Another Piper Update

A few days ago we were sitting down for lunch and Rowan abruptly got up, retrieved her dolly, and went to the couch. “I have to nurse the baby before I eat,” she said matter-of-factly. She hoisted her shirt and did just that…very seriously….for several minutes. Then she returned to her lunch, announcing to no one in particular: “babies are a lot of work.”

I was glad that she tolerated me snapping a few photos…you can check them out on flickr. Pretty cute. And it makes sense that she would pretend to nurse….a big part of her new reality as a big sister is that mommy nurses every few hours. So she’s seen plenty of it these past days!

We had another appointment with the pediatrician this week and at exactly one week old, Piper weighed 8 lbs 10 oz…so she continues to gain weight beautifully. She’s sleeping like a newborn should…has periodic wakeful times of an hour or so during the day, and is on continual sleep at night except for waking to nurse every 2-3 hours. 3 if we’re really lucky! Mornings have still been nice and lazy for me….I can stay in bed with Piper because Rowan goes to play with Grandma and Grandpa. The other day my mom came to get Piper mid-morning and I slept another few hours without even thinking about the baby—that’s a luxury! Then she even made me scrambled eggs when I finally rolled out of bed right before noon. Moving back in with the parents has been a great idea for the first few weeks with a newborn! Seriously, it has made for a very relaxed and restful transition for all of us. My mom and dad go back to work on Monday….then I’ll be in for the reality of parenting 2!

Rowan was not an easy baby…and we’ve been holding our breath to see what kind of temperament Piper will have. I maintain that the first few weeks don’t reveal much…newborns are on such sleepy mode, it’s hard to tell if they’re going to be fussy or calm. One piece of what made Rowan hard was that the car was not a calming place for her. She just cried in the car….if it was a quick trip to the grocery store or a long trip back up to MI. We were in Jonesboro when she was a baby, so in her first year we made several 11 hour road trips up to Grand Rapids…and they were not fun. She would literally not sleep for 11 hours, and would cry for over half the hours. It’s so exhausting when you can’t do much about the crying, but have to listen to it for that long. And even short trips were aggravating…I had to really consider whether an errand or date with a friend was worth it!

Again, 10 days is a bit young to know patterns…but so far there has been lots of crying in the car. My first time driving with the girls alone was to the pediatrician the other day (Joe met us there)….and Piper was crying harder than she ever has, which made Rowan really uncomfortable, so SHE started crying, saying “I don’t like the crying, I don’t like the crying!” over and over again. I don’t think a 15 minute car ride has EVER felt so long to me!

We’ve been looking at baby photos to try and determine where Piper came from….she was really baffling us, not just the hair, but all of her features. We looked at Joe and Steph’s baby pictures last week and didn’t see much in common. We hauled out me and my brother Tom’s newborn photos a few days ago….and her soft, stick-out hair is very similar to Tom’s when he was born. Then we checked out my photos…and there are some strong similarities! Yeah for me! She definitely doesn’t look like I do NOW, but in those newborn photos…especially the profile ones…the eyes and nose look just alike. Her face is a bit rounder than mine was (which is definitely a Cebulski baby trait), but it’s kind of fun to think that she might look a little like me! People always say Rowan looks like Joe….which is fine because I think Joe is quite handsome…but wouldn’t it be fun if Piper favored me?

To see a few more photos, click here.