A Photobook Sharing Claire's First Month of Life

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One Month Old

Claire Elisabeth is ONE MONTH OLD TODAY!

1 month stats: 9 lbs !!!
Claire also got her Hep B 2nd shot and it was heart wrenching...she screamed then was easily calmed when I picked her up.

Nicknames: Beary, Bears, Clairey, Claire Beth, and Sweet C, more to come I am sure.

Things Claire can do:

She has rolled over probably more than both hands can count. It doesn't happen all the time and sometimes it startles her and she cries after the fact. She goes from her tummy to her back pretty quickly, especially if her hands are out in front of her.

Claire also props herself up with her knees bent like she'd like to crawl, but she's clearly too young. I have a feeling we may have an early crawler (uh oh!).

Sweet C loves, loves, loves, to stare and can get easily fixated on black and white objects.

She is extremely alert 5-6 hours a day and sometimes longer. Her eyes are so big and already turning, what we think is Brown. She's going to be our brown eyed girl (most likely).

She has the prettiest complexion. It's just gorgeous. Definitely got her daddy's coloring.

She has her mommy's just about everything else (see the picture for comparison). It is pretty scary how similar Claire looks compared to my baby pictures. Poor Tim!

Her hair is starting to fall out, as we've found random strands of her pretty dark hair around. Tim is very sad about this and wants it to stay. I do too!

Claire has been wearing cloth diapers not on a regular basis, but more and more as mommy is getting used to it. We like them because I change her as soon as she's wet because we can tell and she isn't getting rashes with them. Whereas the Pampers we are noticing rashes overnight. She really has the cutest fluffy bum because it's sooo big! Pretty darn cute:

Claire is gooing and gahhing all over the place. She loves to coo! It's adorable. The cutest thing is I say, "Hiiii" to her all the time in a high pitch and she's been imitating it. It really sounds like, "hiii". So cute.

Beary is smiling now. She has been shooting us smiles for about two weeks (like since just before she was 4 weeks old). She now can do it when I work really hard to get her smile for mommy. She loves to do it and they always show her entire toothless mouth. I just love her gummies!

Bears also drools and blows bubbles. We keep teasing and saying she's so advanced that she is already teething. For my sake, I am praying she isn't teething anytime soon. ;o)

Beary has gone to her first lacrosse tournament last weekend (I'll do a separate post on this). We won and the girl's gave her the huge (tacky) trophy.

Visitors so far:
Claire has been so fortunate to have so many visitors. We have seen Sada, Erin, Ian, Heather, James, Katie, Natalie, Jess, Sa, Miss Karen, and for now that's all I can remember because I am drawing a blank.

Places we've gone:
Target, Babies R Us, Marshall's, Giant, Starbucks, to Baltimore City for the Ravens/Steelers Tailgate (she must of been the good luck charm) Century HS for the girls soccer game, OC, Kelly& Harper's house for a playdate
, Liz & Penelope's for a playdate

Daddy Beware

Claire took her first bottle today!

I've started pumping since fall lax starts up soon! She didn't love it the whole time but she was hungry and enjoyed mose of it.

Yayyy! Sunday's practice will be easier knowing she cannot starve.

September Goal

I'd like to make these for Claire eventually so when she's old enough she can play with them on the fridge.

Goal Deadline: Let's go with the end of maternity leave...hmmm, we'll see.

Announcements Ordered Check, Shower No Check

I love what I created on Shutterfly and the main reason I used this site was because they had a 20% off cards promo and I got an additional 20% off from a card I received in the mail with a code. It came out to about 99 cents a card, still a tad expensive, but they're beautiful and I had to share our pretty little C to everyone!

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

I think I put all my addresses on my external harddrive so my goal tomorrow is to get them off the harddrive and print out labels to send out the cards when they arrive.

I am not creating a photobook of Claire Bear from birth until 3 months so I can order them for the grandparents for Christmas! Ohhhh they're going to be in love! :o)

Sadly, today, I have failed to shower yet. Not because Claire hasn't slept, but because I am lazy, sleepy, and my back hurts!

Am I crazy?

Why would I even be considering a second baby already?

I just can't get the baby fever out of my head. I want to start running again, yes, but I can do that, lose the rest of the baby weight, and get knocked up again! That's my plan at least. Is it pathetic that I want to get pregnant in February - April, already?

I think Tim is about to have a heart attack with the financial issues, but I know every body freaks about this with every baby whether it's one or six.

On a more reasonable note, I started using the cloth diapers that we stashed ourselves up with throughout the end of my pregnancy. It is going great so far. I got a little motivation from a group of cloth diapering mamas on Facebook. They encouraged me to just go for it and promised me I would love it. So far so good. I am going to do diaper laundry tomorrow, so I think I need to run to Target on our way home from a friendly visit to meets Claire's new friend, Harper, to get a drying rack.

For the first time, we used a fitted with a cover, I used a prefold and a pocket. I think I'll probably use an AIO Lil Joey's tonight since it will be the easiest to change and another pocket diaper. I also just ordered some fleece liners since those were recommended to help with nighttime changes!

So I may be crazy not only because I already want to have another child (well not in 10 months, BUT you get the idea), but because I started to cloth diaper?! You decide.

Sunshine and Tummy Time

Claire turned three weeks old on Thursday and we've been having so much fun with her. She is the reason I wake up everyday (literally and figuretively) and she is the reason my heart feels so much more love than I ever imagined.
Sometimes I catch myself just staring at her while she sleeps or checking on her even though I can see her through the monitor when she naps. I even notice that I long for her even when she's out of my arms or sight for a couple minutes. Clearly, a mother's love.

Today for the first day in nearly a week we had sunshine and boy was it nice, even though I didn't really venture outside. I did however get the chance to try out our new wheels on our stroller with Claire until she decided to be a fussy pants, so we turned around. It seems that in the evenings she just wants to eat, eat, and eat (well today, at least). So now she and I sit in the dark living room while she "naps" on the boppy and daddy is upstairs watching football (I banned him from her because he is claiming he feels sick). Wow, did he just find the way to get off the hook in the middle of the night (I think so!).




Tummy time is a must per the pediatrician's orders so every day we try and get plenty of it in whether it's on my chest or actually on the ground or couch. She even loves laying on her back and looking at the sights in her crib, or sitting up nice and tall on mom's shoulder and scanning her surroundings. She certainly is an alert little girl and is very curious already.

Tomorrow the plan is to let daddy go watch the Bills game in Canton with his friends, while mommy introduces the newest addition to her favorite NFL team, the Ravens. We are going to head down into the city with a purple cardigan, because her Ravens onesies will not fit until playoffs (when it counts), to experience her very first tailgate with her Mimi, PopPop, and Uncle Pete! Hoping for a very restful night.