8 weeks

Our Rachel is eight weeks old today! Over the past month, she has started to develop such a personality - smiling and laughing with her mom and dad, "talking" to her ladybug friends on her bouncer, and enjoying a couple of hours of "binky time" before falling asleep in the evenings. She found her thumb a couple of weeks ago, and loves hearing bedtime stories, taking baths (yep), and listening to her mommy sing to her.

Did we mention that Rachel Elizabeth sleeps through most nights? Although we may need to wake up once or twice a week for an early bottle, it's normal for her to go 8-10 hours each night. We know this isn't exactly common, and we're thankful. She's spoiling us, so we spoil her back!

Apart from a minor case of infant acid reflux, our angel is healthy and growing. Zantac (well, the generic substitute) helps with the reflux, and we're also feeding her Enfamil Gentlease Lipil. It's still a milk-based formula, but helps somewhat with the spit-ups and gas. She's taking 5 oz in any given feeding and is on the threshold of bumping that amount up to 6 oz. Hard to believe, but we're still working off free formula from the hospital, pediatrician, online offers, etc.!

Katie and I took some crude measurements last week, and it appears that our daughter is 23" long and weighs approx 12 lbs. We'll know better next Friday, when Rachel visits Dr. Stewart for her first set of shots. Mommy isn't looking forward to that day! It's also the last day of her maternity leave. As many of you know, MassMutual approached Kate earlier this year and offered her the opportunity to work from home twice a week. This will allow her to stay home with Rachel until our little one becomes more mobile, and also saves us a bit on day care in the interim. We feel blessed...

Well, that's our sweetheart in a nutshell. I have some video of her that I'll get around to posting one of these days, so those of you in faraway places can all see how cute she is! I hope everyone is well - we can't wait to see you all soon.

Paul and Katie