A Day in the Life of Mamma: What We've Been Doing Since

So. It's been 7 weeks since Camille was born. She 7 weeks old today!

Since coming home from the hospital, so much has happened. There has been, of course, the typical baby stuff: feeding, changing, sleeping, no sleeping. Mom was with us to help take care of Camille and Brooke. She was great! She did all the dishes and laundry. She took Camille to let us sleep. She took Brooke on outings and helped to take care of her. And she was a wonderful support to me for all of my down days and stress with breastfeeding. Because I was having such difficulty with breastfeeding and was so stressed about it, Mom stayed for about 3 and 1/2 weeks. I was worried that every time I fed, it took me at least an hour with everything. And in that hour Brooke was just left alone. And babies feed every 2-3 hours. It felt like too much. So Mom stayed to help, even though she wasn't planning on staying that long.

After Mom left, I had 3 days by myself with the girls before Mom Holbrook came to help us. They were a few rough days. But Daniel was sick all that time, so he was working from home for those days. He was able to help a little bit with Brooke because he was around.

Daniel was sick for a while just after Camille was born, almost 3 weeks. Which sucked for him and for me. He was miserably sick for a LONG time, and coughing a ton. He steered clear of me and Camille while he was sick, which meant that he didn't help a lot with Camille. It was pretty rough for me not to have a break, especially during those days when we didn't have either of the mothers here. But ... what can you do?

Having Mom Holbrook here was great. I'm so glad she could come and spend time with us. She was great with Brooke and Camille, and it was wonderful for me to have a bit of company. She also picked up doing a lot of the things that my mom was doing, like dishes and laundry and cooking. The only hard thing was that since she has such a hard time sleeping, she takes sleeping pills, which knock her out for 8+ hours. She would usually take the first shift at night and let Daniel and I have a solid, uninterrupted block of sleep before she brought the baby to me and go to bed. That was great, but usually meant that she would sleep through the whole morning and I had both babies for those hours. Geez! I sound like such a baby! Like I can't handle being with alone with both of my girls! Honestly! But being sleep-deprived and with the whole feeding difficulties ... it was hard. Brooke got into a lot of trouble. But that is for another post. :)

The house is going to pot. The only things that got done are the things that pile up: dishes and laundry. The floors have been swept a few times, and mopped only once since Camille was born. But, hey. We're in survival mode. This is how it is.

Camille is a wonderful baby! Aside from the nursing problem, she is wonderful and happy. She sleeps A TON! Up until about a week or so ago, she was sleeping, like, all day. The only times she woke up was to eat, and then she was right back to sleep. The only problem is that she sleeps for kind of short periods of time, unless she's being held. I'm holding her now, as I'm writing this, because I know she'll sleep if she's on me. When this baby IS awake, she is so quiet and happy. She just chills, either in her little bouncy chair, her swing (which she loves), or on a blanket on the floor. She looks all around, just taking things in. She's been so smiley lately, too. Her first smile was about 3 1/2 weeks after she was born. She looked right at me, I was talking to her and playing with her, and she gave me a faint little smile. It was so sweet. And since then, she has been smiling more and more. I love it!

She's such an easy baby. She's pretty easy to read. When she's tired, it's easy to put her to sleep. I swaddle her up tight, hold her tight, rock her in the chair and she drops off. Sometimes I need to shake her a little bit and shush in her ear, but she falls asleep pretty easily.