Flecks of brown

Hey, there's a world out there!

Amalie turned six weeks old this past Wednesday. I have to say that the past week-and-a-half has been rewarding for Mommy, because little girl has started noticing things outside of herself. At four weeks she started really, truly looking into our eyes, and at 4.5 weeks or so she gave us her first smile in direct response to our voices and gazes. Now she smiles reliably to us and to her favorite visual stimuli.

The most popular is her Zanzibar mobile. The zebra and elephant are particular favorites. Jon jokes that the mobile is like "baby heroin", because it is guaranteed to make her smile and gawk unless she's in complete meltdown.

The other favorites are black and white patterns. She has flash cards and a Powerpoint filled with black and white clip art. She takes note of any high contrast stimuli, including the ceiling fan and picture frames, if they're dark enough. She loved visiting Grandma Driscoll's art studio yesterday.

Mom report: I am experiencing some anxiety over all of the things that are on my "to do" list for work that aren't getting done. I feel like I have snippets of time that could be used for writing my grant proposal, but my cognition and motivation are impaired by the sleep deprivation and my new "milk truck" role.

I understand completely that it is silly to worry about the "to do" list when I should be relaxing and enjoying this special time with my daughter. I think that the drive for productivity has been so ingrained for so long that it cannot be separated from my identity, at least not very easily. After all, it has served me well professionally. This will be an opportunity to grow, to think about how I frame my life priorities. Amalie and Jon are always going to be first, which will mean NOT having guilt about making work second. Guilt is a fascinating phenomenon that reveals much about the person experiencing it, including assumptions that we make about our world, baggage that we carry from earlier in life, expectations that we have and assume that others have for us.

Happy One Month, Amalie!

Amalie turned one month old yesterday. Jon says "she's one!", and I say "she's thirty!". Every day has been its own adventure, so I like to commemorate all of them.

At her one month pediatrician's appointment, she officially weighed 9 pounds, 0.5 ounces. This puts her in the 50th percentile for weight (she was in the 25th percentile at her 1.5 week visit), which is welcome news to Mom, who has been constantly worried about milk supply. As for length, she is closer to the 75th-90th percentile at 22 inches.

The pediatrician remarked that Amalie is particularly alert and focuses well visually. With those gigantic eyes, I would hope so! My mom said that I was highly vigilant and wide-eyed when I was a newborn too.

Important landmarks: her umbilical stump finally fell off at 2.5 weeks, and she got her first "real" bath. Note how curly her hair is when it is wet!

At around the same time, she really started unfurling and playing with her hands. The pediatrician says this is unusual for an infant this young. But Peanut certainly does have amazingly large hands and long fingers! Some say "basketball player", others say "piano player". I did both of those things as a kid, but I also played bassoon; and given that I was recruited by the band teacher to play bassoon because of the size of my hands, then perhaps Amalie will be similarly charged.

Amalie's been using her arms and hands for a while, and I think she really started hitting me out of frustration (with a fist) if I did not get her situated for nursing quickly enough when she was only a couple of weeks old. However, at about 3.5 weeks, Amalie found a new use for her hands that unfortunately hurts HER: she grabs her very thick hair, pulls, screams in pain, but does not yet know how to let go. So we have to disentangle her. This originally worried me a bit (signs of impending stereotypy?....sometimes I wish I didn't know any psychology or neuroscience), but then Kristine relayed a far worse tale of her son Cooper, who grabbed something MUCH more sensitive when he was about the same age. I guess it's a good thing Peanut is not a boy.

Right at the week 4/one month point, Amalie demonstrated her first social smiles. She's been smiling in her sleep for a couple of weeks, and she began sleep-laughing about three or four days ago, but the actual waking smile, in response to our voices, just started a couple of days ago. It is fleeting and infrequent, but it is the most wonderful thing to see after several weeks of blank stares. I've tried to catch the smiles on film, but fleeting as they are, I'm mostly getting the tail end of them. Here are some attempts:

Not many have made comments about whether Amalie looks like Liam. They are definitely unique, but I notice that she looks like Liam in some of his photos when she is nursing. It's the profile from above, and I think it is particularly the nose and the double chin that I'm reacting to. Given that that specific view is one that only I can have, I can't really get a second opinion.

She's gaining weight!

Yesterday's pediatrician appointment went well for Amalie: she gained 5.5 ounces in four days. This means that at her current weight of 7 pounds, 7.5 ounces, she has surpassed her hospital discharge weight. Jon and I have both noticed that her face is fuller than it was at the beginning of the week. So for now, it looks like I'm making enough milk for her.

Amalie is still a good baby. She loves to sleep at night, and we really only have to get up once to feed her. Last night she gave us five hours of sleep in a row. Then, during the day, she's a voracious little shark. I've learned that I can pump in the middle of the night to create a "strategic reserve" for when she is in shark mode. It's barely enough to keep her happy.

Her eyes have started to focus on more specific targets, including our eyes, and she's started learning a little bit of control over her hands. It's fun to watch her play with her hands while she's nursing or when she is awake and alert!

The first week

Happy one week old, Amalie! This is a photo of her in one of her favorite configurations: scrunched up like a little frog and swaddled up like a chunk of sushi. Of course, given that it has become so hot here this week, she is in actuality spending more time in her second favorite configuration: practically naked.

Amalie's a good baby. She does get fussy around matters of food, and she seems to think about food all the time. We took her to the pediatrician on Monday, and he told us that she has lost a little weight since she was discharged from the hospital (she's 7 pounds 2 ounces now), so we need to bulk her up. I've been trying to let her dictate when and how much she eats...which basically means that she snacks for 45 minutes, sleeps for 5, fusses, then snacks for another 45.

The transition to parenthood has been a surreal one for Dad and Mom, but I think we're doing as well as can be expected.

Poor Angus, on the other hand, is having some difficulty accepting our new addition. He is torn: he wants to hang out with us and rub his face on us and the furniture like he usually does, but he is terrified of Amalie and must suppress the urge to flee in order to do so. It's like I told Jon: he has realized that on the Driscoll totem pole, he's basically the sneakers.

Introducing Amalie!

Amalie Maren Driscoll was born at 12:53 p.m. on July 17, 2009. The c-section was a bit delayed (only by a few minutes), but once it was begun, it went incredibly smoothly. I had a fantastic surgical team, including the anesthesiologist, the attending nurses, and Dr. Baer himself. The procedure took maybe ten minutes (not counting the stitching afterward), and it was almost completely painless. Weird with the tugging and pushing sensations, but very, very easy otherwise.

I was overwhelmed with joy the moment I heard Amalie cry. She did it! After that, nothing mattered. As I stared at the ceiling while Jon and Amalie retreated to another part of the OR for her assessments, I was filled with an elation the likes of which I have never felt before. Nothing could touch me.

Here she is!

One more day... (39 weeks)

In precisely 24 hours, our dearest Peanut/Amalie will be entering the world. Will you look like you did ten weeks ago, or will you look different? Will you be healthy? Will you like what you see? We will see!

We love you! Dad and Mom