Emery {1 Month}

Emery is one month old! How can that be?!? Time is flying by and she's changing every day. I want to soak up every single moment because I know this tiny snuggly stage is not going to last long. I'm hoping these posts will help me remember all the adorable things she's up to lately because I never want to forget a single thing!

Here's what she's been up to this month:

- At her 2 week check up, she weighed 8 pounds and 3 ounces and was 22-1/2 inches long. I'm not sure about that length, though. It's hard to get her to straighten out completely. She's definitely going to be tall, though.

- She's still wearing newborn diapers, but we'll probably switch to size 1 diapers soon. She's still wearing newborn clothes, but she's getting too tall for some of them. I'm not sure what we're going to do, though, because 3 month clothes are still too big on her.

- She's really strong. From the day she was born, she was able to pick up her head for a second or two and she's getting stronger every day. She picks up her head all the time when we have her on our shoulders.

- She hated getting swaddled at first, but she's liking it better and better. She sometimes cries when we're wrapping her up, but she usually calms right down as soon as we pick her up. We joke that she has "Houdini hands" because no matter how tight we swaddle her, she manages to get her arms out. We even tried one of those velcro swaddle wraps and she has managed to get out of that!

- She is a hungry girl! She eats about 4 ounces every 3-4 hours and she *loves* eating. When she eats, she keeps her hands up by her cheeks or she puts them in little fists and puts them on her chest. So cute. She also makes crazy sounds when she's eating. Daniel calls her his goose because she makes this funny sound that resembles a goose honking.

- She *hated* diaper changes the first couple of weeks, but she's tolerating them much better now. It seems like she likes having her diaper off. We don't risk that often, though. She's made quite a habit of going to the bathroom again right after we take her diaper off. It's happened more times than we can count. We even think that's cute, though. It's amazing the things that you're totally okay with once you become a parent. :)

- She also hated her first few baths. I mean she screamed the entire time. She's starting to like them much better now that her cord has fallen off and she can be in the water more. My favorite part of bath time is the hooded towels.

- She makes some hilarious and adorable faces when she's sleeping and she smiles a lot in her sleep. We love those sleepy smiles. Every time she falls asleep, one of us is holding her. That's probably not good. We're not looking forward to sleep training. But it's just so sweet to hold a sleeping baby.

- She almost always loves a pacifier. We decided to give her one in the hospital because she had to get her heel pricked several times to test her bilirubin levels since she had jaundice. She handled the heel pricks much better with the pacifier...at least in the hospital. At the pediatrician's office, the pacifier didn't help one bit with the heel prick. I am so not looking forward to shots. :( She loves the soothie pacifiers and especially her wubbanub. It's so adorable when she hugs it.

- When she's awake, she loves to look all around. She especially loves to look at the ceiling fan. We got her one of those play mats for the floor and I think she's going to love it since she's so curious.

- She likes to be sung to most of the time. It's such a great feeling to sing to her and watch her calm right down...and then there are the moments that I'm singing my heart out and she screams in my face. :) I make up ridiculous songs most of the time, but I sing her some real songs, too. :) Daniel sings to her, too. He chooses more nontraditional lullabies such as Bruno Mars' "Nothin' On You". Beautiful girls, all over the world... They got nothin' on you, baby. Yes, he does. It's so sweet. That first week, he was singing to her, and we were so tired we could barely function, and he sang that he was going to buy her a "mocking horse" and a "rocking bird". Sleep deprivation is no joke.

- She gets the hiccups at least twice a day. Someone gave us this stuff called gripe water before she was born and it has been a life saver. It gets rid of the hiccups immediately and she *loves* the stuff. She puckers her lips up when we give it to her and she makes these adorable kissing sounds. Then she licks her lips for a good minute after she finishes it to make sure she gets it all off her lips.

- She went through a stage where she was extremely fussy from around 5:00 until 10:00. It lasted about 10 days and it was no fun at all. She would just cry constantly and nothing we did would help. It was such a helpless feeling. We knew she was tired but it would take forever for her to go to sleep. Thankfully, she seems to be past that stage for now.

- She's sleeping pretty well, finally. The first three weeks she would wake up every 2-3 hours and it would take a while for her to go back to sleep. This last week or so she's gone to sleep around 9:30 and will sleep until 2:30-3:30. Then we feed her and she'll sleep until 5:30-6:30. It's not bad at all and we're so thankful. We're definitely looking forward to her sleeping through the night, though. :)

- She's been sleeping in her pack and play in the living room, but we moved her to her crib in her room last night and she did great! She didn't wake up any more than normal. We're hoping that continues!

- We found a swing for her that she loves. We had the mamaroo, but she hated it. I know, probably the only baby ever to hate it. We kept it for about three weeks, tried it several times with her, and she would cry every time after just a minute or two. Apparently, she just wanted to keep it simple because she loves this one that only swings and plays music. She loves to look at the bird and giraffe and she'll make the cutest gurgles and coos. I just love it.

- She likes her car seat pretty well so far. Sometimes she cries when we put her in it, but as soon as we pick it up and start moving, she's happy. Most of the time, she'll fall asleep once we're in the car driving around. The big exception to that was when we went to church the first time. Screamed the whole way there. We're glad that's rare. And we hope she warms up to going to church. ;)

- We love this little girl more than we thought possible. She's made this the best month of our lives and brings us so much happiness and joy!

Sorry, Daddy. She was *done* with pictures at this point!