7 Weeks

I need to start writing stuff down because I am going to forget it. Don't expect anyone to read all my ramblings but at least enjoy the pictures, courtesy of our friend James - thanks!!!

This is our baby girl Maia Jean at 7 weeks....she sits like this naturally, even in her sleep as you can see, we did not pose this in any way. I am unsure how I played a part in the creation of such a girly-girl, she is so delicate in every thing she does; good thing she has an all-boy brother to toughen her up a little! She is really so precious though and we love her to pieces.

Maia Jean seems to do the "normal" developmental things about a week or 10 days behind her brother. She's very content and not in a rush to do anything, but just this week she started regularly tracking toys with her eyes and also just yesterday she grabbed for a toy several times for the first time. She is all smiles for her daddy (I can play with her and try to coax smiles all day long, get nothing, and then he walks in the door and says something to her and she smiles at him right away). She only cries when she is really sad, and she looks so sad when she does it! She loves to sleep curled up on someone's chest and she is starting to get some weight to her, at her last appointment she was 7 lbs 5 oz so I'm guessing by now she is about 8 pounds. She outgrew her first newborn outfit this week and is starting to graduate into 0-3 months.

She LOVES her pacifier and it will almost always make her stop fussing if she gets the slightest bit irritated. She has sucked on her pacifier since day one like a pro. This will probably be a hard habit to break at some point but right now we love it.

I look so much like my mom in this picture its uncanny. We've decided Maia Jean has her dad's face shape and eyes, and my nose and mouth. Her hair is darker than Josh's and her eyes are still blue, but a more grey-blue than his.

This little boy gets BORED and goes from content/interested to this face in 0.2 seconds when he does! He is less content than Maia Jean, he likes to be entertained a lot and always wants to be looking at something new. Or listening to our voice - if he's wailing (he doesn't cry - he's either quiet or wailing, our poor neighbors.....) because he's bored, hearing our voices will sometimes calm him down. He has been focusing on toys/books for close to two weeks and occasionally will grab at something if he really likes it. When he is on his tummy he gets frustrated with the process of turning his head and gets angry, even though he's been able to do it since he was less than one week old and still in the NICU. Maia Jean learned this trick later than he did but she is more patient with it - she doesn't get frustrated even when it takes her a few tries to do it.

He was 9 lbs 4 oz at his last appointment so probably about 10 lbs now. We think he has a little red in his hair, and his eyes are bluer than Maia Jean's, so maybe they'll stay blue. He is a combination of Ryan's brother Russ and my dad, lucky boy he will be very handsome. :-) He is STRONG and when he's on his tummy he tries as hard as he can to push up with his arms. Laying on his back he can already get one leg up and over the other by twisting his torso, if he sets his mind to it he may be rolling over sooner than we'd like! They still share a crib but we'll seperate them when he starts rolling.

Maia Jean studies things every once in a while when she's really alert and interested, Josh studies EVERYTHING.

Then he gets bored and starts to show it, this face means he is going to start his fire siren wail if you don't change things up ASAP.

He is not nearly as good a sleeper as his sister, who will fall asleep in your arms and then not budge when she's set down. He looks like he's sleeping peacefully.....

And he might be, you can never tell....if you think he's deeply sleeping and he's not, you'll find out the second you set him down and he screams to be picked back up without missing a beat!

He eats about 4-5 oz every 3 hours. She eats about 3 oz every 3 hours. We are trying a new schedule today of feeding them every 2.5 hrs even if we have to wake them up, because I am going to be flying solo when they are 11 weeks (after the 4th of July, up until that point I will have more or less had around the clock help, thank you family!) and if I'm going to do it without totally losing it, Josh has got to start sleeping at night. We're hoping that by working harder to keep him awake during the day, and getting in an extra feeding (by feeding him every 2.5 hrs) in during the day, we'll get more sleep. To give you an idea, last night he slept from 11-1, 3:30-5:30 and 8:00-8:30. So you can do the math on how much sleep that gives his parents. :-) The best night we've had with him so far was a 3, 2 and 1 hour stretch - meaning 6 hours of sleep for me, but not uninterrupted by any means. Ryan helps out on the weekends and when he can on weekdays, but he has to go to work in the morning so I try to do as much as I can at night.