A - Gooo

I need to leave this blog open just to make sure I quickly jot down how Maia is changing as each day is something new and lovely. This week she has started trying to vocalize by saying "A-Goo" and on Monday she was looking at me and trying to copy me when I was saying "A- Goo." She actually repeated it back to me once...and my heart melted...by I really went to mush today, Friday, when she was breastfeeding and for the first time, she pulled off and was looking up at me whist feeding as if for the first time she realized that I was there. Then, Maia started talking her little "A-Gooo." I am in love...she is so darn sweet. David went to a work even tonight so I have had her the entire day and she has been an absolute angel. This child is heaven sent and I mean heaven sent...she is such a good baby. She slept, ate, interacted a bit and then went back to sleep. It was the easiest day since she was born and the early days were easy. I will sit down and recap the first six weeks as they flew by as well as write our birth story. But Maia is a blessing and we love her very, very much..

Week 7

Well, this has been my first week alone at home with the little one. Monday morning David left the house. I was confident having had such wonderful support the past SEVEN weeks....what a lucky lady...that I was now prepared to face motherhood alone. Then, dun dun dun...I ate a grapefruit. Just hated the thought of those beautiful pink grapefruits that I bought for Mum going to waste...they looked seemingly harmless...and well...they are not harmless for little seven week old girls named Maia. Boy did I pay for that one and so I can confirm with certainty that there is a reason citrus fruits are on the no nos list for breastfed newborns. I walked her, bathed her, changed her (at least 8 times...and the nappies were wet or soiled), rocked, breastfed, pat, went outside, tried the sling, sang, danced and then after two and a half hours, I cried and so did she...laugh. So David left work at 4:30 that day and Maia feel asleep...exhausted for a half an hour until Daddy came in the door. (Can't blame the babe, she misses him) and well, we ran through the same routine with her, this time together until 9 pm that night when she FINALLY fell asleep.

Honestly, no food group is worth that drama...laugh..not even chocolate...and that says a lot coming from me. So whoever is pregnant out there, mind those lists of foods to avoid as they will change the personality of your sweet cherub within hours. She has been an angel ever since.

Now on to my first maiden voyage in the car today. Well, there was a homebirth picnic in the park in the center of Sydney...Centennial Park...and so Maia and I dropped David off at work and we drove to the park for our first public outing by ourselves. Made me appreciate David all the more as it is tough to manage bags and baby, but we did it and then drove the 40 minutes back home. I realized this week that when you have a baby everything in your life is new again in that you have to re-learn how to do EVERYTHING with a baby and then that baby changes as it grows, so life is fresh every day..laugh..not that it isn't normally, but you know...we all become accustomed to our routine...well, not any more..laugh. We had a great time...Maia slept the whole way there and back..the wonder of having a seven week old...I am afraid, I have been told this will change shortly...hence the reason I decided to swallow my anxiety about driving with our child and just take the plunge. I feel like a new woman...laugh. I can have a life outside of the house. And thanks to my new sling (thanks Mum and Dad Stud) and the insert (thanks Tamara), I am using my baby hawk sling to cart her around and it is sooo comfortable and she LOVES it. I have her sleeping in it right now as I type this. If you want to know what a baby hawk sling looks like, just go to www.babyhawk.com I HIGHLY recommend this sling...very, very comfortable and supportive and kind on the back.

So this weekend is our next adventure as Maia and I are going to attend the annual homebirth conference. This year it is in Syndey, so off we go again on Saturday and if the little muffin copes with Saturday, we will also go on Sunday. Can't wait.