It's the Mitchells!: March with Little Miss C

Oh, Cambria! You are the sweetest, funniest girl. We love you so much!
(& Mommy loves this cupcake sleeper the bestest of all your cute sleepers.)

Cambria weighed 9 pounds 10 ounces at her four week visit and was 21 1/2 inches long. Her head circumference was 15 inches which is in the 95% percentile. That's a lot of brains in there, Little Miss!

At about four weeks, Cambria got her fabulous baby acne. It only stuck around for about a week and a half and that was that.

Her signature look is what we call "The Concerned Cambria." She scrunches up her eyebrows and just studies you.

We always miss Daddy when he is at school. So I amuse myself by sending him lots and lots of videos and photos every day so that he can see everything that Cambria is learning and doing. He pretty much gets the daily play-by-play when he is away.

After a long night of feedings and soothings, I am pretty worn out by morning. We have an extra bed in the nursery that I will curl up on and let Cambria sleep her last little stretch in her crib. This is so if I do happen to fall back to sleep, I won't be woken up by Andrew as he gets up and gets ready for school.

I could die. She is just so darn cute! That precious face makes those sleepless nights worth it.

New adventures for *me* as a new mommy included our first family outing (to El Taqueria with the Okorens) and I finally, finally, finally bit the bullet and cut her fingernails. I crammed those life-changing events into one day on March 7. Whoa. Slow down there. Now that Little Miss was mitten-free, she started sucking (or should I really say chewing) on her left thumb the very next day.

I also got good news at my five week postpartum appointment--I had lost all of my baby weight! That and the fact that I never got any stretch marks left me feeling pretty good about life. However, my weight has redistributed itself in baggy, saggy places that I would like to tighten up a bit with some exercise. Bonus: it will make me feel more healthy and happy!

Also at five weeks, I was getting cabin fever from all of the snow we kept getting. I felt energized and I wanted to get back into the swing of things. Thankfully this coincided with Andrew's Spring Break. We started with little neighborhood walks. The photo below was taken at Clemson Lake which is just across from our neighborhood.

Last time wearing your cute little hospital hat--you are getting so big!

We checked out the Blackwater Creek Trail (our new favorite) and drove up to Devil's Marble Yard to meet some of Andrew's friends from school.

March 9 was our first day at Church as a family. It felt so nice to go together. Babies are GREAT at Church because they just sleep the whole time. Jealous.

The Primary children were so sweet. They were *ecstatic* to see Cambria. They sang the "Hello" song to her in a whisper so they didn't wake her up. I missed being in Primary while I was away!

I forgot to take any pictures of us on our first week back but I remembered to snap a few on our second week (March 16).

We woke her up to take this picture. She still looks a little sleepy!

Curt and Vanessa took a road trip out to visit us March 12-13. Mad props to Vanessa for voluntarily undertaking such an extensive adventure at 34 weeks pregnant! The trip was filled with cuddles for Cambria, rounds and rounds of Forbidden Island and Dominion and a few walks on the Blackwater Creek Trail.

Pirate Ship for eeeeeee-viiiiiiiil!

Cambria loves her bathtime with Daddy. And she's getting better at it, too. She just hangs out while Daddy scrubs her clean. Like Johnson & Johnson said, "No more tears!"

First time with Tummy Time was March 14. This is something I didn't know as a mom and will probably beat myself up over it for the rest of my life. We didn't have Tummy Time when I was growing up and somehow I got the impression that I needed to do it but that I should wait until Cambria was "a little older." Oh well. Better late than never. She was fine with it as long as Daddy was running the vacuum cleaner.

Cambria went through her six week growth spurt, so quickly this time that we didn't even know it had happened until it was over and she slept five hours straight that night (March 14). But when she was going through her growth spurt, she didn't want to take a nap. We started to utilize her swing a bit and it seemed to calm her down and wear her out which was a good thing.

Cambria slept through the night for the first time at six weeks and one day (March 22)! After that, we got really brave and started putting her down in the Pack & Play by herself for the evening so that she could go to sleep on her own instead of us making sure she was sleeping and then laying her down (March 26).

Cambria had been smiling off and on to herself the last little bit but never in response to anyone. Here's a funny text about Cambria's first real honest-to-goodness social smile:

I always thought this sleeper gave off an "Elvis-vibe"

Andrew's parents came out to visit at the end of March. It was nice to have Laurie in town for a bit to help with some nursery projects and we were happy to have Tom join us for a long weekend to re-visit his old mission stomping grounds.

Hilarious April Fools' Day text from Tom

Some quirky things about her that I never want to forget:

When she is unhappy and is trying to convey her displeasure to you, she does what we call "The Angry Paci" where she just grumbles away while chomping on her pacifier. It's hilarious!
At night when we put her to bed, she gets this crazy spurt of energy where she moves around like crazy. If she wasn't swaddled so tightly, I swear she would run away! We joke and say, "Cambria's got things to do, places to go, people to see!" Speaking of swaddling, we pretty much gave up on keeping her arms swaddled. She will not go to sleep if her arms are pinned down but will grunt and strain and "Houdini" her way out of the swaddle. Cambria is much more content to swing her arms around and, like we say, "get her errands done."
Cambria loves her car seat! Even if she is a little fussy getting strapped in, as soon as we start moving, she is happy as a lark!
When Cambria is filling her pants (is there a polite way to say that?) she strains and grunts and balls her hands into little fists. It takes her twenty minutes to get the job done and she just cracks us up the whole time. And the girl is GASSY. Like old man farts. She sounds entirely too grown up for her own good.
Cambria experimented with cooing starting March 16. It is precious to hear!
She started to keep her head up by herself on March 17-ish (at least that is when I noticed it and wrote it down).
Cambria's first blessing was from Daddy on March 19. She had really funny breathing patterns all day and that night, it seemed to become even more labored. I asked Andrew to give her a blessing more so for me than for her. Again, I have a strong testimony that God loves His children and will grant us that which we righteously desire. When I turn my new mommy fears over to Him, I have always felt the sweet Spirit of comfort and peace.
She looks like such an angel when she sleeps. We just love her!

And then she wakes up and does something like this: