Smiles

We got our first official "this is not gas" smile from Maisie on November 19th and like the pictures you see here, it was a thing of beauty. Her smiles have increased in frequency since then and now we get to see that gummy grin several times a day, she is now even attempting to make some noise!

To see my children smile or accomplish anything for the first time melts my heart. To watch joy spread over this new little person's face for the first time ever was amazing and brings my heart such joy to be the person who witnesses it, there will never be another "first smile" and I got to be the one she shared it with.....thank you sweet girl for yet another moment of joy in my life.

Magical Bobo

Every kid comes up with some sort of crazy name for their pacifier. "Pappy" and "Boppy" are just two of the unique names our friend's children have come up with for their pacifiers. Jonah calls his a "Bobo", how he came up with Bobo is beyond us because we have always said Paci, which doesn't really sound like Bobo to me, but hey to each his own. Anyhow the name Bobo has stuck and now we refer to Maisie's pacifiers as Bobos too.

So now to the point.....I love these pacifiers....ahem....I mean Bobos. We used them with Jonah and they were awesome. I thought I would try another paci with Maisie, those Gumdrop pacis with the straight nipple, yeah no dice she was not having it. I tried them because they were readily available in stores and well priced. The Natursutten ones that I love so much are a bit pricier and you have to order online, Babies R Us stopped carrying them for whatever reason. Both the Gumdrop and the Natursutten are a one piece design, which I love so no water gets trapped with all the frequent washings therefore no bacteria grows either. So when Maisie was not digging the Gumdrop pacis and gagging every time we tried to give them to her, I caved, shelled out the cash and got 4 of them. Well, I should have done that from the beginning, because she took to them immediately and is able to keep them in her mouth a lot better, which Neal had a feeling she would. I think part of it has to do with the shape, the Natursutten nipple is the orthodontic shape and the Gumdrops nipples are straight and I think the other factor is material the Gumdrops are a silicone paci, which none of our kids have liked and the Natursutten is a pure natural rubber, so no chemicals involved huge plus! The other added benefit and maybe why Maisie took to this paci is that since Natursutten's design simulates breastfeeding in that the pacifier touches the baby's nose and chin in a manner similar to the breast when nursing.

So this huge long post about a pacifier all to say, I love them and so does my baby! They soothe her and keep her happy.

Moving On Up......

.....to the next size diapers that is. At 1 month old Maisie weighs 11 lbs 7 oz, that is 1 lb 7 oz outside the weight range for the newborn prefold diapers she has been sporting since birth, so no wonder why they are a little tight and I was having such difficulty securing them!!! As you can tell from the pictures (which were taken about 2 weeks ago on 11/19/11) the diapers fit, albeit, a little snug, but I got them on her and we had no leaks, actually we very, very rarely get leaks with cloth diapers and if we do it is usually user error. Money savings aside the "no leaks" is another big lure to cloth diapers, we have yet to have a major "blow out" with either child in cloth diapers. The newborn diapers might have fit her for a bit longer if I did not have to put a preemie prefold underneath as a doubler to increase absorbency. Luckily, with a bigger size prefold, like the ones she is now, she does not need a doubler because the diaper is bigger therefore more absorbency.

Sunshine

Being the good big brother he is, Jonah wanted to share his favorite song & musical abilities with little sis, Maisie.

Perfect.

My sweet, sweet love.

She Is Five

Last week my first little girl celebrated her 5th birthday. Wow, I have a 5 year old, wow I have 3 kids, but that is a whole other blog post! Anyhow, since things have been a little, well, busy around here we decided to keep both of the kid's birthdays low key and celebrate with just us. We started the day off for her with the infamous huge balloon and presents of course. It was a pretty low key day, she went on a nature hike with her Daddy where she climbed over fallen trees, jumped off logs, swung from vines and in general had an all out fabulous time. Neal said they probably walked for over a mile in the woods at the end of our cul-de-sac and she was sad they had to come home. She took along her camera so she could snap some photos of all the nature she saw and Daddy even entrusted her with his camera which she actually got some really good shots with. She is definitely following in Daddy's footsteps there with her love for photography. All her birthday dreams came true when after lunch we revealed to her the Silvermist (one of the fairy's from Tinkerbell) cake that she had been talking about for days. All in all even though there was no huge party this year with all her friends, we did our best to make her feel special and make the day all about her. We will make up for it next year when we will certainly have our work cut out for us when we celebrate 3 birthdays all within 3 weeks......stay tuned for that one!











Painting her toes the day before her birthday, a gift from Gigi and Papa Slimick, she was so proud of herself that she painted her toes all on her own.

A Few Firsts

Maisie's first cloth diaper that I put on, the midwife assistant put the first one on after she was born.....isn't it so tiny? It is a preemie size prefold! So itty bitty! To give you an idea of how tiny, these diapers measure 11x11. She has since moved on to these AND a newborn prefold together because she is such a heavy wetter! I will try and snap a picture of that, the newborn prefolds aren't much bigger, I think they are 11x13, but a bit thicker. This is my first time cloth diapering a newborn, I did not start with Jonah until he was about 3 or 4 months old, so it was a bit of a challenge getting the hang of putting cloth on such a tiny human!
10/28/2011

First time meeting Papa & Gigi Slimick
10/29/2011

First Bath
11/7/2011

First time outside in the Moby
11/9/2011

Our midwife came back on November 10th for the second postpartum visit, everything is fabulous, Maisie looks great and since her birth has gained a whole 1 pound and 1 ounce! As of November 10th her weight was up to 9lbs 5ozs. I am certain she probably weighs more than that now since she eats like a champ!