Burrito Baby

Did I mention Daphne needs to be swaddled to sleep? It's part of the high maintenance life style she lives.

One of my favorite bits of information about brand new babies is that they have no idea their arms and legs belong to them. They get those arms flailing and then they're distracted by all that activity around their heads. Your unswaddled baby might be trying to fall asleep, but keeps hitting herself in the face. Then she gets distracted and angry, wondering who it is that's doing the hitting. I think this is so funny!

So that's the main reason she's swaddled. We didn't want her to be poor little Daphne, always wondering who it is that keeps hitting her in the face.





























Instead, she has to wonder who is doing this to her:

In All Seriousness

This is supposed to be a fun blog about Daphne and her cuteness, but I suppose I can meander off that topic this once to share about this:

Red Envelope Day
www.redenvelopeday.com

It grabbed my attention as a way to make a powerful statement to our president. I'm not usually into this kind of thing, but I have a soft spot in my heart for giving every baby a chance at life.

Daphne is actually going to be in a book about this very topic. We were given the option to terminate after we found out some of the things wrong with her, but knew that her life was of value and importance and she deserved to live. You just never know what can come of one person's life.

Our president deserves our respect because of the position he holds. My prayer is for him to give that same respect to everyone he is leading, both born and unborn.

The Big 2 (Months)

Two months ago today, Daphne was in the hospital, about 18 hours old.

Today she is at home, happy, and wearing a flower headband.

Call Me the Baby Whisperer

One of my favorite parenting books is The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems by Tracey Hogg. The theme of her book is how to get your baby on a routine, which in her case, she calls E.A.S.Y. You put your baby on a 3-ish hour rotation of Eat, Activity, Sleep, time for You. So, your baby eats, is awake for awhile, sleeps, you get your stuff done, and the cycle repeats. Except at night, of course, when you leave out the activity part.

We love this routine for a couple of reasons. One, your baby learns to go to sleep on her own without any props. Two, it helps take out some of the guesswork of why your baby may be fussy. If your baby is fussy after being awake for awhile, you know she's probably sleepy. Or if she's just gotten up and is fussy, you know she's probably hungry. Three, your baby gets used to the routine, and just sort of knows what to do next in her day. It's wonderful.

The author describes several baby personalities and how they may adapt to this routine. We've discovered that Daphne is a Spirited baby. She's very vocal when she needs something, doesn't like to sit around in a dirty diaper, moves around a lot, needs to be swaddled for sleep. It's a nice way of saying that she's high maintenance.

We've had a hard time getting her to go to sleep and to stay asleep. This book gave a great tip...watch very closely for your baby's sleep window. Whatever sign she might give to show she's tired, immediately start your sleep-time routine. I've finally discovered that our spirited Daphne has a very small sleep window. It's more like a sleep sliver. You miss it, and getting her to sleep is like pulling teeth. So basically, the whole time she's having her activity time, I am watching like a hawk for her first yawn. Then it's time to go to her room where it's dark (she's very distracted by lights), swaddle her up, and put her to bed. Within a few minutes, she's sound asleep. I catch her on the first yawn and everything goes perfectly. I get lazy and wait for yawn #2, or even worse, yawn #3, and it's all over. She cries a lot.




























If you miss her sleep window, er, sliver, pretty much the only way she'll sleep is if you strap her in the baby carrier and run up and down the stairs. Seriously. Simple rocking or walking around doesn't cut it anymore. So if you need a work out, feel free to come over here and carry Daphne up and down the stairs. It's great for your thighs.














Of course, by now I'm very good at catching yawn #1.

Here's Looking at You

Daphne's geneticist says she has large eyes. This can be, according to him, a sign of nearsightedness. I'm assuming that I am the parent that passed on the 'large eye' gene to Daphne, and I have pretty perfect vision. I guess I could be one of those people who thinks they are seeing things clearly because they've never known anything differently. Maybe you give me a pair of glasses and all of a sudden I see what clarity really is.

So we're supposed to take Daphne to the eye doctor. I really don't know how you test the vision of a 2 month old. Hand motions to show the direction of the 'E'? Read the smallest line of letters? And then if she fails, do they fit her with teeny tiny glasses?

I guess I will have the answers whenever we get this appointment booked. Until then, here she is in all her big-eyed glory:

Daphne's First Day

Thanks to my friend Amy Pearson, we have some lovely pictures of Daphne from the hours after she was first born.

Amy volunteers with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org), an organization where professional photographers volunteer their time to come to the hospital to take photos of terminally ill or stillborn babies. Since we were unsure of Daphne's life expectancy, Amy was on hand for her birth to capture all the moments we would have.





























She did an amazing job.

Of course, now that Daphne is thriving, we will have Amy do a photo shoot of her in her healthy state.

Daphne is becoming one of those babies who is constantly being blinded by the flash of her camera-happy parents' photo opps, so I'm sure she'll do fine hamming it up.

We've Taken the Plunge

I've decided to join the blogger world.

This is something I never thought I would do. But then I had a kid. And I started getting 17 phone calls a day from people wanting to know how the kid was doing. And even more daily emails from people wanting pictures of the kid. So to save my sanity, I've jumped into the blogging world to update in one easy-to-find location. We'll see how dedicated I can stay.

The name of the blog? Ask David. I'm not even sure I understand it myself.

I don't think there is any better way to start out a blog than with a picture of your baby with her first gun, which she got today while shopping with her dad: