All about Lauren

Everyone talks about how the second child doesn't get as much attention as the first child - not as many pictures, not as much time, etc. My brother to this day still claims that I'm the favorite child. So in order to give Lauren her fair share of attention (at least for a bit), I wanted to share just a little about her without bringing up her big sister! A professor at another university whom I know actually had a blog for each of her daughters, but I can't imagine trying to keep two blogs up to date, when I can't even keep one updated.

Lauren is a sleepy little girl. During the first week we saw her eyes very little. We've slowly been seeing her big blue eyes more and more, but she really does like to sleep. Unfortunately, she seems to sleep best during the day. She does sleep at night, but that is when she wants to eat the most and after the middle of the night feeding she doesn't always want to go back to sleep. We're slowly getting used to getting through each day with less sleep than we'd like and/or need and we're regularly asleep on the couch by around 9!

Lauren had high levels of bilirubin (jaundice) during the her first few days. As a result, she had to be in a bili blanket bed. It really was a cool contraption and she didn't really seem to mind being in there, but it was hard on us as parents (and on the grandparents) as we didn't get to hold her much as she was in this bed at all times except for when she was eating. Poor little thing. Since those first days, her levels have come down and she's good to go.

Lauren has a good set of lungs. I blame this on the betamethizone (sp?) shots they gave me when I was exhibiting signs of pre-term labor. The shots worked and developed her lungs really well.

Lauren has long toes. I think I can definitely claim those as mine as her second toe is longer than her first. She was in a 3-month sleeper one day last week and her feet were actually too big for it. The rest of it was loose on her, but not the feet.

For as young as she is, Lauren is doing a really good job with her neck. Well, you really can't see her neck, but she consistently picks her head up and turns it all around, she's got really good control. If only her double chin would shrink, you'd maybe be able to see those muscles :)

Lauren has a healthy appetite - she loves to eat and at times she's eating nearly 6 ounces. She struggled to gain weight at first; in fact, it took her 2.5 weeks or so to get back up to her birth weight. The doctor decided that she must be burning more calories trying to get milk when nursing than she was getting from the milk, so we've had to modify our routine. One feeding I nurse her and then she has two feedings when she just gets a bottle. As with Alyssa, my milk supply isn't enough to meet her needs, so she's getting both breast milk and formula. But I feel like she's getting more breast milk than formula which makes me happy!

We never have to question whether Lauren has a dirty diaper, not because we can smell it but because we can hear it from two rooms away! (Someday she's going to kill me for writing this, but it's the truth.) And she does go through a lot of diapers - I think we're on box 4 already.

We're just delighting in our "little peanut" as we call her and taking one day at a time. As Lauren continues to grow, develop, and show us more of her personality, we'll be sure to share that with you to make sure she knows she is loved every bit as much as her older sister.