Rub a Dub Dub

We were finally able to give little Miss Claire her first real bath on Sunday. It may not look like it in the picture but she absolutely loved it. She was screaming right before, but as soon as we put her in the warm water, she stopped. And then when I was washing her with the wash cloth she grabbed it and wouldn’t let go. She smells so good after having a bath. I especially love her shampoo, it’s Paul Mitchell. She’s so spoiled; I don’t even use Paul Mitchell.

On Monday, Claire and I went and had lunch with Levi at a little Chinese restaurant in Mount Angel. The food was delicious and it was so nice to go out to eat, that was the first time since we’ve been home from the hospital. Claire was so good; she slept right through the whole thing. Levi then showed her off at his work. It was really fun; I just wish his work wasn’t so stinkin far away.

Yesterday we went to the breastfeeding support group again. You are never going to believe this but Claire weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 7 oz (no wonder her newborn-sized clothes are getting tight)! That’s almost a whole pound in a week! She has been eating constantly, like every 1.5-2 hours. I hardly have time to eat and shower in between feedings. When we were at the class I saw this adorable baby girl with a very small ace bandage looking thing wrapped around her torso and one of her arms, so her arm couldn’t move. I was thinking to myself that that’s the best idea ever! When I am trying to get Claire “latched on” she gets all excited. Her little arms start going crazy, getting in the way, hitting me, hitting herself and that little contraption would solve our problem. I found out after being there for a little while that the baby’s arm had been broken during delivery and her mom was having a hard time nursing her because of it. That was really sad and I kind of feel bad for originally thinking it was a great idea.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

-Elizabeth

2 Week Appointment

Claire’s 2 week appointment was this morning; I still can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks! She measured 21.5 inches long (she grew a whole inch in a week!) which puts her in the 88th percentile for height and she weighed in at 8 lbs 14.5 oz which is the 70th percentile. Her head measured 35.5 cm, 40th percentile. We were finally able to see her pediatrician, Dr. Ronai, she is so great. She listened to Claire’s heart & lungs and performed a physical exam and said that everything looked great. She said she is growing beautifully and couldn’t find anything wrong with her (I knew she was perfect). The nurse had to do the 2nd set of newborn screening. Claire was so good, she cried for just a minute when her foot was poked.

Then this afternoon I had my 2 week postpartum appointment. I’ve already lost 20 lbs, woo hoo! Most of that was Claire and amniotic fluid, but it was still exciting. They just asked how I’ve been doing with nursing and how I’ve been feeling. And since everything has been going so well, that was the worlds’ shortest appointment.

I was unwrapping Claire to feed her this evening and I discovered that Levi had put her little pants on backwards. It was too cute, I couldn’t stop laughing. A little while later Claire spit up on Levi; that must have been her revenge. I just never knew it would be so much fun having a little baby around. We both just can’t get enough of her and we never knew we could love another person so much!

-Elizabeth

How the heck was I supposed to know the bear goes on the back? Last time I change her clothes!

- Levi.

Back to Life; Back to Reality

Well, Claire and I survived Levi going back to work today, but it was sad. I’m so grateful that he was able to take so much time off. I went and visited (ok more like showed off Baby Claire) ServiceMaster, my employer up until 2 weeks ago. It was so nice to see everyone again, I am going to miss my co-workers so much. I have so many great memories there. We also went to the store after that, I know I really shouldn’t be taking her out in public yet but we really needed some groceries and after being cooped up for 2 weeks it was so nice to get out of the house for a little while.

Levi forgot to mention in the last post that the poo we got last Thursday was induced with a glycerin suppository, that wasn’t fun. Levi had made me a deal that if he gave it to her I had to clean up the aftermath. But Claire finally had a natural poo on Sunday, I have never been more excited to see a dirty diaper. And now she won’t stop. I should have enjoyed her poo-free first 10 days a little more, but I was too worried that she was plugged up.

I took Claire to the Breastfeeding Support group again on Tuesday. And yes it is exactly as you would picture it in your head. It’s really neat though because the lactation consultants weigh Claire, then I feed her and then they weigh her again to find out how much she ate. They were kind of worried last Tuesday because she weighed 7 lbs 10.9 oz (which is a weight loss of almost a pound from her birth weight) so they put us on a 3 Step Breastfeeding Plan. Since Claire had been so sleepy her first several days of life, they didn’t want my milk supply to be affected. So they wanted me to nurse her (trying as hard as possible to keep her awake), then pump and then try to feed her the pumped milk. Never have I felt more like a cow. But I did it and just kept telling myself it was for Claire. She was weighed again on Friday and weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and then yesterday she was 8 lbs 10 oz! I was ecstatic to take that stupid pump back and even happier that my sweet baby has been eating so well! I can’t believe she gained a whole pound in a week!

On Saturday we drove up to Hillsboro for a baby shower and then went and had dinner with Levi’s grandparents, his Grandma is such a great cook! We have had a record number of visitors in the last couple days. Dan & Lacey came down and spent the night on Saturday. It’s always so fun to have them over. Monday, we enjoyed visits with the Kestlers’ and Schwabs’ (both from our ward), as well as my long time friend Kellee, Neal and Jed.

Yesterday Jason, Julie and baby Ella visited. It was so much fun to play with Ella and to see what Claire will be up to in 7 months. Ella was very fascinated by the sweater I was wearing, it was pretty cute. It will be so fun to have our little girls play together as they get older. They brought us some food and loaned us lots of baby stuff to help us get along, we are so excited to use it all!

Then my Grandma Betty (my Dad’s mom) and Uncle Steve (my Dad’s brother) came and visited, I can’t wait till we are up to going to visit them again (they live near Newport, lots of fun stuff to do). Claire is my Grandma’s 13th great grandchild (she’s #14 for my Mom’s parents), we are just a baby making family! Janet, Hayden and Levi’s grandparents visited last night for just a little while so we could give Hayden his birthday present.

Claire has just been such a perfect baby. She sleeps really well. She’s out for about 4-5 hours, I feed her and then she’s asleep for another 2-3 hours. She hardly ever cries, usually just when we’re changing her diaper. She has learned a new trick that she especially likes to play on her Daddy. He opens her diaper and waits a minute to see if she’s going to tinkle. The second he pulls her dirty diaper out from under her she pees, and it ends up all over the changing table and her outfit. That happened about 3 times on Monday alone, I laughed every time he came back with a different outfit on Claire. Yesterday I tried to show him how to position a clean diaper underneath the dirty one so he wouldn’t keep having this problem but he didn’t listen to me. There must be some sort of thrill in it not knowing if he’ll have to clean up a giant pee mess or not.

-Elizabeth

Note on the above paragraph: you must have taught her the pee trick; she does it on purpose and only to me, not you.

Anyway, the top photo is from the photo shoot we tried doing of Baby Claire for her birth announcement. She is so squirmy, we didn't have very good light, the she started to cry, it got blurry- an all out disaster, but before things got too out of hand I got a couple of good ones!

-Levi