Hayley and Kate Minter

Hayley’s really taken to her windup baby swing we got the other day. We’ll put her in it, set it in motion, and she’s usually pretty content to watch the world swing by or go to sleep. It’s good for her, since it’s a change of pace and a chance for her to learn to calm herself without being in our arms, and it’s good for us, since we can use two hands for things like making dinner.

She’s getting into a pretty consistent routine of five hours of sleep a night. So if she goes down around 11, she’ll be up around 4am. If she goes down around 12:30, we can expect her to sleep until 5:30 or 6. Routines are nice.

If there’s an Olympic “Spitup for Distance” event, I’m going enter Hayley. She’ll go off like Old Faithful sometimes. She’ll be sitting there, minding her own business, when without warning - “Blorp!”

We’ve enjoyed the run of warm weather by strolling the baby outside and leaving the window open. It’s cold today, though, and even snowing up in Virginia, so we’ll probably be hanging out inside for a few days.

Hayley went for her two-month checkup yesterday. She weighed in at 11 pounds, 11 ounces (up from 9lb 15oz last month), and 23″ long. Her weight is in the 90th percentile, and her length is in the 80th, so she’s doing well on both counts.

She also got four shots, which she didn’t like. She came home with Band-Aids on both of her legs. She was pretty grumpy most of the night, which is understandable given that she was treated like a pincushion.

Hayley has a new friend - Snoopy. We did up the nursery in a “Peanuts” theme, and Holly (the artistic one in the family) drew up a couple of pictures of Snoopy - one above the changing table, and one above the crib. When we go to change Hayley, she’ll look around for a bit before noticing the Snoopy. She’ll then get the biggest grin on her face, and she’ll sit there and talk to Snoopy for upwards of 10 minutes, just as happy as can be. It’s very cute.

We picked up a baby swing at Target - we’ll see how she likes that tonight.

Hayley’s taking after Daddy in one regard - she’s not a morning person. She’s been sleeping very well - usually 5-6 hours at a stretch overnight. But when she wakes up, she’s not happy about it. She screams and screams from the time she’s up, through her diaper change, and until she starts feeding. Once she’s getting food, though, she’s happy as can be.

Hayley is two months old today - time flies! She’s already bigger, talking, smiling, and just generally acting like she thinks she’s people. Everthing’s going fine, and we’re taking advantage of the nice weather to take her out for walks up and down the street in her stroller.

Not meaning to be too gross, but the diaper people need to put extra-absorbent “leak guard” on the top-back side of the diaper. Hayley has no trouble overflowing one of those. Like Jeff Foxworthy said: “When it says 8 to 12 pounds on the package, they aren’t kidding. That’s all those things will hold!”

She goes back to the doctor this week for her two-month-checkup and more shots, which I’m sure she won’t like. But a healthy baby is a good baby, I say.

Daddy’s getting his rear handed to him in all four NCAA pools he’s in. I should have gone with my first instinct and let Hayley pick my brackets for me. Maybe next year, when she can reach for things, I’ll devise a system for her. “Ok, Hayley. If you eat the Cheerio on the left, you’re picking the high seed. If you eat the one on the right, it’s the low seed.” She certainly couldn’t do worse than me!

It’s been a good week in babyland, even if Daddy didn’t feel well for a good part of it.

Aunt Jenny came down to stay with us for a few days, while she was on Spring Break. It was a good trip - since she goes to school in Boston, she doesn’t get to see Hayley as much as everyone else. Plus, I think she likes coming down here because we have high-speed internet.
Holly got laid off from her job this week . . . one day after she went in to tell them that she wouldn’t be coming back after her maternity leave. Funny how that works. It turns out to be a good thing for us - she gets a severance package that will be more money than her last week of maternity leave would have been. It’s not so good for the other people, though.

Hayley continues to sleep well - she’s averaging about six hours at a time at night, with occasional bursts of up to 8 hours. She also enjoyed the nice weather we had here in North Carolina during the week - going out for a few strolls in the 70+ degree temperatures. She’s also continuing to have her happy talky time every day.

Hayley had her first trip up to her “ancestral home” of Kenbridge, Virginia, this past weekend. Some of our folks haven’t made the trip down to see us yet, so we took the baby to them.

Our visit included, in no particular order, Holly’s 95-year-old neighbor Sue, her uncle Buddy from Norfolk, Mr. Roby, the Estes family, Aunt Jenny, Mom and Bill, Dad and Lynn, my grandmother, and my step-grandmother Lou. I should have some pictures up tonight, and the rest once we get film back.

We also went to church with Holly’s grandmother. KUMC is my old church, and the one we got married in, and the preacher who married us was happy to see the baby. Hayley was very good in church - she slept through the entire service.

She was a little fussy on the trip back, probably because her schedule was thrown off and she wasn’t used to being around that many people. But, all-in-all, it was a good trip, and we’ll probably go back up around Easter.

The phone just rang. I pick up and answer “Hello?”

The voice on the other end says “Yes…is Hayley there?”

My response: “I’m sorry, she’s an infant right now. Can I take a message?”

Hayley’s finished her first six weeks in the world, and just like in school, it’s time for her report card.

SLEEPING:

All things considered, Hayley’s an excellent sleeper. She generally goes down for the night anywhere between around midnight and 2am, and sleeps pretty much nonstop until around 6-7am. The nights where she hits the outer edges of those ranges (midnight - 7am) are the nice ones. After hearing the stories about babies that don’t sleep at night, or wake up every hour or so, we’re pretty lucky. The transition to her room has also been very good - once she goes down at night, she sleeps well in her bassinet by herself in her own room.

TALKING:

She “talks” to us pretty much every day now. Several times a day she’ll go into chatty mode, and coo at us for a while.

EATING:

She’s getting the hang of the whole feeding schedule. She currently gets a “full” feeding every 3-ish hours, with occasional bursts of snacking. We think she’s got a pretty strong sucking need, since if she’s sucking on one of our fingers, or cluster-feeding, it seems to make her happy. She hasn’t quite learned to take a pacifier yet, though. It pops out of her mouth almost as soon as it goes in.

PHYSICAL:

She’s always had good neck control, and that’s continuing as she gets older. She’s also starting to find her hands - a couple of times she’s managed to start sucking on her thumb without us actually placing it in her mouth for her. She’s also putting on weight and filling out - she’s got dimpled elbows and thunder thighs now. Her hair is falling out from when she was born, but we think we may see new hair coming in. She’s starting to outgrown her first clothes - some of the outfits we’ve had her in since she came home are now snug around the feet.

EMOTIONAL:

She doesn’t like to be by herself much - if we set her in her bassinet for more than a minute, she’ll start grunting and fussing for us. Holly also claims to be seeing “real smiles”, though the jury is still out on that one. She also does well on trips to the grocery store - usually just sleeping her way through the trip.

OVERALL
I grade her first six weeks an A+. Did you expect anything else?