So, it's been a busy week. :)
Little Clara is an excellent sleeper. She's been regularly doing 3-4 hour sleep stretches at night, and once slept for SIX straight hours! She eats quickly and goes right back to sleep, so I'm generally only up with her for less than 30 minutes each time, and I'm really feeling good as a result. I've had a lot of help over the past week and been able to physically take it easy for long enough that I'm thinking I can start doing things like going for short walks, or doing more physical activities around the house. For now, I'm just enjoying being able to curl up on the couch with a gigantic awkward belly in my way. I've lost 25 lbs in 10 days - also a good feeling. :) I can now climb a flight of stairs without getting winded!! I'm started to get regulated with Clara's appetite, too, so the soreness in my boobs is going away now, too. Such a relief!
But enough about me. Clara had a checkup on Tuesday, where she was only 1 oz shy of her birthweight, so that's awesome. She also passed a bilirubin check, since the doc thought she might be a bit on the jaundiced side, but I think she was coming out of that. She was pretty yellow on Sunday but by Tuesday she had pinked up again, and the check confirmed that. She's definitely like her sisters - nearly every diaper is poopy, and she puts on some serious displays of capability on that end. I think it's funny that my mom is so impressed by her output, but her other grandma thinks nothing of it - totally normal for a Sullivan, I guess!!
One morning, she woke up and looked at me with a Travis expression on her face, much to my surprise since to that point she had looked like sleeping baby Kristin. But the shape of her face, around her eyes, is definitely Travis's. She is such a pretty baby!! I swear she's trying to smile at us. It's not like she has a broad range of expressions yet, but she does have different looks when she's staring intently and thinking hard versus enjoying wiggling and hearing her sisters talk. She has such a pleasant expression then that it seems like a smile! Her little legs are long and skinny and floppy, and she really swings her arms around a lot when she's talking with her sisters.
Emily asks all the time if she can hold her, and if I set her up in the blue chair with the boppy, she does a great job and both girls really enjoy it. Audrey calls her Baby, because I think she knows when she tries to say Clara it comes out more like Carla, and if it's not right, she avoids it. :) But she's just as affectionate towards her sister... and opportunistic when it comes to us being distracted by the baby. Check out our family picture site for the mascara incident as just one example of how she is taking advantage of our diverted attention. She's a little stinker!
The big activity for this weekend is that we are writing a contract to hire a nanny! We interviewed a girl, Amanda, on Thursday who seems to be a great fit for our family. I'm really excited, and will have her here for 8 weeks before I go back to work. I know that seems a little crazy, but I have already put together a list of things I want to be working on while she has primary care of the kids. It's the kind of stuff you always think you'll do on maternity leave but of course you don't. Well, I stand a better chance this way, at least! I'm also hoping to use it to get 1-on-1 time with Emily and with Audrey, for maybe a special outing here nad there. It'll be so much easier when I do go back to work, because Clara will be in her own home with a familiar person, and being home on leave when Amand starts will make it easier for each of us to figure out how the other operates. The hardest part about this will be telling our current sitter, because she really is truly crazy about our kids. She knew we were looking, so it's not a surprise to her, but I still feel bad because the things that prompted us to go this route aren't things she can really fix. It's like breaking up with her "It's not you, it's me"-style.
Time to track down Audrey for a snooze. I suggested a nap to her yesterday at about this time, and she found her blanket and wandered off. About 10 minutes later I asked if anyone knew where she was - she was in bed!! My mom pulled down the shade in her room for her and kissed her forehead, and that was it. If only it was that easy at bedtime. :)
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