6 weeks ago I just delivered a baby....

Wow...what a crazy ride this has been! It's 12:41, so in one minute we celebrate Shiloh's 6 week anniversary of her birth! What an amazing blessing she is! I thank God daily for the gift of being her mother.

Shiloh continues developing into a more beautiful and interactive baby. I took a short video of her cooing and grinning, actions that are increasing daily. It's from a funny angle, but she's still super cute!


Wow-it is so cool to see her smile and be privileged enough to see her happy. We get a kick out of her facial expressions that sometimes seem to confuse her as much as they confuse us!


Shiloh has responded very nicely to her new bedtime routine. She's not consistent with how many hours she sleeps at a time, usually between 4 & 6, but I'll take either gladly because she goes back to sleep after eating! First of all, naps are taken during the day and I keep things bright and somewhat noisy. Then, we begin each night with a bath, that Shiloh enjoys now! Bath time is followed by a massage in her dark bedroom, (which sometimes is calming and other times just seems to aggravate her), pajamas and swaddling, all while the lullabies are playing. Then I'll nurse her, call Dad in for prayers and a blessing, and kiss her extremely kissable head and leave her, sometimes asleep and sometimes awake. Only once in almost 2 weeks have we had to go back and help her fall asleep and that was the night we tried speed up the routine and skipped the bath. We learned our lesson that night! I keep the lights off when I go to nurse her at night as well, now that she can manage to stay awake long enough to eat, and she has done exceptionally well with falling back asleep. Yay for bedtime routines! This was something I looked forward to long before Shiloh was born. Here's a clip from one of Shiloh's recent baths!


I'm back swimming 2-3 mornings a week. It feels great to have just a little while to spend on taking care of myself and getting my body back to a somewhat "normal" state. I'm learning each day how to become more selfless (it took some effort to automatically wipe the spit-up off Shiloh's face before myself!) and how to love this child. I never thought about how I would need to learn to love Shiloh. Of course I loved her from the start, but I didn't know her six weeks ago, even now, I've only known her six weeks. As we're building a relationship, though, and learning about each other, I fall in love with her more each day-a deeper love that I've never had before.

There are a few more pictures posted (the picture-taking frenzy has slowed down a little bit!) on the picasa website (the link is to the right of this post). If anyone is interested, you can order pictures through snapfish or walgreens right from our link.

Time to clean the bathroom during the remaining minutes of Shiloh's nap. Until next time....