Guzowski Family Blog: 4 Weeks and a first smile?!

Today, Noah is 4 weeks old and he will be one month old on Friday. I can't believe it, because it has felt like the longest, yet fastest month we've ever experienced. I am feeling pretty good physically, but I have entered the awkward postpartum body phase, where maternity clothes are too big, and regular clothes are too small. I know this is a temporary phase, but I am ready to get back to Jazzercise soon! I also forgot how breastfeeding makes you second-guess everything you've eaten. Fussy baby? It must have been the <insert any food here> that I ate earlier. I'm sure most of the time it is just because babies have fussy periods, but I feel like I'm in constant food analysis mode.

Matt's part-time return to work went fine last week, and today he is back full-time. It has been so nice having him home and we're going to miss him now that he's back at work! We will be on vacation next week at Shadow Lake, so we will enjoy some more family time (wish us luck with all the packing). No blog next week since we'll be on vacation!

This week has brought some signs of progress in the sleep department for both kids. Evie is waking less frequently at night, and has even made it until morning a couple of times without needing us to go up to her room. If you had asked me 6 weeks ago, I would have thought this was horrible sleep, but now it seems like heaven! We have also been doing some sleep training by having her practice laying in her bed alone at nap time and bedtime for a few minutes while she tries to fall asleep. We've been increasing the length of time, and she has fallen asleep on her own for a few of her naps. Again, huge progress from a few weeks ago, and the biggest thing is that we have hope that she will sleep normally again!

Noah is continuing to sleep well most nights, although he often has a fussy time in the early morning hours after sleeping for a long stretch. We may enjoy 5 or 6 hours of sleep, but then we'll have to soothe, rock, nurse, burp, etc. from 4:30-6:30am. at which point we're up for the day. Noah is continuing to spit up all over everyone and everything, but we are getting a little more skilled at catching the mess, and we're also getting good at cleaning carpets, furniture, and doing laundry!

Here's the awesome thing about babies...just when you start to get really exhausted and worn down, they start to smile at you. Yes, Noah is starting to give us some little smiles!! He's having more content awake time during the day, and that's when we can coax out a smile or a coo from him. I love seeing his personality start to emerge.

Even though it's been 3 years since we coaxed that first smile from Evie, seeing her smiling face never gets old!

To celebrate making it through the difficult first three weeks, we decided to have a family date night downtown on Friday. It went amazingly well - Noah slept the whole time, we found a parking spot without any problem, got a table at the restaurant we wanted to go to, had great service (and a delicious margarita!), and enjoyed the beautiful weather on Church Street as we walked up to Ben & Jerry's for dessert. We felt like tourists in our own town!

The next day, we enjoyed another piece of Vermont by visiting an open house at the Organic Valley dairy farm next to our neighborhood. How cool is it that we walked there from our house!? We made our own butter, snacked on cheese and chocolate milk, visited calves, and went for a hay ride through the cow pastures. The funniest thing for me was when Noah had to eat, and I found myself nursing him in the cow barn. I was feeling like a kindred spirit with the dairy cows!

While there is no "normal" yet in our lives, we did find some time to do the wonderfully normal stuff that we love: playing outside, reading, baking, and visiting with friends.