing the bear and flying down the stairs with it blaring in his arms. What's more, she slept until 12:30am! 4.5 hours. Almost unheard of!

We still have no idea what prompted the bear (which was on a shelf up high in the room) to suddenly turn on. Needless to say, it's not going back in her room any time soon. I'm not sure we'd be as lucky next time!

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you... 4 weeks

Daisy is 4 weeks old today, which means I have been a mother for about a month, which is just crazy - I mean me, a mother! Jeez Louise!

On the other hand, I'm definitely seeing that practice makes perfect with this whole motherhood thing. In the past week I have definitely felt less like I'm in visceral, survival mode. I wouldn't say I've "cracked it", that we're in a "routine", or that I'm getting any better at it, but more that I'm getting more familiar with what our little Daisy needs and what to expect from her in a 24 hour period. Not having every hour be a new surprise definitely helps with one's sanity and helps build mummy and daddy's confidence. Now when I'm up with her at 2am in the morning and we're about 90 minutes into trying to get her to sleep, at least I know the approximate pattern of what stages I'm going to have to go through before she conks out and can pretty much gouge what time I'll be hitting the sack based upon that. Equally, I know when things aren't going well, all hope is lost, and I need to call for reinforcements.

So, what do we know about our little Daisy?

1) She spits up a lot, which is just plain insulting when I spent the last 2-3 hours cooking up some sweet tasting milk for her. Having it almost immediately regurgitated down my cleavage (and yes, I have CLEAVAGE!) or all over my freshly washed top is heart breaking - I mean, it's not like I can just turn on a faucet for some more. Plus, I only have so many nursing tops and they're already shrinking from being washed so much!

Last night (or should I say at some ungodly hour of the morning) she projectile vomited all over Hubby, herself, and the armchair during his baby shift, eliciting the "I'm done with you!" response from her Daddy. (Note: this response has been used by both of us many times in the last 4 weeks.) As usual, I took over and she was out in 15 minutes. Same thing happens when I've spent 2 frustrating hours with her - hand her to someone else and she calls you a liar. Fussy baby? What fussy baby? Grrrrr. When this happens, I call her "My Little Minx."

Her penchant for the post-feeding spit-up has led me to play "name the stain" on my clothing. Yesterday morning I realized that my PJs were a sweet-smeeling cornicopia of spit-up, leaked breast-milk, spilled coffee, and pee (that had run down her back and onto her onesie during a diaper change and that we only found out about after I'd started breast feeding her.) As if the gory reality of post-c-section care wasn't enough to make my husband turn to some "strange" vs. ever having sex with me again! I mean, it's amazing that people ever have more than one kid! It really says something for the power of a man's sex drive that he can put all this stuff aside and do the hanky panky with her again.

2) Our morning greeting is directly related to her night-time shenanigans. If she sleeps 3-4 hours in a stint, goes back down within 60-90 minutes inbetween and gives us both a fairly decent night's sleep (which does happen 3 days out of the week on average) then Daisy is greeted by her parents thus: "Good morning my little girl! How are you this morning? Did you sleep good? Thank you for letting mommy and daddy sleep last night..." etc... etc... and lots more goo goo gaa gaa'ing. However, when she behaves like the Little Minx, it sounds more like this: "Waaa waaa waaa. Tell it to someone who gives a shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever." Seriously, both of us seem to have a similar script and it's funny to hear the other on the baby monitor first thing in the morning.

3) This kid is the peeing and pooping Queen of babydom. Ok, so I really have nothing to measure this against since this is my first experience of 24/7 newborn care but I can't believe how much this kid relieves herself! No wonder she's always hungry - it goes in one end and right out the other. It's not uncommon to change her diaper and have her poop/pee in the middle of the changing (we call this the "two diaper change") only to walk down the stairs and feel/hear her making another deposit into the third diaper. Then, not 15 minutes later, you'll be feeding her and you'll hear her go through the motions again. If her poops were dollar bills, her college tuition would be paid-up by now. This is not even to mention the sheer volume of the "deed." You just wouldn't imagine that a newborn baby pooping could be heard clear across the room - in fact, as I write this, Ms. Daisy just did a major squirt whilst in her Nanny's arms on the other side of the room and I think I probably could have heard it in the back yard. I kid you not.

4) She likes to sleep on her side. Which is not to say that we are putting her in her crib on her side, only to say that this is how she gets to sleep. During the day, however, we do lay her down in her sleep positioner on the couch on her side and she luuurves it. The whole side-laying thing was further borne-out by a DVD we bought and that came highly recommended on a number of websites, "The Happiest Baby on The Block." If you've never heard of it and you have a newborn, I highly recommend it. Screw all that baby whisperer crap and all those books that leave you feeling like an inadequate mother, this one 30 minute DVD demystified the process of calming an infant without any of that patronizing, anxiety-inducing stuff that just drives me nuts. It's all about the "5 Ss": Side-lying, Sucking, Shhhing, Swinging, and Swaddling. Turns out, between Hubby, me, and Nanny, we were already doing all of the above just not all at once. When you put the 5 together, you really can instantly soothe a cranky newborn. It's pretty freakin' amazing, easy, and great to have at your fingertips when you're at the end of your tether.

5) Like her mother, she likes to be out and about. Feed her, change her, throw her in her car seat and head out and you've got a recipe for a sleepy, happy baby. This past week we've gone shopping and/or out to lunch almost every day and she's been an absolute darling. Admittedly she has a max 3 hour time window but I'll take that for sure; getting out of the house is critical to mummy's mental health.

6) She's a Nanny's girl. Undoubtedly. She turns to mush when Nanny's got her in her arms. Which leads me to bouts of extreme panic when I think about the fact that my Mum leaves on Sunday for 3 months. In fact, I'm not going to write any more about it because it will ruin my day.

This past week I also got to get out and about a bit without Daisy, equally as important to my mental health. On Saturday night we left her with Mum and Dad and went to Scott's Seafood (just a stone's-throw away) for appetizers and my favorite, Ultimate Lemon Drop Martini. It was bliss. We felt so liberated that we got in the car afterward and went to Kohls for a shopping spree. We were only gone for a total of 2.5 hours but it was 2.5 hours of just being "Hubby and Wifey" again vs. "Mummy and Daddy." Then, last night, Mum and I went out for Happy Hour with my friend, Mala. Again, I partook in a Lemon Drop Martini and Mum got tipsy on two Shark Bite cocktails. Anyone who has seen my Mum tipsy knows that this provided much entertainment for the evening! Today Mum and I are leaving her with my Dad for a couple of hours while we head out for a manicure and pedicure. Yes, I am definitely making the most of having Mum around while she's still here. Gulp... ok, off that topic again.

So, at 4 weeks we seem to be in a better place mentally. It's still hard work and she still has the power to bring us down with one crazy night but overall it's feeling less like we landed on an alien planet and more as though we're beginning to integrate our new role into our old lives somewhat. We're definitely changed and nothing will ever be the same again but at least some semblance of ourselves and our regular, pre-baby lives, is emerging.

Here are some week 4 photos. Thanks for keeping in touch with Daisy...