our first mother's day

Ok so this is two days late, but things don't always happen on schedule when you have a baby ruling the house! :)

It was both surreal and exciting to celebrate my first Mother's Day as a mom. I can't imagine a better gift than Sara. I'm still trying to wrap my head around my new identity as a mother - it's kind of like how some part of me still thinks I'm 20 years old, even though I know I'm not!! Ian went to a poker night on Saturday after taking Sara all day so that I could plant flowers in our garden, and then Grandma and Aunt Holly came for a sleepover. We had a lunch here on Sunday on our back porch. Sara was content in her bassinet covered with a great UV netting that M&K loaned to us. After everyone left, the three of us had a cuddle/nap on the couch.

Everyone says that I need to trust my own Mommy instincts with Sara, and I think I'm only beginning to figure out what those are. I've stopped reading the 'how-to' parenting books for now, and am only reading about developmental things or specific questions. All the trendy advice books are overwhelming and conflict with one another, or seem too rigid to apply to every individual baby. One thing I know for sure is that Sara is her own little person and we need to get to know her and her needs. I also need to develop more confidence as her mom and I think I've made some big strides with that in the past couple of weeks, though things change daily at this stage. Having a regular feeding schedule instead of feeding on demand, which happened by accident due to her early weight gain issues, has been an enormous help. We find a lot of her personality coming through too, like her big blue eyes discovering things, her furrowed brow when she's grumpy, her extreme love of stretching, and all of her kicking and moving her arms as though she's dancing. She also kind of pants in anticipation when we put her bib on because she knows food is coming! She likes to look at her mobile, toys and books now that she can see more, and she smiles at us a lot. I admit it does give me a complex when she's content and I pick her up for a cuddle, and she bursts into tears! Coping with fussy/crying periods in the evening is tough, but I'm told they will likely pass over the next few weeks.

Lastly, a very exciting development ... on Friday night we got a fantastic surprise: Sara slept through the night!! I have to say it again -- she slept through the night! We were floored. She had her 7pm bottle, then her 10:30 bottle (with her bum super slathered in Vaseline to ward off any wet diaper wake ups), and she conked out until her 7am feeding. She hasn't done it again, though she has been waking at 4am instead of 2:30 or 3am, so it's a start in the right direction!