Chunky Monkey

Anna

Somewhere, I have a picture of Juliet that looks very similar to this one... Turtle towel and chubby cheeks.  I need to find it and do a comparison, but I took this picture last week when I was marveling at Anna's weight gain.  It's extremely obvious in her cheeks and in her arms and legs.  I'm exclusively breastfeeding Anna, the same thing I did for Juliet, so it feels very good to see my child growing.

It is especially rewarding given how Anna eats.  Juliet ate every three hours.  You could set your watch by it.  Anna, on the other hand, eats all. the. time.  It seems that at least once a week, Anna goes into growth spurt mode and eats every 30 minutes - 2 hours.  This is extremely hard on a mom who is used to a three-hour baby.  It's also hard in the middle of the night when I'm up and down getting her from her crib, feeding and changing her, and putting her back down.  But when I look at her growing body (and, of course, in the days after the marathon feeds when she sleeps for 4-5 hours at night), it's totally worth it.

As of today, Anna is six weeks old.  I spent an hour this afternoon going through her dresser and closet.  I was pulling out all of the clothes in Newborn and 0 - 3 months sizes because Anna can no longer fit in them.  I opened the giant Space Saver bag of 3 - 6 months sized clothes and marveled at the fact that my six week-old daughter is wearing clothes someone twice her age (or older!) wears. 

Side note: I also thanked God for Elizabeth, Adrianne, and Melissa.  Those three have pretty much set it up so that we've not had to buy clothes for either of our kids because they give us their hand-me-downs.  And one of the great things about hand-me-downs for kids this small is that they're all in really good shape, even though some of the clothes have been worn by four other girls (Ella, Ava, Holland and Juliet on Liz's side and Addison, Anna S., Juliet, and Sophie on the Wimberley sisters' side).  It's really neat to pull out things I remember Juliet wearing, and I'm so glad to have the opportunity to pass things along to Ray's cousin, Katie, who is expecting a girl in February.

Anna is starting to smile in response to me, and that's pretty amazing.  I'd forgotten how awesome it is when your child actually smiles at you and not gas.  I love this happy, chubby face!