Alice Giggles

Alice initially started giggling a few weeks ago but it was few and far between and only little half-laughs. We are now in the full on belly laugh stage and Oh My God it is so cute!!! Her favorite thing to laugh at is our dog Karma. She gets such a kick out of her. Nice to see that someone finds Karma's incessant barking amusing and not annoying. Check this out:

The first 4+ months - a catch-all

I had much loftier expectations for my blog post-baby. I knew I wouldn't have an abundance of time to write, but I would've thought at least a post a month would've been do-able. Here I am 4.5 months in and all I've managed to put out there is my birth story, and that took me sitting down at least 5 separate times to complete. I realized I'm putting too much pressure on my blog entries. I constantly think of something I want to write down and things I want to remember about Alice but then I think that I should "organize my thoughts" more before I can write a complete entry - and then I just don't write. So here we go with a potentially long and winding stream-of-consciousness entry, so that at least I can say I wrote something.

I love, love, love being a mom. I would not have said that in the first couple of weeks of Alice's life. I was concerned at first that I may have been suffering from post-partum depression because I just remember feeling very bleak in our first days at home. Taking care of newborn Alice was HARD and to be honest most of the time I just didn't feel like attending to her every need. I was completely overwhelmed and I spent a good deal of time mourning my old life - mourning the freedom that I had given up in order to become a mom. I felt panicky at the thought that my life would never be easy again.

Thankfully for me those feelings passed within about 10 days, leading me to think that I must've had the incredibly common Baby Blues. My doctor explained it as a massive hormonal drop in the days following delivery. She said that next time she will put me on something to slow down the sudden plunge in hormones and hopefully keep me more balanced in the early days. Also thankfully, those days seem so distant from the incredibly loving feelings I now have towards Alice and towards my role as a mother. I literally could not be any happier than I am now.

I love everything about her. I am constantly amazed at how I can look into her eyes and recognize myself and Aaron. I don't know if I will ever comprehend the fact that we made her. I am not a religious person but being a mother feels very spiritual. I love nursing her. I am going to miss it when I am done. I love sleeping next to her, which I do for most of every night - co-sleeping stigmas be damned! :) I love hearing her giggle - a very new development that I can't get enough of.

I love watching her have new experiences and meet new people. I am proud of how friendly and social she is. She smiles unprovoked and generally has an easy confidence about her - maybe a funny characteristic to use to describe an infant but I see it in her. I love noticing new things she is all of a sudden able to do. Just tonight she was sitting in her Bumbo on the dining room table while Aaron and I ate dinner and playing with a small board book. She dropped the book and a couple seconds later leaned over to the right side of her chair - where she had dropped the book - to look for it. Where did she all of a sudden learn that awareness?! It is so remarkable how quickly she has learned how this great big world works.

Being a mom has given me the ability to relate to other people in my life on an entirely new level. I now understand how my own mom feels about me - I could've never completely understood that feeling before. I am beyond thrilled for my friends who become pregnant and have babies of their own. I am genuinely interested in other parents' stories about their children and imagine Alice in some of the scenarios they describe as she gets older, and get excited at all we have yet to experience with her. My heart is warmed watching my family members interact with my daughter and seeing how much they love her too.

I feel better having captured some of these early feelings. :) NOW I will try to be more serious about blogging. One thing I've been wanting to write about is my system and routine for pumping while at work, storing milk, and mainting my production. I figure it might be helpful for others and I can also use it as a point of reference when baby #2 comes along someday and I have to do this whole thing all over again. Stay tuned for that one...