1 Month!

Baby Bear turned 1 Month last week! I can't believe how fast that happened! Here she is celebrating her bearthday (can you tell how much bigger she got?).

Some things that Baby Bear does now that she's older:

• Smile a lot - She's a happy little girl most of the time and if you try really hard you can usually make her smile.
• Roll over accidentally - She's pretty good at using her giant little head to throw her off balance while she's laying on her tummy which then rolls her to her side and then to her back. It's really funny. 
• Is okay with not being held 24 hours a day - she used to cry every time I put her down day and night, but now she is sometimes content to sit in her chair for 10 minutes before she cries.

I guess that's pretty much all that she does that she didn't do when she was a wee lass. 

Some things that I get to do now:

• Get 3 hours of sleep in a row at night - this is still a rare occurrence, but I'm hopeful that any day she will decide to sleep longer and not wake her bitty self up with her baby gas.
• Brush my hair daily - Not so long ago it was a lucky day if I had time to brush my hair
• Make meals in the crockpot - Finding time and energy to cook has been the second hardest adjustment after lack of sleep. But I've found that as long as all the ingredients can be poured into the crockpot from cans and require no prep work whatsoever - it is totally doable. Other favorite meals include take-out, and frozen chicken patties, and frozen pizza. I really miss real food.
• Drink coffee - I've never liked coffee but I like it now! 

This is Justin after a night of Baby Bear duty. He assured me that he was not sleeping and was actually "working", just with his eyes closed. mhmmm.

Meet Baby Bear

We can't post pictures of our cute little wiggle worm so instead you'll be seeing her replacement. And because we also won't be using her real name we'll be referring to her as Baby Bear. Meet baby Bear:

We got a call from our agency while we were taking our dog for what would be her last walk in three weeks (poor Mika). When we got home from our walk I had a voicemail on my phone asking if we would pick up a healthy 2 day old baby girl from the hospital the next day. Of course we said yes! We ran around the rest of the night getting newborn baby supplies. Less than 24 hours later (and a sleepless night from all the excitement) we were at the hospital being discharged with a tiny little newborn. I remember seeing her in her little bassinet for the first time. She was wearing a little dress that her mother gave her and she just looked so tiny and peaceful. The first day was kind of unreal. We just held her the whole time and she only let out tiny little "ehh"'s and never cried. She made so many little squeaks and noises while she slept. 

Now she is three weeks old. She is the sweetest little thing. She has found her voice by now and likes to use it a lot in the evenings. Last week she also started making a cute little noise other than crying. It sounds like a happy little "oo". She loves to smile as she falls asleep, and lately she's been smiling more and more while she is awake. It's hard to tell if it's on purpose, but we like to pretend it is. She likes to eat every two hours day and night, so it's a little tricky to get a good nights sleep. By the time she eats and gets changed and is rocked back to sleep it's usually an hour later which leaves only an hour for me to sleep before she wakes up again. It's pretty tiring. As someone who prefers to get 10 hours of sleep a night, this is a difficult change for me but I'm learning to adjust. We're still adjusting to life with a baby, but overall we are really enjoying her. Everything she does is so cute (except the screaming...although sometimes she makes little snorting noises when she gets really worked up and that is a little bit cute).  At this point we're still not sure how long she will be in our home, but we're just glad she is here and safe. 

Mika does not like when Baby Bear cries. Mika will start whining when the baby cries, and she'll go over and lick her feet. If we're not watching carefully Mika prefers to lick Baby Bear's head when she cries to try to comfort her in her sadness.

Mika trying to comfort her as she cries

Mika is such a good little girl. We really lucked out on her temperament. She's really good with us and all the kids that she's met so far. She loves to snuggle and play, and I think she'll be a perfect companion for older foster kids that are having a hard time. But poor Mika is so sad that she no longer gets all our attention, but thankfully our roommate Bri loves Mika and plays with her all the time. We also taught Mika to brush her own teeth. If only we could teach her to use the toilet too.