Introducing Little Baby

Tomorrow our daughter is 3 weeks old. It's about time I pull myself out of the new-momma twilight zone and connect with the outside world. I hope to do a weekly update on our little bean, similar to our pregnancy updates (and hopefully some more creative blogs interspersed). 

First off, I want to say THANK YOU to our many friends and family for your loving support, gifts, meals, and for celebrating with us. Our joy is made even greater in getting to share it with you. 

The Baby: Gillian Bryce

Hands may appear bigger in this photo than in real life, but the cuteness is actually this huge. Photo taken today.

Someone commented that she looks huge. She is actually really little. This picture proves it. 

For today, let me just say that having Gillian in our lives is even more awesome than we could have anticipated. Everyone tells you that your love swells deeper than you could imagine, which is certainly true. Landon and I are absolutely in love with our little Gillie-bean. Suddenly our lives have taken a shift and the things that once seemed of most importance are not as important, because she is most important. We find ourselves cooing over her all the time. We can just sit and watch her many expressions and soak in her yummy smell, precious noises, and the reality that she is finally here. She is a joy. 

Gillian is healthy and growing and absolutely perfect. She is a happy baby, which makes her utterly delightful.

The Grandparents:

Her first week of life, we enjoyed having my parents (Sho Sho and Papa Joe) visit and help out. 

And this last week, Landon's folks (Nina and Big Daddy) came into town to meet and love on Gillian. 

The Parents:

Landon loves being Gillian's daddy and has taken to every parenting task possible. He has even helped me keep her awake during breastfeeding. She loves to sit in his lap, and is soothed when he sings to her. Landon is the best at swaddling our little girl. She is an escape artist and loves to have her hands near her face, so it takes an expert's technique to keep this baby swaddled for more than an hour.

Gillian was born one week before Landon's 31st birthday. Having a newborn at home makes for some sleepy parents. This daddy has already been peed and pooped on. Somehow, it isn't actually that gross when it's your own precious babe. 

It's taken Gillian and I about 2 1/2 weeks to figure out breast feeding. I am so grateful that these last 3 days have been easier because it was certainly a challenge there at first. A breast pump was absolutely essential in the first few weeks, which i was not anticipating at all. I was heart broken when she wouldn't breast feed well but would take the bottle (at the recommendation of my lactation specialist). However, now she is off of the bottle and strictly a boob-girl, much to her mother's delight. So no more pumping for me for now, which makes for sweeter and quicker feedings. 

I love to hold my daughter as much as possible, which may not be in her best interest. I just know that I only have 10 weeks maternity leave with her, so I am trying to spend every minute with her that I can. Gillian likes it when I sing to her and I have a 2 song rotation:  Cinderella's "So this is love", and Tommy Walker's "He knows my name".

In the last 3 weeks, we've changed over 200 diapers (cloth diapers didn't work the first 2 weeks because we had to wait for her umbilicus to fall off, and now her legs are so scronny that the cloth diapers leak like crazy. We will have to wait until her legs are little meatier before the cloth diapers will work), taken over 1000 pictures, and have only taken her out of the house 4 times. 

I am hoping to catch up on the first 3 weeks of her life and her birth story in the next few weeks, so look forward to that. Thanks for caring about us and our daughter.