Fay and Nana meet

Grandma Lowe or "Nana" came to town this past week to meet Fay for the first time and help me get some much needed sleep. Thats what it comes down to these days. I appreciate the laundry help and the cooking help, but I'll give it all up if I can swap if for a few hours of sleep.

Fay is just about 3 weeks old now. And boy is she filling out. You can see it in her cheeks especially. She is getting that round baby face. I didn't even realize how skinny her little head looked until she started packing on the milk pounds. She's eating a lot more frequently than her first couple weeks -- every 2 1/2 hours or so. But she is also eating in a shorter amount of time. It only takes her 45 min to eat 30 minutes worth of boob. That is nice for mom because it means the middle of the night feedings are a lot shorter, making it easier to fall back asleep.



I think its safe to say that Nana fell in love during her visit to NYC. It was really fun to see my mom as a grandma to my little girl. You can see the experience of having raised two babies herself. The skills seem to come back readily, with one exception: diapering. Nana had a little trouble on her first diapering attempt. Of course it wasn't really her fault. Apparently the diapers we use now are created in a backwards fashion to how they worked in her day. So the tape flaps go front to back now instead of back to front. :)



Nana, Fay and I undertook a major outing on Friday afternoon. It seemed like an easy enough idea at first. We wanted to buy Fay some winter clothes. I've received A LOT of hand-me-down clothes from friends but the majority of the newborn sizes are for summer (Laurel was a summer baby!). So we just needed a few items to keep Fay warm. Things were going well until about 2-3 hours into the trip Fay got hungry. When she first started to squawk, we were in a casual restaurant and I attempted my first public breast feeding. This went well except for the fact that Fay only wanted to eat for 10 min or so. Thinking she was good to go, we finished up our meal and headed to Old Navy for one last clothing stop before going home. Five minutes into Old Navy it was evident that Fay was going to loose it if she didn't get some boob and NOW. So we quickly grabbed a handful of outfits from the racks, thinking we might be able to checkout quickly and escape. But Fay was in charge and that was not her plan. We had to make an emergency detour to the dressing rooms where I fed Fay for ONE HOUR! I have to give a big thank you to the staff at Old Navy who had no problem with me occupying a dressing room for an hour while clearly not trying on the miniature sleepers I brought in with me. In the future I think I will try to keep my outings to 3 hours or less. That shopping trip was exhausting.

Nana also gave Ryan and me an opportunity to go out on the town on Saturday night. I was a little less anxious this time than last week when I left Fay for the first time. However, we stayed away a bit longer -- going out to dinner AND a movie. And by the time I got home, my breasts were punishing me for it. I was in pain from the lack of breastfeeding and worse yet Fay was asleep when I got home, so I could not rely on her to relieve the pain! So we returned at 12:30 AM and instead of falling into bed I had to pump to relieve the pressure and to stop the milk from pouring out on its own. Another reminder of the fact that we are all just animals that can't control the nature of our bodies.