Ten more things about Laurel

Laurel turned five weeks old yesterday!

She is Thursday's child, which means she has "far to go." I don't know what sense is intended by the rhyme: will she need a lot of improvement, or will she accomplish a lot? (Isaac is "full of grace," having been born on a Tuesday.) As a baby, actually, she does have far to go -- she is pretty much at the absolute beginning, just off the starting line.

Laurel finally graduated to the "size one" diapers. When I bought the tiny "newborn" size diapers nearly two months ago, I only got one package, and I seriously considered skipping straight to size one. We only used one or two packages of the newborn size with Isaac (they claim to fit babies up to ten pounds but they really only work well under eight pounds), so I figured it would be the same with Laurel. That'll teach me to assume that my children will be similar!

I am still getting a thrill out of the plural: "my children." Not just "my child." I didn't know it would sound so right. Despite my excitement and satisfaction with two, however, there are no current plans for a third! I'm already 39, after all.

Laurel smiled a lot this morning, and I think a few of the smiles were actually aimed in my direction. I worked hard for those smiles, however, by cooing shamelessly in a high-pitched voice and and tickling her belly. She returned the favor by cooing back at me. (I was having so much fun that I even took a few pictures -- like maybe 25 or 50.)

Isaac continues to show no signs of jealousy of his new sibling, and he seems more confident that there is enough love to go around. At least he seldom asks anymore if we love him. He is still fairly enthusiastic about being the diapering assistant, and he really enjoys fetching burp cloths and helping shampoo Laurel's hair. He and I went to the grocery store on Tuesday afternoon to get supplies to make Valentine's Day cookies, an activity I had planned as a special private mother-son outing, and he actually suggested that Laurel come with us! (He wanted her to come because he thought she would enjoy watching him.) We left her at home with Craig.

Craig goes back to work on Monday, however, so we'll see how Isaac adjusts to entire long days of having to share one adult between two children. Also, we'll see how he feels when Laurel finally wakes up from her sleepy newborn stage and becomes more demanding. I keep expecting that to happen. It's not that she's super "easy," whatever that means, but that she's such a contrast to Isaac in that she often stays asleep when set down. I was used to having to hold a sleeping baby. Even more unusually, sometimes she'll wake up when set down, but then she goes back to sleep on her own! (Although right now she's sleeping in my lap as I type this.)

Laurel continues to make a lot of noise while she sleeps. I've been watching her as she does this, and as I previously theorized, it's because she's trying to move. Remaining on her back, she'll incrementally shift herself across the bassinet, grunting with exertion all the way. It can take her 20 minutes to get to the edge! When she finally reaches the edge of the bassinet, somehow she turns herself onto her side so she's facing its wall. Then she opens her mouth wide and tries to suck on it, which is another incredibly noisy enterprise.

In addition to trying to suck on the wall of the bassinet, she sometimes gets her thumb or finger into her mouth for a few brief moments. Not on purpose, of course, because she is much too young to even know the digits are attached to her body -- I assume her hand just floated in front of her face so she latched on to it. We bought her a pacifier, but she doesn't seem interested in it and she just pushes it out with her tongue. (Isaac did the same thing. I know, the dangers of comparison.)

We've started using Trixie Tracker for Laurel, so if you're curious about her sleep, you can visit our Izzy Info page. (You can toggle back and forth between our two kids by clicking on "switch child," right below their names.) You'll see that for the last few days she has kept college student hours: she is awake in the late evening, goes to bed around midnight or 1:00 a.m., wakes up once or twice to snack, then sleeps in until late in the morning. Isaac, however, continues to get up at 7:30 a.m., which makes a short night for me. Actually, it works fine now, because Craig can get up with Isaac while I sleep in, but it isn't going to be as nice starting on Monday!

And, as Isaac told the youth pastor when he and Craig went to church on Sunday, Laurel continues to pee on the changing table. Poor girl. All over town, and now all over the Internet, that's all anyone knows about her.