Eliane is four weeks old today. The months has gone so quickly, I've barely had time to mourn it's passing. But mourn it I do, even though I know I will love each phase as it comes and keep wanting to stop time right there. I wish I could keep hold of each moment, each passing phase. Those first two days, with a beautiful new baby, are so wonderful and so brief. But at least they do stand out as different. The sleepiness of a newborn, who will sleep anywhere and through anything (but still keep you awake most of the night), combined with the difference between breastfeeding with colostrum and feeding the next day with melons on your chest... yes, you can definitely notice that phase passing.
But after that the days blend into each other, and by the time you notice a pattern the routine is changing again. And that makes it feel even harder to hold onto - well, anything. Of course you can't hold on. Time, as as often been observed, is relentless. It keeps on going no matter what you do. And if you are sleep deprived and spend most of your waking hours (as well as some of your sleeping ones) with a babe in arms, it's hard to keep track and even harder to keep record, as I like to do, of everything that happens, let alone of everything you feel about it.
I wanted to write a long post today about Eliane at four weeks old. Something I could put in her baby book as a snapshot of where she is right now. But where she is right now, I think (I'll tell you once the pattern resolves itself, maybe next week), is becoming more unsettled. Hopefully not starting to get reflux like her siblings had. But definitely harder to get to sleep well in the day, and quite unsettled for most of the evening for the past three days. She's okay after midnight mostly, but at this time of day she seems to want to suck suck suck. But then reject reject reject as well. And she'll seem completely settled and then suddenly be wide awake again. Right now Chris is pacing about the room with her on his shoulder, sucking on his finger. Which he's been doing on and off for about an hour.
And so, I think I am going to leave this post here, because I should either take her and try nursing her again, or go to bed so I can be up with her later, or maybe one and then the other.
