Jade The Boxer has gotten to be closer to the baby lately. The big problem is that Jade is very kissy… she’d lick Alex repeatedly if we let her. So it has to be in controlled doses. The doggie loves the baby!

I am pretty happy with where I am in terms of my body right now. Yes, there are times that I look at myself and think very mean thoughts about myself. But I have to cut myself some slack… I have been doing a lot of walking and I can move around quite well for having my midsection cut open recently. I will get stronger over time and I’m still only 5 weeks out! The societal pressures for women to look the same way they did (or even better) immediately after having a baby are ridiculous.

There are a lot of healthy-living bloggers out there that document every step of their body changes through pregnancy and postpartum. It’s awesome that they are confident enough to do that, but at the same time I feel it’s a little damaging to others. I know that I looked at those pictures and thought, “Oh man, I’m bigger than she is at XX weeks.” or even worse (and I am ashamed to admit it) “She’s way bigger than I am at XX point.” I feel like our society focuses too much on image and body shape and those types of blog posts are contributing to the problem on some level. I don’t want to add more fodder to the comparison trap.

The baby really does sleep well, I have to wake her up to feed her in the night. It would be nice to get a 6 or 7 hour straight stretch of sleep, but it will come.

Alex had her 1 month checkup this week and she is 9 lbs 6 oz now, apparently I’m fueling her appropriately! Breastfeeding is kind of hard. It doesn’t hurt anymore (the first 2 weeks were kind of rough) but I was having a little overproduction problem with a really fast let-down. Nothing like feeding your baby, having the milk cause her to chock/gag/cough and pull away so that you both end up covered in milk to make you feel bad. “I promise, I’m just trying to feed you sweetie, not drown you!”

She’s got peeling and flaky skin all over her forehead. The pediatrician said “It’s fine, it will go away.” To me, it looks like she’s falling apart and I need to fix it! Last night she woke up screaming at 4 AM with her nose completely stuffed up so I had to use a snot sucker for the first time. I was scared at first, but it brought her such swift relief I was happy.

She likes movement: being in the car, being in a swing, being in a bouncy chair, mom moving around while holding her. So much that I have found myself swaying back and forth when I’m not even holding her anymore!

Supposedly babies don’t really smile at first, but I think it looks like she is happy and smiling… so I’m going with that.