Almost 6 weeks!

It's hard to believe that Maggie will be 6 weeks old tomorrow!  It seems like time has dragged and flown by at the same time... that doesn't make sense, but that's what it feels like.

The best news is that Maggie sleeping a much longer stretch at night!  Thanks to the "Baby Whisperer" book that Allison lent me, I figured out how to get her to skip a feeding at night.  We feed her at 6pm, then 8pm, and then let her fall asleep around 9:30.  At 10pm we feed her a full bottle while she's sleeping; since she's so relaxed, there's no need to burp her.  She usually makes it to a little before 4am before she needs to eat again!  I can usually get 5 hours of sleep in a row each night, and then catch another couple hours after her 4am feeding.  Needless to say, I'm feeling much more sane these days!

Striking a pose after the diaper change

Big news - Maggie is having tenotomy surgery on Tuesday.  The procedure itself is very short and simple.  They take a tiny "knife" (more like a needle) and snip both of her tendons.  The scary part is that she has to be under anesthesia.  I'm sure everything will work out fine, but I can't help but be a little nervous about it.

Afterward she'll be in a cast for 3 weeks while the tendon grows back to the appropriate length.  She'll be getting her casts off the week I go back to work... I'm anxious about this because she'll be in the foot brace for the first time, and most parents say that the first few days are pretty bad while she gets used to it.  I just want to be there to make her feel better!  

I forgot to take photos of her feet during her bath, so all I got were these fuzzy pictures at the doctor's office:

                

Still, you can see the difference compared to her feet when she was born:

I'm bummed because I have to return to work earlier than I expected.  I lost 6 vacation days because they limit how many days can be rolled over into a new year; I'm rather irritated about this, but I'll save my venting for Jamie.  I'll be heading back in the beginning of February... I have 3 weeks to figure out daycare and get my brain into engineer mode again!

Daddy knows how to relax during feedings!

I've been trying really hard to capture Maggie's smiles on camera, but so far, no luck!  Here's a few other faces of Maggie... turn the sound off if my baby-talk voice annoys you!

Those are the major highlights for the week!  Maggie looks like she's starting to smile intentionally, but it's not very obvious yet.  She follows things with her eyes, loves looking at lights and into people's eyes.  Her hair it getting thicker and longer; she's rocking a mini-mullet right now.  She's definitely more fussy than ever, but usually only after she eats.  If we give her gas drops, she usually calms back down, though I try not to use them after every feeding.  She's a total sweetheart!