Sunday, June 23, 2019

Hand-holding

Daphne is perfect.

Here are a couple things that demonstrate this:

-Hand holding
Whenever you place your hand in her vicinity, especially if giving her a pacifier, she reaches out and clings to your hand. In the middle of the night when she fusses, I'll reach over to replace to her pacifier and she just grabs my hand and draws it to her.

-Squealing hour
Starting at about three months, Daphne had been sleeping pretty well through the night. But she liked to get up very early. Probably because the sun started coming up at nearly five in the morning. So after a quick snack between four and five, she would get placed back in her bassinet and then spend the next hour squealing. She was rarely fussy, she was just practicing using her voice. But it was consistent for at least a month. Pleasant squealing, cooing, and talking for nearly an hour.

-Toe eating
She loves to engage her core and lift her feet high in the air. She stretches and extends them well above the side of her bassinet. And she will occasionally lower her toes right into her little hands and direct them into her mouth.



Sunday, June 16, 2019

Catching up

Well we've got a lot to catch up on. I see that the last post was from over 8 months ago. In those 8 months we've:

- celebrated Adaline's 3rd birthday
- passed an incredible holiday season in Chicago
- bought a condo in Lincoln Park
and
- had a baby

Let's talk about that last one.

Daphne Bluth was born February 11, 2019 and, like her sister (the first of I'm sure many comparisons to her sister) she took the bumpy road to this world.

Mrs. Bluth's water broke late Sunday night and she labored all night. By mid-day she had fully progressed and she began pushing. But Daphne never made it down the canal too far and they started prepping for a Caesarean section. As they were prepping, Daphne's heart-rate plummeted and so they started an emergency Caesarean section. She was pulled out with the umbilical cord wrapped twice around her neck. Fortunately she started crying and there were no signs of damage.

In my short life I don't think I've ever felt fear like I felt for the few seconds after: "During the prep work, the baby's heart-rate plummeted and we had to do an emergency Caesarean section." We were so incredibly lucky this time.

Because they had to put Mrs. Bluth under general anesthesia, it took her awhile to awaken from the procedure. Even after she woke up, she was unsure of what had happened and what was going on. Instead of a memory of her snuggling her newborn after birth, she groggily remembers me holding the baby and the thoughts of nervousness as they put her under the anesthesia as the nurses and doctors began running around and yelling for emergency equipment.

Once everything calmed down and we were back in our hospital room, we began to bond with this perfect baby.

The naming process was a little less certain this time around and we even looked at each other a couple weeks later and asked if we had given her the correct name.

Adaline was delighted to meet her (and we have some fantastic friends that took care of Adaline for the few days that we were in the hospital) and was immediately a helpful sister.

Once again, the same day that we brought home (to our new condo!) the baby from the hospital, my mother-in-law showed up to help us with the transition. And we've now had four delightful months with her (the baby, I mean).

Some highlights:
-She is an incredible sleeper. At six weeks she was sleeping through the night. She would take long naps during the day all the time.

-She was born with some hair. Adaline said that her hair looked like mine. A little patchy, but nothing to be ashamed of. She's starting to get a little curl to it now.

-Her demeanor is incredibly calm and thoughtful. She can handle lots of attention (from her sister, mostly) and doesn't seem to mind. The only thing that really gets to her is loud noises.

-Lately she has been waking up at five in morning and squealing for delight. She'll squeal and jabber and talk for about an hour. In fact, after every nap she wakes up in a good mood. But she really is in a talkative good mood in the early mornings.

-She tends to have blowouts during church.

-She is very long. She was 21 inches long when born (two inches longer than Adaline) and 8 pounds 9 ounces. She is still 1.5 inches than Adaline was at her age. She will outgrow her bassinet soon because she is so long. She will also soon outgrow clothes for 3-6 months old children.

-She doesn't love her little rocker chair, but she will tolerate it for short durations.

I'll cover some of those other life events mentioned above in some other posts. For now, enjoy some pictures: