We're still alive...

What a crazy few weeks it's been. I think we've kind of gotten a feel for what it would be like to adopt a new baby... having time to prep, get life in order, both of us healthy and kinda living a normal life one day, and the next day, we bring home a baby... like a load of groceries from Costco! (but i guess if she were a Costco baby, she would have come in a more economy size... she'd be what they give out as samples on the baby aisle  :) ) 

All in all, she's been a fantastic little baby. She sleeps pretty regularly, and eats well. The pediatrician has given us the green light to watch for her natural cues more when it comes to sleeping and eating, rather than the strict 3 hour schedule she needed to be on for a while... which has been nice to get a whopping 4 hours of sleep at a time on good nights ;) Lucky for Steph, Avery hasn't quite graduated up to breast-feeding yet... so while it's still not a ball for her pumping regularly, I can take half the feedings.

The last time we were at the pediatrician, she weighed 5 lbs. 7 oz....which was basically an ounce a day for that week... so that's really good. It takes all that I have not to add a scoop of my protein shake powder to her bottles to give her a little edge...but I read somewhere that I probably shouldn't do that ;) She has another appointment tomorrow, so we'll see where she tips the scales this time! She's also up for immunizations: round 2 next week, as well as her second RSV shot... Keep your fingers crossed that the only side effect will that she'll be really sleepy...I'm kinda hoping for that one!

Her due date was the 12th of October, so they consider that when talking about development. She's almost 4 months old, but about 3 weeks old, adjusted age! So, on some things, she's already on track, and on some things, she'll be on track with her adjusted age... She's just a beautiful, normal little baby though...and we're so lucky for that. She'll still seem teeny to you, but she's gotten bigger since coming home even. She's awake for longer periods of time now... which, when she's pleasant and doesn't have gas, is a lot of fun. She'll just look up with her big blue eyes, and stare at you, and pose her little hands like she were in a photo-shoot (she's probably already accepted the fact that with me around, her life will be a photo-shoot anyway... )

She's definitely figured out that she can cry now...and she makes good use of this newfound talent. Not just crying to cry...you can usually tell why, and help her out....but she seems to have no concept of volume... the louder the better, even if it's only for a little bit....then she'll get this calm, serene look on her face like "did you hear something???" She also stinks really really really bad... I won't go in to discussing diapers...but the by product of sugar and spice and everything nice has got to be sulphur, and death and everything evil!

Steph just had a little shower with her friends at work, and I spent a day making a slide show for it... it's long, but it's fun for us to look back on..... I think it will work on here. I needed to post it, because the copy I sent to the shower had a couple of music tracks on top of the ones in the background, so at parts, it was more like a baby hard-rock music video than a cute little deal to make all the ladies misty-eyed... dang!  Anyway..I'll work on getting a smaller version here online... 

It's been so great to hear from all of you..old and new friends and family....