Day Eight: Ain't She Grrreat!

Her first peds appointment! And she was a total angel - didn't even cry once.

She regained all but one ounce of her 13 ounces lost since her time in the hospital, post-birth

2nd bathtime at home...

All clean n' cozy, and deliciously cute!

Owen & Otis and their New Baby Sissy

As we'd suspected, Owen is the most wary of our new, squeaky, wriggling baby girlie-girl. He'll sneak near her to sniff her head or her feet and then he'll slowly back away, or sprint off whenever she happens to either suddenly flail her tiny arms at that moment or sneeze, both of which have actually happened a few times now -- each time is hysterical! And Otis? He's wary of our baby girlie as well, particularly when she's loud and/or crying, but he's not at all wary enough to stay away. So far --fingers still crossed-- he hasn't gone far enough to lay on her, let alone lay right beside her... I'm watching out for either move. Overall, neither of the two fuzzy boys have really changed their behavior all that much, except for the fact that my lap space which once was theirs is now often occupied by this squeaky, wriggling thing we brought home nearly two weeks ago... this alone requires some adjusting on their part.

This was taken the 30th... she'd been at home for only 24 hrs by this time.

Apparently my legs are a good lap substitution.

Here's one of Owen's 'sneak-in-for-a-quick-sniff' moments.

If I'd had a wider lens, you'd be able to see the baby girlie lying in my lap, less than a foot away from the peacefully dozin' Owen seen here.

We came home from the baby girlie's first pediatric appointment to discover Owen had finally laid claim to her travel bassinet.

Loungin' the day awayOwen was actually the first to figure out my legs and feet are acceptable cozy-down locations.

Caught again! Of course, Owen believes anything for the baby girlie is really his...

Why I Love Mah Honey-Man ~ Reason 37

Because one evening last week (the 30th), he self-appointed himself a mission to wash and sterilize every baby bottle, binky, and Medela breastpump piece we own in one fail swoop:

Day Seven: Cute Lil' Mug

My guess is that only me - -an uber biased mommie, and a new one at that- - would find this so greatly amusing, but I really love watching my baby girl's subtle and not-so-subtle expression changes:

Day Six: Hanging with Great Grams

Although the day wound up going as smoothly as it possibly could have, we had my Grams, who'd been in town since Sunday, March 15th, come over for the day to help me out and keep me company while my honey-man returned to a full day's work for the first time since our baby girl's birth.

We lounged around and chit chatted most of the morning away, and then Grams made tuna salad sandwiches for our lunch, and we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which my Gram's had never seen before and she really enjoyed it. And at one point, Grams held the sleeping baby girlie on her lap for nearly 2 hours straight... while we both had an afternoon nap as well. Grams also prepped a number of our fresh produce items in the fridge for us [She chopped and washed a head of romaine, cleaned and cut up two celery hearts, and washed and dried a bag of red grapes], and she made a ground turkey and vegetable soup for our dinner that night. It was really wonderful to have her with me and we really enjoyed our time together with zee cutie baybee doll.

Just hangin' out for a couple hours in her travel bassinet, swaddled and blinking, wide awake!I have nearly a couple dozen pictures of her laying like this propped in the Boppy while wearing this cute outfit, all of them basically the same, except a different expression on her face in each one

I have a number of these pictures as well with her swaddled and lying on a pillow and varying degrees of 'so peaceful and serene' shown upon her lil' mug.Grams has herself a mouthful of sugar cookie in this pic... one of those yummy "Cookies By Design" cookies!

Grams left Vegas just this morning to head back to Bear Lake, and I'm really pleased that she was here for our lil' juli-bean's birth, and to spend so much time with us. I really enjoyed our time together. We love you, Grams!

Day Five: Bathtime at Home

Her fifth day of life on this earth was her first full day spent at home...

And her 5th day ended with a bath!
This video is a bit all over the place (I was watching her more so than the camera's aim), but it's what I have:

Thanks to Rob & Lisa for this lil' newborn outfit!

Post-bathtime: Clean and cozy-warm, well fed and well swaddled and sound asleep. She didn't wake again until her middle-of-the-night 3am mealtime.

Cookies By Who?

The day after we came home from the hospital, a rather LARGE bouquet of rather LARGE (and uber adorable) sugar cookies was delivered to our home - - a bouquet of cookies? - - yes, it was a definite first for us! I'd heard about these "Cookies By Design" creations, and although I'd seen a couple promotional pictures before --always cute and well presented-- I had always been really skeptical as to how tasty a cookie that's sturdy and thick enough to be stuck on a stick could ever be... Man, I'm tellin' ya, these cookies were delicious! And OMG, more than ample, for sure!

Once we removed the cookies from their sticks and stashed 'em in a Tupperware the following day to keep them fresh, we were able to satisfy our daily cravings for something sweet for over a week! BTW: The bouquet was too large to store in any of our kitchen cupboards, so we'd first had to stash the entire thing atop the dryer in our laundry room, so our kitties wouldn't be able to paw or nibble at it in the night.

Thank you so much, Suzanne & Jason,
for the nummy and generous treat!

Bringing our Baby Girlie Home

Getting baby girlie into her 'take home' outfit...

Although we'd attended the "Hospital Discharge Class" at 10am that morning, and we saw one of my OB's partner docs early on, given the green light to have my c-section staples removed so we could head home, we didn't get to leave the hospital until 5:30-ish that Sunday... Wound up having to ask/remind our nurse, Priscilla, four different times to come remove my staples.

Lil' baby girlie girl wound up dozing most of the day away... About to loose her yellow hospital security ankle band...

Secure and asleep in her infant carrier car seat inside the Matrix for the first time...

Otis and Owen meet our lil' juli-bean in the very first minute of our arrival home... No hissing nor any aggressive behavior of any kind exhibited - - we're pleased and relieved.

And Otis gives her a lil' kiss on the cheek, tickling her with his whiskers!

Congratulatory Flowers O' Plenty

Although we've been home now since last Sunday, many of the flower arrangements we were given while in the hospital are still quite fresh and lovely, now strategically placed about our front room, so that one can look in any direction and view one of the colorful bouquets. My honey-man took pics of them all for me while we were still at the hospital. Here's a sampling of the sweet arrangements we were given:

This one is from aunt Radeane, along with a number of colorful congratulatory 'It's a Girl' and 'Happy Birthday' balloons she'd brought, as seen with my honey-man in the previous post for Day #4.

I am in love with this Peter Rabbit egg-shaped jar is darling! I'll have to take another picture of it later, to better feature the jar. I'm certain those who sent it do not realize the significance Peter Rabbit holds for me and my childhood... It will be a precious addition to our nursery shelves beside all my childhood Beatrix Potter books, including the complete set I purchased in 2001 from an incredible bookstore in Manhattan.

And I plan to use this arrangement's glass ABC block base as a vase in which we'll stash the baby girlie's binkies. And yesterday, I removed many of the small, darker pink roses and have hung them to dry to be placed inside a glass corked vase to be kept on one of the lil' juli-bean's bedroom shelves.

My step-mum brought us these: Very cool vase, PLUS I absolutely LOVE bulb flowers!
Daffodils and yellow or red tulips are my three very favorites.

Day Four: "We Want More"

You want to see more pictures of our baby girlie, huh? - Yes? ~ Okaybee! Twist my arm!

These pics are from our lil' juli-bean's 4th day of life in this world.
CONFESSION: I'll admit some of these pics are a bit redundant, but I couldn't possibly pick a single favorite close-up shot.Threw this one in for kicks...
Here's my honey-man, about to make his first trip to load the car, it being our last day in the hospital, that Sunday, March 29th.

Her hair isn't particularly thick, but it is over an inch long at the nape of her neck and at the top of her crown. And yes, she does have alotta hair, more than most newborns, indeed!

Her tinsy tiny eyelashes kill me!

Look at that lil' thumb poised upon her lil' chinny chopper!