Cece's First Week

I had every intention of posting this on Cece's one week anniversary and now here we are three days later and I'm just getting around to it. I think that pattern is going to hold for some time. It's been pretty tough to find time to blog. If I have a moment to myself I'm either taking a shower or trying to sneak in a nap. But it's worth it. The past ten days have been a wild and wonderful ride. It's such a cliche but so true -there's just nothing that can prepare you for becoming a parent. I have never known a love so big.

Since my brain is functioning at less than full capacity due to lack of sleep and hormone override, I want to note a few things about this first week so I don't forget the little details.While I don't have a solid frame of reference, so far Cece has been a pretty easy going baby (cue the furious knocking on wood). She nurses like a champ and has a pretty predictable sleeping pattern. She also has a pretty predictable fussy time every day - the 6-10 pm shift can be rough. Not much makes her happy at this time of day. It's almost like she's so tired at this point yet she fights off sleep. When we finally get her to settle down she's down for the count for a solid 3-4 hours. I'm up 2-3 times a night to feed Cece but she's easy and goes right back to sleep. She stays with us in our room in her 4Moms Breeze bassinet, which is awesome, by the way. My favorite part of the day is after her morning feeding, around 7 AM  when we're all just waking up with snuggles in bed (even Summit gets in on this).

Some other observations about Cece at this point:

 - she's small but STRONG. She's already holding her head up when propped up on your shoulder!

 - she's small but has really long, thin fingers and feet. Marathon feet???

 - she loves to snuggle and like most babies likes to be held.

 - she has a magical scent, sweet and fresh, even after spitting up.

 - noise doesn't phase her (good thing because Summit barks a lot!) but she loves it when you sing to her.

 - she is not a fan of pacifiers but she loves the boob.

 - she has blonde hair with streaks of brown and even red highlights and a bit of a mullet in the back.

 - she loves her hands. They are always in her face, eyes or mouth.

 - she does not like to be swaddled and prefers to sleep with her hands above her head.

 - her eyes are big, bright and blue.

  - she has lots of funny faces. Evidence below.

As for James and I, we are just taking it all in and going with the flow. I'm healing well from Cece's all-natural arrival (detailed birth story to come!) and adjusting to breast feeding. Cece is a champion eater and had no trouble figuring out how to nurse. It's a wonderful bonding experience but I'm also surprised to find out how demanding breast feeding can be. Breast may be best but don't let anyone tell you it's easy, even with a chomper like Cece.And as for all the rest, the small details like diaper changes as well as the big picture, it really does come down to natural instinct. Neither James or I have much experience with babies but it hasn't been hard to figure it all out. And James has really blown me away, he's taken to fatherhood in an awesome way. I think my love for him has grown 100 times in the past week and a half. I couldn't ask for a better partner or dad for little Cece. There's not much sleep happening in my world right now but there sure is a lot of love.

That's all for now. Enjoy these out-takes.

Note: No cheese balls were actually consumed in the making of this photo.