She just gets cuter with age

Hayley turns 2 months old tomorrow. I'm still blown away by the fact that we even have a baby, and now it's been 2 months. Everyone who said "it goes by fast" weren't kidding.

We brought Hayley to her latest check-up on Friday. She's doing great! She now weighs 11 pounds 4 ounces, which means she gained 2 pounds in the past month. This puts her right in the 50th percentile for baby weight gain, according to the pediatrician. She is noticeably bigger. In fact, we've had to retire a couple outfits, including the pajamas she wore the day we brought Hayley home from the hospital. Here she is, not fitting into it:



In other news, Miranda went back to work today. I am officially a stay-at-home dad. This is both exciting and scary (which seems to be the theme of my life over the past year). It's going to be a big adjustment, but hopefully we'll figure it out. Aside from the logistics of it all, I need to get over how guilty I feel. No, taking care of a baby by yourself is not easy, but I'd rather be spending my days with my daughter than going to work, and I know Miranda would trade places with me in a second. It's times like these that I really wish we were filthy rich.

Anyway, plenty has happened in the past couple weeks. First off, as you can see from the header pic, Hayley is enjoying bath time much more now. Hopefully that will continue.


Next, we have Hayley getting to know mommy's new "diaper bag".


Here she is sleeping in her new co-sleeper. This is the first step toward weaning her off us. Eventually we'll start putting her down in her crib.



Hayley went on a big sports kick, attending her first Sharks game and her first Red Sox game. She did really well at both, sleeping through most of them.


She also celebrated her first Easter. Here she is with the basket she got from the Easter bunny (aka mommy).


I'm so cute! Love me!

Busy baby

Life as a 6-week-old must be very tiring. Just look at all she's done:


Hayley visited her first beach, the San Gregorio state beach on Highway 1 between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. She wasn't quite ready to play in the sand, of course, but she got a whiff of the sea air. That day, she also saw downtown Half Moon Bay (which apparently is a ghost town on Tuesdays) and then hung out at the best ice cream joint in the bay area, Marianne's in Santa Cruz.


Hayley met her cousin Caiden James Gilbrecht (born March 4th, a mere 11 days after her). They sat together for a little bit, wondering why the adults were making so much noise at them. Afterward, she was all smiles. Hayley made her first friend!


She also took her first full bath. Up until then, we were just wiping her down and washing her hair over the sink. She usually enjoys that, so we were hoping she would like the bath. As you can see, she was not thrilled. Maybe next time.


Hayley even went to her first sporting event to cheer on Dylan, who was playing in his first t-ball game (yes, he's only 3 years old). It was a beautiful Saturday morning in sunny California and the crowd was excited. Naturally, Hayley slept through it all.


Other highlights: we've started supplementing her diet with formula, she's wearing more of her cute outfits, we took her to the Sharks store at HP Pavilion, aka the Shark Tank (where the San Jose Sharks play and where she'll go to her first hockey game next week), she's cooing and playing more, still sleeping a lot, and adding tummy time to her day. We also got some good news at the pediatrician's office when we brought Hayley for an impromptu weigh-in. Our baby is officially in the double digits! She tipped the scale at exactly 10 pounds. This means she is gaining weight properly.


Woo! I'm growing!

Wednesday One-Liners

Hey, give momma's nose back!



Costco was having a great sale on babies.



Hmm, looks like we missed a spot with the sunscreen.



Ah-choo!


(By the way, the concept for this post was inspired by/shamelessly stolen from overheardinnewyork.com)

Life with a baby

A lot can happen in a month. You can find yourself doing things and feeling emotions you never thought possible. Especially when the source of this change is the cutest, sweetest little baby girl ever. In fact, so much has happened, I honestly don't know where to begin. All the more reason to blog frequently rather than rarely, I suppose.



The hospital stay was a crash course in early parenthood. We dove into breastfeeding, diaper changing, umbilical cord stump cleaning, swaddling and more, all while learning to function on very little rest. I'm not good at sleeping in small doses, so that was quite a struggle for me. It was worse for Miranda since she was also recovering from major surgery. Not surprisingly, she did an amazing job despite the setback of a c-section. I think we both stepped up to the plate and did what we had to do. We were just so happy to finally have our Hayley, nothing else really mattered. We were parents now.



We came home after spending about a week at the hospital. Even though we were now fully on our own with a newborn baby, just being home made a big difference. Now, 4 weeks later, we've mostly adjusted to life at home with a baby. In that time, Hayley has experienced countless firsts. Sleeping in her crib, sleeping on mommy or daddy, sleeping with mommy and daddy in our bed, sleeping in her car seat, sleeping in the carrier. Babies sleep a lot.

When not sleeping, Hayley went on her first walk around the neighborhood in her cool stroller, had her first visit to the pediatrician, sat and played in her bouncy chair, watched TV (including Sharks games), watched daddy play video games, took more walks, entertained many visitors to the apartment, and went on lots of car rides to grandma's house, restaurants, the mall, Steph's house, the grocery store, and even Stanford. She also celebrated her first holiday, St. Patrick's Day (appropriate, considering her parents got engaged in Ireland). Some firsts were of the sad variety, unfortunately. These included saying goodbye to papa and naini when they returned to Arizona, spitting up, losing the only evidence of her life in the womb when her umbilical cord stump fell off, and switching to bottled breast milk when the pain of breastfeeding became too much for mommy (Miranda can elaborate on the feeding issue if she wants to).



So far, this has been both the most challenging and most rewarding endeavour of my life. I'm still getting used to the lack of sleep, although Miranda has been letting me get a good 6 hours in a row each night, for which I am HUGELY grateful. There are times when I feel useless and frustrated, like whenever Miranda has to pump milk or when Hayley screams for an hour and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to comfort her. But there's so much more time when I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. I mean, I already did when I married Miranda, but now I've got two perfect girls in my life. Holding Hayley as she falls asleep, just watching her sleep, seeing her smile involuntarily, listening to her tiny baby snores, watching her stretch and yawn as she wakes up, staring into her beautiful little eyes while she examines her strange new world - these are the things I live for now. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. She's only a month old!

1 Month

Wow.

I think back to just 4 weeks ago and then look at Hayley and can't fully make the connection that this little girl was once in my belly. She was quite comfortable in there, I might add. When we decided to induce I was so relieved to have a plan in place. Then as we drove to the hospital I was extremely nervous. I'd changed my mind. I wasn't ready. What were my other options? Luckily we had some really great nurses that put me at ease and got me all set up. Then began the waiting game. I was so frustrated that things were progressing so slowly and I was so sick of being hooked up to a million machines but then I'd hear Hayley's steady heartbeat and I'd settle back in for the next wave of contractions.

Hearing that I was going to have a c-section was somewhat devastating. I wasn't prepared for surgery and I wasn't prepared for the feelings that would come up when told I wasn't physically able to birth my child with out an intervention. I'm still not sure what those feelings were completely about, but I do know that I felt like my body had failed me. Like I was failing my daughter. I didn't have much time to dwell on these insecurities as 20 minutes after hearing the prognosis I was holding my beautiful Hayley.

And in that moment I fell in love.

That love has grown and matured over the last 4 weeks into something more beautiful than I could have never imagined. I'm exhausted each and every day but I'd happily stay awake forever if she'd just continue to dream in my arms.


I love you, baby girl.