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Good grief, time flies! Abagail is now 3 weeks and 3 days old and I haven’t even updated anyone about her 2 week check up. We’d gone into the doctor’s office for the check up on September 25th and found that she was weighing in at 8 pounds, 3 ounces and measures 19 ½ inches in length. I keep saying “height,” but I don’t think you can technically call it height until she’s upright, so I have to remind myself that she measures in “length.”

Anyway, that put her at 4 ounces above her birth weight and 2 ¼ inches more than her birth length. This is right on track with where she should be. Babies lose so much in water weight those first few days after birth that the doctors typically want to see them back to their birth weight or a couple of ounces above by their 2 week check up, so since she was there and the daily diaper count is where it should be in terms of wet and dirty diapers, this is tangible evidence that breast feeding is going well.


I can attest to the fact that it’s improving every day. Each meal gets easier and easier as she continues to remember how to nurse and I get increasingly more comfortable with the process. It’s progressing well enough that I am now pumping milk occasionally and we’ve introduced a bottle to her. Not only does this allow George in on the feeding schedule, but it has allowed us to venture out several times without feeling like our lives have to stop at every 3 hour mark. Feeding just becomes a brief interruption before continuing on.

All in all, last week was a great week. Not only did we get out to Target to take our first family portraits, but we ate out twice, ran several errands, did our grocery shopping, and got the oil changed in both cars. It felt great to get out and prove that we could do it and still make everything work. The pictures will be ready from Target on Wednesday, so by the end of the week, I’ll have those to share.

While not everyone agrees with the philosophy, instead of just letting her wake up when she’s hungry, we’re putting her on somewhat of a routine for meals and she’s been responding really well. She eats every 3 hours during the day and every 4 hours at night. She actually pretty much wakes up when she is ready to eat and all I have to do is change her diaper to get her to fully alert. Luckily, we’ve gotten past that stage where she couldn’t seem to care less about eating in favor of sleeping. She doesn’t have her days and nights mixed up—she stays awake after meals through the day, then goes down for a nap, but then at night, (thankfully) she’s ready to go right back to sleep after eating.

We have found that Abagail’s unhappiest time of day seems to be anywhere between 7PM and 10PM. She seems to need an additional meal and just fights sleep in general, so we accommodate her with an extra feeding and more cuddling. Some hold outs may say we’re spoiling her, and that may be, but it just feels so good to hold her that we’ll deal with the idea of spoiling her later. We’ve just got to figure out what works best for all of us.

George went back to work this morning for a week, but is off the following week. I’m anxious to see how I do with her on my own all day. George and I work together so well as a team that I have told him, repeatedly, that I have no idea how single parents or parents who have less-than-willing-partners can manage. If it weren’t for our tag-team efforts, I just might go crazy. The cool thing about this week is that not only do I get to test the waters by myself, but more importantly, George went back to work as Lieutenant Schmerer. He was promoted before he went on leave, but it happened rather quickly before Abagail’s birth, so unfortunately, I nearly let it go by without giving him the props he deserves. He’s worked so hard since he was promoted from patrol to detective those, what, 7-8 years ago (has it been that long?!) that he really earned the recognition. The slight pay bump comes at a good time too!

It’s still amazing to me that God entrusted us with this perfect little being. I think I could just stand over her crib or hold her all day, marveling at her. She still gets to be perfect for awhile longer—we haven’t screwed her up yet, the world hasn’t had a chance to disappoint her yet, no one has given her a reason to be cynical about anything yet. I’m trying to remember how precious few these days are.