Our first week...

Well we survived the first week. I just need to remember that the first year goes by so fast. Sometimes it is hard to be very excited about the newborn stage...especially at 2:30 am. At least it is too hot to go much of anywhere during the day so I don't mind staying home as much. Everyone has been very helpful and we really appreciated all the food that our friends and family brought over.

We are definitely getting more sleep than we ever did with Sydney. So far Sophie wakes up about every three hours at night and is awake for about thirty minutes to an hour at a time (so that means 2 hours of sleep in a row)! Sydney usually slept for about a half hour and was awake about an hour at a time so that pretty much meant no sleeping for anyone. Sophie also takes naps during the day so I can squeeze in a nap if I need to.

Every time I look at Sophie, I feel like I am looking at a tiny copy of Sydney. They both have/had the same little expressions...like making O's with their mouth and just staring around all wide eyed. This is a picture of Sydney (above) when she was about a week old but and I think they look almost alike. Sophie might look like she has lighter skin, but it is probably a combination of better picture quality and the absence of jaundice (which Sydney had problems with when she was a newborn).

Sydney and Sophie are making funny faces for the camera.

Sydney is showing us how wide she can open her mouth.

Ok...now it is Sophie's turn!

We were really hoping that Sophie wouldn't take a pacifier. Neither of us enjoy getting up in the middle of the night to plug it back in. At one point, we used to put 5-7 binks all around Sydney's head at night, hoping that if it fell out she would be able to find at least one to plug back in. There were soooo many nights I remember hunting all over for those little binks. Sometimes they would fall underneath the crib and then we would have to crawl under there to get them. Sophie unfortunately seems to really like her bink and gets very upset if we try to take it away or just do without it. Usually after she has been fussing for 15 minutes in the middle of the night, it is just easier to give in and let her have it. Oh well, I guess if this is her worst habit, I can handle it. It's just the no sleeping thing that I have a problem with.

Here is another cute sleeping picture of Sophie. Sometimes she likes to be swadled but inevitably she somehow frees her arms and puts them up around her face.

I was getting ready to download pictures to the computer and Sydney insisted I take some pictures of her in her princess dress to put on our site. Like usual, she won't stand/sit still for the picture even though I probably took 10-15 pictures. At least this one has an almost normal smile! Besides playing dress up princesses, Sydney LOVES to cut and color. She will spend hours cutting out things and coloring them. Right now the house has lots of little scraps everywhere and I don't have a big enough fridge to put up every picture she has colored for us.