How is everyone? (Laurel)

We heard how Isaac is doing, so now it's time for an update on another member of our family -- Laurel.

Today was Laurel's "due date," you know. But instead of being born today, she's already nine days old! And how is she? Well, I keep being surprised by how small she is. To be more precise, she's "light." (She's not "short," since she was 20 inches long when she was born, which is the 60th percentile for height.)

I suspected she was going to be lighter than Isaac, who weighed eight pounds, eight ounces at birth, but I'm shocked by how much lighter she actually is. You may recall that I predicted her weight as seven pounds, 13 ounces -- quite a bit more than the seven pounds, two ounces the midwife's scale gave at birth. But then Laurel went to the pediatrician just 12 hours after she was born, and their scale gave her weight as six pounds, nine ounces! Tiny! (That puts her in the 25th percentile for weight.) (Despite my total endorsement of homebirth, I have to say I'm more inclined to believe the medical establishment's well-calibrated digital scale than the midwife's portable sling-style scale.)

Laurel's head was a little bit smaller in circumference than Isaac's, at 13.25 inches instead of 13.9 inches. Seems like it would have been easier if the universe had given me the smaller baby to birth first, but I didn't get to choose.

But despite Laurel's relative smallness, she's doing extremely well. She is good-natured, mellow, and happy. There has been no inconsolable crying, as she fusses pretty much only when she wants milk or wants to be picked up. And I swear I've already seen her grin. Dare I even suggest that she might turn out to be an easy baby?! Oh, I know it's too soon to tell*, since she still could be under the influence of newborn sleepiness, but she at least seems better-regulated than her brother did at her age. She nurses strongly until the milk is gone, she sleeps for relatively long stretches, she doesn't need to be swaddled to sleep because she doesn't startle that much, and she's happy to sit in the swing and look around while we eat our dinner. Sometimes she even sleeps in the co-sleeper bassinet for two or three hours at a time, instead of waking up and screaming the moment she is set down, which was Isaac's technique!

However, she doesn't look like me. How many kids would I need to have before one looks like me? Well, there's a theory that Laurel might develop the same little divots at the end of her nose that I have, but overall that's not much of a resemblance. At least Isaac could conceivably have gotten his coloring from me; Laurel pretty much misses the mark on every count -- she has dark brown hair, dark skin, and a strong nose that turns down at the end. (Her eyes are dark blue with a lighter blue star-sapphire pattern around the pupil, and while they could eventually turn blue or green, my feeling is they'll be green, like Craig's.)

Isaac resembles Craig's paternal side of the family, with a touch of my paternal side. Laurel resembles Craig's maternal side of the family, with a touch of my maternal side. My mother does, after all, have dark brown hair and darker skin. And Laurel's feet are totally my maternal grandmother's feet, as are my sister's -- very long and very narrow, with second toes that extend beyond the big toe.

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*And in fact it's way too soon to tell whether she's "easy" or not, as I've just remembered something I once read about colic peaking at six weeks of age. But I don't remember when it is supposed to start, and I'm not going to look it up, either!