It’s been quite some time since I made an appearance on the baby blog partially because, toward the end of pregnancy and in the first few weeks of Mabel’s life, the exhaustion didn’t allow for complete thoughts let alone complete sentences but mostly because I look forward to reading what Thomas writes about the life as the Chews know it. He makes me laugh and cry and realize and appreciate even more than I do already. That being said, I thought I’d take a stab at recapping our last month with Mabel. Can you believe she’s already 2 months old? Neither can we!
I could make this blog entry very short and summarize with this: Whoever is in charge of dictating the ways of the universe must have been very happy with Thomas and me on the day that sperm met egg and Mabel’s temperament was decided. Maybe it’s because we are avid recyclers or perhaps it’s because Thomas helped an old woman across the street that day. Either way, the universe gave us the most even keeled, easy going, predictable (as much as a 2 month old could possibly be), amazing, full cheeked baby ever to be born. We realize that we are the luckiest new parents in the world and we haven’t, for a second, taken it for granted. I’m sure whenever we decide to make Mabel a sibling, the same universe dictator will take notice that I left the water running when I brushed my teeth or that Thomas sped on the way to work that morning and we will be granted a colicky, non-sleeper…and we will love that baby just as much as we love Mabel. Except maybe a little less because Mabel is Ah-Maze-Ing! (Sorry, non-existent future fussy baby)
So that could be the short version. But instead of leaving you with that, I’m going to give you excessive details about the 5 weeks since Thomas last posted.
We’ve learned that the go-to question asked to all new parents is, you guessed it, “How is the baby sleeping?” Everyone wants to know. I’m not sure if it’s a primitive desire because it’s an instinctive behavior or because other parents want to compare their experiences to yours. It’s interesting. In Mabel’s case, the answer to that question is… amazingly. In fact, she sleeps so well that she out sleeps me now. I have officially repaid the debt of sleep that I accumulated during weeks 39-41 of pregnancy and weeks 1-7 of Mabel’s life on earth. We’ve tried to be as consistent as possible in our nightly bedtime routine. Sometimes we get all pieces in, other nights she’s more tired and things get left out. We aim for something that looks like this: bath (the girl can spash!), pajamas, and storytime. Then we set the mood with high heat, low lights and a sound machine; she eats once more and dozes off to dream land in her bassinet. We’ve done some variation of this routine since the second day she was home. I can’t tell you for sure if it’s responsible for her sleeping through the night at 2 months (yep! THROUGH THE NIGHT!) but I can tell you that it certainly hasn’t hurt matters. Since she doesn’t seem to need me in the middle of the night anymore, Thomas and I (and the pediatrician) talked about it being a good time to transition her into her big girl crib. The thought of this makes me very, VERY sad but I suppose I’m going to have to start letting go little by little at some point, right? I wish she would stay my tiny baby forever but I also look forward to her one day becoming a strong independent woman. I bet Hilary Clinton didn’t sleep in her parents’ room after she was sleeping all night long. I need to let Mabel grow!
Speaking of growing, another question we get often is “How much does Mabel weigh?” Again, not sure if it’s a primal desire to know because in ancient times size was correlated to health (or wealth) or if people just have a common curiosity regarding baby sizing. Either way, Mabel is a big girl. I find this humorous for a few reasons. 1) Because Mabel had the doctors in a tizz at the end of pregnancy because she was “small”, measuring in the 20 something percentile. And we had extra monitoring because of it. 2) Because I am not a large person, in fact I am a very small person and Thomas is a very average sized person. Mabel’s birth weight ended up being only slightly below average (6lbs, 13oz if you need a refresher since that blog entry) but her striking ability to gain weight was first noticed when she had regained the 6oz she lost in the hospital in a day and a half (doctors allow babies 2 weeks to gain this back without being worried) and she’s continued to grow at an (almost) alarming rate since then! At her 2 month appointment she weighed 12.5lbs bumping the little peanut up to the 84th percentile. I like to take credit for making milk with superpowers but in reality it’s more likely that the cheeks she inherited from her father push her up the ranking. It seems that she’s probably inherited my gene for height though since she ranked in the 37th here... 22 inches of pure, smooshable chub. It’s okay that she’s probably not going to be tall. Thomas and I decided that we’d rather her be a dedicated soccer player than a die-hard b-baller anyway (Mabel- if you read this, we will whole heartedly support anything you do, even if that means you’re the short chick on the basketball team).
So that’s that. Mabel is awesome. She smiles all the time. She loves being naked. She loves riding in the car (usually), taking baths, laying on the changing table and long walks on the beach. She adores her Dad and gives him huge smiles and coos when she sees him at the end of the work day. Her eye contact is unbreakable and she always wins a staring contest. She loves being sung to and read to. When you talk to her, she looks right back at you to let you know that she’s listening to your every word. She’s a trooper at getting immunizations (we decided to have her get them on a slow schedule). She enjoys sucking and we have finally convinced her that a binky is an acceptable alternative to the real deal. She does NOT love (or even like) “tummy time” but she still has remarkable head control and no longer needs help to support it, even with the weight of those cheeks! (sorry Mabel, Mama will lay off of the cheek jokes now)
Being in the parent club is fantastic. Before we had Mabel I was sure that I already had a pretty good idea about what it would be like to be a parent because I have a fair amount of experience and education in the children department. I. WAS. WRONG. Sure, I might have already known which sippy cup is more prone to leaking or the importance of phonemic awareness in early literacy development but I had no idea that there was room in my heart for so much more love, that it was possible to cry so many tears of joy, or that it was rational to be so irrationally petrified and excited to see what the future has in store.
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