Oh what a month it's been

I just realized how long it has been since my last post. I'm so behind. Abuelita left on April 9 and Wai Gong and Wai Po (my parents) came in on April 16. Everything seems to have been on fast forward since.

In between the visits, Isabella learned to sleep through most of the night. She now sleeps generally between midnight and 6AM, although one night she managed to make it to 8AM. Of course we are extremely happy with this new development, but for some reason, we've become more tired. Maybe our bodies are screaming for catch-up sleep, who knows?

Isabella started to smile in her sleep while Abuelita was here, but we kept waiting for her first real social smile. I was starting to fret because most of the babies from my March BabyCenter group had started to smile (It's amazing/ridiculous how preoccupied a person can get with developmental milestones for their baby). I kept thinking, "Is she not happy with us?" or "Maybe she'll be a serious baby," which would seem almost impossible since her father is such a prankster. Well, yesterday, just as I was about to post a worrisome message to my internet mother's group, she started to smile by herself. She even laughed once by herself while she was in the swing. The best part is Wai Gong got to make her smile too. Five times, he declared. It's funny how excited a 90+-year-old with his youngest granddaughter's every move.

Anyway, we're all doing very well. Isabella is going in for her two-month checkup today. Getting lots of shots. I'm getting the Tylenol ready and Alex is tanking up on sleep for a couple long nights of grumpiness. We'll see what happens....

Easter pics. We went to Gamble Garden in Palo Alto.







Here's the sleep smile.






We went to Filoli last week, which is where they filmed the outside shots for Dynasty. Yup, the 80's soap opera. We highly recommend the gardens for those in the Bay Area

Concession

I have finally conceded in the Pink War. Back when we first found out that we were having a girl, we celebrated by going out and buying a few outfits for Isabella. I was determined that my little girl was not going to be dressing in pink clothes with little flowers all the time, which seemed to Daddy's clothes of choice. Even when Alex was painting the nursery, I insisted on not having pink walls. After much discussion, I gave in and allowed him to paint the window trim pink and we got some pink striped curtains.

Fast forward several months and Isabella became quite the fashionista, thanks to all the generous gifts that she received. More and more pink flowery outfits appeared in her closet. Well, I've now gone over to the Dark, I mean Pink, Side. Over the last three days, I bought two dresses for the baby, both of them pink and one of them is pink with little flowers all over it. So much for the girly-girl resistance front.

In other news, Isabella continues to grow and she seems harder to carry every day. On Monday she was 8 lbs. 6 oz. Her cheeks are drooping and she has a double chin, but that makes her so much fun to look at. Everyone says they see her resemblance to me in her cheeks..Hmm...

Last night, she celebrated her four weeks of life on the outside by sleeping for a 5.5-hour stretch. That's a record!!! Mom and Dad are appreciative of the sleep catch-up she gave us.

Overall, she's been very good and she's brought more meaning to the words "family" and "love"than either one of us have ever known.


More sleeping. Second Aunt and Uncle came to visit over the weekend. Isabella didn't even open her eyes the entire time. We'll have to teach her some manners!




She has begun to take a bottle a day. Dad gave her the first one.

See? They do make girls' clothes in colors other than pink! OK, she did get the striped shirt from Jake....

Pictures

(Sorry for the bad formatting of captions and pics, I don't have this whole blogger thing figured out yet)

Priorities, priorities. Isabella spends much of her day sleeping or yawning. She's in her car seat, which she HATES and she doesn't hesitate to let us know. Thankfully, once we hit 55 mph on the highway, she's asleep.

Daddy finally got to push a stroller down Burlingame Avenue. Not that you can tell that there's a baby in there.

But really, she's in there!

Hanging out with Dad...

And Abuelita...

Isabella's first train set from the Martinez family!

Wow, almost three weeks

Where does the time go? Since Isabella was born, we seemed to have lived one very very long day. We barely know what day it is, and our concept of time has completely changed.

Isabella continues to grow at a rapid pace, and she weighed 7 lbs. 4 oz. at her last doctor's appointment on Friday. Everything seems to be going well, so she won't have to go back until May, when she'll get four (ouch!) shots. I scheduled a Friday appointment so at least we can comfort her over the weekend.

On Friday 3/16, I was looking at her umbilical cord and thinking that I should take a picture of it, since it was the last remnant of our physical connection. Well, no sooner had I thought of that and I went to sleep, noting it as a good thing to do in the morning. Well, at her 2AM diaper change, Alex discovered that the cord stump had already fallen off. So much for the picture!

We have more pictures, but I'll post those later.

It's been one week!

Wow, time sure flies when you have a baby. On the one hand, we can't believe that it's only been one week and we've learned so much from her - her signals on when she wants to eat, what she likes, what she doesn't like. And she's learned so much too, to breathe, to wear the clothes that her parents seem so inept to put on, to sleep in her own crib (that was a challenge until Alex's mom told us to put one of our shirts in with her so she can smell us). On the other, we've passed the last week in a daze, barely knowing what day of the week it is. Isabella is still figuring out that one is supposed to sleep more at night than during the day, although it doesn't help that your darn parents keep waking you up every few hours to eat.

We went to the first doctor visit on Saturday and she lost some weight, which is normal, but by Monday she gained 7 oz. back already! If only Karen had gained weight this fast during pregnancy....

Alex went back to work for half a day today. It was hard for Dad to leave his little girl behind at home. Karen and Isabella are having a great time at home though...Tomorrow Abuelita (Grandma Salazar) comes! All three of us are very excited!

Isabella's cousins came by this weekend.

Isabella's oldest cousin, Steve

And Wendy

Isabella also seems to like her rocker which has some yellow fish hanging on it.

We're home!

Hello from all THREE of us! After a fairly quick delivery (we'll save you details unless you ask) and two restless nights at the hospital, we came home yesterday. It never felt so good to be back home. Isabella is doing great, which means that we're constantly feeding, changing, and burping her. It's all worth it for those couple of minutes a day that she's alert and opens her eyes though....

Picture time!

Our last picture as just the two of us (yes, I enjoyed my epidural, OK?)

And then there were three!

1) All bundled up 2)At 24 Hrs. we're both tired 3) Yay! Eyes open wide

Thank you all for your messages and good thoughts. We're a little slow in communicating back, but we're thinking about you!

Shouldn't be long now....

We went to the doctor yesterday. He says that Isabella should be here by Wednesday.....so exciting! Of course this put us into panic mode to get everything ready. The crib is now in our room and we're trying to wash all of her clothes. The girl is quite the fashionista!