Iva's First Month

Guest post by Mommy:

It's been 30 days since we welcomed Iva to the family.  That hardly seems possible and yet because of the busyness of the holiday season it does seem possible.  Oh the conflicting emotions.  It's hard to be a "new" mom again and you can't wait to get some reaction from baby so you wish away this time, but then miss it so fiercely later.  Always the irony.

We have a picture of all three girls in this outfit!

Iva:
Let's see.  What has the month brought about....she's spending more and more time awake, but is still pretty sleepy.  She wakes up with us about 7:30 in the morning and is awake for about an hour.  After that she will doze and wake kind of fitfully for the next 3 hours.  She sleeps really hard in the afternoon and evening hours.  For awhile she kept being WIDE AWAKE at about 10:30 at night until 11:30.  It was obnoxious because it would be JUST as I had laid down for the night!  I have no concept of how she "sleeps" at night.  She sleeps with me (please don't report me to protective services.)  We nurse at will. She caught her first cold at three weeks.  It has just meant that she has a stuffy and congested nose but no coughing and it really hasn't been bad, but MAN does she SNORT and snuffle and grunt.  Especially at night!  Very grunty.  No real smiles yet.  She does seem to "light up" for me though.  She's a pretty happy baby that prefers to be held.  I appreciate that you can generally "fix" her when she cries and pretty quickly.  She prefers you to be standing up and bouncing when she's fussy.

I have done this for all of our girls too just different stuffed animals!

She didn't like this part of the one month photo shoot!

Me at one month:

Hmmm.  What can I say at just over 4 weeks post partum.  It's been interesting.  I feel like I should be more tired and somedays I really am.  I barely function in the evenings.  I prefer to sit and cuddle my baby.

I don't experience the typical baby blues.  My "blue" moments kind of come and go and are more likely to happen after three weeks.  I dislike the post partum phase very much.  I have had a hard time getting used to a human being who is ENTIRELY dependent on me.  I love breast feeding, but not for like four weeks.  Her mouth gets bigger, I'm tougher, etc.  I've had some frustration with my post baby body.  Which is RIDICULOUS I know.  It's like I forgot how to do all this in the 4 and a half years since having Cara!  Maternity clothes are my favorite still.  So comfortable.  I love pants with no button!  However I also feel like it highlights my lovely flabby middle.  It's still so jiggly even if it's mostly back to where it was.  Oh and dressing for my chest has been wonderful.  Not really.  I'm sounding really negative.  I'm actually really happy and a little tired.

I went back to the gym at two weeks.  I'm not teaching, but I'm pushing Iva around in her stroller on the indoor track and at three weeks I started doing my mom's classes with some major cheating and modifications.  However this week I did go full out with modifications at her boot camp class.  It felt good.  I feel my skinniest and strongest at the gym.  I did teach the Kid Zumba class at Cara's preschool at three weeks.  That was fun.  Three classes for  a half an hour each.  It went well.

I do miss spending time with my big girls without a little bean draped between us.  I feel like I'm ignoring their needs sometimes or snapping at them unnecessarily because they still are just KIDS.  How in the world should they know that some how a switch would flip in Mommy and the house would suddenly seem DISGUSTING.  I also didn't get to play in the snow with them because Iva was always needing something.  I'll have to work in some undivided attention with them.

My laundry is getting done on my same schedule of one load a day.  Iva's poop seems to be toxic and refuses to come out with stain remover!  My house is relatively clean.  I've ignored some of the bigger jobs like mopping but hey.  I just had a baby!

I can't wait to see what the next months bring for Miss Iva.