Life with Squeaky

Little miss delicious is also lovely miss squeaky, squirmy, grunts and gurgles. The noises are astounding, and often very worrisome to us newly-minted parents. The pre-birth classes may have prepared us for a funny looking newborn, but nothing prepared us for a funny sounding newborn! The nurses and doctors at the hospital assured us that these are normal newborn sounds. The lactation consultant assured us that these are normal newborn sounds. Our doula assured us that these are normal newborn sounds. Her pediatrician assured us that these are normal newborn sounds. But still, I worry every time I hear her make one of her more alarming sounds (and I appreciate that much more this quote from a "new mom humor" book: "Infants may technically sleep 20 hours a day, but they do it 10 minutes at a time while making strage, at death's-door kind of choking and gurgling noises.")

But mostly she squeeks. Little sounds with each breath, like there's a wheel turning inside of her as she keeps those lungs rolling. And it's very charming indeed.

Besides squeeking through this last week she's also done some meeting & greeting of friends and relatives and she's taken some nice strolls out in the rest of the world (including trips to Lake Merritt & Tilden - where I fussed over her almost constantly, but we all agreed it was good to be out). Among her admiring visitors was her east-coast grandpa who visited for several days (this is the same grandfather that made the lovely cradle). And yesterday she met one of her two great-granpas! What a lucky gal to enjoy her gpa!

Squeaky has also started really loooooking at things more and more. Yes, since she was a few days old she's had a strong interest in scanning faces. And now, in addition, she's taking an interest in things like the mobile hanging over her changing table. And she follows movements with her eyes as well. (Ok, I'm a brand-new mom and I'm easily impressed with my baby's development. When your day is filled with nursing, crying, pooping, but not much sleep, it's the little things that excite you!)