one month

my little baby is one month old. well, she was one month old yesterday. I cant believe that four short weeks ago i was in the hospital anxiously awaiting her arrival. On that note, i know that i said the next post would be about labour, but i am getting distracted. That is turning into a long post, so this one is coming first.

so back to my little one....

she is 4 weeks old. i cant believe it. people always say that you don't know what love is until you hold your child for the first time. i disagree. i will never forget the first time i held my little baby, her tiny little fingers gripping my pinkie as tightly as they could; tears poured down my face. but i love little eleri more today than i did that first day. i have grown into being a mom. i have grown in my love and appreciation for my little girl. she is my entire world. i cant even begin to imagine how much more i will love her tomorrow. how could i possibly love her anymore than i do today?! she is just perfect.

and because i think she is perfect, and because i want a record of everything she does/has done, the following is a list of my one month old's stats:

-at 2 weeks, she could hold her head up. yeah, she is crazy strong. perhaps it is because she was so big at birth...but whatever the reason, by 2 weeks she could lift and visibly control her head for quite a bit of time. even the doctor was really shocked when she saw. but what can i say, she is super baby. (as rhys says "rahhh, i am super baby. i will crush all the other babies....")

-little eleri weighed 10.12 at 3.5 weeks. yea. almost 11 pounds. i am willing to bet that she has since gained the few ounces that would put her at or over the 11 pound mark. she has a healthy appetite for sure.

-she has grown 1 inch since birth. not a massive growth, but the little one is now 22 inches long. almost 2 feet!! that puts her in the 90% for height.

-at exactly 15 days old, eleri slept 7 hours at night. since then she has slept between 6 and 7 hours every night. i am not sure if this is normal or not, but i gotta say I LOVE IT. i really like knowing that i am going to get at least a 4 or 5 hour chunk of sleep every night.

-she smiles, and giggles....ok. i know that everyone says baby smiles are unintentional until about 6 or 7 weeks. but they are wrong. my baby smiles are all VERY purposeful. she knows she is smiling at her mommy and daddy. and since i am said mommy, i can think whatever i want. so there. her laughs, giggles, smirks and smiles are all very intentional. and i love seeing her little mouth curve into that little grin. her checks puff out and up and an ever so slight dimple appears on her left side. its precious. one of these days i will capture it on camera.

-at exactly 4 weeks, she cried. not a baby cry, but a real cry. with tears and everything. and it broke my heart. somewhere in the 5 minutes between bath time finishing and her starting to eat, little eleri decided she was NOT happy. and she began to cry. not scream, just the sad, pitiful weak cry where her lower lip quivered and her little hands shook. and then the tears came. her eyes welled up and little baby tears came streaming down her face. and my heart broke into a thousand pieces. i couldn't put her onesie on fast enough and start to feed her. as soon as she ate, she had a giant burp and snuggled into my neck and sighed and went to sleep. but i will never forget those first sad tears. :(

so there it is folks, the happy and sad 'milestones' that my baby has achieved in the first 4 weeks of her life. Naturally there are millions of other things i want to write about, like how perfect her little fingers and toes are, and how she makes the cutest little coo-ing noise when she sleeps and basically how she is just perfect. but i figure those are the major things. and who really wants to read about someone elses baby coo's?

i would love to add a picture, but for some reason my computer is choosing to pretend it cant read my camera. that sucks. so no adorable picture. maybe next time...and maybe next time will be the labour story. stop asking people. it is coming. soon.