Ellie : One Month Old...

Can someone tell me how to make time stop please?  My daughter is officially one month old.  Actually, at the time of writing this post, she is one month and three days old.  

The last pediatrician appointment Ellie had was when she was two weeks old.  She weighed 9 pounds, 9 ounces and was 21 and 1/4 inches long.  She was in the 95th percentile for both height and weight.  I didn't realize how big she was until my visiting teacher came over the next week with her six week old baby who weighed slightly less than Ellie.  My three week old baby looked like she could eat her six week old baby for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  

Ellie is a great eater.  She gets a little gassy after she eats, and so sometimes she gets pretty fussy.  Thank goodness for gas drops - they have been a life saver.

She used to be great at sleeping through the night (seriously, six to seven hours) - but once she hit three weeks old, she decided she likes to stay up until about one in the morning every night and party.  We then get up around 4-6 am and she eats, then it's back to bed.  If I could figure out a way to get her to bed before one in the morning and IF she would stay up after she ate in the wee hours between 4-6 am, it would be jim-dandy.  I'm used to being up at that time because that's when Clay and I would/do get up for work.  Butttt that hasn't happened yet.  She is NOT good at soothing herself to sleep.  She definitely needs her mom to rock her to sleep.  Clay says I have the magic touch.  I think I just have the proper mammary glands.  

Ellie is SO strong.  Her legs and arms are constantly going.  She's been able to hold her head up pretty well since birth, and she keeps getting better and better at it.  She's ALWAYS looking around.  Because her arms are always going, I kept mittens on her for three weeks because I was terrified of cutting her baby nails and I was scared of her scratching her face off.  I finally got some little baby nail scissors and got the courage to cut her nails, and she's had her mittens off for the last week and a half or so.  She has been putting her fingers in her mouth and sucking on her hands since then - I think we may eventually have a thumb sucker.... I'm not sure how I feel about that, haha.  She's grabbed a little elephant rattle I have for her a few times and actually hung on to it.  She then whacked herself in the face with it..... twice.  But she's tough and didn't cry.  :)

She finally graduated from sponge baths to the big girl bath tub.  She hated sponge baths, but she LOVES the big girl bath.   She will sit, happy as a clam in the tub... until you take her out.  As evidenced by the following photographs from July 7th:  

In the tub = Happy!


Out of the tub = Not Happy....

On July 9th, Ellie gave her daddy her first REAL smile.  Not a sleepy smile, or a gassy smile... but a REAL smile!!!  Clay was blowing farts onto her belly (raspberries, zerberts.... apparently there are multiple names for this) and she gave him the most beautiful, gummy smile :  

First smile for dad!!  Hooray for cell phone cameras for letting us capture this event.  :)

Today, I was taking a few pictures of Ellie to document her being a month old.  And folks, I got MY first smile!  HOORAY!!  (I got quite a few.)

First smile for mom!!

I'm definitely not a master photographer, but look at how much baby girl has grown in just one month.

June 08, 2013 - The day Ellie was born.

July 11, 2013 - One month, three days old.  

June 10th, 2013 - Coming home from the hospital, two days old.

July 11th - One month, three days old. 

It's been the hardest, most wonderful month of my entire life.  But someone PLEASE make this growing up madness stop!!