Attempt at a one month picture

Allison turned one month on January 4! In a last minute effort to start taking monthly pictures, I put her in a plain onesie and grabbed a stuffed animal (if I had thought about it a little more I probably wouldn’t have chosen what turned out to be a somewhat creepy looking monkey).  Well baby girl was not particularly cooperative for picture time. I got about ten shots of her screaming and only one calm one during a brief pause, and what did she do for that one? Throw out her middle finger of course. Here are some of the pictures:

 "What is happening to me?"

"Why are you people torturing me?"

(Poor Corey witnessing AK's scream fest)

"Is anyone still paying attention to my drama?”

"Fine then I guess I'll be quiet now. But don't think I won't ruin your picture with my middle finger."

At her one month appointment, Allison weighed 9 lbs 8 ounces (60^th percentile) and was still 22.5 inches long (80^th percentile – they said her body has most likely grown ,but her length stayed the same as that lovely cone head at birth has rounded out).

On her one month birthday, this crazy killed rolled over from stomach to back, twice! We put her down for tummy time and she was so mad about it that she worked herself up to the point of rolling over. We thought the first time was probably just a fluke and maybe her arm had been tucked under her body or something, so we put her back on her stomach and she did it again. We weren’t sure whether to be proud or scared, since it probably means baby girl already has quite the temper. But she has done it twice since when not throwing a temper tantrum, so hopefully that’s a good sign.  This week she has also started smiling at us (when she’s in a good mood and we get right up in her face and talk to her) which is really awesome!

Given that Allison looks like a tortured, troubled child in the pictures above, maybe next I will post some of the ones I took while she was being smiley yesterday to redeem herself.

So December happened

While most people are writing blog posts recapping all of 2011, I’m going to focus on just December since I seem to have neglected my blog that whole month: Let’s see, I went into labor on December 3^rd, Allison was born on December 4^th, and as of today I have a one month old.  That pretty much sums things up!

I won’t really dwell on the details of the whole labor thing – suffice it to say it wasn’t super fun – and after waiting this long to write anything, I’m not even sure where to begin with recounting Allison’s first month of life. Here are a few highlights:

-First of all, I have to point out that after my paranoia about her being a big baby, our “little” girl weighed in at 8 pounds 9 ounces and was 22.5 inches long at birth.  While it wasn’t particularly fun to deliver that size baby, I’m convinced that being on the bigger side has helped make her a good eater and able to go relatively long stretches between feedings (which translates into more sleep for mom and dad).

-I also have to address her appearance, because we have been told on more than one occasion that this baby does not look like she belongs to us! Although the sonographer at our 36 week scan told us AK (one of her many nicknames already) was looking pretty bald, this kid popped out with a full head of dark hair.  Given my blonde hair and Tim’s relatively light brown hair, I’m assuming this is the main reason people are secretly wondering if I was actually never even pregnant and we just stole ourselves a baby last month. Before you go calling the cops, I’ll have you know I was actually born with a pretty similar head of dark hair that ended up turning blonde later. I couldn’t find a really great baby picture of me that young, but judge for yourself whether you see at least SOME family resemblance:

I’m not saying she’s the spitting image of me, but I think she at least looks like she could legitimately be my child. Oh and on the second picture of me, check out what looks like a little bit of a middle finger gesture – this has been one of Allison’s favorite things to do since we caught it on camera during our 20 week sonogram. Unfortunately I don’t have any baby pictures of Tim handy right now, but my mom thinks Allison looks like him so we’ll go with that as evidence of further family resemblance.

-So far, our little gator (another current nickname) has been what I think is a pretty easy baby. She sleeps well and she eats well, which is about all we can ask for at this age. She’s also pretty active (which isn’t surprising with all the movement she was doing inside the womb). Some of her current favorite activities include: going to the bathroom right when her diaper is taken off, projectile pooping four feet across the room while being changed (her dad was proud of that move), making funny faces pretty much all the time, and of course giving the middle finger during photo ops. 

Right now we’re just enjoying watching her change and grow, and we’re excited for all of the new things that will come over the next several months! I plan to follow this post up with a one month update ASAP, so get excited for that.