Settling in

Tonight is our second night home with little miss Reese. Yesterday we came home, got to spend some quality time with my mom before she left to go back to Denver (my dad is living with us for the time being as he got a job here and started it today. Yeay for us! Now they just have to sell the house in Denver and my mom will be back too) and had some friends over to meet the little one.

Yesterday was great, Reese just slept, ate and pooped/peed. She was so great we remarked several times how it seemed like we didn't even have a second child. She would just sleep like a little angel in her pack and play and only wake when she needed to eat. Tom and I even got a little worried there might be something wrong with her because she was not crying or awake much. So I consulted my baby book and found out that this is in fact, normal. Who knew. Donovan was such a colicky, unhappy baby that we don't think he was ever happy if he wasn't in our arms, and even then, he wasn't all that happy. So we were counting our lucky stars to have a baby that seemed to be the opposite of that. And then last night came...

Reese decided that she did not want to be set down. Ever. I fought with her til 3am when I finally tagged Tom in so I could get a power nap and then I took back over at 5am. I finally got her to sleep in her cradle at 5:30am, but I had to put her in the boppy for her to agree to sleep. Then we were up at 7:45 for the day. So needless to say I was VERY sleepy today. She did much better today with sleeping on her own. She slept once for me in the crib in the boppy again, but when Donovan was napping at 1pm today, I thought, "Let's try just the cradle" and I put her down in there without the boppy after she was done eating at 1:20pm. She was asleep when I laid her down, then she woke back up after a few minutes, which is what she was doing over the night so I thought "Oh great, here we go again" but she was able to get herself back to sleep without any help and slept until 3:45, which means I slept til then too because Tom took care of Donovan when he got up at 2:45. Thank the lord for naps! It is because of that nap that I am able to sit here and type this at 11:15pm. I am also stalling because she should be getting up to eat anytime now (ate last at 9pm) and I don't want to lay down just to hear her start up crying. The good news is, she has been sleeping in her pack and play since 9:30 so hopefully this means she will not be having as horrible of a night as she did last night.

Tonight I gave her her first bath since the one she got at the hospital. I had to wake her up to do it so she screamed at me the whole time but it was 1,000% easier than I remember Donovan's sponge baths being. It is amazing how different everything is the second time around. I think it took me easily half the time Donovan's did and I did it without any help as I delegated my dad to paparazzi and Tom was putting Donovan to bed.

Reese is a fabulous breast feeder. She has not had any problem with latching and eats like a champ. She sure roots at anything close to her mouth when it is close to eating time. After the bath I put my face next to her's and claimed she was giving me "kisses" even though she was just trying to suck on my cheek and get some dinner. I love her. It amazes me how much she looks like her brother. Especially when she is awake and quiet. She looks just like him. Only she is wearing pink. I have gotten so many cute outfits from people, it is amazing how much cute stuff there is out there for little girls. I assume this is just the beginning and I will be broke with a little fashionista before I know it. Reese has very long fingers and toes, like Donovan did when he was a baby and like her father does now. And so far, it looks like she may have gotten her daddy's hair color. It is definitely darker than Donovan's was. His was darker too but I would say her's is a dark brown now and I never would have called his that.

As far as Donovan goes, he is doing pretty well considering everything. He is a little whiny and clingy to me at times but overall he is not upset or jealous that I have the baby most times. He does try to take my hand and lead me places when I am breastfeeding so that doesn't work out to his favor. He is very interested in watching Reese while I change her diaper, or rather he is interested in looking at the "yucky poopoo". He calls her Reese about half the time and "BAAAAAAAAYYY-BEEEEEEEEE" the other half, like when he hears her crying in another room and he is calling to her. He holds her every once in a while but otherwise he pretty much ignores her. He does love all the presents he has been getting from everyone that comes to visit.

I think that is most of the stuff I wanted to update about for tonight. I will try to post some more pictures tomorrow at some point since I know that is really what people want to see. We have Reese's first doctor's visit tomorrow so we will have a little update with that too.


P.S. This is Ellen writing. I spilled a cup of water on my computer during labor and effectively killed my computer. So while it is at the shop trying to be revived, I have to use Tom's computer, which is signed in under his name. So unless it is titled "dad post", realize that it is actually me doing the writing