Three Weeks (and 300 posts, apparently)

I promise I won't be doing weekly updates forever.  They're mostly for me anyway--so next time (in many, many years) I will remember what life was like at three weeks with a newborn.

*Baby books are written for parents with no other children.  Suggestions like, 'take your baby into a dark, quiet room and soothe her until she can fall asleep' are great until you factor in your two-and-a-half year old who insists on crashing his cars underneath your glider while you try to soothe...

*Best sleep books I've found: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and The Happiest Baby on the Block.  Between those two I'm feeling pretty good about her sleep habits (meaning I don't expect much consistency until about three months but I have a good idea of how to calm her down when she's getting overtired).

*Three nights in a row she's given us a long chunk of sleep--two six hour nights, one seven hour.  My tired body is loving it; my crazy mom instincts are worrying that she's not getting enough to eat.  So far my body is winning the debate about waking her up.

*She seems to go in cycles of about three days--every three days she will have a long period of time where she is just totally exhausted but too wired to fall asleep.  She will fuss when I try to nurse her to sleep: all she wants is a pacifier and someone to hold her.   Works great when there are two parents at home.  When Jon is at a meeting until 9:30 pm, she has to do some screaming in her swing while I put her brother to bed.  I'll get her to sleep for 15-30 minutes, then she'll wake up and cry because she's so tired.  But the next step in the cycle is lots of sleeping to make up for it.

*She LOVES to be held.  Seth never really did, so this is kind of sweet (except when she insists on napping in my arms--even 8 pounds gets heavy after a couple of hours).

*She also LOVES being swaddled.  She'll calm right down as soon as we get those little arms contained.

*I bought her two pairs of newborn pants--purple stretch pants and jeans.  Why is it so stinking hard to find baby girl clothes that AREN'T pink?  They had four different shades of pink pants...

*I need to take more pictures.  But we're just sitting at home all day hanging out (okay, we do run errands and go to the park, but it's been too cold and rainy for much of that this week).  And my mom will be here next week (!!!!) to compensate for my laxity.

*All my maternity clothes are packed away.  Hooray!  Now if it would just warm up so we could go on walks and I could get some exercise...  It's frustrating being back to pre-pregnancy weight but still not quite the same pre-pregnancy shape...