One Month of Ana Sofia

Can’t believe she has been in our lives for only a month. As with all phases of life, you find the page turned and you know this is the right place to be, and you know how you got there, but it still feels a bit surreal and foreign—but at the same time—like you’ve always been here.

She takes life so seriously. She is a whole, complete person in a very little package. And she has three objectives: eat, sleep, and poop. And these things take up her whole life. She puts her whole self into getting these three things done.

I read a lot of baby books before Ana Sofía was born, but I still had to google: 1. How to give her a bath (answer: everything is easy after the umbilical cord falls off) 2. How to swaddle (answer: Ana will eventually get her hands free no matter what) 3.How to cloth diaper (answer: just do it and keep figuring out as you go—which went great until the washing machine broke) 4. How to use the breast pump (answer: CAREFULLY turn the pressure up.) Caid was so excited to be able to have a bottle to feed Ana. He was like “Now she will love me!”

This sentence stayed with me. Because it is true. There is a way that babies look at the person that feeds them that is overwhelming. She looks at me like I am everything. And to her, I am. I look at her and see someone so new and innocent. Then I look outside and wonder what the heck happened to everyone else.

I can fit into all my clothes, and am walking/doing postnatal yoga and Pilates, and feel rather proud of myself. The first month has gone really well, and quite frankly, very easily. I keep waiting for it to get really hard and horrible like the stories I hear. I know it has gone so well because of the kindness of so many, and being able to have such a nice vacation/recovery time. Thank you everyone!

I am reading a book and it says that the first part of marriage (pre-baby) is about realization: “How we are different, how we are alike, how our expectations must change, and how we can become one.” The season as new parents would then be of wonder, “When we are reminded to sit back and observe all that God has done for us, through our infant’s eyes.” (toddlers are then a season of discovery)

“As parents we have a special privilege of knowing God from two perspectives. As we longingly hold our babies in our arms, we catch a glimpse of how God, our Father, loves us. Our feelings as earthly parents cannot compare to the love God has for us, and yet our parental emotions are a wonderful taste of what His love for us is like. At the same time, we catch a picture of what it means to be the child our Heavenly Father loves.” –“And Then I had Kids” by Susan Alexander Yates