One thing about Cyprus is that he really, really likes to stay warm.  I know that babies don’t like to get cold, but I am surprised by him.  At this very moment, it is almost 90 degrees in our house and he is sitting snuggled up to me on a pillow under a blanket.  He must be really happy beacause he has been asleep for almost 4 hours so far.

July is a crazy month to have a newborn in because of the heat, but he seems to enjoy being wrapped up warmly in a blanket.  I guess it is 98.6 degrees inside a mom’s tummy, so being warm must be relaxing.

I just love this blanket, so soft and not too warm.

Sometimes he manages to sneak a foot or two out!

Daphne was the kind of baby that really liked to stay in motion, so shortly after she was born we went out and got a giant exercise ball.  Whenever she was fussy, Jared or I would sit and hold her on the ball and bounce on it.  It was like a miracle worker.  It has been kicking around our house since then, and Jared has found a new use for it.  Cyprus is a lot less fussy in general, but whenever he starts to fuss, a short stint on the ball is enough to keep him happy.

I thought this was a sweet photo showing how much daddy likes his little boy.

I remember taking lots of photos of Daphne while she was sleeping.  The truth is that newborns sleep a LOT.  They are also adorable when they do it, so a mama can’t help but take lots of photos of sleeping babies.

When Cyprus was 3 days old I went back to visit the midwife because I was having so much pain still.  She said that the stitches had torn out and that I needed to stay at the birth center overnight so that they could get the inflammation down and repair the tear again.

I was left there with a cell phone that was almost dead and no other form of entertainment.  I did have my camera with me, so I spent the time I had taking different photos of Cyprus.  So, here he is 4 days old.

He was actually awake for a bit, but the flash made him really question what on earth I was doing.

Newborns are always doing funny things with their hands.

Admire that lovely hand-made cloth diaper on that baby.

This is kind of an odd angle, but I was holding him.  He is so comfy looking.

This is a hand-knit diaper cover that I made for him.  All wool and all lovely.

Funny face!

I made this receiving blanket for him out of cotton calico and muslin.  Apparently he approves.

Beautiful, tiny little hands.

Sleeping babies are so ethereal.

Tiny little feet.

I swear I could have 4 more just like this.  I am so smitten.

I am learning more and more that I have to watch what I say.

I was in the store today shopping with Daphne and I was hit by low blood sugar and severe hunger.  I grabbed a muffin and put it in the cart.  When Daphne saw it, she asked me about it and I told her that I was dieing and that I needed to eat it as soon as we had paid for it.

We spent the rest of the shopping trip with her holding the muffin up in its bag while she declared to everyone we passed that, “Mommy is dieing.”

This is kind of funny when you also take into consideration that at one point when I was in labor she turned to Jared and told him that, “Mommy is going to die.”

The moral of the story is

1.) Mean what you say.

2.) Don’t use literal language when talking to a 2 year old.

3.) Use only words you would want repeated in mixed company.

You never know when these things are going to come back and bite you.

Wednesday is story time at the library.  Every week after story time, I used to take Daphne to get some books.  They have something called “early reader backpacks” that are basically backpacks with 4 or 5 books in them.  The books are very easy to read and have a word or a sentence on each page.  Daphne LOVED them and we loved reading them to her because they were simple.  I was also impressed at how many things she learned from the books.  She still refers to them in everyday conversation.

However, one day when she was really upset, she tore the cover off one of the books (they are little paperback books) and we decided to take a break from getting backpacks while she worked off the money needed to pay for the book.

We had to resort to our own books for reading.  I started to pull out the Dr. Seuss books to read to her.

Both Jared and I fell in love with the books.  Dr. Seuss is actually really amazing.  All his books are written in some type of meter, so they flow along and are really easy to read.  He wrote many of his books as a way to increse literacy in American because he thought that the chidlren’s books available were boring and hard to read.  For example, The Cat in the Hat was written using less than 250 of the most important and basic words of our language.  After that, he wrote Green Eggs and Ham after someone bet him $50 that he couldn’t write a book using only 50 words.  Not only did he do it, but it was one of the most brilliant books ever.

After reading through our collection several times I decided to find some fun Dr. Seuss books at the library to read.  I grabbed “And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.”  I listened to Jared read it to Daphne one night and decided that it was one of the most wonderful books I have ever heard.  I actually went and read a LOT about Dr. Seuss and that book because I was so enthralled by its magic.  If you can find it, you should read it.

Now I am on the lookout to get an entire set of Dr. Seuss books, not just the most popular ones.  I started the collection by ordering the Mulberry Street book today from Amazon.com for $.75 (it was used)!

I am so excited to get a new Dr. Seuss book today.

An unfortunate side effect of our ant infestation is that Daphne ALWAYS has ants on her.  I am constantly pulling them out of her hair and off her face.  One time, when I was dressing her, she had one crawling across her behind and I told her to hold still so that I could get a bug off her butt.

Ever since then, whenever her panties have wedged themselves in the wrong place, she tells me to stop everything and fix the “bug in my butt.”

Daphne knows how to melt my heart when I feel like I am about to go over the edge with her.

We have been working to move her to sleep in her own room.  I was so exhausted when I was pregnant that I often didn’t have the will power in the middle of the night to fight her back into her own room.

Besides, she is still my baby girl, and when she looks at me and batts her eyes and says, “I want to snuggle mama” I can hardly say no.  I know that she knows how to play me like a fiddle when she says sweet and cute things like that, but she is only two years old, and soon enough she will care less about snuggling me.

Until then, I will take her up on offers to snuggle mama.

I spent the majority of my pregnancy trying to convince Daphne that I really did have a baby in my belly and that one day he was going to come out and be a part of our family.  I think she got the general idea, but didn’t fully grasp that babies need to be taken care of and not put in the toy box when you are done playing with them.

Daphne has mixed feelings about the baby.  She wants to play with him like a doll most of the time.  That includes incessantly asking if she can hold him, “I wanna hold him”, “I wanna hold him”, “I wanna hold him”, “I wanna hold him.”  Most of the time she asks at the most inconvenient time, but sometimes, I am more than happy to oblige her.

She is careful and does a good job when she gets the chance.

A sleepy baby with daddy at 1 day old!

I was trying to take some photos for the birth announcement before we left the birth center, but I did not have my good camera and the pain I was in and the chaos that surrounded me only got me this photo.  Kind of cute but by no means professional.

This is the chaos I was talking about.

Here are some photos I took of Cyprus the day he was born.

Sleeping babies are the best.

Excited Big Sister