Baby Fries's Blog

Baby it’s cold outside! Happy New Year!

Ok, so it has been seven weeks since Layla was born and seven weeks since I have posted on the blog.  That’s because the last seven weeks have been some of the fastest, most tiring, most enjoyable, most crazy weeks of our lives.  We have been to the pediatrician’s office for Layla’s first 2 visits and Walmart a few times.  We have been to the mall to see Santa. We have been to take family pictures. We have traveled to North Carolina to see one set of grandparents and spend New year’s.  We have changed at least a thousand diapers I think, and have washed Layla’s clothes, including the changing pads 100 times.  We have got up in the middle of the night every night since she came home.  All of this has happened in just seven weeks yet Layla already seems so much bigger! She has had 2 growth spurts in those seven weeks and at times I didn’t know if we would survive.  She wanted to eat all the time!

We did have a great time during the holidays.  My parents definitely fought over who got to hold her.  They were a huge help in letting Jared and I get some rest. We didn’t realize how tired we were until we arrived in NC.  When we drove up to the house, a sign was on the door that said “A baby changes everything.”  How true!  We would normally only take maybe an hour or two to pack our things and then drive a seven hour trip to my parents.  This time, it took about 6 hours to get everything together, that does not include loading the car the next morning, and about 10 hours to reach Winnabow, NC.  Layla did travel well though.  Our stops just took longer, alot longer.  Jared washed his car during one of the stops.

During the holidays, Layla slept quite a bit. She woke up on Christmas morning to eat and then went back to sleep while the rest of us opened presents.  My mom and aunt threw a shower for us while we were there so Layla got to meet many of our friends in the community. She also decided to sleep through the shower.

New Year’s Eve was to be date night for Jared and me and babysitting night for mom and dad.  Jared and I dressed up a bit and went to a restaurant in downtown Wilmington around 8pm.  We had a great dinner and we talked and yawned while we were eating our meals.  We decided that we were still tired and that neither one of us would be disappointed if say we were to head back early in the night.  I mean, we wouldn’t want to miss Layla’s first new year and the chance to kiss her at midnight!  So we walked in the door to my parents’ house at 11:30pm, just in time to watch Dick Clark’s show.  I think I was in bed by 12:05am!

Layla and I have been hanging out at home mostly since we returned to TN.  We have had so much snow this year in Johnson City and so we’ve had good reason not to go out and about. She hasn’t taken much interest in the snow anyways.  Today, Layla is 7 weeks old! Last doctor’s appointment before Christmas she weighed almost 10 pounds and was 21.25 inches.  I bet she is at least 12-14 pounds now.  Layla’s eye sight continues to improve as now she really locks in on our faces when we hold her or feed her.  She loves to look at the flowers on the wall when she is on the changing table.  According to our baby email update, she should be socially smiling at us now.  We’ve had a couple of smiles but that’s it so she may just be taking longer. She has begun to “talk” quite a bit at awake times.  She makes the funniest sounds and has some funny expressions.  Jared and I often find ourselves laughing at what she does.  She does a good job of holding her head up sometimes and has done that since Christmas.  The girl also likes to eat it seems and has some big gas and burps for someone so tiny!  As Grandpa Paul says, she is a healthy looking baby.  That is another change for Jared and me, talking about diapers and what color they are and how many.  My friend Ada warned me about that.  You never thought you could talk so much about dirty diapers and spit up!!

I’ve posted several pictures for you to see on how Layla is growing.  I hope to post videos soon once I figure out our new software.  Jared and I invested in a camcorder for Christmas, another thing we wouldn’t have done if we didn’t have a baby but something you definitely have to do when you do have one.