Clara is 2 Months Old!

2 months...

2 months...

Can't even believe it.  Only 1 more month (roughly) of my precious time home with her before I return to work.  Let's not think about that!

Weight:  12 lbs 9 oz (90th percentile)

Length:  23.5 inches (80th percentile)

Clothes:  She's still wearing 0-3 months outfits, but really she needs to transition to 3-6 months (6 months).  The 3 months are a bit snug on our growing girl!

Diaper:  Size 1

Food:  Breastmilk

Sleep: Clara is sleeping through the night most nights!

Schedule:  One of my goals over the next couple weeks is to get Clara on a consistent schedule.  I think that will help out a ton with our morning routine when I go back to work and with daycare.  We followed the Babywise methodology with Audrey and we were really pleased with how that worked for her, so I'm sticking to that with Clara as well.  In short, the Babywise schedule goes like this:  eat, play, sleep, and repeat.  I like it because it gets them away from relying on feeding to comfort them to sleep.  And with Audrey it worked so well that we never had to break her of a nighttime bottle/feeding and she slept consistently through the night starting at about 12 weeks old.  This is an ideal schedule that I would like to get to work for Clara:

6am:  Wakeup & Eat for the 1st feeding of the day  (This will allow me to get myself up and ready for work before she and Audrey wake up for the day.)
7:30-9am:  Nap
9am:  Eat
10:30am-12noon:  Nap
12noon:  Eat
1:30-4pm:  Nap (longer nap of the day)
4pm:  Eat
5:30-7pm:  Nap (Dinnertime for Carl, Audrey, and me is 6:30pm, so this allows me to cook dinner, entertain Audrey until Carl gets home right at 6:30, and eat myself)
7pm:  Eat
7:30pm:  Bathtime with Audrey
8pm:  Bedtime
10pm:  Wakeup for last feeding of the night (if necessary)
10:30pm-6am:  Sleep!

Right now, she typically wakes up somewhere between 5-6am and then she'll go right back to sleep until she needs to eat again 3 hours later.  She is not a morning person right now... loves to sleep in!  She's a nightowl... still pretty fussy at night.  She'll usually stay awake from her 6-7pm feeding until I feed her again 9-10pm.  Then, we'll have to play with her or hold her and walk with her until she relaxes and falls asleep.  She's been falling asleep around 11:30pm, give or take.  Sometimes she'll take a pacifier just long enough to soothe her to sleep, but most nights she fights it.  Once we get her to sleep, she will sleep through the night (Hallelujah!) until she wakes up between 5-6am.  Can't complain about that!

I try and stick to 3 hours between each feeding so that determines what the rest of our day looks like now.  But I will give in if she really is hungry and needs to be fed sooner than 3 hours or if she sleeps past the start time for her next feeding.  Never wake a sleeping baby!  I guess you would call it a "combination schedule", a mix between parent-led and baby-led.  After she eats, she'll be awake for about 1 hour to 90 minutes, then she gets fussy and that's my cue that she's tired and needs to nap.  She has napped in her crib some, but most of the time she will nap in her swing or bouncy chair or carseat.  Then she wakes up and it's time to feed her again and start the cycle over.  I find it's more difficult to enforce a daytime schedule with Audrey home with me and when I have doctor's/physical therapy appointments.  The best days are when we can stay home all day.  But that's certainly not feasible!  Good thing she is so easy-going and adaptable.  As an example, she'll allow me to push up a feeding so that she's fed before a physical therapy appointment.  Love her and her easy-going nature!   

Clara is such a happy, easy-going baby.  The sweetest little girl.  The best thing ever is when she smiles.  She scrunches up her nose and her eyes become little half-moon slits.  It's the cutest thing ever.  And I swear, we will do whatever it takes to get her to smile!  Her first "real" smiles were for Grammy Patton when she visited when Clara was 5 weeks old.  She said, "Abby, I think she's really smiling at me."  It was just the sweetest thing.  And she's been smiling almost non-stop (well, that may be an exaggeration) since. 



Baby Smiles
6 weeks old

Audrey was a lucky girl last month.  Grandma & Grandpa Larson took her on vacation to Disney World in Florida!!!  She had a blast and was such a good girl, which means that Audrey and Clara both can go on the next vacation to Disney in 2 years after Grandma Larson retires.  They flew out in the afternoon, as soon as school let out for Grandma on June 10th (so late this year!).  It was raining all day, so we read a lot of books and played with blocks and such.  I snapped a picture of Audrey reading to Clara in her room.
 

Clara got to experience being an only child while Audrey was on vacation.

5 weeks old

We had some special visitors this month.

The Marr's:

Cynda and Clara

Colby and Audrey

And Crystal and Maci:

This past month, I bought a double-stroller ("gently used") to help me when I have both girls at home.  This is the day we got it.  The girls love it!  Especially Audrey.  She loves riding with Clara. On our first walk, Audrey insisted on sitting in the "backseat."  It's been a good stroller so far!

We spent the long 4th of July weekend up in Michigan.  The girls loved it!  Audrey, Clara, and I went up with Grandma Larson mid-morning on Thursday the 3rd.  Grandpa and Carl came up later that night after work.

Packing and getting ready to leave. Pic is blurry,
but it accurately depicts Audrey's energy
(always moving!) and the girls' love for each other!

Stopped at McDonald's on the way up. Clara
and I hung out in the car so I could feed her.

What a beautiful day on Cable Lake

We've been doing quite a bit of tummy time and playing on the activity mat.  This is Clara playing on her mat (2 months old).  She's so alert.  Such a beautiful girl!

It was a very fun month!  Here are some more random pics:

Clara is 1 month old!

Our Clara turned 1 month old on June 5th.

Here is an update from her first month…

At her two week doctor visit, Clara weighed 9 lbs 4 oz and measured 21.5 inches long.  Next time we go to the doctor is for her 2 month checkup, so I don’t have an official height and weight at 1 month, but I do know that she’s growing a lot!

10 days new

Clara is wearing size 0-3 months clothes.  She could fit in newborn clothes for the first week or so, but they were really tight after that.  We learned with Audrey that we loved the side-snap shirts for wear everyday.  And those prove to be super convenient for Clara as well.  I am dressing her a lot, though, for the day.  It’s so easy to dress an infant in the summer… just throw on a onesie and we’re good to go!  At night, she’ll wear a onesie or a side-snap shirt and a sleep sack.  She never liked to be swaddled once we got home, so the sleep sacks work great.  She’s warm and comfy and can still keep her arms out to the side as she likes to do.

3 days new

22 days new:  the day she
lost her umbilical cord

24 days new

Clara wears a size 1 diaper.  We’ve already used a variety of different kinds of diapers.  We’ve used the Target brand diapers (Up & Up) and we like those.  We like the Huggies, which were our favorite with Audrey.  And we have received a lot of Pampers as gifts, and those are becoming my favorites.  In fact, the owner of Carl’s company gave us a very generous gift of about 20 boxes of Pampers diapers, from sizes 1-6.  What a great gift!  We are really grateful to everyone who has gifted us diapers.  We are certainly going through a lot of them!

14 days new

16 days new

At one month, Clara has not yet had a bottle.  Carl attempted to give her a bottle one night that she was eating like crazy, just to give me a break.  But I was sitting next to him and while he was giving it to her and I think that threw her off.  She wanted no part of it.  We’ll attempt this again very soon.  Have to get her used to it for when she goes to daycare!  I’ve been trying to pump at least once a day, so we’ve got a pretty good supply already saved up in the freezer which is nice.

Clara is a really good eater.  And frequent eater.  She eats consistently about every 2 hours or so.  Sometimes it’s every 90 minutes, and other times she’ll go longer.  But during the day she hardly ever waits a 3 hour stretch.  This is why she’s growing a lot!  That being said, she is a pretty good sleeper… once we can get her down to sleep that is.  Once she falls asleep, she will take 4-5 hour stretches.  I love it.  The day after Memorial Day, she went 7 hours between feedings!!  I woke up in a panic that something was wrong.  But she was just happily sleeping.  And when she wakes up at night to eat, she doesn’t cry, she’ll just make some fussy noises and I’ll know she’s ready.  Clara is still sleeping in a cradle next to our bed in our room.  I don’t see this changing anytime soon since she and Audrey share a room.  But it hasn’t been bad at all.  Clara is a good sleeper… again, once she gives in and falls asleep!  She’ll be up until 12:30-1am before she falls asleep.  Her fussy period is between 7ish and 12:30 or 1am when she finally falls asleep.  Seems that she just wants to eat constantly and be held and walked around.  The girl likes to move!  She doesn’t like a paci as much as Audrey did.  It will soothe her for maybe a minute, but then she spits it out.  And she resists it a lot of times. She might just not be a paci girl.

1 month old

I had mastitis when Clara was 3 weeks old.  The day after Memorial Day (after her long sleep!) my breast felt pretty tender and sore.  I thought that it was just very full after not feeding her at night, so I nursed her and then pumped to drain it.  I didn’t get that much when I pumped and it didn’t relieve it or make it feel less full.  Later that night, I got really achy and just didn’t feel well.  The next morning when I woke up, I had a 102 fever and was super achy and tired.  I called my OB and the nurse that I talked to said that it didn’t sound like mastitis or anything breastfeeding-related.  I know I am only WebMD educated, but it sounded like textbook mastitis to me, so I pushed back a bit but then agreed to call Dr. Tess, my general practitioner.  He told me the nurse was wrong and that it was mastitis and got me on an antibiotic right away.  The antibiotic cleared it right up and my fever went away by that night.  Whew!  And the nice thing was that even though I was feeling crummy, I was still able to feed Clara.  Glad we’re over that hurdle and I hope I don’t get it again!

As far as development, Clara’s been pretty strong from the beginning.  She’s been trying to lift her head up from the day she was born.  Even Dr. Tess commented on her strength, both leg strength and neck strength, at her 2 week checkup.  And Clara rolled over from her tummy to her back when she was 4 weeks old, on June 1st.  I just couldn't even believe it!  What a strong girl.  Carl was in Audrey’s bed reading her stories and putting her to bed for the night, so he missed it.  But I was hootin’ and hollerin’ so when Audrey fell asleep, he came out to see what was going on.  She hasn't rolled over again after that first time, but I keep waiting for it.

Clara's first tummy time on 5/27/14, the day her umbilical cord fell off:

After she rolled over on 6/1/14.
She looks like she's smiling, but really she was crying :)

What a great month it has been getting to know our little Clara.  I just can’t imagine life without her.  We love this girl to pieces!  And that’s all of us... Audrey, Carl, and me.  In fact, Audrey gives her so many kisses during the day.  Just loves that girl!  “Isn’t she cute?” Audrey proclaims!  And she’s so proud to tell her friends at school and even strangers that she has a baby sister.  I hope she and Clara are always proud to be sisters!

Holding hands

What sweet girls!

This one is too funny not to post!  Audrey attempts to give Clara a kiss at the same time that Clara opened her mouth.  So funny!  And look at Audrey's "staticky" hair.  She gets that from me!

Happy 1 month, Clara girl!

Auntie Ashley

Auntie Amber

With Grandma & Grandpa & Aunt Jennifer on Mothers Day

With Grammy & Gramps on Mothers Day
(Audrey was exhausted and asleep on Grammy!)

[Great] Grandma B

[Great] Grandpa B

"Aunt" Shirley

Clara's First Bath

Clara's umbilical cord finally fell off on May 27th and that meant she could take a bath in the big bathtub!  We were excited, and so was Audrey.  Now, it is a regular occurrence for the girls to take a bath together.  Audrey loves it, and I think Clara does too.  She is very content in the bathtub... even when she gets splashed by a certain 2-year-old.

I love this pic documenting Clara's first bath, and the girls' first bath together.  Clara's fluffy hair, her covering her privates with her foot, Audrey's hair half-up in pigtails.  I just love it.  And I love these girls!

Clara's Newborn Pictures

Clara Marie
5 days "new"
Photos by Jennifer Marie Photography

Here are just some of our favorites.