A Week's Worth, v.1 - a week of firsts!

So I've decided to copy what my clever friend Hannah does, and post a week's worth of goings-on every weekend.  I figure this will be another good motivator to take more pictures and make sure I post at least weekly!

This week was an exciting week of firsts.  On Wednesday night, Emi Lou smiled at me twice.  Her first intentional smile?  I wasn't sure.  I actually chalked it up to her being tired. (Since the very beginning, she would often smile as she drifted off to sleep .)  But a little later, I handed her off to Marco and he got super excited because she looked him straight in the eye and smiled!  I still didn't think she could be intentionally smiling... I thought it was way too early, since I'm pretty sure Gia was 2 or 3 months old before she started smiling.

The first Gia smile I caught on camera (January 5, 2009)

Well, Thursday morning I got my weekly developmental update email from BabyCenter and it said:

Smiling is universal. A baby's first smile happens at about the same time in all cultures, so get ready for your baby to reward all your loving care with a beaming, toothless, just-for-you grin ! 

We've seen a couple more smiles this week, but of course, I haven't been able to capture it with my camera yet.  Here's the closest I got...

In other Emi Lou news, we found out Monday that she has a blocked tear duct.  We thought she might from the very beginning, as she seemed to always have tears running down her right cheek.  Well, it started having a lot of yellow discharge on Saturday night and by Sunday morning it was crusted closed.  We went to the pediatrician Monday afternoon and he let us know that it's an extremely common condition in newborns that normally clears itself up in the first 6 months.  He prescribed antibiotics... 3 days worth and gave me like six refills.  Is it just me, or does it seem like a bad idea to prescribe a newborn start taking antibiotics regularly at four and a half weeks old?!  Especially when her condition isn't bothering her at all and the little discharge she had could easily be wiped away with a washcloth?!  Thankfully, I remembered that my midwife had told me to just express some breastmilk into her eye.  I followed her advice and it cleared up in two days!  Of course, I also did a little online research and found that Dr. Sears makes the same recommendation.  (I'm seriously considering giving in to Marco's intense desire to move back to Orange County, just so I can have Dr. Sears as my children's pediatrician... we're having such horrible luck finding a good one here!)

On a brighter note, we found out that Emi Lou has gained over 2 lbs since birth and has grown an inch.  She's grown out of all her newborn clothes and now can fit in to the cute cloth diapers my friend Heather gave me!

By the way, I am LOVING cloth diapers!  They are way easier (and less smelly) than I thought they would be.  I'm just bummed I listened to all the naysayers and didn't give them a try with Gigi...  I would have saved so much money and probably contributed about 5000 fewer diapers to the landfill!!

And in other diaper-related news, it looks like Gigi has finally decided she doesn't want to wear them anymore.

This isn't exactly the FIRST time she's decided she wanted to wear panties.  We actually bought her some Dora panties back in December after the first two times she used the potty.  But then she got scared of the potty.  She has wanted to wear her panties off and on for the past couple months, but every time she would need to go to the bathroom she would ask us to put a diaper on her.

Well, Thursday Gigi decided she wanted to wear panties.  She was playing happily while I was working in the kitchen and suddenly said "Mommy, I need to go potty!" Then she ran to the bathroom, sat on the potty, filled it, wiped, and flushed the toilet.  I'd never even shown her how to wipe before!  I'm not sure if it was all the potty books we've been reading lately or just her observing other people going potty, but she figured it out!

SUCCESS!

So proud of herself!

She ended up going potty four times on Thursday and several times on Friday, Saturday, and today.  She hasn't had any accidents (not even at night!), but has asked to wear a diaper a few times. (We have yet to get her to sit on the potty long enough for #2 to come out!)  Mostly she hates wearing diapers though. 

She was hanging out with Marco yesterday and he wanted to put a diaper on her because he was taking her to lunch and didn't want an accident in her car.  I told him to just put a waterproof pad in her carseat and bring a change of clothes, but Gigi said "I won't peep in your car, dad!"  Then, to daddy's amazement, she went in the bathroom and went potty!  I definitely think we're well on our way to having only one diaper-wearer in the family :)

Here are a few other photos from last week...

I have to keep a close eye on Emi Lou whenever I put her down (which doesn't happen very often!)

Otherwise, this happens...

Watching "Word World" while mama gets ready.

Sisterly love!