Family of Five

Time flies... it's already been nearly 4 weeks since Zae arrived and made us into a family of five!  She has spent most of her first four weeks sleeping, but in the past week or so she has started spending a little more time awake.  Here's a video from last night.  Third time around, and I'm still surprised at how captivating it is to watch a baby do basically nothing... stretching, yawning, sleeping, moving arms and legs, making funny faces.  Endlessly entertaining.

Zae has been an incredibly easy baby so far.  Breastfeeding was a little painful for the first week or so, but since then it's gotten better and she's eating well.  At her two week check-up, she was up to 7 lbs 14.5 oz, so 10 oz above birthweight.  She's also been sleeping really well.  She was up a lot her very first night, but pretty much every night since then she's slept for 3-4 hours at a time, meaning that I've had to wake up once or twice during the night to feed her, leaving me surprisingly well rested for a mother of a newborn.  I started pumping milk and introducing a bottle this week -- Zae has had no problem with this new way of eating, and her big sisters have enjoyed being the ones to feed her.

Zae's big sisters adore her and give her lots of love.  Athena's love takes the form of lots of grabbing and holding and kissing -- she hasn't really grasped the concept of personal space, or of leaving the baby alone while she's sleeping.  In general, Athena's 3 year old big feelings and strong opinions about how things should be have been a little challenging recently, and we're trying to figure out how to give our middle child the attention and support she needs.

Meanwhile, Mazie is more restrained this time around and also more able to help with changing diapers and even carrying the baby around a little.  In other Mazie news, she lost her first tooth this week!  She was the second to last kid in her first grade class to reach this milestone, so she was VERY excited.  She wrote the tooth fairy a note asking what she did with all the teeth... the tooth fairy responded that she couldn't reveal that secret, but if Mazie writes another note with some guesses the next time she loses a tooth, the tooth fairy might let her know if any of her guesses are close to the mark.