After The Tenth..... When The Fun Really Begins

My oldest daughter (still working on making that sound normal) is a woman of many faces and many emotions. While Annie and I were primarily focusing our attention on getting Laney home and making sure she was ok, Grandma was working feverishly with her camera. During the course of her stay, she really captured the essence of Macy and her depth. In the pictures below you should notice that she's already showing her studious side, her daredevil nature, her love for her daddy and the never ending laughter that emanates from her and because of her.

While I don't have any great pictures of it yet, Macy has also shown a surprising amount of love for Baby Laney. It is almost approaching obsessive levels as she constantly runs down the hall to peek into the Pak-N-Play, to get a look at the baby and to try and give her a kiss. Our only issue at this point is teaching Macy to be gentle with Baby Laney, but she'll get it soon. I'd rather have to teach her to be gentle than to try and convince her to like our newest one.

Ok, this might not be the most amazing milestone that Laney reaches, but it is a start. This morning her umbilical cord fell off, which means we can start giving her real baths now. If you scroll down a bit, you'll see a picture of the discarded, dried up cord.

I hope none of you actually scrolled down...I've taken a few strange pictures in my day, but I DIDN'T take a picture of her cord and even if I did, I wouldn't have put it on the internet....EWW.

All kidding aside, yesterday was Laney's first real tummy time session and I was impressed. Only 18 days old and still 18 days from her due date, she was able to lift up her head to turn it from one side to another. Watching her lie on her belly and moving around with her eyes open was so touching and special; we just found out that her bilirubin scores have fallen to their lowest levels since she came off the lights back in her NICU days. Coinciding with this drop is a more active and alert baby. As she continues to drop her levels and increase her activity, I'm guessing that we are going to quickly realize that these past few weeks have been the "easy" weeks...

I'm a big fan of the color orange. I'm a proud graduate of Syracuse University, whose official color is ORANGE. I have orange t-shirts, orange shorts and my sneakers have orange trim. I've even been told that I "bleed orange."

I like everything orange except for one thing - Laney. We are currently battling a case of jaundice, which has given her a look that changes from "just got back from a relaxing day on South Beach" to "for Halloween, I'm going as a carrot." Every morning for the past 6 days we've been running to the doctor for a bilirubin test. The doctor isn't too concerned yet, but I would like to see her levels drop quicker. With each passing day, her ability to ward off any issues related to her elevated levels grows as well, but she is still a bit too lethargic and sleeps way too much. (Did I just write that? Am I really complaining about a new born that sleeps too much? Something tells me that there will be a sleepless night in the near future, when I'm going to look back longingly on these moments) So each day the doctor monitors her condition and we keep waiting for her numbers to drop.

Even with her current discoloration, I still think she's one of the cutest babies ever. To prove my point, here are a handful of photos taken  on and around "Homecoming Day."