Growing Quickly

Eleanor is quickly growing out of the Pack and Play bassinet/changing table we have set up in the family room. We'll soon have to start bringing her upstairs for most changes! Here is a photo of her a few days after she was born along with one taken this morning, about 6 weeks after the first photo.

Happy Thanksgiving and Holiday Stroll

Andy, Eleanor and I had a great Thanksgiving. We got up early (Eleanor woke up at 5am) and made it to my Grandmother's house a little after noon. It's amazing how much more stuff we had to bring this year - diapers, wipes, change of clothes, burp cloths, stroller...Eleanor refused to nap until we took her for a walk after dinner. She was too interested in looking around to sleep. We had a wonderful turkey dinner with the family, although Andy ate a little later than everyone else since he kept Eleanor company while everyone else ate.

On Saturday, Danielle and Jeff came up to visit. Jeff helped Andy install the hardwood floor in the master bedroom. They got a lot of it done, and Andy should easily finish up on Sunday. Looks like we'll be ready to move up to our regular rooms (and put Eleanor in her own room at night) around New Year's. We're going to wait until after Christmas though, so that Eleanor is still used to sleeping in the bassinet in case we decide to spend a night up in Maine.

Saturday night, we went to the Nashua Holiday Stroll. We started off at Bonhoffer's Cafe for warm beverages. We walked up and down Main St. in Nashua and looked at the big tree (we missed the tree lighting because of Eleanor's schedule) and we saw a beautiful ice sculpture. We also saw a faerie and nutcracker and a couple of Santa Claus characters walking around. We dressed Eleanor up nice and warm.

6 weeks and lots of firsts!

Eleanor turned 6 weeks old yesterday. She's still mostly sleeping well at night - usually giving us about 5 hours of consecutive sleep every night. She usually wakes up at 4am for a diaper change and food and then goes back down for an hour or two. We went to visit the pediatrician on Tuesday for a weight check since she hadn't reached her birth weight by 3 weeks. She's up over her birth weight, and is doing great!



Eleanor has had a couple of firsts this week. She started social smiling on Sunday (yup, the day of her baptism). She still doesn't smile very often, but when she does, mom and dad's hearts melt and she can do no wrong! She's also starting cooing a lot over the past week. This is a much welcome change to the loud wail, which was her only previous mode of vocal communication. On Monday night, while she was sitting on Andy's lap, she actually reached over and grabbed his fingers (one with each hand). Pretty exciting.

We've been putting her on her play mat for a few minutes everyday. We started noticing that she kept hitting the orange bell with her right hand, but we couldn't decide if it was accidentally or on purpose. I moved the orange bell and put a different toy where the bell used to be. Well, she still went for the bell, so we're more convinced that she's aiming for the bell on purpose. She's already showing signs that she'll have better hand-eye co-ordination that mom and dad.

Baptism

We had Eleanor baptized on Sunday. Andy and I thought she would scream through the whole thing, but she was very good. She looked great in the baptismal gown We had everyone over for dinner and cake after. It was nice to see everyone.

1 Month Old!

Sorry for the late update. Last Saturday, Eleanor turned 1 month old. The photos show her two looks we see all the time - crying and sleeping. She seems to be starting to get over the fussy stage, but she still has her days. We have an appointment with the pediatrician on Tuesday morning to check on her weight. She's been eating very well lately, so I'm guessing that she's put on a good amount of weight. She's also grown a bit in length - some of the clothes we used to put her in all the time are now too short for her! She fits in the 3-6 month clothes pretty well - some are still a bit big, but we have so many cute outfits in the 3-6 month size, that we tend to just roll the sleeves if necessary.

We've been walking every day the weather cooperates, which has been great. Sometimes it's a little tricky figuring out how much to bundle up Eleanor, but she's usually great on walks - either looking around or napping. She also usually does well at the Mom's Support Groups on Tuesday mornings.

One good nights sleep

On Wednesday night, Eleanor actually slept from 11:30pm until 6am. She also took two nice naps during the day on Thursday so that I could get some rest and get some laundry done! It was very nice. Normally, she'll only nap during the day if someone is holding her. Otherwise, she tends to just get upset. Yesterday, she actually let me put her down for a little while without a fuss!

Roar!

Eleanor was a lion for Halloween this year.

First ride in a sling

Eleanor seemed to like sitting in the sling. Once I got the hang of how to get her in and out, it's quite easy, and makes carrying her much less back-breaking!

First Bottle

Andy finally got to feed Eleanor. Once she realized there was milk in the bottle, she drank it up quickly! Andy got to give me a much needed break!

More photos

Still more photos...

Photos - Birth Day

Since I know everyone wants to see photos of Eleanor, here are a couple the day she was born. We'll try to get the photos into the posts more frequently so everyone can watch her grow.

4 Weeks Old!

Eleanor is 4 weeks old today! It's amazing how fast time goes by. She's still adorable and loves to be held. She's still not too fond of tummy time (we try to get in 15 minutes a day), but she's always picking her head up to look around when we're holding her. Andy has successfully given her 3 bottles of expressed milk, and Eleanor had no problems making the switch from a bottle to nursing, so it looks like I'll be able to leave her with daddy for a few trips.

Yesterday we went to a Mom's support group at Southern NH Medical Center. It was nice to meet other new moms as well as see some of the people I met during my pregnancy in motion class.

Eleanor is sleeping pretty good at night. Most nights, she'll sleep from 10:30pm until about 3am. Sometimes she goes back down easily after feeding until 6:30am, but we're still working on that. About half the time, she won't go back to sleep for an hour or so.

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog. Andy and I will use this to try and keep everyone up to date on the happenings with Eleanor. We will try to post regularly, but as everyone knows, life with a babe is hectic, so bear with us. If you haven't seen an updated post for awhile, feel free to email us and ask us to post.