2 Week Old Holly & Painting the World Red

Who can believe that tomorrow little Holly is 2 weeks old which also means the end of my paternity leave and back to work. I will miss the little girl for sure (even if she does sleep all day) and I will miss the school runs each morning and evening. Tina and Holly have officially been discharged from the midwife as of yesterday and then today we had the first health visitor appointment. I am pleased to confirm they are very pleased with Holly. She now weighs in at 3.57Kg which is a 0.1Kg increase since birth and she is 51cm long (love the way they report "long" rather than how tall given that babies cannot stand). She seems to be a very average size girl and sits pretty much on the 50h percentile curves for most attributes.

 

One common observation from the midwife and the health visitor is that they both made the comment that Holly was "overcooked" as in well due for birth and the signs of this are that she still exhibits a lot of flaky skin (especially after bath time). The only other minor concern is that she has a small mark on the top of her scalp which has been there since birth. We think it could be a birth mark which will eventually be hidden by her hair, but for the short term we just need to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't get any bigger.

 

So Holly is now 2 weeks old and what can we say about the little girl? Well physically she definitely looks more like Joshua than Brandon. Her hair looks like it is going to be a light brown and her eyes are still slightly blue but do look like they will change, so definitely not baby blue like her big brother. She is a very peaceful baby who likes her sleep. Her most restful period seems to be after breakfast to around lunchtime where she barely wakes up for a feed or bum change. Through the night she is pretty mush going 3-4 hours intervals which is OK. The good news is she is not a real "screamer" of a baby and her night cries have not once disturbed the two boys up in their bedrooms in the loft. Generally Holly seems to cry or whine only when she is hungry, tired or needs a bum change - address the problem and she curls up and goes back to sleep. Fortunately Holly does not seem to be a "sicky" baby like Joshua was and also does not seem to be too concerned about winding her after a feed. But she does seem to have a lot of flactuance down below so maybe she is self winding. Probably the only other notable thing is that Holly seems very prone to hick ups and they really annoy her after a while. Unfortunately there seems to be little we can do as she cannot have gripe water until she is 4 weeks old.

 

Home life has definitely changed and we now have to structure the daily routines around nappy changes and feed times. Getting the boys up in the morning, washed, dressed, fed and ready for school whilst also sorting out Holly requires a lot of pre-planning and can be quite stressful. Then getting out of the door becomes very challenging making sure everyone has coats, hats, gloves on, loading up the buggy, making sure you have the baby bag in case of an emergency nappy change or feed etc. Sharing what available free time you have between the 3 children is yet another challenge which for sure I have not yet found the right balance. It is absolutely amazing having little Holly in our family, but it has certainly turned the stability and dynamic of the family up on its head!!!

 

Anyway enough talk for today, lets have some picture updates. So firstly Holly has had her first painting experience as I "attempted" to get her hand and foot prints. The foot print wasn't too bad and I managed to get a reasonable print. But the hand print was an absolute nightmare as little Holly really didn't like her hair painted, then once I did get the paint on she just wanted to squeeze her hand as tight as possible and rub paint everywhere except on the paper.

 

Holly's little footprint at 2 weeks old in red, Brandon in green at nearly 5 years old and Joshua in blue at 6 years old.

A nice picture of Joshua having a cheek cuddle with his little sis.

A lovely picture of all 3 kids.

Black and white version for a different contrast.

 

Better smiles from Josh and B here, but Holly still wouldn't look directly at the camera (maybe this is her best side!).