"Babyfest" Nevern Square Picnic

It's been awhile since I've seen my NCT baby mamas as we all have been having babies for the last month or so. Luckily, Elis sent out an email last week asking if we should all try and get together while the weather was nice and suggested a picnic in Holland or Hyde Park. As we all have new babies and are not very experienced public breastfeeders, I offered our Square's Garden as a possible venue as there is restricted access and my flat was right there in case of emergency...well, a diaper or bathroom related emergency. 

So on Wednesday, the 25th, all the girls came over around 1:00 pm, with their own packed lunches, and hung out in Nevern Square Garden in the sunny, almost 80 degree weather! There was 8 moms, 8 babies, 2 grandmas and one pregnant mama (poor Chiara wasn't due until today).

It was really fun and helpful swapping war stories from our first few weeks of being moms. It made you feel surprisingly better about the whole experience and that you weren't the only one struggling with certain things. 

The babies were all super cute! We had Mom Elis with little Annabelle, Mom Thea and little Sammi, Mom Karina and baby Jasper, Mom Daria and baby Alexandra, Mom Kirsty and little Octavia, Mom Gelareh and teeny Soufi and Mom Tannaz with baby Gabriel. Juliette was amazing! She slept on my blanket for most of the time - only waking for a little snack twice. The girls all stayed until about 4 pm. 

Thea got a great video of the day. We were quite the spectacle with all the teeny babies! 

  

First Full Night's Sleep!

23 July 2012 - Juliette's first time sleeping through the night! She went down at 11 PM and didn't wake up until 7 AM! I did not get the same 8 hours of sleep as I was concerned something was direly wrong since she was not waking up and my "milk machines" were about to EXPLODE due to the lack of feedings. So I slept from 11 PM until 4:30 AM. Then I pumped, and "rested my eyes" until 7.

What do I attribute this too? A large bottle before bed (at least 3 oz) and then swaddling her until the point of complete immobilisation.

I was a bit worried yesterday (the morning after the "Big Sleep") because she then slept from 7:30 AM until 3:45 PM, waking only for a feed here and there. The nurse running baby massage said that was due probably to uncharacteristic heat we were having (and then no AC to boot). 

I thought for sure there would be no sleeping last night due to the giant nap, but my little Koala Bear went down at 11:10 PM thanks to daddy's magic touch and woke up at 6 AM! This is all very promising, indeed...  

  

Raspberries are Funny!

Bia (that's what my mom wants to be called) was blowing raspberries at Juliette today and we finally got some smiles on camera! 

 

Our First Girls Only Slumber Party!

Andrew is in Scotland this weekend with his mom, and my mom was trying to give me two good night sleeps while he was away by being on baby duty. It worked Friday night, but last night my little Princess Peach woke up at 3:30 am and decided she didn't want to go back to bed after guzzling the one bottle my mom had for the middle of the night feed.

In came my mom at 4 am so that I could "top her off" but even that didn't work. My poor mom was falling asleep as I tried all my techniques to get Juliette back down, and I finally convinced her to go back to her room and sleep! No reason we both should be tired in the morning. 

4 am quickly turned into 5 am. After some helpful suggestions from my Facebook friends, I turned on the white noise Hair Dryer app I had on my phone and that seemed to be lulling her back to sleep. 

Back to our room we went and 15 minutes of Hair Dryer noises, plus a little drink for good measure, Juliette passed out on me. Instead of trying to get her back in the crib (all the movement kept waking her last few tries) I just plopped her down in Andrew's spot on the bed. She slept like a dream for another 3 hours. Maybe daddy's "scent" helped calm her because he is my secret weapon usually when I can't quite get her to pass out.

When she started stirring around quarter to 9 am, I laid next to her, watching her little face as she woke up. It must have only been for a few minutes, but it was one of the best moments I have had with her to date. 

Her little face is so expressive and I think I saw every emotion pass over her face 5 times over. She has the most heart-meltingly beautiful smile you have ever seen. And she kept moving her arm so her hand would bump my mouth. I'd kiss it each time she did that, which seemed to make her smile in her sleep. It moments like that that make all the exhaustion worth it. She's perfect.  

Juliette's One Month Birthday!

Juliette is one month old today! Boy, time certainly flies. Probably because I am in a fog most days - zero sleep really takes it out of you! 

Our fourth week has gone really well though. She still eats every 2 to 3 hours during the day and then the nights are wild cards. Sometimes she'll sleep 4 - 5 hours in between when I put her down for bed and the first nighttime feed, but most times it's 3 - 4 hours before the first feed, then always 2, sometimes 3 hours if I'm lucky, until the next feed and then another 2 - 3 hours before the final feed and by that time, Andrew is ready to get up for work.

We have definitely not found our routine yet, but the Health Visitors say by 6 weeks, babies usually start getting the whole routine thing.

Juliette has now lost the majority of the hair on the top of her head - we call her our little old man! She has also developed some baby acne. Both issues I've read are related to her expelling hormones that she received from me during pregnancy. She has already sprouted new hairs on the top of her head, but we can't tell what color they are yet! The hair on the back of her head is holding on strong! She rocks the "skullet" well.

Juliette also now has real baths regularly! Sometimes she absolutely hates them, sometimes she doesn't seem to mind so much. One thing I know for sure is she HATES being cold! She sleeps the best when she is wrapped in her furry pink blanky. She is definitely like her mama in that way :) 

We also went to baby massage yesterday! Juliette was the only girl with three little boys - Geron, Martin and Henry. Juliette was the youngest baby there and twice the size of 6 week old Henry and just as big as 8 week old Geron. Martin came in late so I'm not sure how old he was, but Juliette was just as big as him too! 

Baby massage was nice because it teaches you how to bond with your baby as well as soothe them. Juliette slept the entire time so we just watched, but the nurse teaching the class made a point of telling me that I naturally massage her all the time (which is really good!) and that baby massage just puts a rhythm to mom's nature tendencies. We learned leg, tummy (which can help with wind) and chest massage moves yesterday. Next week will be arms, face and back. We have not tried this on Juliette yet, but she and I will have a lot of one on one time today so maybe when she's awake later I'll give it a go! 

Juliette's other grandma came on Saturday as well, so she is being loved more than ever! We took our first big walk through Hyde Park to celebrate :)

This best thing about today though - Juliette smiled at me for the very first time where she actually meant it. Boy, does that just melt your heart... 

First smile at Mama!

 

Juliette's First "Ah Goo"!!

Bia had Juliette talking by 3 weeks! Well, saying "Ah Goo" back to her :)

Following her mama

Juliette really loves her vibrating chair (thanks Aunt Steph!). She's usually obsessed with the monkeys but in this video, she was more interested in watching her mama!

Week 3!

Whew! This week has flown by. I think we have started to get a little more realistic about what it's like to have a baby. Don't get me wrong, Juliette is REALLY good! But let's just say there have been a few sleepless nights where little miss has decided to get up at 3 am and not go back to sleep until 6! These last few nights we've gotten more on track, but it was a little rough there for awhile! 

This week Juliette took her first trip to the mall with her Abuela and Mama, had a visit from Valentina and Rob and became a US Citizen! She was as good as gold on all accounts! 

We need Juliette to have a passport for our trip to France next month. We were going to try for UK, but we haven't been "settled" in the UK for 5 years. This won't be an issue once she has her Belgian citizenship because she will be a member of the EU with residence in the UK. Andrew has sent in his declaration for her to be a Belgian citizen to the Embassy, but we have to wait for an appointment that could take up to 4 weeks! So that leaves us with the US Passport. 

After a thorough read of the US Embassy website last night, it was unfortunately necessary to bring Juliette with us to the 8 am appointment at the Embassy today. Since Andrew had to go straight to work afterwards, I had my mom come along to help me get home with the baby and gear.

We were out the door amazingly at 7:15 am, hailed a black cab and were at the Embassy with time to spare! Unfortunately, there was a cue outside the entrance as we weren't the only parents registering the birth of a baby at 8 in the morning! Security took forever and the kicker was - no cell phones in the building! Oh, and they had no place to store them. So my poor mom had to hang around outside while we took care of business. At this point, the lady checking us in said it could take hours to accomplish our appointment... great!

Once inside, we were the third ticket number. I little feed for Juliette and a diaper change later, our number was called! Only 20 minutes we had to wait! Everything went smoothly except for two small hiccups - we brought UK sized passport photos and we didn't bring our marriage certificate (which, to this moment, I still am not sure what it matters if we prove we are married - she's still born to two US citizens!). 

So out the door we went to the Pharmacy down the block to get new passport photos. I had to literally hold up Juliette as they didn't have the nice bean bag set up to lay her on this time. The poor girl has an awful pic like her mama but mission accomplished. 

Back at the embassy, it took us another 15 minutes to get back through security even when we didn't have to wait in the SUPER long cue that had formed. We turned in the pictures and then had to wait another 30 minutes before we were called to a window (this whole set up was DMV style) to literally hold up our baby to show her likeness to the pictures! How crazy. 

BUT, she is now a US citizen, our marriage certificate has been mailed next day to the Embassy and we should have a passport within the next 4 weeks! 

Weird baby thing this week? Juliette is losing a little bit of hair on the front of her head. Apparently this is normal, but it was coming in so cute! We'll see how this turns out... 

We also had a 3 week photoshoot today. Please enjoy the photo highlights from Juliette's third week! 

 

 

Two Weeks Old Today

Jules is two weeks old today! It is also Andrew's first day back at work. We chose a special onsie to make sure he knew we missed him! 

We also had a visit from Kenna and Baeden today. Baeden is almost 11 lbs at 2 months - doubling his birth weight! I wonder if Juliette will be the same?

Juliette had a nice bath this morning to bring in our two weeks cleanly (well, a head to toe wipe down with Cotton Wool and Water). It's amazing - not too much going on, but the days sure fly by! 

"Still not sure what I think about baths"

This is my favorite picture of today. Such a doll baby :)

 

The Unofficial 8 lbs!

Daddy wanted to weigh Juliette again today because she is getting to be one chunky monkey. With our trusty kitchen baby scale contraption, we determined she is 8 lbs 3 oz! I feel like we are probably ruining our kitchen scale in the process, but it is kind of exciting to know what she is weighing in! Daddy is very happy because that means she can use her baby Bjorn now! He's really been looking forward to that. 

Good news for mom? Yup! I weighed myself this morning too because my belly is almost gone and I only have 10 of the 30 lbs I gained during pregnancy left to lose! Thank you baby girl for breastfeeding like a champion - it's just melting away! Tomorrow is two weeks from D-Day. I think that's pretty darn good! Only 4 weeks left until I'm cleared to exercise.