Uncle Chuck's visit during Labor Day Weekend

My brother, Charlie, came with my mom, Susan, aka "Booze" from Wisconsin to visit Reagan during the Labor Day Weekend.  David's sister, Caroline, wins the award for "1st Blood-Related Aunt to Visit" when she traveled to Tennessee two weekends ago, and Charlie is the first uncle to visit.  We're eager for her to meet other family members this fall/winter!!!

Grandma Susan helped me to bathe Reagan yesterday. It was the best bath session yet!  Reagan hardly cried and seemed to actually enjoy it!

Reagan is beefing up!  She graduated from her “newborn diapers” to her “1 diapers”, and the newborn clothes are getting tighter on her.  I can tell from the deepness of the indentation marks that the diapers make on her thighs every time I take them off.  These are things that you notice these things when you change 10-15 diapers a day. 

She also hiccups just about every day.  That seems like a lot for an adult, but apparently that is normal for a baby to hiccup every day or every other day. Below is a quote from parents.com that gives more insight: 

"Experts aren't sure why young babies hiccup so much; some say it's due to a miscommunication between the brain and the diaphragm, the abdominal muscle that controls breathing. Regardless of their cause, hiccups are a harmless part of babyhood."

We went to a "house-welcoming party" for our good friends, Amy and Chris B., in Knoxville.  This is one of the Amy's after whom we named Reagan's middle name.  It was great to see their 1-year old, Jude, and get out of the apartment to socialize with our nearly 5-week old baby.  Their house had a beautiful yard, great porch for summer evenings and wonderfully spacious rooms, including a "man cave" with a movie screen downstairs that we all enjoyed as we watched the Wisconsin-LSU football game Saturday night.  All in all, it's been a great Labor Day weekend in Knoxville so far!

Reagan is getting a little older and more mature, so we feel that we need to do a little more parenting with her as she is becoming more aware of her surroundings, instead of just leaving her in her Boppy chair or bassinet to sit for a few hours a  day. We need to teach her, stimulate her, and interact a little more!  I can't believe that we're supposed to do "tummy time" with her just yet, since it's still difficult for her to hold up her neck, but we've exposed her to more toys and "equipment" given to her from our baby showers, so that she is at least observing and grabbing at toys and trinkets, if not "playing" with them yet.

We're so used to her acting like a dog, in terms of being a breathing being and not having the ability to communicate verbally yet.  However, it is my goal to continue to read my short stories in French to her and carry her in my arms and play with her more than having her sleep in her bassinet all day long.

I began attending cross country practices this week to fulfill my coaching responsibilities this fall before I return to school after my maternity leave ends in mid-October, and the most frequent question asked by my athletes was, "Will you speak to her in Spanish or French?"  I want to try speaking at least one of these "foreign languages" to Reagan while David speaks English to her as we raise her, because I think it's so vital to be bilingual in today's growing global economy and world.  We'll see how it goes, since this is my first experience like this, but how can it go wrong?  I'm going to speak in French with her and see how she develops as a bilingual child, if I can stay disciplined to communicate to her this way.   Of course, she's is such a mixed communication bubble with my Wisconsin accent (which she will never hear if I stay disciplined enough to speak strictly in French to her!), David's neutral Indiana accent and the strong southern accent down here that she'll hear from peers in Tennessee. It'll be interesting and fun at the same time to observe Reagan's communication patterns!

Football season

It feels like it has been football season down here in Knoxville, Tennessee, for three months because they do a count down to the first game starting in April!  

I walked by this assortment of desserts with Tennessee decor as I grabbed my turkey and cheese at the deli counter from our Kroger grocery store this morning. 

David was searching for Chicago Bears onesies for Reagan.  Our deal was that I would not purchase any Green Bay Packers gear for her if he did not buy any Bears apparel for her, so he better keep his promise!  Below are the ones that tempted him.......

Angel Swaddle gift

Speaking of unique and fun gifts from my last blog post... I forgot to mention another recent gift that we received from our friends, Anne and Scott, in Chicago.  They sent us the Halo Sleep Sack Swaddle outfit from Pottery Barn kids.  

It's really soft and keeps Reagan comfortable and warm so that she falls asleep immediately when we wrap her up in it!  It's amazing!  See pics below:

One month old!

Reagan is 1 month old today!  It's hard to believe because I still remember her birthday clearly and how easy the "pushing" was at the end before we saw her for the first time in the hospital room.  I did, however, have a very strong epidural, so I felt hardly any pain.

Here's some pictures from her 1-month photo shoot today:

I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of Reagan's tiny feet and hands.  I see them every day when I hold her, but I realized today that she won't be so tiny forever, and I'm going to forget how precious these little limbs are!

After four weeks, a lot of people have asked us if Reagan is sleeping well at night and if we are getting sleep ourselves.  I'm not sure what "sleeping well" exactly means, because she sleeps for 18 hours a day like most newborns.  Reagan does have a set routine at night, so at least we know when to expect her breaks in sleep for a new diaper and feeding: Midnight, 3-4 AM and 5-6 AM.  And she will never cry just for the heck of it.  She always has a reason and it's one of the magic three: dirty diaper, hungry or needs to be held.

I think it's crazy that I can feel every single movement in a newborn's body when you hold her.  You can feel all the liquids that pass through her body (both the milk going in and the urine moving out), and you can feel the gasses that pass out, too.  You can usually hear all of her bodily functions working: burping, digestion of food inside and farting.  Her farts sound like a normal adult, and if I'm in the other room, I don't know if it's David, Reagan or Hank!  Reagan is so tiny that you feel all of these miraculous signs of life working as you hold her in your arms!

Finally, I started running again this week, for the first time since November.  It's also the first time in my life that I have ever felt any "boob jiggle" when I run.  It shocked me a little when I took my first few aggressive steps on the street and thought, "Where did this extra weight on my chest come from?!"  I've been a member of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee for so long, and now I realize how I took that membership for granted.  It's a little distracting and uncomfortable when I run now, and I wondered if I was regretting having a secret envy for bigger boobs in my pre-baby life.  I may need to go shopping for some new sports bras!

David came home from work this afternoon and was holding Reagan in his arms and dancing around with her.  I took this picture of them together in the kitchen.  When we looked at the picture after, it was incredible to see how they had the same cute smile in this moment.  I think it's my favorite picture yet!

Smiles and neat gifts

I love very much being a mom, but I had no idea know how much time a newborn baby really needs from you.  I am either feeding her, putting her to sleep, changing her diaper or just holding her every hour.  But, I say it as a realization and not as a complaint, because it is wonderful spending this time during my maternity leave with her!  As tired as I am from the constant feedings and chantings every part of the day, I love being with her and seeing her grow, and I will definitely miss all of this mother-daughter time when I go back to work full-time in October. 

Below are some smiles that I caught with my iPhone camera.  I read that babies don't do "social smiles," or smiles that are in response to outside stimuli, until 2-3 months, but I swear she does a lot of grinning during the few hours of the day that she is awake!

David and I were very fortunate to receive some great gifts from family and friends at our various showers this year.  We received a few recent ones following Reagan's birth, which included some generous gift cards from his aunts, uncles and cousins in the Midwest.  

We also got a few unique gifts in the last week that I thought were wonderful to introduce to Reagan as she gets older:

My Aunt Marg, a dental hygienist, and Uncle Dave sent us a baby tooth book and baby toothbrush for Reagan when she gets those first pearly whites!  They also sent an adorable baby dress, which is currently in the washing machine, along with a bunch of other laundry that I need to do this weekend...

David's former babysitter and good family friend, Ginny, and her husband, Grant, also sent us an adorable baby dress, which is also in the washing machine, and two terrific books.  One is the "P is for Putt" golf alphabet book.  Blair and Al Clark already gave us an A-to-Z book with ice hockey vocabulary from the baby shower in May, so I'm excited for us to read both books to Reagan because I'm going to teach her the alphabet in English, French and Spanish, too. Both books will help Reagan to do a lot of practice with the alphabets in all three languages! :)

Ginny and Grant also sent us the Latin version of "The Cat in the Hat" because Ginny was a student in David's dad's Latin class at Culver and wanted to pass on her love for Latin and memories from being in Mr. Haase's Latin class.  I think that I would be awful at the pronunciation of the Latin words, so I'll let David read this book to both Reagan and me during our story time.

Finally, David's mom sent us the cutest onesie from the Culver Academies' uniform shop.  It has the Culver mascot, the eagle, on the front.  Reagan has some more growing to do before she can fit into it, but she will wear her daddy's school colors proudly when she beefs up!