1 month old

Jayna,

You're now 1 month old. It's hard to believe it. Not because you're growing up too fast or anything like that, but because a little over a month ago you were still inside of me. It feels like years have passed since I was pregnant - not weeks.

Things that you're doing right now:

1) Grunting - wow, I never knew that babies grunted so much - the pediatrician says it's normal - but man are you loud.

2) Hiccups - at first I thought the hiccups were cute, but now they're just plain annoying. Everytime you start falling asleep, they seem to appear and this keeps you awake.

3) Awake time - what's up with this? I thought I was supposed to sleep when you sleep - how can I do this when you're always awake? Yeah, you sleep great at night, but during the day you like to stay up as much as possible.

4) Swinging - Jay and Sheri gave us their swing and you just love it - you stare at the fish as you swing and grunt happily.

5) Screaming - wow do you have some good lungs. The screaming mainly happens around your hunger. I don't really understand this since we're usually waking you up to eat anyway. If you could sleep through your hunger, how come you start screaming for food as soon as we wake you up - you go from 0 to 60 in like 2 seconds.

6) Feeding noises - We've labeled you little miss piggy when you're eating because you grunt, snore, snort, and cough/choke because you're gulping so fast. We've got to teach you table manners...

7) Eye contact - you like to stare at us - we like this a lot... We just wish you'd sleep a little more and stare a little less...

8) Burping - I leave this one for last because you make the best facial expressions when you're being burped. I find you to be the cutest during these times!

I think 8 is enough for this month. We've decided to take your monthly picture with Mr. Bear so we can see how you grow! Hopefully next month you'll be a little bigger (apparently you're in the 10th percentile for weight, but 75th for length)!

Anyway, it's been fun watching you change over this past month - you were really light skinned, then you got dark, and now you're light again. Your eyes have gone from blue to a grey color, and you seem to be losing some hair... I look forward to seeing how different you are next month!

Love, mom

Jayna's First Concert

Just getting back from Jayna's first concert - at 3 weeks and 2 days. Can't really call it a concert, as we walked around the edges of Piedmont Park here in Atlanta, trying to get a glimpse of Sir Paul McCartney as he was playing a crowd of 40,000 in somewhat rainy weather. Of course it ended up being a little rainy - after they forecasted rain this entire week and nothing came, tonight had about 30 minutes of thundershowers that we got stuck in. Keeping Jayna dry wasn't easy - check out the pictures on the left and below...

Oh - and of course we took some video too...

Introducing...

Jayna Sheela Koehler... Ok, so i'm only 19 days behind schedule... :) Anyway, our daughter (yay, it's a girl!!!) was born on July 23, 2009 at 4:50pm. However, she was not quite the Gigantor that was predicted - weighing in at 6lbs 9ozs and 20.5 inches long.

Having a child has not at all been what I expected - good and bad. Somethings have been easier than I would have ever thought (recovery from a c-section), but somethings have been a lot more challenging (nursing).

It's also been a circus at our house since we came home from the hospital. We've had relatives staying with us non-stop. It's been nice to have the help and everyone has been so excited to spend time with Jayna, but we're also looking forward to spending time just the 3 of us (and the cats).

I'll post more pics later...