Four months old: things on track

So, just an hour or so ago baby turned four months old! Things for the past few days have definitely gotten better, especially in the sleeping department. Don't feel like jinxing it, but it seems baby is right on her way to establish good sleeping pattern. For the last few days she had been literally sleeping through the night!! I didn't expect that after hearing other's experiences! Baby just couple of days ago had her first Thanksgiving, which is really special to me as last Thanksgiving I found out she came to me!! So, on earth it was first Thanksgiving. To mark this special event I actually got her beautiful hand knitted dress, hat and booty set from Etsy. It's really beautiful. However, she didn't get to wear that on Thanksgiving. I did put that on her few weeks ago to see how it looked on her ( it looked positively gorgeous!!!) and snapped few pics. One of the pics came out really pretty and her father was eager to put that up on FB, which he ended up doing the other day and it seemed to be a big hit!! My sweet baby! Well, today she has doc appt, amd will get second dose of vaccines! Looking forward to a fun filled most memorable month yet for my sweety pie as she will God willing meet her father in about a week! And she will be off to her first ever oversees trip!

Rainbow cake trial #1

So, I've been planning baby's first bday for the last few weeks already! And it's going to be Rainbow theme. I am set on that. Since it's still a while away (she's not even 4 months yet!), and I've been itching to try out the rainbow cake I decided to take the opportunity on 11.11.11 as it was my niece's bday. Though my niece is in Dhaka and I am here, it doesn't matter. I can still have a cake for her! I really loved the way my cake had turned out. I used Americolor food gel color, and I liked how vibrant the colors had turned out!

So here are the pics....

Three months old: Light at the end of the tunnel?

Well, baby turned 3 months on 10/28. The day she turned three months we went to visit my friend N's house and met her baby M. My baby saw M for the first time that day. Though I had seen baby M before day after she was born, it was really for a brief moment at the hospital. Now, she is a grown lady too ;) On that day I felt like there was something going on and I couldn't quite figure what it was. I knew it was 10/28 and I knew Eliana was 3 months old that day. But all day 10/28 stood out to me. I had no idea why. Till of course I read mothering board the other day and someone was talking about how a certain date sounded so familiar but it wasn't anyone's bday...and then viola she knew what it was. That's exactly 10/28 was to me. My LMP!! OMG how could I forget this date as I had put this date on due date calculator numerous times over the 9 months period to see where I was in pregnancy!!!! 10/28/2010 last time I'd my period! Oh wow! Surely this has been the longest I'd gone without aunt flow showing up!

Anyway, from the time baby turned 2 months to she turned 3 months was also quite rough. First of all, she got her first dose of vaccines. It was very nerve wrecking for me. Watching her getting stabbed with needles wasn't fun at all. Considering her, she screamed but after that at home she didn't fuss much. Again, considering it was her! I was on pins and needels till the magic 48 hours. She didn't get any fever, thanks God.

Other than getting her first dose of vax I don't remember anything out of the ordinary happening. But on 10/28 she gave me a nice surprise. Right on her 3rd month bday she slept through the night. Now, in her case it meant from 11 p.m. till almost 6 a.m.!! When I woke up and was going to take a look at my iphone to check the time, I was sure I would see sometime from 2 to 3.30 a.m. on the clock, but when I ended up seeing 6 a.m., seriosuly I couldn't believe it! WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? She slept through the night literally! Then there was an hour and half of little fussiness...then slept from 7.30 a.m. to 11 a.m.!!!!! wowza!! It did seem like finally I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Since then she has been sleeping much better than she did before. Though there are still night waking, but now it doesn't take much to get her back to sleep. Lovely!

Welcome Baby Party

So, we had a small get together that can be called a "Welcome Baby party" on the 24th of September, 2011. I made an event invitation on FB and sent to those who were invited (of course!..duh) . Unfortunately, three of my very close friends couldn't make it due to various valid reasons. Friends from my ex-work place made it and I was so very happy about it. Baby's only family from her father's side made it and also that made me extremely happy.

My sis and I wanted to have a theme for the party besides the obvious welcome baby. We called it "Celebrating Eliana". I wanted to do "polka dot" theme but it just didn't work out, which was fine also! I had few colors in my mind that I chose to base the decorations. Purple, Green and Yellow. It worked out great. Sonia made all the decorations...the craze these days...personalized water bottle label, banner, cup cake topper etc. Besides these, she made the most pretty favor. All were based on those three colors that I chose.

We had so many plans and what not, but it was also very crunch time for Sonia at work and me at home dealing with Eliana. And unfortunately she happened to go through a very rough patch with regards to sleep and general fussiness. Despite the date for the party being fixed almost a month ago, days right before the party was pretty disastrous. We basically put everything together night before. I had oh so very little sleep!

And on the day of the party Eliana was totally not so on her good behaviour! She cried through out the day and by the end of the day she had a pretty major melt down. I was just happy that we were able to put up the decorations, food was on the table, guests enjoyed the time and we also get to see the other newbie. Major success.

For food we had- Zucchini patties and Beef Kofta as appetizers. For main course we had Beef curry, Goat meat Curry, Chicken tandoori, Vegetables with Coconut milk and of course plain ole polau. For dessert, mini cup cakes from the Whole Foods, a Chocolate ganache cake from WF (which we kind of custom ordered...with design and the writing...) and biscotti again from WF. Thanks God we decided to buy everything from WF (as initially I wanted to bake things)...caz otherwise there would have been no dessert at all. oh well, yes there was one more thing. A watermelon full with fruits. I curved the watermelon btw, nothing fancy just simple wavey types. I did want to curve a baby carriage, but couldn't find an approprite sized watermelon in the grocery (this was meant to happen since I waited last minute to get that!). Anyway, for something next time will do!

We had guests write a note for baby and we hanged it on some flower branches (Sonia's idea) and it looked really cute! And it's such a nice keepsake.

Here are some pics.



Lindt chocolate favors



Two months old: Rough time

I thought first month was tough! Boy oh boy, the next one was tougher! And no kidding. I should have written everything live caz now that I am sitting to right down the happenings from the day she turned a month old till she turned two, I have really forgotten the nitty bitty details.And I guess deep down I don't want to remember those.  All I remember the sleep deprivation was at its worst, her crying marathon was even crazier. The major event from that time was we had a party to show her off to friends and some family who live in New York. One of her very young grand mother, her uncle and his wife...and their newbie.

Will write about the details of her welcome party on a separate post, but for now that's about it I guess.

A month old : When day is night and night is day

Today, my baby has turned a month!! Time is flying. So far it has been super crazy busy! So many things that I learned in past four weeks and I thought I knew a lot before! I was so preoccupied with the whole pregnancy, labor and delivery that totally forgot how it would be post birth! Caring for a newborn is HARD work. And more so, if that newborn seems to be a fussy cry baby for most of the waking time. However, things seem to be improving now.

First two weeks were SUPER HARD. It's one thing to care for a baby and completely another to care for a baby AND deal with post birth recovery AND deal with unexpected issue such as problem with breasfeeding. She was fed formula for the first two weeks as a "supplement". Though truly first one and a half week breast milk was more like a supplement and not formula. She had hard time with latching. So, I was pumping and pumping and slowly but surely turned her from formula fed to "Exclusively breastfed" baby! It's a lot of work but worth it!

Sleep. Where do I begin with sleep? I absolutely had no idea that newborn needs to be fed every two hours if breastfed or every three hours if formula fed. There were some nights when she was really following this schedule which meant very less sleep for me, if at all. I do feel just recently I came out of zombieland. And the ritual of feeding her was also very time consuming. Being new to motherhood and all there was one thing I didn't know how to do-breastfeed baby sidelaying in bed! I heard about it, I had seen it but I didn't know how to do it. I know, had I done that earlier my nightlife would have gotten much easier. But anyway. In the begining it was like...she would cry, I pick her up..get my boppy pillow (life saver!)..put her on that...spent time on getting her perfectly or at least in a workable position for feeding (when breastfed)...and then fed...she would drift to sleep..then pick her up in upright position for burping..(sometimes she wouldn't even burp!) and then put her down for more feeding and pick her up for burping and it went on till she finally would fall asleep. So whole thing could take from 45 mintutes to one and half hour. And when I would put her on bed, viola in 2 min would be up with eyes wide open and CRY! And do the whole shindig all over again, may be it would take a little less time than whole 45 min to one and half hour next round, but the ritual was performed as said manner all over again. Adding to that, when she was sleeping I would rush to pump milk for anywhere from 20 to 40 min...it was really BRUTAL. I was so happy when she was finally latching okay enough for me to not pump every.single.day.

And then of course the freaking pump had to go out of whack. It was really nerve wrecking for me. Whenever something happens related to breastfeeding, I freak out the most. Nothing else matter that much.

Anyway, so around three weeks she started to have night time fussy time, which lasted anywhere from 3 p.m. to 6 a.m. During this time she would continuously cry, whimper, fuss....and nothing seemed to console her. It was such a hard hard time.

Overall, first month went by pretty fast now that I think about it. But then it felt like each night was never ending. I know time will pass us by before we know it. So, despite the hardship I want to enjoy and am enjoying every moment of it because this time will never come again.

Looking forward to future!

First ever attempt at Watermelon carving!

I have been watching youtube videos on watermelon carving what seems like for ages now. And, finally the other day I carved one!! It wasn't an easy one either, like one of those baskets. It was a baby carriage!! Yoohoo..though I am pleased with my first try, clearly there were rooms for improvement. Here is what I carved..it doesn't look like much now, but once this is fully dressed up with fruits and a baby inside (!!) then it looks reallyyy good...that will be next time...