Week 2

2 Weeks Old
(her version of the sprinkler)

Embry is doing really well, as in, she's still alive. I don't think we've done anything too terribly bad thus far where parenting is concerned, but she has been rather fussy in her second week of life. She's still sleeping really well at night, but during the daytime she has occasionally cried for what seems like hours on end for no reason that we can figure. During these times we will try everything humanly imaginable to calm her, but nothing works...well besides feeding, but I'm not going to have a baby permanently attached to my chest, sorry. Tonight after hours of comforting and still having a crying baby I finally told Tony to just put her in her crib, turn on the mobile, and shut the door. The crying that followed was probably the worst sound I've ever heard, but it only lasted for maybe 1 minute and then silence. At that point I had Tony go check to make sure she was still alive and she was so we're guessing she was suffering from over stimulation. Now she's been soundly sleeping up there for the past 2 hours...silence is golden.

Embry had her first Thanksgiving on Thursday and now I'm wondering if tryptophan can be passed through breast milk because if so, I'll be devouring all 10lbs of leftover turkey! Just kidding, but it is an interesting thought. Tony's family came down (mom, sister, and both brothers) and my parents came over as well. We got a cute family picture with my film camera (since my digital decided to be disfunctional and suddenly have a non-functioning flash bulb). On Friday we left her with Tony's mom while Tony, Alex, and I went to find some good black friday deals. I saw one lady in Circuit City that brought her approx 1 month old shopping with her...that was brave. I got Embry a few good Disney movies that were on sale at my second home, Target. Tony and I left Embry home again Friday afternoon so we could go see 'Four Christmases' since I'm not big on taking a baby into a movie theater hehe. Grandma Dorothea gave her a bath while we were gone and apparently we left her comb at Sears when we had her picture taken. Friday night we all went to get a family picture taken at the Target portrait studio. The pictures turned out really cute! I got 5 poses and Dorothea got one other pose but there were some that were particularly adorable of Embry laying on a blanket of pink roses...gosh I just want to eat her! We tried to do a pose where all you could see was Tony's hands holding Embry against a black background while she was naked. Well, you can probably imagine how this turned out! We got one picture of that pose where she is screaming, she pooped in Tony's hand twice, peed in his hand once, then I finally took her and she pooped all down my shirt. At that point, I gave up and put her diaper back on and moved on to the next poop-free pose!

So when she first came home we were giving her a pacifier a little bit, then she started to latch on for breast feeding really weird, so we stopped the pacifier. Then after a few days I tried the soothie pacifiers that my sister gave me and they work GREAT! I'd highly recommend them for small babies because it's more of a nipple shape and she hasn't had any trouble latching on while using them. Thanks Jen!

I'm getting really nervous about Tony going back to work on Monday and I'm afraid that nothing will get done all day long. I'm trying to quick get all the Christmas decorating done today and tomorrow so that's one big thing I won't have to worry about while he's at work. He can work from home if things are difficult (and he will be on Wed when I have my dentist appt), but I would feel bad if he was home and getting distracted because Embry was fussy or something. I'm not sure how single moms can do it when their babies are still tiny, I know it would be really hard for me. I'm so blessed to have such a helpful husband and blessed that he has such a flexible job as well!