One month down, a lifetime to go!

Our little button turned ONE MONTH this week! We can't believe how big she is getting (she likes to eat!), how quickly this month has passed or how different our lives are now. (I think that I've mentioned before our surprise at how different things are, but we really can't believe just HOW different things are!!!).

A picture of our sweet girl with her elephant (gift from daddy) posing for her 4 week photo shoot (You'll notice I did not post weeks 2 or 3 --- that is because they were complete disasters with no smiling or even non-crying shots and one CRANKY baby!)


Not too much news to report. Miss Olivia is absolutely precious if we do say so ourselves. She's a pretty good eater and a good sleeper too. We have gotten several nights of 4 hours between feedings, which we cherish. She doesn't cry that much (except for the witching hour) and we can usually survive that with some swaddling, cuddling and a pacifier.

She is LOVING bath-time! It took some work for Matt and I to figure out exactly what we were doing with a squirmy, delicate, wet, little baby. We quickly got a routine down of him holding her, while I washed her. But we struggled with the ending....how do you take her from the warm bath water to the cold room to get her dressed without causing her to scream her face off? We now have a carefully crafted routine including getting her dressed in the bathroom while using the heat lamp in the bathroom, 2 towels, an "all men on deck" defense, and a two-phased approach to acclimating her back to a normal temperature (Phase 1 - turn the heat lamp off, but stay in the bathroom, Phase 2 - open the bathroom door, but stay in the bathroom and cover her with a blanket). (Note - even as I type it, I realize the excessive ridiculousness of it, but I'm going to play the "new mom" card on that one!)

It has seemed to work out though. Here she is in Phase 2 - I'd say its one successful bath-time :)



The one thing that REALLY makes her happy is this vibrating chair. Matt's classmates at Rice got her this a few weeks ago and it is the best thing that has ever happened to her (and to us!). She will sit in it for 45 minutes and "talk" to the animals, smile, and just be generally happy.


We can't wait to see what fun Month 2 will bring!

Sleepless Daze

So...until yesterday Matt and I thought we were handling this new parent gig pretty well. In fact, there have been quite a few self-serving pats on the back and high fives. Until yesterday.

At 2:00 in the morning I woke Matt up telling him that Yasmin (my sister) was in the nursery changing Olivia's diaper and he needed to go help her and then bring to her our room so I could feed her. In his sleepy state, he started to go to the nursery and then turned around and said "What?!" After a few seconds of silence, I sheepishly replied "I think that maybe I was having a dream."

But, dad doesn't get off so easy in the silly sleep-deprived department either. He went to pick up dinner yesterday....without his wallet. Luckily the nice people of Texadelphia were kind enough to type in his credit card number.

However, the events of this morning take the cake. Matt had last week off from school for Fall Break. We really enjoyed the week off and spent yesterday sad that it was over. But we all woke up early this morning to get back into a routine. I fed the baby and then cooked Matt some breakfast for a good start. We kissed him goodbye and said we'd see him this evening. A few hours later as we were waking up from the morning nap, Matt called and said he was on his way home because THIS week is actually Fall Break and school does not start until NEXT Monday! (We won't mention that he spent an hour and a half in the library by himself before he realized this!)

But, lucky for us we get another week home with Dad. Olivia and I couldn't be happier! Here are a few pics from our week together...first walk outside (check out her stylish shades!), first bottle and lots of cuteness!

Tummy Time

One of the big moments at the Dean house since Miss Olivia arrived was the day her umbilical cord came off.

First, the whole concept surprised and frankly, disgusted, her father from the time he found out about the umbilical cord when I was pregnant. So he was glad to not have to see it every time he changed a diaper.

Second, it meant she could take a real bath (which she LOVES - more on that later!).

And third, it meant we could start "tummy time" to strengthen her neck. I must say it has been a learning process for Olivia. This is her first try at it. Not so much "tummy time" as "nap time."


Matt tried to get on the floor and teach her, but she wasn't a great student. And the teacher was swayed by her cuteness and let her fail miserably! ;)



Then we discovered this little boppy head support, but it just made her mad or tired.



But...luckily she has gotten much better during the past week. Here she is holding her head up!

Newborn pictures

Little Olivia had her first (of many I'm sure) photo shoot last week with the wonderful and patient Christina Conklin. Olivia literally peed on her, but she didn't bat an eye. She just kept shooting and got some amazing shots of our little bundle. We will definitely be using Miss Christina for all our future photo needs. Here are a few of our favorites!

Settling in at home

We have been home over one week and we are starting to settle into a routine with Miss Olivia. In some ways its like Groundhog Day over here - each day broken up into 3 hour segments of eating, "playing," crying, pooping and (hopefully) sleeping.

But we are starting to get the hang of it and have figured out a few tricks. The good news is that we know Olivia loves having her cheek rubbed, her forehead rubbed or when you place your entire hand on her belly. The bad news is that those are the only tricks in our bag and when she's bored with those - its cry city!

And you may notice that our little munchkin is plumping up. She weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces when she was born. As of this Wednesday she was 7 pounds, 1.5 ounces! Matt said she's getting his "double chin."

Here are a few pictures of our first few days at home. Luckily we have had some visitors come over to help break up the monotony of the day!

Aunt Casey came over bright and early the first Monday we were home with breakfast and balloons for our yard. So fun - now all the neighbors on Queensbury Lane know that there's a new kid on the block!



Sweet Aunt Kate brought us a much needed and DELICIOUS meal (complete with homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches!!)


Mrs. Sloan


Camie, Connor and Addie






Aunt Yasmin & Aunt Nazreen


Snuggling/glaring at daddy after we gave/traumatized her with her first real bath (for those of you who read Matt's last post, this is when the "crazy eyes" really came out):


Cuddling with mommy before bed.


And our little cutie turned ONE WEEK old on Tuesday! Matt and I both can't believe how drastically different our lives have become in one short week. But we're loving (almost) every minute of it!