Thursday, June 30, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
3 months
Three whole months have now gone by since we first met our Isabel. She has gotten so big, but is still so small. Three months seems so long and so short. I have learned a great deal about being a mom, yet have only grasped a tiny bit of what it means to be a mother.
While Isabel has been able to hold her head up for about a month, she definitely has full head control now. It is so cute to see her turn her head back and forth, up and down to look all over the place. Just within the last few days she has started to lift her head up as if she is trying to sit up when she is laying down at times. She definitely likes to be looking around to see what is going on!
She laughed for the first time this month! Daddy said that she laughed for him about 2-3 weeks ago, and then I got her to do it last week! While she isn't laughing consistently it is super easy to get her to smile. All you really have to do is look at her! She does the cutest little thing when you smile and baby talk to her - she brings her little fists up to her face, as if to say "oh you're just too much!" She will also hide her face in your chest as if she is shy :-)
She is pretty consistently sleeping almost all the way through the night. She wakes up for just one feeding between 2-4am. It is so nice to get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time now!
The "crying it out" has been going well. For naps she only cries for about 5 minutes and then is fast asleep. It takes her a bit longer at night though... It is hard to find that perfect little window of opportunity when she is tired enough but not over tired.
Breastfeeding has been going great - actually too great! She absolutely refuses to take a bottle! I try to give her a breast milk bottle at almost every feeding during the day but she just wont have it. Daddy tries in the evening when he is home, and I always elicit the help of friends when they are around too. We have tried 4 different types of bottles, but this stubborn little girl knows what she likes, and that is the boob! I really need her to take a bottle for when I go back to work in August, so we will continue to try and duke it out!
Her stubbornness has really begun to show as more and more of her personality comes through. She is a little woman who knows her mind, that's for sure! Yet for the majority of the day she is a happy little girl, who loves to cuddle, look around, blow spit bubbles and coo as she tells me everything that is on her mind!
Here is Isabel blowing her spit bubbles!
She was getting hungry!
While Isabel has been able to hold her head up for about a month, she definitely has full head control now. It is so cute to see her turn her head back and forth, up and down to look all over the place. Just within the last few days she has started to lift her head up as if she is trying to sit up when she is laying down at times. She definitely likes to be looking around to see what is going on!
She laughed for the first time this month! Daddy said that she laughed for him about 2-3 weeks ago, and then I got her to do it last week! While she isn't laughing consistently it is super easy to get her to smile. All you really have to do is look at her! She does the cutest little thing when you smile and baby talk to her - she brings her little fists up to her face, as if to say "oh you're just too much!" She will also hide her face in your chest as if she is shy :-)
She is pretty consistently sleeping almost all the way through the night. She wakes up for just one feeding between 2-4am. It is so nice to get more than 2 hours of sleep at a time now!
The "crying it out" has been going well. For naps she only cries for about 5 minutes and then is fast asleep. It takes her a bit longer at night though... It is hard to find that perfect little window of opportunity when she is tired enough but not over tired.
Breastfeeding has been going great - actually too great! She absolutely refuses to take a bottle! I try to give her a breast milk bottle at almost every feeding during the day but she just wont have it. Daddy tries in the evening when he is home, and I always elicit the help of friends when they are around too. We have tried 4 different types of bottles, but this stubborn little girl knows what she likes, and that is the boob! I really need her to take a bottle for when I go back to work in August, so we will continue to try and duke it out!
Her stubbornness has really begun to show as more and more of her personality comes through. She is a little woman who knows her mind, that's for sure! Yet for the majority of the day she is a happy little girl, who loves to cuddle, look around, blow spit bubbles and coo as she tells me everything that is on her mind!
Here is Isabel blowing her spit bubbles!She was getting hungry!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Life
LIFE.
Such a little word that means so much. I look at my amazingly beautiful baby girl & see a little LIFE that is a representation of so many other lives. She is the next generation that will carry on the lives of Dave, myself & all those before us.
For Memorial Day weekend we drove up to Klamath Falls to remember & say goodbye to my Abuelito. Even though he never got the chance to meet my Isabel I know that he loved her dearly. I got to talk to him on the phone the week Isabel was born & told him that her name is Isabel. "De mi Isabel?!" Was his tickled response. He thought it was so cool that she was named after my Abuelita. The next thing he asked was why I didn't name her after him! :-)
The weekend was full of family, tears, funny stories & singing around a bon-fire snuggled by my Abuelito's jackets. Building fires was one of my Abuelio's specialties. His secret ingredient: diesel fuel! Even though he wouldn't have known any of the songs he would have loved seeing us all together.
It was so wonderful to see La Casa Perez fill of LIFE. Amazing food (posole, another one of my Abuelio's specialties), little kids running around, fire wood being chopped & a pick-up game of basketball.
It was reminicent of the days when both my Abuelitio & Abueltia filled the house with LIFE & love. But that is the thing about LIFE. The love that makes up LIFE never dies. Even though my precious abuelitos are gone, the love that they brought to this world lives on in the LIFE that they have given to us.
Every time I visit my Abuelito's house, one of the first things I do is visit my Abuelita's room. Her bedside table contains a photo of her, a vanilla candle (her favortite scent) & a framed letter that I wrote to her telling her of all the gifts she has given me. The first gift that I thanked her for was the gift of LIFE. I read this letter to myself in Spanish as I sit on her little stool beside her bed - just like I used to do when she was alive. The first time I brought Dave to the house I told him about the letter & my Abuelita's LIFE amidst tears. It was then that he said, "I think the name of our firstborn daughter should be Isabel".
On this Memorial Day weekend we also visited the resting place of my grandparents, Norman & Geanne Fraley. Just like my Isabel will never get to meet her Great Abuelito, so I never got to meet my Grandpa. This photo memorializes 4 generations & 100 years of Fraley LIFE as my Grandpa Fraley was born in 1911.
Alice & J. Fred Goeller. The grandparents of my Grandma. My little Isabel comes from pioneer genes. Both sides of my family coragiously took great risks to give their children a better LIFE.
Isabel got to meet her great-great Aunt Addie. This wonderful woman is a living historian of our family's genealogy, and a WWII veteran who served in the Navy.
Strength, stubbornness, faithfulness, courage, generosity, compassion, joy & above all love; This is the LIFE that has been passed on to me, & the LIFE that I want to pass on to the next generation.
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