God’s mercies are new every morning… especially THIS morning! Piper slept through the night last night, which means that I managed to haul in six straight hours of sleep! Amazing! After a long afternoon and evening of screaming and gas pain (hers, not mine), we put her to bed at 10:30 pm and she woke us up at 5:00 am this morning! I went from feeling a lot of despair yesterday to rejoicing this morning. And I was able to get out of bed, take a shower, get dressed for the day and eat breakfast with my husband–all of this for the first time in over eight weeks! It was nice to feel a sense of normalcy again. Of course, just because it happened last night doesn’t mean that it will continue to happen. For now, however, I am thankful! MERCY!
Funny side story. My brother, Dave, bought Piper this cool time capsule with a kit for recording the flavor of our times and how her life fits into it right now. In the kit is a little container for storing her footprint and handprint in plaster of Paris. So this weekend we followed the directions, mixing the plaster in a disposable container and waiting for it to “set” to the correct consistency. Then we set out to dip her hand in water and press it into the plaster. The only problem is that she still clenches her fists a lot of the time (supposedly this goes away completely in another month or so?) and we just couldn’t seem to pry open either of them for a print. After a lot of struggle, we decided to just print her whole clenched fist… only to find out that the plaster had already hardened! Realizing that the other container of plaster would soon harden as well, we raced to print her foot and ended up with a big toe dragging sideways through an otherwise perfect print. Ack! So I will head to Michael’s to see if we can find some more plaster of Paris to pour over the existing layer and try again. If I am unable to capture her prints for the time capsule, we will roll with what we have and tell her the funny story when she’s old enough.
Lesson: Life is out of my control. Relax and laugh about it. This lesson has been popping up a lot in the past eight weeks…
Piper turned eight weeks old yesterday and I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown. I have heard a hundred times “Appreciate every moment because it goes so quickly!” but it is impossible to understand that until it is actually happening.
I am still in “survival mode” but am coming out of it a little bit as I better get to know our little blessing and understand more of what she needs and how to provide it. So many needs, so few ways to express herself. Only in this past week have I felt more than a fleeting sense of confidence about what I’m doing… and it quickly crumbles under Piper’s distressed wails from a tummy full of gas. Poor little girl!! I wouldn’t change a thing (except to quickly finish developing her digestive tract!), but this has been my greatest challenge in life so far. Well worth it, I might add. She is so funny and cute, and I sometimes find myself excited to hear her cry after waking up from a nap because I know I get to see and interact with her again. But there are also those moments when I long for just one more minute to finish brushing my teeth or finish something I started (for a change!). It is difficult to be constantly serving another person, and there’s very often an internal battle that takes place–especially when she cries for food in the middle of the night after I only crawled into bed the hour before. OF COURSE I get up and feed her, but it is easy to have a quick internal temper tantrum and feel sorry for myself that sleep has slipped away from my grasp once again. Often in the moments that follow, though, God’s mercy shows up and rescues me with a wonderful smile or coo from Piper and my heart warms over. Truly amazing.
Fatherhood looks great on David and he is completely smitten with our Fab P. He takes the eeeearly morning shift with a bottle so I can catch some much-needed Zzz’s, and he usually wakes me up star-struck over his little girl. He can get her to smile much more easily than I can and she loves the sound of his voice. It is amazing to watch them together. Neither of us can really believe we have a daughter!
So all that to say, I’m just now learning how to use this site and post blogs, thanks to my patient husband/teacher. And I learned how to run the video camera yesterday (embarrassingly easy)… so I am posting five weeks’ worth in one post and then will hopefully keep up with this regularly!
My mom and grandma came in from New York for a two-week visit in the first part of April and we had a blast. Thankfully, my mom stayed with us for a lot of the time she was here and we got to sit and stare in amazement at Piper together. She was also a tremendous help, taking a lot of the night shifts and diaper changes, and chasing down a burp like a madwoman. She was also able to use her tremendous gift of organization and handiness, and completely organized and built shelves for almost all of our closets, in addition to David’s workshop in the garage. She definitely left Casa Peters in better shape than when she arrived! Since we moved into our house in the height of my morning sickness, I was never able to find the time to unpack and really organize; everything just ended up thrown in one of many closets. So Mom saved the day and (I think) had fun doing it!
Below are three videos taken on the day they arrived in Dallas. One of them includes the first time my mom held her granddaughter, and most of them include four generations of girls (Gramma, Mom, Piper and me) with David’s hilarious commentary running in the background. They may be long and boring for those of you who are not related, but they are precious to me:
Either right before or while Mom was here, Piper’s umbilical cord fell off so we were able to switch from sponge bath to the real deal. We took some funny bathtime footage that includes our Little Biscuit waking up from a nap–only to get soaped up and rinsed off. I don’t think this clip shows the tears and wailing that took place. Thankfully, she usually LOVES bathtime–except for when we start putting clothes on her.
On a similar note, Piper loves her changing table and a lot of our favorite interaction with her happens there. She recently started REALLY smiling–her first smile was at David a week ago today during their morning bonding time–and she loves to coo and smile and kick while she’s on it, so diaper changes are usually long, drawn-out and fun times. Below is a sampling of one such time that took place yesterday (btw, we weighed her yesterday and she doesn’t weigh 13 pounds yet–she’s only creeping up on 11):
And, lastly, here’s some footage of Piper doing “tummy time” yesterday on the little playmat that Berit and Shane graciously lent to us (along with all the rest of their baby stuff):
Once we get the pictures downloaded and ready, I will add those, as well. It might take another week or so, though. It is actually a miracle that this post even happened today!
Love y’all and hope to...