Welker Fam

Well, regarding the business of sleeping, she still will rarely fall asleep on her own. She still needs to be rocked, walked or bounced. She will, however, sleep in her crib most of the time and go back to sleep fairly quickly at night after a feeding. She still gets up 1-2 times a night to eat too. Last night she got up twice, and the second time wouldn’t go back down for an hour! But that’s pretty rare. I was pretty tired all day until she laughed for me for the first time! The tired-pain went away in an instant. What a laugh it was too!  A great big deep, belly laugh. I tried desperately to get her to do it again or get it on film, but of course I couldn’t; just got a million of the same thing. I can’t wait till I can hear that sound more often, I was elated!

She can’t deliberately grasp at anything yet either, but she has a pretty good swat going on. She can hold her neck up for the most part and raise her body off her arms when she’s being held. Of course she can hold her own weight on her legs; she has the famous Christensen leg strength. She is still eating about the same; 2-3 oz every 2-3 hours. She’s found a few vowel sounds that are pretty dang cute when she coo’s, if I do say so myself.

We’ve taken her out a few times. I don’t usually like to because we pay for it later when we get home and she hasn’t slept in hours or missed a nap or two. But as she grows, I think I’ll feel less apprehensive about it. I think she’d do fine, it’s all me and my insecurities. Here are some pics from a softball game and her first 4th of July at her cousin’s house.

I don’t know why, but it’s been bothering me that I haven’t been able to describe or define the love I have for Skye. I’ve been mulling it over and the closest thing I can think of, the best comparison, is of being full. Those fleeting moments of being full throughout one’s life.

The kind of full that you feel after running or exercising to your full potential; that rush of your entire body pulsing from working in unison, the feeling of world domination and extreme optimism. The kind of full you feel when you’re outside after a big snow storm, it’s early morning or late at night and the world is as quiet as it gets, like the snow is absorbing all noise and you can just feel the presence of the entire Earth at that moment. The kind of full you feel when you are wrapped up in the arms of a loved one, with not a care or obligation in the back of your mind, just love for one another. It’s that quiet peace. But with Skye, it’s a constant warming of the heart and soul, there is nothing fleeting about it.

Then when Benjam is in the room and he feels the same way, the entire house just feels right, and that everything is as it should be. This love for Skye overflows. This love for Benjam overflows. And then there is just a big gooey mess of love and I feel so Full that I may just, no really, explode from it all. Who knew that all of this was contained in a minuscule embryo?

Although I don’t think much will change when I go back to work tomorrow, 2 days in the office and the rest from home, I feel like this is the end of something. These last 3 months have been a twisted sort of vacation; one where I get to gaze at my daughter all day long and not feel guilty about it. I have mixed emotions about it.

On one hand, financially, I have to go back to work, so it’s not an option anyways. Also, I have to admit that I can get burnt out of all of her cuteness and get a bit stir crazy at times. My mind feels like goop and I am eager to be productive outside the home again. I know being away from her will only intensify my affections for her and appreciate her, if that’s possible, that much more.

On the other hand, the obvious cuteness lays that will be hard to be away from all day. What will I miss out on?  Will I regret not being there every step of the way for her development?  Can I physically handle not being an arms reach away from her softness?  Will she turn out to be a hoodlum and menace to society because she doesn’t have a Stay At Home Mom? Hopefully my return to work won’t diminish my ambition of updating this thing either.

So. In honor of my last day of vacation, and the fact that I won’t have oodles of time during the day, we had a little photo shoot (and let me just tell you how hard it is to photograph a 3 month old who has yet to gain control of her motor skills).

It started out innocently enough…

Then we went upstairs to the changing table…

And then I decided to play dress up with some of the clothes I know she’ll hardly ever wear…

and kept going…

and going…

and going…

and going, but I’ll stop there. FYI, doing so are the rights and privileges given to a mother.

The other night after I put you to bed around 10:30p in your crib, I lay awake until you needed me. I knew I would have at least 2 hours to sleep, but I just couldn’t. I just listened to the humming of the ceiling fan coming through the monitor and just waited, waited for the slightest cry and the slightest inkling that you needed me.

Sometimes, even when you are not fussy and could sleep in your crib, I bring you to bed with me anyways, knowing that these days will not last forever.

Although I fell tethered to the pump, I am grateful of it’s duty so that I have an excuse to take a much needed break from you at times.

I know I shouldn’t have the TV on with you, but there is only so much silent pacing one can do. So I’ll turn it on the cartoon channel occasionally to offset that guilt.

Picking your boogers and fingernails have become a new obsession for me.

Sometimes I let you cry a little longer than I should because I think your cry *can* be adorable.

Our little girl is approaching 3 months and it’s amazing how much she has changed. She used to be so teeny…  so small and skinny. So much so that it’s hard to imagine/remember how small she was before now. I look at pictures of her back and how wrinkly it was, and how it’s not wrinkly anymore and I miss it. It’s hard to understand how you can miss something that you can’t exactly remember, I just know that it’s different and I know I miss it. I wouldn’t change her as she is now—she’s much better behaved, not quite as intolerant of anything even remotely uncomfortable, and she has a personality now, and you can actually interact with her—I’d just make her smaller, like when she had the wrinkly back. It was so amazingly soft. I’m a little bummed I didn’t spend more time touching it. If I could just revert her to how she was right after she was born…  if only for a moment. But I guess that is the wish of most parents.

You could spend your life trying to get back the moments you lost, but then you’d miss the moments you have.

Stop growing, little one.

I had my first father’s day this weekend, and Chelsea got me a digital frame that I put a bunch of photos of Skye, Chelsea and a few others just to fill space on, and I think I’m gonna have to take it back or something…

I just sit here all day looking at my cutesy little family and smile all the time, my productivity has dropped at least 50% (the blog doesn’t help either).  I seriously lucked out with all of them. Skye is so amazingly beautiful, that I find myself looking at her, and forgetting what I was doing at the time, if it was anything besides looking at her at all. She has started to show an inkling of personality and a few smiles, and it’s so awesome. It’s strange how it’s the littlest things that endear her to me. Sometimes she’ll yawn with her little crooked yawn and my whole body just melts. I love her little crooked bottom lip. And how she gets super excited when we walk in and put her on the changing table (her favorite place to be), and I’ll get halfway through changing her diaper, and start to read her a book (sometimes, it’s the only time she’s not screaming).  I’ll also sit her in front of me, propped up on my legs and just have conversations with her, while she looks at me like she knows. And I tell her about all the things that I’m going to teach her, and think of all the things shes going to teach me, and how much fun we’re going to have together.

And then there’s Chelsea, the most amazing girl I’ve ever met. I mean, she has a tattoo of a Star Trek Communicator, how much cooler can you get?  And she gets me, and I get her. We finish each other’s thoughts all the time. I’ll say something, and she’ll say “I was just thinking that!”, or vice versa. Or she’ll look at me questioningly, and I’ll give her the answer she was looking for, before she even asks it. Or I’ll look at her, and she’ll slide the drink I wanted over to me, without me even asking for it. It’s spooky someimtes. And although we have sleightly different tastes in books, movies, music, and TV shows, for the most part they are pretty darn close, and the things that I never would have considered, she has opened my eyes to. And she’s beautiful on top of all that. Always has been. I have a few photos of her on my frame, and every time they pop up, I just stare and think, “Wow”.

I get it. I now understand the true meaning of frustration and being at your wits end. I now understand mommy guilt; what it is and where is comes from. I now understand how important sleep really is and how elusive it can be. I now understand how women lose themselves in their children. I now understand how little patience I really had. I get it.

Let me tell you a little about her cry. When her crying is working at full decibel level and turns into a scream, a wail, a screech from some dark place I never knew my daughter had, it has a way of reaching back into the depths of your own mind and making you consider doing things to your child you would never otherwise consider. Like leaving her in the middle of the road for a stranger to deal with. Or taking her to the basement and turning the TV up louder than her incessant, untranslatable cry. Or taking her back for a refund.

I guess this all stems from having a rough couple of days. Her nor I not sleeping, my inability to console her, her being overtired, my lack of patience, her not sleeping despite her obvious state of sleepiness, my intolerance of this, her need to be in constant motion, usually walking around the house, my refusal to do so and then resentment at giving in and doing so.

And then…

A smile in glee from the melody of the song I am singing to her, or how her toes curl up against my leg when she is sleeping, or the way she pops her tongue in and out to get the bottle out of her mouth, or how she’ll let one rip with such intensity to rival her fathers flatulence, or how she’ll snuggle up to the warmth of my neck, or the many faces she’ll make while sleeping. Despite everything I still come back for more.

So I’m sitting here at work, and looking at the pictures from the previous post (OMG, I love that one of her in her little hat) and the pictures on my desk and seriously missing my little girl.   I love to just sit and hold her and, if she’s not screaming, just hold my forehead against her forehead and have little moments with her. I find myself spending most of my time home just torn… I still want to do the things I did before she arrived, but I still want to spend time with her. If she would allow it, I would love to plop her in the front carrier and sit at my computer and do some coding, looking at her whenever I needed to. But she would never go for that, unless she was asleep. So I take the time that I can, and just have to accept that I can’t see her all the time.

I’m not sure how Chels is going to handle it when she goes back to work. If she missed the dog as much as she did when she was at work, how is she going to handle being away from her snugglebug when she’s been home with her for three months?

I still miss them both though.