The Peanut Gallery: Our Girls

Athena looking at Mazie, August 16, 2011

It's been nearly 3 weeks since Athena was born. These weeks have flown by, but it also feels like Athena has always been with us. Our transition to a family of four has been incredibly smooth. After Athena's rapid entry into the world, we spent just over 24 hours in the hospital and came home on Saturday morning, August 13. The doctors at the hospital were just slightly concerned about the amount of weight Athena lost in her first 24 hours -- she was born weighing 6 lbs 14 oz and a day later she was down to 6 lbs 8 oz. She then spent the next 2 weeks alternating between sleeping and eating, and by her 2 week check-up she was up to 7 lbs 9 oz, so doing great. We also got some percentiles at this check-up: 84th for height, but just 24th for weight, so we've got a long and lean girl! She's also only 13th percentile for head circumference, which probably at least partially explains her quick delivery and her mom's relatively quick recovery!

Anyway, after sleeping through most of her first two weeks, Athena has just recently started spending longer periods awake and alert. Here's what that looks like, with a little fuss at the end.

From Tiger

So our second child has been pretty easy on us so far. Meanwhile, our first child really couldn't be a sweeter big sister. Before Athena was born, we were pretty optimistic that Mazie would handle her new role well. She talked about "BabyBrotherSister" all the time and during the last few weeks of the pregnancy she would ask me daily if the baby was going to come TODAY??? So we knew she'd be excited to meet the baby, but we still weren't sure how she'd feel when the baby came home... to stay. But three weeks in, Mazie continues to be incredibly loving and sweet to her little sister, giving her lots of hugs and kisses and telling us how much she loves Athena (or "Aflina" -- she's still working on the "th" sound). So we're a pretty happy little family -- definitely tired, but loving our girls!

Here are some pictures of MJ and Aflina... we're still adding to this album.

Meeting her sister for the first time. Mazie got to lift up the sheet and look between the baby's legs to find out if she had a sister or a brother, then went out to the hall to tell Aunt Michelle and her cousins, "It's a dirl!"