Flying Solo

I've had some great help and support since Maia was born. Mum was up for the first week and helped with looking after Nathan, housework and meals. She left on Friday and then Dean took over, he has been great too. He cooked some lovely meals and spent a lot of quality time with Nathan, taking him to the circus and the zoo etc. He went back to work today so I'm flying solo with the two kiddies. It's been pretty good so far, we've played bubbles, train set, had a visitor then had lunch. Nathan's gone down for his nap now so I might have one too. As for lil miss sleepy head, She's had her eyes open for all of about 10mins and other than feeds she's been sleeping the whole time. It's a real effort to try and wake her for feeds, and mostly she just feeds and sleeps at the same time. She's got a lovely new Moses basket from Nanny so she can be out in the lounge with us during the day and for taking away with us on trips to the Mount. So so far Being mum of 2 has been pretty smooth. I guess having a few more clues than first time round helps, and just not being so exhausted helps too.

1 Week Old

Maia was 1 week old on Monday and the midwife came for her check up, she's not impressed as you can see, but had some relaxation time with her brother later in the day

Haircut

My poor boy. I don't know which is worse, the fact he could hardly see out through his long fringe or the fact that I'm the one giving it a trim. He doesn't seem to mind though :)

Maia Means Brave

In Maori Maia (pronounced like Maya, Mya Myer) means Brave. And a brave little thing she is.

Because she was such a big girl at birth they had to test her blood sugar levels. They tested by pricking her heel to take blood. All up she had about 6 heel pricks 3 of which showed her levels were low. On her second day in the world she had to go to the special care unit to have a glucose drip inserted into her poor little foot to help until her body started to regulate it's blood sugar.
Our beautiful girl was very brave and in the end hardly flinched with the heel pricks.
What was a bit funny was seeing her next to all the little tiny premature babies in the special care unit, she towered over them :)

She has since had another little hiccup. We arrived home on Wednesday and I noticed while feeding she had stopped breathing. A splash of water on the face snapped her out of it and after mentioning it to the midwife on her next visit she spoke to a paediatrician who said she should probably come back into hospital to sus it out. So back to hospital again for the night where they figured it could be a combo of a refluxy type thing where the milk comes back up and her airway shuts off to stop it flowing over, and also that she hasn't quite mastered the coordination required to breathe, suck and swallow so while sucking forgets to breathe. It hasn't been helped by the fact my milk came in in a major way and so we've had to work around that too. As my milk flow has settled down so has the breathing issue, and anytime it does happen it takes her a few seconds and a few blows of breath on the face to snap her out of it.

Those little bumps in the road aside she is such a healthy, lovely, gorgeous, sleepy, placid baby. Hope that last word stays that way, she could very well mix it up on us soon and really start exercising her lungs and voice a bit more :)

Here's the latest pics of her hanging with the whanau, not enjoying her first bath, and admiring her daddy.

Nathan the Champion Big Brother

Nathan has been such an awesome big brother so far. He loves his new sister to bits and is so cute with her. He sits next to her and says oooh she's lovely. He likes to have little holds and play with her nose and has been very gentle.
Here he is playing in his hut with Moses, and off to the circus with Dad.