Kyveli is 1 month old!

(More photos - and an example of just how many photos we take of her - are here)

Actually, she's already 6 weeks old but I'm lagging behind a bit. I hope you'll forgive me! What can I tell you about our little girl? Well, she's awesome, amazing, sweet, happy, and lots of other nice adjectives. I'd like to start writing her a letter each month and posting it here. I've seen some friends do this for their babies, and I always enjoy reading these letters. This will be the first one:

Dear Kyva,

Thank you for choosing us as your parents! It is an honor and a privilege to call myself your mommy! Out of all the people in the whole world, you arrived into our arms. Before you, we were two people who loved eachother very much and decided to get married. But you have made us into a real family, and I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart. It was a wonderful experience to be pregnant with you, and to give birth to you. We made a good team then and we still do now that you are here.

You have gained over 2 pounds from your birth weight, and over 3 pounds from your lowest weight, since you lost almost a whole pound before you began gaining weight again. That means you are eating like a champ! And it shows...you've packed on lots of cute baby pudge and rolls have begun to appear where before you had a skinny little newborn body. You practically have a triple chin now! You have grown out of the newborn size clothing, and are solidly in the 0-3 month size now. When you were brand new, we had to buy a few preemie size outfits because you were too little even for the newborn size. But now you are large and in charge!

Speaking of being in charge, you really are in charge of what goes on around here from day to day. You hate your carseat and cry when we try to go anywhere, so that leaves us spending a lot of time at home. I'm not able to get as much done around the house as I'd like during the day because so much of my time is spent caring for you, but that's fine by me and just as it should be. I'm learning to lower my expectations of productivity (sadly, they were already pretty low). Sometimes I'm so sick of being inside that we go out despite your crying, although it breaks my heart to hear you crying in the backseat while I'm driving us somewhere. You've gotten a little better lately and possibly realized that the carseat is not some sort of medieval torture device for babies. We've started going to a couple of new mom's groups on Wednesdays, and it has been nice to get to know some other nice mommies with new little ones. You and I are both making some great new friends! Since you don't like the carseat, the Moby wrap has been our savior. Thank you to Sarah for giving it to us, and to Teri and Sage for showing us how to use it! When we're out and about you just hang out in the wrap all snuggled up against me and you seem to love it. I think you still like hearing the sounds you heard constantly when you were inside me, like my heartbeat, and that you enjoy the warmth that my body provides. Actually, I think I enjoy it just as much as you do. There's no better feeling in the world than a warm baby sleeping on your chest (in fact, you are sleeping on my chest right now while I type this letter to you).

You were holding your head up practically from the moment you were born. Now that you're bigger and stronger, you're learning to keep it steady and you don't flop around nearly as much. You started giving us real smiles a couple of weeks ago, which has been the most wonderful thing! You are happy when you wake up from your naps, which you show us with big gummy grins. You've also started to stare at your mobile during your diaper changes, and you obviously love it since you talk to it and smile at it too. We got you an activity mat to play on during the day, but you haven't had a chance to try it out since since it was missing a major piece and we need to exchange it. I think you're going to love it!

The last several weeks have been filled with a lot of trial and error, but we are figuring things out. I can now tell immediately when you are crying because you are tired, and we've gotten good at soothing you to sleep. Your other cries are still a guessing game, but when you're not tired you're usually hungry, and if you don't want to eat then you usually have to burp. And it's pretty obvious when you need your diaper changed! I hope you'll forgive us for the times that it takes us awhile to figure out what you want. You're experiencing everything for the very first time, and every first for you is also a first for us. Amazingly enough we're all still here and still smiling, six whole weeks later!

We love you very much, our precious little girl. Thank you for being you, and for being ours!

Love,
Mommy