As I type this, I am semi-holding my breath, waiting for the little princess to fully wake up. Of course, I've been semi-holding for the last 45 minutes, while she wriggles and wiggles and grunts and groans and overall prevents me from going to sleep - because the second I do, I know she'll be awake and ready for her next meal. Her precious little face when she's hungry - it reminds me of a baby bird, with her big eyes looking up at me and her mouth open and ready for milk. And when she gets frantically starving: the shaking of her head side to side with her mouth open, and the way her near-panicked, rhythmic cry settles into a deep sigh as she latches on...nothing more adorable.
And it is a good and very lucky thing that she is adorable, because how can you throw something that cute across the room, or in the trash can, or leave it in the closet for a few minutes/ hours/ days? I don't know what it is about a baby's cry that can so profoundly impact its mother (and no one else), but whatever it is, is is fully functional in my baby girl.
Emerson Elizabeth is the name we finally agreed upon. Yes, that means her initials are EEK! but we've decided that we're going to teach her from a young age that whenever someone asks her what her middle name is, she's going to answer, "Elizabeth - my initials spell EEK!" and then giggle so that no other kids can make fun of her for it. Kids will make fun of you for anything. But I absolutely LOVE the name Emerson and I think she will just have to deal with adversity from a young age.
The last 6 weeks have been a blur, shockingly. On the one hand, they've gone by SO FAST. Then, when I think about all that my little one has experienced in her short life, it seems like so much. It really seems like eons ago that I had to bring her in when she was 3 days old for a weight check, when Mom and Dad went to Target to buy me a breast shield because I absolutely could not STAND to have her nurse due to the bleeding and cracking she had induced, when I went back to the lactation consultant and pediatrics clinic (twice more!) for problems with weight gain, when she had her "Welcome to the World" party at age 3 weeks, when Sarah and Jeff came to visit, when GiGi, Meg, Jeff, Gwen, and Mike came to visit, when Hailey came over to take pictures (3 times!), when she had her first spa experience... So much has happened over the last 42+ days.
Like I said, on the one hand I feel like she's been a part of my life for a long time, and then I'll look at her and remember that she is teeny-tiny and only 6 weeks old! I'll get frustrated that she doesn't sleep through the night and she wants to be held and nursed all the time, and then I'll remember that for 9 months she was cuddled up inside me and just wants to be near me so she can feel warm and secure again. I am ridiculously sleep deprived and already sick of changing diapers, and I really am loving (almost) every minute.
My breath-holding seems to have worked, because the grunting and squeaking and sighing have tapered off. Time for me to get some rest. Ha. Ha. Ha. =)
