Lights, Camera, Action!

So I finally figured out how to load video.

Here is a little clip of Morgan after her baby blessing.

The little eruption at the end was a nice touch I thought.

Thanksgiving

...which I realize was forever ago. However, when our internet connection is slow, it takes forever to load pictures. We had some quality time with Erik's family, and Morgan enjoyed playing with her Far-Far.

And of course, there was a rather significant football game going on. Erik's own personal Turkey Bowl ended after five plays when a large man drove his shoulder into Erik's knee. That, however, did not stop him from cheering on the Cougars in the Holy War. Morgan joined in, as you can tell.

I was a little worried that it would be dangerous for Erik to hold Morgan during the game, as he usually jumps around, flails his arms, and yells at the TV, but they both had a good time (and so did I, far away).

Erik's starting her young.

We went to Orem for Thanksgiving, to Erik's aunt and uncle. This was the most memorable part of the evening (besides fabulous food, of course) - everybody got involved in Beatles Rock Band. All the cousins got involved, along with several aunts and uncles! Even Nana was singing along with most of the songs while rocking Morgan.

It was also a lot of fun to have my brother Ben and sister Becky with us over the holiday. It probably wasn't the most exciting of times, since having a newborn cramps a lot of activities, but we enjoyed having them. As you can see, they weren't too thrilled about the diaper changing bit, but they did fight over Morgan.

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Hanging Out With Friends

Here's a little catch-up on some older pictures:

This is Morgan with the daughter of a friend from church. She's not much bigger than Morgan, but she was so proud to be holding a baby. A lot of the kids from the Primary have been anxious to see our baby, since I was pregnant my whole time working there. It's been hard to explain, "You're germy - back off!" I went back to the Primary for the first time last Sunday, and one little 3-year old kept staring at my stomach, like "What happened?"

A nice moment with Nana and Lizzie. They're always willing to hold and change her, so we visit often.

And here she is with Grandpa Godfrey in her little Sunday dress. We're so glad that he finally got to hold her!

Sigh...

Morgan's been having some rough days lately. They started Monday, her 6 week mark, which is exactly when one baby book says she should reach peak fussiness. Supposedly, it happens because of increased interest in social interaction and decreased interest in sleep, but all I've noticed is zero napping and constant crying. The prophetic book says there's not much to be done but wait for the phase to be over. So in the meantime, I'm documenting it.

Now just picture that face in a baby blessing dress and you'll probably get a good idea of how this Sunday will go.

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Happy birthday to Lauren. She is three touchdowns and a field goal old. Thank you Lauren for all you do! Morgan and I love you!

5 Weeks

Inspiration

The Routine

It seems like our days have fallen into a pattern that only varies with how long Morgan sleeps and how often she feeds. We're usually up when Erik leaves at 6:30, and then I either fall back asleep with Morgan or get up, depending on how much sleep I got that night. This morning was a late one, since she woke up to feed for 10 minutes every hour since 3:00 AM. If she cooperates, I get breakfast, do some laundry, tidy up, and hungrily read emails and blogs for interaction with people older than 3 weeks. In the afternoon we bundle up and go for a walk.

My first good shot of her almost smiling! She's starting to turn up the corners of her mouth more, and my heart just melts.

She looks like an abbess or something out of the Renaissance.

This is the best part of our day - when Erik comes home. You can tell she's growing, because that little newborn outfit is not supposed to show that kind of leg

She loves her daddy almost as much as he loves her.

And I love it when he comes home because I get a break!

And at the end of the day, Morgan gets a bath. She's liking bathtime a lot better now that she can use her cool whale bathtub. The only drawback is that we counted on her screaming herself into exhaustion right before bedtime, and now she's a little too happy and alert after. What a hardship, right?

Some day soon I hope that I can add sleeping through the night, running errands easily, and hanging out with other moms to the list.

All Sound, No Fury

That's how we used to describe Morgan's "blowouts." She would make these horrendous firecracker noises, sometimes off and on for a minute, during which Erik and I would stare at each other in awe and a bit of fear. Tentatively the diaper was opened, only to find a smallish little doodle that in no way looked like it sounded. While we were always relieved to find everything orderly and contained, there was a little disappointment as well that the excitement wasn't warranted. Now, however, the contents of her diaper are starting to equal her sound effects. This is the second time today that she has overflowed her capacious diaper and spread a mustard stain across the back of her outfit. The second time, she was lying on my lap, and I only just avoided being splattered (ah, that telltale warmth...). There's nothing else to be done but plop them in the tub. Then, of course, as soon as she was bathed, clothed, and asleep, she vomited all over, somehow without waking. I was so disgusted that I just left her to sleep in her mess (after dabbing her off, of course). It all seems so counterintuitive sometimes...spending that much effort to feed her, only to have it come back at me and on me. I'm seriously thinking of plastic pants and permanent bibs.

Two Weeks!

Morgan is two weeks old today! Still so young, but Erik and I feel like it's been a lot longer than that! (Especially when our brains start to get fuzzy from lack of sleep...)

She looks so grown up in pants. We usually dress her in elastic-bottomed sleepers for convenience sake.

This is Morgan's favorite sleep position. A little football fan in the making! It makes it difficult to swaddle her when she won't keep her hands down.

Daddy is just thrilled to be holding a calm sleeping baby... unfortunately, he usually only sees her in the evening when she's fussiest.

Nana and Aunt Lizzie came to babysit on Halloween while we went on a date. We were both a little on edge, wondering how she was doing, but it was great to get out and remember that we were spouses and not just parents.

Thanks for the breather!

Sitting up by herself - so grown up! She actually is very strong. She can hold up her head for quite a while, and her legs are ferocious when being threatened with a diaper change.

Far-Far's first time holding Morgan. He's been exposed to a lot of flu at his clinic, so he's been very careful around her. She calmed right down when he took her.

And something even worse than a diaper change: the dreaded bath. Her umbilical cord has almost finished falling off, so hopefully we'll be able to use a bathtub soon. One plus is that she exhausts herself crying, and then goes to sleep a lot easier.

I'm happy to report that she's feeding very well now, and sleeping so much better. Can I just say that there are a lot of different theories and opinions on how to take of a newborn? I've read/browsed 4 or 5 books, read a ton of internet articles and posts, and been advised by the many mothers in my life, and it seems like there is no common consensus on how to get newborns to eat and sleep well. They only agree that it needs to happen! Thankfully, we're finding what works for us, and she's only waking up once or twice a night to feed with minimal fussing. Not bad for two weeks, huh? Sometimes I feel differently when I wake up at six and can't even remember what happened during the night, but I know that we are blessed to have such a healthy content baby.

Getting Easier

Morgan and I are looking a lot happier these days.

That's partly because my stitches are healing and I finally fit back into a pair of my old jeans again.

And part of it comes from Morgan deciding that she can eat at Mom's. The first night home from the hospital she went from 6:00 at night until noon the next day without eating anything except one bottle. She was wailing and hungry, and I was sore and desperate, but she just wouldn't latch on. That next day we visited a nice lactation consultant, who helped a lot, and Morgan's pediatrician helped me to get a free breast pump from my insurance company. It's taken a little while, but I think we've finally cleared that hurdle. She's now eating steadily and everyone involved is a lot happier.

However, as her eating disorder resolved itself, she began struggling with sleep. She would fight and fight to stay awake, and it seemed like the only way she would sleep is if someone was holding her. That was cute for about an hour, and then I realized that my whole life would be spent feeding and holding her. Being slightly more ambitious than that, I frantically started reading all the baby help books I had received as gifts and confidently laid aside without opening. One book introduced a new concept to me: baby doesn't have to be asleep before you put her down for a nap. Here I had been rocking her to sleep and then putting her in bed - no wonder she didn't like that. I also decided that she could cry herself to sleep a little and it wouldn't kill her. Since last night on, I've tried putting her to bed when it's nap time, asleep or not, and let her cry a little bit, and it's worked just fine. See?

Hopefully this combination of eating well and sleeping well at the same time (remarkable concept, I know) will keep Morgan looking this cute and healthy and her mommy sane.

And here's the reason Morgan always wants to be held now: Grandma Boizelle. The woman who can't get enough of her first grandchild and has to tear herself away from the crib. My mom is a notoriously deep/long sleeper, and yet she keeps sending me to bed in the middle of the night so she can take care of Morgan. That's the true mark of grandmotherly devotion.

And since she's been here, it's been homemade meals every night and wonderful baked goods. Erik nearly cried when he came home and saw this.

Life is good, Morgan is a blessing, and life is truly getting easier every day.

Thus Shall She Be Called...

We have been a bit busy and forgot to tell everybody what we named our sweet baby. We chose the name Morgan Jane Merkley. The name Morgan is a family name from Lauren's side. In the 1800's the Morgans were coming from England to Nauvoo, Illinois. The father passed away on the journey and some of the Morgan family was taken in by a guy named Christopher Merkley, my great-great-great grandpa. None of the other names we had picked out fit, so there you have it!

This is Morgan's Grandma Boizelle.

This is Morgan's Nana. This picture is right after labor, so Morgan looks like she has been in a boxing match.

This is Morgan's great-grandma Godfrey.

We got Morgan dressed up for her first BYU game day! Without any prompting she made the "touchdown" signal. I have never been so proud in my life. Let's hope it is a good omen.

More Pictures

Her toes are almost as long as Lauren's.