One Month!

Time flies, that is a fact, Addie turned one month old this past week and it doesn’t seem possible. It seems like yesterday we were bringing her home from the hospital and wondering what to do next, ha. For this entry I am going to reflect on my first month of fatherhood.

Babies grow fast! Addie was little when she was born, but she could barely fit into premature baby clothes, and she was only 9 days early. Now every time I see her she is actually fitting into the clothes she is wearing. She only wore one hat for the longest time, her pink UT hat I ordered for her, because it was the only one small enough to fit her tiny head. Now, she has a variety of hats to choose from, but Daddy will continue to prefer the pink UT hat and I secretly know Addie prefers the same.

Addie is gaining weight, getting a belly, and now sporting chubby cheeks. She has been to the doctor twice, both in the first week or so of her being home. She received good reports from the doctor both times, and she will go back tomorrow hoping for the same.

Addie is beautiful and I am still amazed every time I look at her. She is growing more alert by the day and developing her own little personality. I still cannot tell who she looks like, but after seeing Lacy’s baby pictures I would say she is displaying more of her features, and I am ok with that. Lacy definitely has the looks in this relationship, ha. Her eyes may be the only thing she got from me; they are getting lighter and more and more blue by the day.

I’m lucky to have Lacy. She has been awesome. Not only is she a natural mom, she is a great wife. It has been a blessing for me to watch her turn into a mom, and the transition seems so easy to her. She works hard at every phase of mommyhood. She has had a lot of trouble breastfeeding, and where I think most moms would have given up, she continues to try and make it happen, and she IS making it happen. I will go buy formula to help supplement with and I will tell her, “wouldn’t it be easier to just bottle feed her?” Of course it would be easier, it would cut down on feeding times and provide more rest, it would eliminate painful breastfeeding, Addie takes the formula with ease, no more pumping, etc. But still Lacy says, “I know this is what’s best for her, and that is what I am going to do.” She changes diapers, she bathes Addie, she stays up late and is up throughout the night, she teaches me, she answers all my questions, she does everything without complaint or resentment, and she loves it because she loves Addie. When people ask me how everything is going I want to say, “Everything is great and my wife is awesome!” I realize everything is going great mostly because of Lacy.

Addie is lucky to have Lacy. One day when she can understand I will tell her how awesome her mom is, and how hard she worked in the first few weeks of her life to keep her happy, healthy, and content.  

Babies smell good. It’s true, you know they do, unless they have just done #2.

It's amazing how many bad drivers are on the road when you have a baby in your car. This is one of the first things I noticed when we took Addie home for the first time. I always thought I was a grandpa driver, but now I may be worse. I think your protective instincts take over immediately. Cars that were out of control, speeding, running lights, riding your bumper bothered me before, but now that I have a baby on board they REALLY bother me.

Addie can smile. We started seeing her first few smiles about a week ago, and someone told me it was probably because she had gas, which I thought was weird. I don’t usually smile when I have gas, and I sure as heck don’t smile when Lacy has gas, but apparently babies smile when they have gas.  BUT, yesterday was the first real smile I think I have seen from Addie. I came home from work and she was in her swing getting a little irritated. When she started to cry I picked her up and she definitely smiled right at me and stopped crying. Holy cow tug at the heart strings, her not crying almost made me want to cry, ha. I rocked her to sleep, or at least I thought I did, and put her in her crib. A few minutes later she was crying away again. We left her in her crib to let her “cry it out”, and boy did she cry. After about 10 minutes Lacy went to get her and for the first time Addie had tears in her eyes. So my thinking is, Addie smiled when I picked her up, and cried when I put her down, real tears too.  She loves me.

We are lucky to have great friends and family in our life.  I probably gained 10 pounds in the first few weeks Addie was home because of all the food that kept showing up at our house. Every day we had lunch or dinner or both provided and who am I to let it go to waste? It was awesome, and we are thankful.

We are also lucky to have great grandparents that will babysit anytime we ask, ha. Because of that we have been able to get out of the house for dinner, or a party, or whatever we need whenever we need. I know it won’t always be like that, but we are lucky to have family in town who love their kids and grandkids. I can’t imagine not having that luxury.

God is good, His plan is perfect.