My little bird

I thought I'd usher in my return to blogging with some reflections on my newest present: Olivia. I will probably blog some other time about the actual labor and hospital stuff (don't worry--I will spare the gory details). For now, though, we'll just focus on the positive. haha.

I love Olivia.

She does not have her daddy's beautiful red curly hair, but she does have pretty dark hair which is better than being a blond baldini like I was as a baby. They say that her dark hair could some out and change to something completely different in a few weeks--if it does, I hope for her sake that it is thick or curly or something nice. She does have her daddy's cute round face and expressive mouth. She also has chubby cheeks, which help her to look full and fat. She has my eyes and nose and someone's proportionate forehead (I have a tall forehead and I like that Olivia's is regular). Her fingers are really long (like Grandma Marian and Great-grandma Teague)--she's totally getting piano lessons!--as are her feet. Olivia is kind of long in general--she was born 22 inches and when she saw the doctor on Friday, when she wasn't even a week old, she was 22 3/4 (though perhaps she's just learning to stretch out better). She also gained over 2 ounces in that time, which the doctor was impressed with. He said that babies usually lose 5-10% of their birthweight in the first two weeks. Not my porker! (This is exceptionally impressive seeing as I had a lot of trouble getting the nursing thing down for the first few days, and as of Monday previous she had lost a half ounce.)

When I was first holding Olivia in the hospital she reminded me of a little bird. Her hair is soft and fluffy like a baby chick's. She likes to form her mouth into a little "O" shape whens she's hungry, which reminds me of a nestling who is waiting for its parent to drop a vittle into its mouth. And when she cries her little raspy voice sounds like a softly squawking duck.

We are very blessed with Olivia, as she is very healthy and sweet. The doctor even used the word "perfect" to describe her. Heh heh heh. He also said that there are two types of babies: grunters and spitters. Olivia is a grunter, which I'll take any day over spitting. After I feed her, she does not spit up all over the place. She does not shoot nastiness across the room like some moms have told me that their babies do. Instead, she grunts and belches. She can sleep through anything, as evidenced just now when Lucy started barking insanely loudly, about 5 feet from Olivia. I just looked in at her and she's still conked. She also is not colicky and does not have reflux, which makes babies and parents miserable because of constant crying.

For those of you who do not have children, I have been told that all babies have a fussy time of day. I think it's usually around supper time. There is nothing wrong with them, but they still cry a lot as a way of letting off steam. Well, if I had to name one drawback of my little bird, it would be that she is a night owl just like her mom and dad, and chooses her uncontrollable screaming time for 2-5 a.m. Ugh! Seriously, she will NOT stop crying for more than 30 seconds at a time. I always take care of her at this time and it's quite exhausting, especially since we've had a steady stream of visitors since she came home and I do not have the opportunity to sleep during the day.

Thank you God, that Olivia is so wonderful that I don't mind suffering with her! :)

As a side note, I need to give props to all the people who guessed her name: Tommy, Melissa, Jess, Cheryl and Brenda from work, Kelly (I think I recall that David said you picked Olivia), etc. The big award goes to Olivia's Uncle Tommy, who not only figured out the name, but had supporting evidence to go with it, such as it first being used by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night and it going with our family tree--Granny Olive (and the May is for Granny Maybelle, Grandma Karen May, and me!). Ironically, I tried calling him first when she was born, but he had just left for Cancun and could not get voicemails. Sorry, brother, that we did not have her sooner!