Inner Monologue: Ruby - Three Months

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Ruby - Three Months

“Maternal love, like an orange tree, buds and blossoms and bears at once. When a woman puts her finger for the first time into the tiny hand of her baby and feels that helpless clutch which tightens her very heartstrings, she is born again with her newborn child.”
~ Kate Douglas Wiggin

A quarter of a year has passed with this little girl in our lives. Some days it feels like time has flown and she was barely born, but other times I feel like she has just always been a part of me. Luke has shown us that you have to kind of watch out for easy babies because they will eventually turn into toddlers, but for the time being, we are loving Ruby's sweet, easy nature. She continues to sleep like a champ and often goes 10-12 hours at night along with several good naps in the day. It's good and bad. She is pretty small - she barely hit 11 pounds. So far she's ok on the growth chart but at some point we may have to interrupt her sleep to get a little more food in her.

In this past month we have been to the doctor's office twice - I promise I'm not a paranoid mom. She has had a cold and has had a lot of junk in her nose and rattling lungs. I keep apologizing for bringing her in but the doctors tell me that because she is so little it is best to bring her when there are any concerns. This having a baby in the winter is much tougher, I definitely worry a lot more with her than I did with Luke. We are still very protective of her and mostly keep her at home. Over the holidays we did see a lot of family and had her out and about a little more. During this last month she was also babysat by Jesse, and went to the gym daycare for the first time.

Ruby has started to have some minor cradle cap. It's not that big of deal but after all of the problems we had with Luke I'm trying to keep it as minimal as possible. We use Selsun Blue on her about once a week and so far it hasn't seemed to be much of a problem.

As far as developmental milestones, she definitely smiles in response to us and follows what is going around her. She coos and babbles, but has also started doing this sound that sounds like she is purring-it's pretty funny because she usually does it when I am snuggling or kissing her. She tolerates tummy time, doesn't love it, but is a lot better about it than Luke was.

The more she grows the more I think her name fits her, but that hasn't prevented nick names from evolving. We both often call her "the girl", we do the same thing with Luke and still refer to him as "the boy". Tim generally calls her Princess Pie and I have recently started calling her Little LuLu. Whatever the name, we are smitten with the girl.

She is still a little sick and I think you can see it in her eyes. This wasn't my best photo shoot but I got a few that really capture her personality.