Guinevere at 10 weeks

I never realized how much fun a two month old could be! Guinevere smiles and coos and is generally much more responsive and alert than in the early newborn phase.  I’m actively trying to memorize the way my adorably cuddly baby feels in my arms because I know she won’t be this small for long.  She’s now officially out of newborn clothes (though there are still a few that fit her), and fitting the 0-3 month clothes perfectly.

I think we’re to a point where we are starting to get into a pattern with sleeping . . . hopefully it continues.  I’ve found that we have the best results when we bathe her and put her in her sleeper after whatever feeding is closest to 6 or 7pm.  If we don’t do that, then we run the risk that she will fall asleep for the night and still be in whatever onesie she was in all day.  She was never a fan of swaddling, but she definitely sleeps better in a sleeper, with her arms and legs covered, than in a onesie where her arms and legs are exposed.

Guinevere doesn’t have a set bedtime, but seems to fall asleep naturally sometime between 8-9pm.  Anytime I try to purposely put her down by a specific time, it backfires on me.  She’ll get fussy and stay up and I’ll get frustrated.  Since I’m still on maternity leave, there’s no urgency in putting her down by a specific time.  Letting her fall asleep on her own terms so far seems to be the least stressful way of doing things, and if she follows her current natural bed time schedule, that will work out fine for when I go back to work next month.  The last two nights, Aaron and I actually had a little bit of grown up time after we put her to sleep.  Now if only I could stay awake past 9:30 . . .

She tends to wake up around 3 or 4am for an early morning feeding.  However, night before last she actually slept the entire night – from 9pm-5am!  Then she made up for it last night, waking up for feedings at 1am and 5am.  But honestly, I’d rather her do that than the 3 or 4am feeding, if for no other reason than it’s really hard to tell her smiley, happy face to go back to sleep.  She almost always wakes up with a huge smile on her face.

Smiley, happy Guinevere at 4am.

I think my favorite part of this age, though, is that Guinevere is not mobile yet.  I can set her down on her play gym and leave the room for half a second and she’s still in the same place when I get back.  She’s old enough now that she doesn’t freak out if we go 5 minutes without holding her (most of the time); in fact, she kind of likes looking around whatever room she’s in and exploring it with her eyes.  I am very cognizant that this will not last forever, and am trying to enjoy it as much as possible while I can.  Yesterday, I was able to lay her down on our bed while I vacuumed and cleaned the room.  It was amazing!  She loves laying on our bed while I fold laundry around her.  She’ll stare at the ceiling fan or make faces and smile at me or “talk” to me.  I love talking to her!  You can see her studying my mouth moving as I’m talking, and see in her eyes that she’s trying to figure out how to do it too.  Then she’ll open up her mouth and experiment with various vowel sounds.

How I get my laundry done these days.

It’s so fun watching her find new things to stare at!  I put her down for a nap in her crib the other day, and she looked up at the mobile that has been above her crib since day one, but she truly saw it for the first time.  It was amazing to see her discover it!  She now likes to have “conversations” with the stuffed Shamu on her play gym.  She’s also discovered the mirror.  Babies and mirrors are a great combination! When Guinevere catches her reflection in the mirror, she is fascinated.  She stares and smiles and gets excited.   I’m excited to see her grow up and learn new things, but I am definitely enjoying this age.

Guinevere staring at herself in the mirror.

Crockpot Dinner: Chicken Tetrazzini

Before I got pregnant, I had a (now defunct) blog where I would often write about meals that I had cooked and break down the costs for each meal (proving to myself and the rest of the world that it is almost always cheaper to cook at home than to eat out).  Now that we are out of the all-consuming newborn phase, I have started to cook again and thought it would be a nice feature to add to this blog.  I will admit that my cooking style has changed in the past 2 months.  I seek out recipes that are quick and/or easy – I haven’t yet had the guts to tackle a Julia Child recipe (those would take me hours BEFORE a baby came into our lives, and would probably take me  all day to complete now that Guinevere is here).

I always loved my crockpot before, but now I love it even more!  Guinevere tends to be in a good mood in the mornings and will often take a little nap (she apparently inherited my ability to power nap), so it’s relatively easy for me to assemble a crockpot meal in the morning and then let it cook all day while I focus on her.  Thus far, every time I have waited until the evening to start cooking dinner, it has backfired on me.  When my sister came out to visit, we decided to cook a recipe that should have taken maybe an hour, but it took 5!  Guinevere decided to be fussy and we had to pass her back and forth while juggling cooking, and then taking breaks when she needed to be fed.

Back to the crockpot: last Sunday, I made Chicken Tetrazzini.  I modified a recipe I found in “Crockery Cookery.”  I don’t like mushrooms, so I eliminated them from this recipe.  This would be a good candidate for a frozen crockpot meal (where you chop and prepare everything except the liquids and then freeze it, writing on the ziplock bag what liquids and other steps need to be taken).  The prep work went pretty quickly.  I had Aaron hold Guinevere while I chopped the onions and cut up the chicken.  All in all, I think the prep took about 15 minutes.

Here’s the recipe as I made it:

·    Chop 1 onion, cut up 4 chicken breasts and then put them in a crockpot along with vegetable broth, wine, salt, pepper, thyme, and parsley.  Cook that on low for 4-5 hours.  (At some point during this time, cook the spaghetti and set it aside for adding to the recipe later).

·    Dissolve the cornstarch in water and add it to the crockpot and cook on high for 20 minutes.  (I think next time I might use a little less cornstarch).

·     Add the spaghetti, half n half, and half the parmesan cheese and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

·      Then it’s ready to serve, topped by the rest of the parmesan cheese.

And here’s my cost breakdown:

Chicken Tetrazzini
4 chicken breasts	$5.50	bought fresh from the butcher
1 cup vegetable broth	$0.10	used half a boullion cube
1/2 cup dry white wine	$1.25	$5 bottle of wine
1 onion	$0.10	had in my pantry
salt, thyme, pepper, parsley to taste	$0.30	had in my pantry
3 tbs cornstarch	$0.10	had in my pantry
1/4 cup water	$0.00	tap water
1/2 cup half n half	$0.85	half of a $1.69 container
8 oz spaghetti	$0.50	half of a $1 package
1/2 cup grated parmesan	$2.00	half of a $4 package of parmesan
peas	$1.00	side dish of peas
total	$11.70
8 servings	$1.46	per serving

Sorry I didn’t take any pictures of the meal – I promise you it was delicious.  We've been eating it for leftovers every day since Sunday.

Guinevere's Travels: Michigan

One of Aaron’s best friends got married last weekend in Ann Arbor.  We used it as a good opportunity for our little family to fly across the country, attend a wedding, visit the University of Michigan, and meet Aaron’s big family.  Aaron’s dad was the middle of 9 children, so he has 8 aunts and uncles on that side and more cousins than I can count.  We had a great time introducing Guinevere to several of those family members (obviously, not everyone in the family was able to attend).  But I can tell you, traveling with a 2 month old is exhausting!  I ended up coming back from the trip with a small cold, and now am religiously washing my hands trying to make sure I don’t get little G sick too.  How ironic would it be if, after introducing her to multitudes of new people, I end up being the one to give her her first cold?

Air Travel With a 2 Month Old

The part of the trip that I was most nervous about was flying with an infant.  I didn’t want to be that family – you know, the one with the screaming baby in a small enclosed space, hurtling at high velocity, miles above the Earth.  Fortunately, we took a red eye on the way to Michigan and she slept the entire way.  I was given advice to feed her on the way up and down to help with any pressure on her ears, but I couldn’t even wake her up to feed her on take off.  I was able to wake her just enough to feed her on descent, though.  Honestly, traveling to Michigan was relatively easy.  The TSA people at LAX even let us skip the line at security and we got to go through with the pilots, which was good because we were running a little later than we had intended.  Oh, and when traveling with an infant, you don’t have to choose between being felt up or pelting your body with deep xrays.  We went through the regular metal detector and that was it.  Also, Delta (and possibly other airlines, but we flew Delta) does not charge for checking infant items, saving us $25 each way for the pack n play.  You just have to talk to the agents when you are checking in – the computers might try to charge you extra for infant items, but when talking to a human being, they just check it straight through.  Also, if you ever travel with an infant, be sure to talk to the airline people at the gate right away.  They will give you tags for checking the car seat/stroller at the gate, which is very important/helpful.  This way we were able to keep her in her stroller right up until we got on the plane and then they deliver the stroller back to you when you disembark the plane.

Guinevere's first plane trip.

Once we arrived at the Detroit airport, Guinevere needed changing badly.  There was a family bathroom, which I assume was big enough for all three of us to go in and change her, but it was occupied.  I went into the ladies room hoping that there would at least be one of those fold down changing pads.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was an entire changing station!  It had a changing pad, and disposable sanitary liners for the changing pad (though I still used the travel pad that I carry in my diaper bag on top of the disposable liner).  There was a sink right there next to the changing pad.  Guinevere loved looking at herself in the mirror at the changing station, so it made changing her after that long trip that much more enjoyable.

We weren’t quite as lucky on our flight home.  We still got the pack n play through for free, but had to stand in the regular security line at the Detroit airport.  There were several other babies on our flight, which was interesting.  There was even another 2 month old across the aisle from us.  Guinevere was still very well behaved; thank goodness!  She slept for a large portion of the flight.  When she woke, she was in a pretty good mood.  Every time she looked like she was about to fuss, we gave her the pacifier and she calmed right down.  Once we landed at LAX, I went into the ladies room to change Guinevere.  The LAX changing area was not nearly as nice as the Detroit changing station.  There was a separate room labeled “Nursery” which had a pull down changing pad and a sink.  But the oddest part of the room was that there was no trash can, so I had to carry the dirty diaper out of the room with me while holding my baby and find the general trash can for the bathroom. 

Aside from our first night in Michigan, Guinevere handled the time zone change relatively well.  The first night was really bad, though. She would NOT sleep!  It was like being back to the newborn phase.  She was awake and fussy and demanding to eat every 2 hours throughout the night.  But then 2 nights later, she slept through the entire night (10pm – 7am) for the first time ever!  She hasn’t done it again since, but it’s nice to know she has the capability to do so.  I was prepared for an encore of the sleepless night experience when we returned home, but she decided to be good for us and returned to her normal sleep pattern of waking once around 3 am for a feed and then going back to sleep.

The Wedding

The main impetus for this trip was our friend Nicole’s wedding.  Aaron and Nicole have been close friends since college at the University of Michigan.  Nicole was a groomslady in our wedding, and she asked Aaron to be an usher in hers.  The wedding was beautiful!  The ceremony was in the Michigan Theatre, which shows movies and has live events on stage.  It was a fun, lighthearted ceremony, complete with images of the bride and groom superimposed on classic movie posters.  Guinevere was well behaved during the ceremony as well.  She slept through most of it and got several adoring stares from the wedding guests.

We had a couple hours between the ceremony and reception.  Aaron had to stick around to take pictures, but Guinevere and I headed back to the hotel room and both of us took a nap.  I’m so glad there was that time in between!  I’ve noticed that the days I don’t get a nap, I end up going to bed around 9:30 pm because I am so exhausted.

Guinevere was really good during the reception as well.  She slept during most of dinner.  Once the band started playing, she woke up and seemed to enjoy the music.  Aaron’s friend, Kelly, was there and she held Ginny for us so that Aaron and I could have at least one dance together.  I don’t think I’ve ever danced so little at a wedding before.  I can’t wait until Guinevere is old enough for her to be my partner on the dance floor!  I just love watching little kids dancing and having fun at weddings!  Of course the bride wanted to hold Guinevere  - and got loads of comments such as, “well that was fast!” (unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of that.  I think Aaron got a pic on his phone)

The ceremony

Kelly and Guinevere

The bride and me

Our little family

Meeting the family

After the wedding festivities were over, Aaron and I headed back to Aaron’s aunt and uncle’s house.  They live close to Ann Arbor and generously hosted a family get together so that the Midwest contingent of the family could meet the newest member.  We had so much fun!  Aaron’s mom was even able to be there.  Unfortunately, I was having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures for myself.  But I know one of Aaron’s Aunts took loads of pictures (Aunt Dianne, if you are reading this, I would love to get copies of those pics).

Aaron and I also drove up to Chesaning, the small town where Aaron’s parents grew up.  Both of Aaron’s parents grew up on farms, but Aaron’s grandparents sold their farms long ago.  Aaron drove us past the farmhouse that Aaron’s grandfather built and where Aaron’s mom grew up.  We even stopped and Aaron knocked on the door to see if the current owners would be willing to let us walk around, but no one was home.  We stayed with Aaron’s grandmother and walked around a little.  This is one of those towns that’s so small it only has one stoplight.  I loved getting to spend more time with Aaron’s grandmother and watching her hold her great-granddaughter.  

Meeting her great-grandmother

Touring UofM

Aaron got his BFA from the University of Michigan and loves to reminisce about how fantastic an experience he had.  He ended up dragging us all over campus showing us portions of his glory days, and pointing out how much has changed in the past 10 years.  As exhausting as it was (Guinevere got to nap in the stroller much of the time, but I had to walk . . . when will they create a stroller for adults that we can nap in? J) , we had a great time.  Aaron ended up finding several professors/admin people that remembered him.  We got to go backstage at the Power Center and were able to take a look at the stage.  We also went into two additional smaller theaters later on (one thrust and one black box).  I kept telling Guinevere that theaters are like a second home to both her mom and dad.

Guinevere's first time in a theatre

Aaron also insisted on taking a picture of Guinevere on top of the big M located in the middle of the diag.  At first he wanted to lay her down directly on top of it – which I very quickly vetoed.  I know she’s had her shots and all, but laying my 2 month old directly on the ground where tons of people walk every day . . . no.  I am not comfortable with that.  So we put a burp cloth underneath her – unfortunately, she’s just a little too long for it, so then I grabbed a diaper out of the diaper bag and put it under her feet.  But if you have any experience with babies, you know their feet never stay still for long.  Oh well, at least she’s not putting her feet in her mouth . . . yet.

Future student?

Overall we had a great time.  I’m really glad that we got to see all the people and places we did.  Not that Guinevere will remember this trip, but hopefully a little of it will stick in her subconscious.

First mobile blog

Hello everyone! I am testing out blogging from my phone. If this works out well, then it will expand my blogging capabilities immensely! (I can even do it while nursing).

Today I took Guinevere on her first trip to Target. It might not seem like a big deal to most people, but it was so refreshing to be able to get out of the house and take her with me on an ordinary errand. :)

While we were at Target a woman came up to me and told me how cute Guinevere is and then she asked how many months old my baby is. When I told her 7 weeks, the lady looked surprised and said, "Oh! Big baby!" You hear that? Someone said my Ginny looked big! :)

Guinevere in the check out line at Target.

Guinevere's Travels: First Outings

 

As some of you know, I have been going a little stir crazy on maternity leave.  However, we haven’t been completely housebound this entire time.   Aaron and I have been slowly expanding Guinevere’s horizons.  We’ve already taken her to Lake Balboa, Marina Del Rey, Long Beach, San Diego and Malibu.  Now that she’s had her shots, we can start taking her out even more.

Guinevere’s first outing was to Lake Balboa when she was 2 ½ weeks.  Lake Balboa is this great little man made lake near our house.  Aaron and I walked around it all the time when I was pregnant.  We’d always see people out with their babies in strollers and talk about how we couldn’t wait to take our little one around the lake too.  Little did we know that our baby would be born during one of the hottest summers on record!  As a result we’ve only taken her to the lake once so far . . . and we didn’t even walk all the way around the lake.  We just walked a little bit and then went back to the car because it was so hot.  We didn’t want our little 2 ½ week old to over heat!

Guinevere at Lake Balboa (2 1/2 weeks)

The next week, Aaron had a meeting in Marina Del Rey, so we decided to make a family event out of it and escape the heat of the Valley a bit.  During Aaron’s meeting, I took Guinevere across the street and we had a bit of a “girl’s afternoon” – we went to a Barnes & Noble and a Coffee Bean.  All the ladies working at Barnes & Noble oohed and aahed over my tiny Guinevere, and they loved her name too.  After Aaron was done with his meeting, we grabbed some lunch and headed down to Playa Del Rey for a picnic and stroll on the beach.  It was Guinevere’s first time at the beach (one reason we chose Playa Del Rey is that it’s hardly ever crowded, and we thought it might be less daunting for her, and us).  She was a champ and seemed perfectly happy strapped up in the sling during our walk.

Guinevere at Playa Del Rey

That next weekend, Aaron had to go out of town for business, so I was left to drive Guinevere down to Long Beach for a Mehtropolis reunion by myself.  Our artistic director (and good friend) was in town briefly between moving from Spain to Florida.  I previously blogged about how much all my Mehtropolis friends mean to me.  It was so much fun to see everyone again!  We also got a picture of the three Meh babies that have been born since my Mehtropolis shower.  

Meh babies!

Last weekend, Aaron and I drove down to San Diego with Guinevere so that she could see Grandma and Grandpa’s house and meet some of our San Diego friends.  I feel a little bad, though, I kept telling her that we would escape the oppressive heat of LA when we went to San Diego.  San Diego usually has a very mild climate – almost always cooler than LA in the summer and warmer than LA in the winter (I blame growing up in SD for my low temperature differential threshold – I’m cold if it’s below 65 and hot if it’s above 85).  I was really looking forward to finally being able to take her on a walk outside.  Unfortunately, the heat followed us down.  My parents don’t have air conditioning because there is maybe one weekend out of the year that they might want it . . . and of course, we brought Guinevere down for her first trip on THAT weekend.  It was also humid, which is very rare for Southern California and only added to our discomfort.  It wasn’t all bad, though, Guinevere got to meet my sister’s fiancé, Will (he flew out for the last half of her trip and they were able to get some wedding planning done).  She also got to meet my good friend, Corey’s baby.  Corey and I have been friends since elementary school, so it is only fitting that we ended up having babies within 5 months of each other.  And of course, my mom got to hold the baby on her home turf.  My mom gets this fantastic “grandma glow” every time she’s around Guinevere.

Meeting Will.

Aunt Sharon and Guinevere.

"Grandma Glow"

My favorite outing so far, though, was a couple days ago when we went to Malibu to meet up with my co-workers.  As much as I love being home and able to spend all day every day with my baby, I really do miss going to work.  My co-workers invited Aaron and me to join them at their summer event at Paradise Cove in Malibu.  They rented a cabana and relaxed on the beach with some food and drinks.  It was the perfect outing for us!  We were able to introduce my co-workers to Guinevere and finally escape from the heat of the Valley.  I was also able to catch up on a little of what’s been happening back at the office.  So far, Guinevere seems very good with being passed around to new people.  She was great in San Diego and in Malibu with my coworkers.  Of course, when we got home that night, she was a cranky pants because she was exhausted from all the excitement.  Oh well, it was worth it to get out of the house and be able to dip my feet in the ocean. 

Guinevere's first time "in" the ocean.  :)

Hopefully the weather will cool off in the near future and we can start taking her on more fun outings.  I really want to take her hiking.  I’d also like to try to get her to all my favorite beaches before I go back to work.  Next up: air travel with an infant.  Wish us luck!

First Immunizations

Guinevere had her first round of immunizations today.  She was given DTP, HIB, Polio, Rotavirus, Pneumo and Hep B . . . don’t ask me what any of that stands for because I don’t honestly know.  All I know is that seeing my daughter’s little face all bright red and scrunched up in pain made me so much more emotional than I anticipated.  I really didn’t intend to cry, but I did.  Somehow I thought I would go in there and hold her hand and tell her to be a brave girl, even though she can’t really understand me yet.  But somehow, I think I ended up being more emotionally scarred than my 6-week-old daughter.  Ok, that may be a slight exaggeration.  It wasn’t horrible.  In fact, it was over very quickly.  After the nurse finished giving her the shots, I picked Guinevere up to comfort her.  She calmed down in my arms – it kind of melted my heart.  She doesn’t always calm down when I hold her, but I will admit that it makes me feel like a good mom when I go to comfort her and it works!  Since we got home, she’s been alternating between napping and waking up crying in pain; then the cry dissipates into this pitiful little whimper and she falls back asleep.

Other than the shots, the appointment went well.  Guinevere is now 8 lbs 12 oz and 21 ¼ inches long.  She’s already outgrown a couple of my favorite newborn outfits.  You should see the cute little outfit we brought her home from the hospital in – it’s way too short on her now.  It makes me sad and proud all at the same time.  However, I am very excited to be able to start putting her in some of the adorable 0-3 month onesies that were so ginormous on her just 2 weeks ago.

In other news, Guinevere has started to smile and coo.  My sister visited from New York this week, and every time Guinevere would smile or coo at us, we would squeal with delight, which of course, made Guinevere smile even more!  Unfortunately, she tends to smile the most when there’s no camera at arms reach.  So of course, one of us runs to grab the camera and by the time we get back, she refuses to smile.  We’ve found that she tends to smile the most in the morning (I am secretly pleased to have a morning person daughter . . . though I guess it’s not so secret now that I’ve just posted it for the world to see).  She also seems to smile a lot on the changing table.  I’m guessing it’s a combination of a) being up closer to our faces and b) knowing that she will soon be clean and dry.

My happy girl this morning.

Nights are also starting to get better (though I always feel nervous saying that, like I’m tempting fate or something).  She even let me sleep a full 6 hours three nights this week!  Most nights I’m not that lucky, but she has been pretty good about going back to sleep after waking for her 3 am feed.  Honestly, that’s the most important part to me.  I have pretty much adjusted to the new reality of sleeping in 3-hour increments.  I am now able to wake up from a normal night like that and feel relatively rested.  It’s the nights when she refuses to go back to sleep at 3 am that are the worst.  I can’t quite decide if it’s more frustrating when she’s fussy at that hour or super cute.  There have been a couple nights when she wakes up at 3am and then is all smiles.  I feel so bad trying to get her to go back to sleep when it seems like she wants to be all bright and sunny and awake.  At least when she’s fussy, I don’t feel bad telling her to go back to sleep.  But I guess of all problems to have, that’s not a bad one.

One of G's goofy faces at 3am

One issue I would like to put out to the world: Guinevere seems to hate tummy time.  The pediatrician told me we should be giving her more tummy time than we are, but every time we put her down on her tummy, she starts screaming.  Does anyone have any tips on how to get her to like it?  Or at least do it without crying?  I’ve tried laying down next to her on the floor and encouraging her, or trying out different toys to see if any of them take her fancy, but nothing seems to work . . . yet.

Post-partum Recovery

My little Guinevere is now 5 weeks old!  I can’t believe it’s already been 5 weeks! (I have a feeling that it will feel like time speeds up more and more as she continues to grow!)  My post-partum check up is this afternoon, so today’s post will be about my recovery in the past 5 weeks.

Every pregnant woman hears horror stories about post-partum recovery: how sore everything is “down there,” the subsequent “longest period ever,” and of course, trying to lose the baby weight.  I will admit that I have been pleasantly surprised by my body and my own recovery since giving birth.  I was terrified that once the epidural wore off, I would wake up with unimaginable pain . . . especially considering that I was stuck in the hospital in labor for 3 days before Guinevere was born.  But the hospital kept me on a steady intake of Motrin, and I really didn’t feel much pain at all while there.  I guess an indication that my recovery would be easier than others was that I was really disappointed when the midwife told me I was only allowed to stand/walk for 15 minutes at a time for the first 2 weeks.  I felt ready to go for long walks right away.  (After talking to my other mommy friends, I now know that a lot of other women really don’t want to/aren’t up to walking more than 15 minutes at a time, so that advice is not a big deal to them).  Once we came home from the hospital, every now and then I would try to do some housework or stand for too long or otherwise over do it and realize, “oh yeah, I’m still recovering too.”  I’ve only been back to the gym once since Guinevere was born (and it felt great!), but I have gone on longer and longer walks.  I’ve been taking it easy until I get the official “all-clear” from the doctor today.

This section might be TMI for some people, but the “longest period ever” was one of those horror stories I had heard about before even getting pregnant.  For those who don’t know, after going through 9 months of no period, all that blood and fluid that has built up to nourish the baby has to come out.  At the hospital, they give you the biggest pads I have ever seen!  Seriously, they are like adult diapers!  They even have special mesh disposable underwear to hold the ginormous Depends style diaper pads.  I took as many pads home from the hospital as I could so that I wouldn’t have to go out and buy more . . . but of course, they ran out pretty quickly.  Fortunately my mom was up visiting when I ran out, so I was able to send her to the store for a discreet “woman only” shopping trip.  Eventually, though, it petered out to normal period style bleeding and I was able to use regular pads (though still more bulky than my normal preference).  Oh, and tampons are a “no-no” during this time, for obvious reasons – you don’t want to be sticking anything up in there for a long time.  Bonus for breast-feeding, though: apparently breast-feeding women don’t see the return of their normal periods until several months after the baby is born.

As for baby weight, no, I am not back to my pre-pregnancy weight yet, but I don’t have too far to go.  I have 8 more pounds to lose out of the 30 that I gained.  I lost about 20 pounds in just the first two weeks.  I will have to work to lose the remaining weight, since I seem to have stalled out on the weight loss.  But really, 8 pounds shouldn’t be that hard to lose, right? And I really haven’t done anything special to lose the weight yet, since I haven’t been working out, so I am hoping that once I start actually exercising again, the rest will come off.  The most impressive piece of recovery to me is just how quickly the uterus shrinks after birth.  When I came home from the hospital, I still had a big floppy belly.  My uterus was still swollen from holding the baby, but since there was nothing in there anymore, it was really jiggly.  For the first two weeks, my belly was noticeably smaller with each day that passed!  Now that it has been 5 weeks, my belly, is still shrinking, but at a much slower pace.  I am definitely bigger than I used to be, especially in the hip/butt, stomach and chest regions (which leaves my legs and arms the same size, but then they were the same size even when I was 9 months pregnant). I now have 3 pairs of pre-pregnancy shorts that fit and one pair of pre-pregnancy jeans (I might actually have more jeans that fit, but I haven’t bothered to try them on since it’s been in the high 90’s/low 100’s this summer).

Here are a couple of progress pics:

The day we came home from the hospital.  You can see my big, jello belly.

My belly 1 week post-partum.

2 weeks post-partum.

5 weeks post-partum.

And, of course, for your viewing pleasure, Guinevere at 5 weeks.  

Her Aunt Sharon is visiting from New York, so I put her in her special New York onesie (even though it’s still  little big).