Life with Lydia: Things are looking up!

Thanks to the counsel of family and friends Katie tried a nipple shield for breastfeeding. Thus far it is working wonders! That, combined with pumping, has put us 2 ounces of milk ahead of our baby. It's amazing the amount of security we get from such a small and simple thing.

In light of this wonderful news, instead of going on and on about breastfeeding let's talk about how wonderful it is to have a little baby.

Lydia smells amazing. I could hold her and sniff her hair for a long time and not get tired of it. She smells SO GOOD. I recognize that this may come across a little weird, but it's true. My baby smells amazing, and it makes me happy.

Lydia's eyes are gorgeous. She already has long eyelashes and several of them. When she locks eyes with you it's impossible not to notice how pretty her eyes are. It also amazes me how much intelligence I see in her when looking her in the eyes. I feel like my baby is quite smart, but unable to exercise her intelligence due to her age / lack of control of her body.

Related to the point above, I love how alert our little one gets. She looks around the room in wide eyed wonder and loves to see things. When she is awake she is really awake!

She farts like her daddy.

She is soothed by the sound of her parent's voices. This is a blessing that carries weight with it. I want to always be the kind of father that can soothe my children by communicating with them, or singing to them. It is precious to me when my baby is crying and I can come in and ask her what's wrong and she quiets down because she knows daddy is going to take care of her.

I love how close together our little girl is bringing Katie and I. We had a pretty darn good relationship before our daughter was born, but now that she's here my wife and I are required to work together more frequently, and it's been a blessing to our relationship. My love and respect for her grows with each passing day and she works hard at being the best kind of mother she knows how to be.

This next point is a bit of a negative thing, but for some reason it still sparks fatherly pride in me. Last night our little girl was awake from 2:45 am 'till a bit after 6 am. Because her father didn't secure her diaper around her legs well enough, she was able to pee all over her mom, and all over the bed completely missing her diaper. I don't know how her bladder got so full, she must have peed almost every ounce of milk from the entire day into that bed. Except I know she didn't because she peed on the changing area earlier that night while we were swapping her diaper. You go my little fire hydrant.