Three Weeks Old

Sarah Lucile is three weeks old today and she is getting cuter everyday. Her facial expressions are becoming more varied and she is always making me laugh. We took her to be weighed at the doctor’s office today and she is now 8 pounds! She gained a lot this last week. Her newborn outfits are fitting better and we no longer have to roll the sleeves up. She is still determined to stay awake as much as possible during the day and gets quite crabby from the lack of sleep. At night though we are lucky as she is still sleeping very well for us. Sarah tried her first “food” this week when we added a tablespoon of oatmeal in her nighttime bottle. Now that her belly is full at night she has only been waking up once during the night to eat. The first morning when I woke up at 8 am and realized that she had not gotten up a second time I was a little panicked until I checked the monitor and saw her moving around. Also this week she has become quite proficient at squirming enough to move herself around. A lot of nights we will put her down in her crib long ways and when we go to get her up we find her lying across the short side of the crib instead. She also decided this week that her swing is not a torture device. She will now sit happily in it for 30 to 45 minutes just looking around the room and observing everything. This makes it much nicer for us as we do not have to hold her for hours on end when she insists on being awake. She still thinks her bouncer seat and rocker are awful contraptions but I’m sure she’ll come around in the next few weeks. We also put together her activity mat and while she gets bored with it after about 5 minutes, she does like to look at herself in the mirror! She also figured out today that she could move the objects by batting at them. You could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she realized that it was her hand making the objects move. She's going to be a smart one.

Sarah was pretty busy this week. Her Cousin Nico was finally well enough to come and visit her. I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks but he looks so big and grown up next to Sarah! He sat on the couch with her to let us get a picture (with the help of some Skittles) and then he was quite excited to learn how to spell “Cousin Sarah” on the computer. Her Aunt Kari then got to spoil her a little bit before they left. Sarah went on several outings with us during the week including a dinner out with our friends Rob and Emily. They are expecting their first baby boy at the end of March so Sarah will have a new friend before long. I also took her out by myself for the first time this week. We went to visit “Grandpa” Tom just a few blocks away. He got to hold her and thought she was just beautiful. I’m so used to having Matt to help get her in and out of places that it’s going to take me a while to get used to doing it all myself. I’ve had her out 3 or 4 times now but it is so much easier when Matt is with us! Sarah also watched her first football game with Daddy on Sunday. We put her in one of her little Chicago Bears outfits, which was still very big on her and she sat on the couch with Daddy until she fell asleep. He is determined that she will like football better than her mom so he’s introducing her to it early on. Sarah also went with us to Wal-Mart to get some groceries and she got to visit with Aunt Tracy while we were there.

This coming week promises to be exciting as well. Tuesday we are taking her to get her professional portraits done at Hillside Studio in Freeport. My friend Tara’s family owns the studio and she was kind enough to schedule a session for us. I’m very excited to see how the photos turn out and get her formal birth announcements ordered. We also have a couple of other outings planned but you’ll have to check back next week to see what Sarah Lucile’s been up to.