This past week has been a week of growth…weight and length for Reese, in knowledge, experience and know how for taking care of this girl, and in a few firsts like having friends over for a meal and enjoying a meal at a friend’s. There have been highs and lows but still mostly highs and most things are still going quite well for all of us and every day seems to be improving for the better.
So we had a rough stretch of fussiness at the end of last week. Bryan had gone back to work and Thursday and Friday afternoon brought me a pretty fussy baby requiring my full attention and energy. Come Saturday, after what was a rather usual Saturday morning with banana pancakes, football, and a walk in the neighborhood, we entered into a multi-hour cry fest with baby girl. Everything Bryan and I tried to do to soothe the girl brought hardly any relief to any of us. From about 4:30 pm until 9 pm we used all of our resources with little success. It was tiring and frustrating and by the time Reese was down and out for the count, so was I. Pure exhaustion. I also spent the entire night Googling what could possibly be wrong and how to fix it. I think both Bryan and I went to bed thinking we had a colicky baby on our hands and both of us were a little frazzled.
Normal Saturday to start getting ready for the Texas vs. USC game. 
Completely wiped out after hours of crying.
Sunday morning we were greeted by renewed hope in the form of our friends. Philipp, Sara, Stephan, Ewelina, Marion and Thibaut came over, bringing brunch of quiche, fruit, pastries and coffee and we all sat down at the table to enjoy it all. Since we host frequently, it actually felt like old times. It was a very enjoyable morning. I fed Reese all afternoon, after our guests had left, to keep her content. And on Sunday night we actually made our way over to Polly and Ryuhei’s brand new house for a casual dinner. This was another good first for us and although I was struggling nursing outside of our home, the dinner was an enjoyable one.
Baby girl and her visitors for brunch 
Saying goodbye to our visitors
Monday morning continued with positives all around. I got Reese and myself out the door in time to walk to our PEPS meeting. Reese, again, slept the majority of the 2 hour session but also offered me more chances to nurse in public; successfully. After our group meeting we had our pediatrician appointment for her “two week” well baby visit shortly there after nearby. We met Bryan at the nearby park to enjoy Subway subs before the appointment. The appointment was stressful, what with the heel prick on baby girl and being poked and prodded by the doctor, but the results were good; baby girl has gained over a pound and 1.75″ since being born. After such a busy morning for her she napped most the whole afternoon and evening allowing her parents to pick up BOGO poke bowls at the newly opened FOB Poke Bar to enjoy with a miserable Seahawk’s loss.
Made it to PEPS looking pretty cute too
And Tuesday and Wednesday were continued improvement days for me in motherhood. While Tuesday I managed by the seat of my pants, without a schedule or routine in mind other than feed on demand, try to nap, go for a walk, etc., Wednesday began with a goal in mind. I successfully was able to go for about 1.5 to 2 hour time frames between feeding. We were able to have some solid nap times to prevent an overly fussy and tired baby girl and we got in some activity and tummy time on her floor mat. I was pretty happy with the success of Wednesday and we ended the night walking back to the poke place for one more BOGO poke bowls. Bryan and I have also begun a bedtime routine for baby girl which I think has really helped prevent evening fussiness. This routine includes:
- Bath time (which she seems to love)
- Reading a book
- Bryan giving her a small amount of milk from the bottle
- Then me feeding her
- Down for the count
So for two nights now baby girl has taken some milk from the bottle…FREEDOM! This also means that I have broken out the pump and have been doing one pumping session in the wee hours of the night. The extra 10 minutes or so are going to be worth it if it means that I can be apart from baby girl for more than 2 hours during the day.
Getting the hang of this nap time 
Activity time while I wolf down lunch 
Lights out next to Daddy’s neck
So as you can see there has been a lot of gains in the past week alone. We can’t believe how fast baby girl is growing, mentally and physically. And in even just a week I have gone from nervous and flustered new mom to one with somewhat of her sh*t together. I count that as a pretty big success!
Chelsea
Evolving in the Emerald City 