Watching a newborn grow.

Charlotte is six weeks old! It has been a crazy six weeks, I can't believe maternity leave is half over.  I think USA should provide a longer maternity leave for mothers, or at least PAID maternity leave.  FMLA saying they only have to hold my job for twelve weeks sucks.  I def want more time with this little girl.

Everyday Charlotte does something new or discovers something new.  It is so much fun to watch her grow.  She is six weeks old now and has started smiling socially now.  She used to always smile, especially in her sleep, but it was not connected to anything.  Now she smiles at funny faces and funny noises, its the cutest. 

I guess the hardest part about watching a newborn grow is that I am not entirely sure how to entertain her.  I definitely don't want her to be over stimulated or bored, so finding something in the middle is key.  Charlotte really enjoys her art cards.  They are these amazingly cool cards that are black and white cards she loves to look at. 

http://weegallery.com/store/art-cards/

We have the sea collection.  For some reason the octopus one is her favorite! She also loves these awesome wrist rattles that her GG got for her.  She thinks its hilarious every time she moves her wrists and they jingle.  I also sometimes put one on her leg (she is still so small so it fits!) and she loves that! She is constantly kicking her feet out. 

This is her Shocked face she maes while playing with her wrist rattles

She also has a play gym.  She loves it, but she does not like it for too long.  I think it is one of the things that overstimulates her at this young age. 

                                            Chillin in her play gym!                                               

I can't wait to see what comes next! Everyday she does something awesome! She also gets noticeably bigger each day which is fun to watch.  I mostly notice her growth when she sits in her car seat.  It is truly amazing how much she grows!

See how I grow!

Charlotte had her 1 month doctors appointment last week and she grew almost two inches and gained a pound! She was weighing in at 6lbs 4oz. She also had her second PKU and second Hep B shot.  She was not impressed with either and screamed and screamed.  I thought everyone in the waiting room was going to call the police on me because she did not want to stop screaming, but she recovered well and is doing great. 

She is growing so fast that I don't want to miss anything so we decided to take her picture every month basically doing the same thing, with her bunny as a marker.  (This is  great idea, I know, sadly I can not take credit for it, I have seen it everywhere, people use all sorts of things to measure growth in pictures and some people even have adorable onesies with their month age printed on it! I am not that together to do that, but I wish I was lol) You can already see how she has grown and I can't wait to see all of her pictures back to back! Below are the first two, check them out and be in love with my adorable child!

Here she is at about one and a half weeks old after we got home from the hospital:

Here she is at one month old:

(doesn't she look just like Adam in this pic?)