Ainsley Catherine: {One Month!}

Our little Ainsley Cate turned one month old this past Saturday, (yes, really.) I'm still in complete shock at how fast this first month has flown. Seriously, didn't we just bring her home from the hospital yesterday?

Ainsley Catherine, you are ONE MONTH old! Let's see what you're up to...

Weight: On January 2nd, I took her to the pediatrician and she weighed 6 lbs. 9 oz. I'll come back and update this when we find out for sure at her one-month appointment this week.

Length/Height: 18.75 in.

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Brown

Clothes: Mostly Newborn and a few Preemie pajamas

Diapers: Newborn size Pampers Swaddlers

Likes: Eating, eating and eating. She also likes to be swaddled tightly. And of course, just like her big sister Caroline, she loves her Wubbanub pacifier.

Dislikes: Getting put into her carseat, being burped, being bathed.

*I could write an entire post (and I likely will) about our feeding routine and the difference in nursing the second baby versus the first. 

Eating: I've been nursing Little Miss pretty much on demand. Ainsley averages 2-3 hours between feedings during the day and every 4 hours at night, (unless she wakes sooner.)

Nursing has been a whole different ballgame this time around - and in the best possible way. My milk came in on the Friday that I was discharged from the hospital, which was much sooner than last time. For the first thirty days, I only nursed her. My lactation consultant said this was the trick to really kicking off your supply to a great start, so I held off on pumping and bottle feeding.

I thought it would be hard, (and it was tiring), but I honestly found it a lot easier than pumping, then trying to transfer to bottles, then washing bottles...you get the drift. I pumped for the first time last week in order to build up a supply of breast milk in our freezer. (For inquiring minds, I'm using the Medela Pump in Style and it is AWESOME.)

Sleeping: Ainsley is sleeping a ton right now because, well, she's a newborn and that's pretty much what they do. I nurse her around 10:30 p.m, then the Mister and I head to bed. She'll generally wake for her first middle-of-the-night feeding around 1:30 or 2:30 a.m, then again around 6:00 a.m. Obviously there are nights when it seems she's up every hour, but thankfully, those have been the minority. She's a pretty good sleeper and we'll happily take four or five hour stretches at night.

Right now, she sleeps in her Rock and Play, then we'll transition her to her crib around three months, just like with Caroline.

Milestones: Well, she's four weeks old, so not really anything too noteworthy; ) Babies' eyesight begins to improve after the third week and she has started to make eye contact with us, which is also really fun.

If I had to describe our first month in one word, it would be: Survival.

I'm not going to sugar-coat things: being a mom to two babies is tough stuff. My days start before the sun comes up. It has been (and still very much is) a learning experience for the whole family. We just kept saying, "If we can survive this first month, we'll have accomplished something", ha! The first two weeks, I honestly felt like we were treading water.

The week of Christmas is a complete blur. I was literally shopping for gifts at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

Week three was a tiny turning point. Things didn't seem quite as overwhelming.

Caroline is super active, running all over the place and trying to climb on everything : ) She is also really curious about the baby and wants to be involved, understandably. I try my best to include her in things like bathing Ainsley. Poor Caroline would cry and cry at first when I would nurse the baby, but that lasted about a week before she decided that was boring, ha!

Our life right now is diapers, bottles, boobs, burping, rocking, swaddling, soothing, aundry and cleaning. Macaroni in hair, tripping over toys at 3 a.m., take-out dinners, sleeping with our eyes open - all part of our everyday now. And we knew it would be.

But honestly y'all, my heart is so very full. I love those two little girls with all my being. And my husband - dear Lord, that man is my rock. As tiring as it has been, I've been on cloud nine. I said before that the happiest time of my life was after Caroline was born. I just felt this emotional high unlike anything. Same thing this time.

I think Stephen summed it up best one time when he said, "I really like our life."

Me too, husband. Me too.