1 Month

Cora turned one-month old yesterday! We got dressed in our fanciest fleeces and headed out the door for our doctor appointment at 8:00 a.m.

 

Cora did great with her check-up. She tolerates being naked better than her big siblings did and though she kept a look of general suspicion on her face for the whole exam, she did not cry.

suspicious

Until her HepB shot anyway. Then she screamed in an totally overly dramatic manner and continued to whimper long after she could possibly have remembered what made her upset. A bit of a drama queen, that one. But her stats are great! She's growing like crazy- up to 22.5" long (90th percentile; she grew 2.5" in 4 weeks, which I find pretty amazing) and she's broken into the double digits for weight- 10 lbs. 5 oz. (75th percentile; I'm very proud of her new double chin and chubby cheeks). Her head remains the smallest of my babies, falling in the 65th percentile. We drove through Starbucks on the way home so mommy could get her first chai tea latte since the icepocalypse and then went home for lots of post-shot cuddles (just because she was milking it didn't mean I wasn't happy to oblige :)).

 

We got our proofs from our newborn portraits earlier this week and I just love them. I'm so glad- this was my big Christmas present to myself and I wanted so much to capture the genuine enchantment we all felt for our "new baby Cora," especially in those early days. She was 6 days old when we took these pictures and I think it came through.

 

Landon and Claire continue to adore her. The other night when I was putting them to bed Landon realized he hadn't gotten to hold baby Cora (like it was with Claire, it's always "babyCora," one word) all day and he was so sad that I let him get out of bed and snuggle with her for a few minutes. Claire holds her a little less- she's really not quite big enough to handle her as easily as Landon does, but she is still extremely attentive to her baby sister. Any time we talk about anything, Cora's name comes up- either because "Cora gets to go too, Mommy!" or "Cora will do [x] when she's bigger" or "will baby Cora get to come?!" She's very much a part of everything Claire thinks about and Claire is always there to show her a toy or pat her head or tell her that "everything is going to be alright babyCora" whenever she cries.

 

We're still largely in the getting to know you phase, but we've figured out a few of Cora's likes and dislikes. She likes (LOVES) to be held upright on your chest or shoulder so she can snuggle in like a little wombat and snore. She also likes to be sat in your lap and bent in half over your arm. This is the only other acceptable holding position, and she'll snuggle into your hand and fall asleep there as well.

 

She loves her bottles and attacks them like a baby piranha. She is a sloppy eater and she is FURIOUS when you move the bottle to wipe her mouth. She is still on regular formula, making her the first and only one of my babies to make it to one month without being switched to a super expensive hypoallergenic version. In gratitude, Santa picked her up an extra Christmas present at Target yesterday.

 

She sleeps pretty well at night, at least for a 4 week old. She's no Claire, terrifying us with an 8-hour nighttime sleeping marathon at 10 days old, but she gets up every 4 hours to eat and goes right back to sleep. We're hoping those intervals will start stretching out, but at least she seems to understand that nighttime is the sleep time and daytime is the party time.

 

She has a love/hate relationship with the car. She loves to drive fast on the highway and will fall into a dormant state for as long as you stay above 55 mph. Unfortunately, all the daily driving I do with her is just quick trips to school and daycare and the store, all of which are less than 3 miles away and involve a lot of stop signs and speed limits under 40. So basically she screams the whole time. This upsets her big siblings far more than it bothers me and both of them spend the whole ride trying to sing to her and shake her car seat and otherwise calm her down, which actually makes more noise than the yelling infant. But it is sweet.

 

Cora LOVES baths. She takes them with me, snuggled on my chest or resting on my legs with a big warm wash cloth draped over her. We both think this is delightful and often spend up to 20 minutes soaking and singing songs and relaxing in the watery warmth. She is a very sweet and slippery addition to my evening bath time routine.

 

For entertainment, Cora likes for you to sing to her 8 inches from her face, move her arms around slowly, and kiss her cheeks. That's her favorite. She will tolerate the play gym for about 10 minutes, which enables me to do individual steps of dinner. She hates the swing with a screamy passion and tolerated our neighbors' MamaRoo for a whole 5 minutes before yelling at that too. The papasan chair was acceptable for the first three weeks, but she doesn't like it much now unless someone is talking and singing to her while she sits in it. Landon and Claire are excellent at that little duty, and not just because the existence of dinner depends on it.

 

My favorite time of the day is when she wakes an hour early for her morning bottle so she can snuggle with me in bed. JP gets the big kids up, dressed, fed, and takes them to school, so I get to stay in bed, and every morning for the past two weeks Cora has woken up only 2 hours after her last bottle instead of 3 and I swear it's just because she knows that's the one time I'll pick her up out of the bassinet and put her in our bed. We snuggle under my covers, and I hover between sleep and awake, savoring the way she relaxes again as soon as she's on my skin.

 

All in all, Cora just fits right into our little family life and routine, with maybe a few dozen interruptions for snuggles, bottles, and some "you tried to put me in a warm, comfortable, specially made baby entertaining device" protest crying. As with Claire, it's not quite right to say we were missing something before she arrived, because that doesn't feel true, but she undoubtedly makes our family feel even more complete. A little bigger, a little crazier, and a lot more cuddle-filled.

 

When we were thinking about trying for #3 Becca told me that life with 3 was "beautiful chaos" and I think that's exactly right. And it's only going to get more beautiful and more chaotic as we move along. Happy 1 month Cora Linnae!