Eight Weeks

Isobel is 8 weeks old this afternoon. She is a happy, healthy growing baby who seems to aquire new skills by the day - smiling, then giggling for example. I don't want to miss any of these things, but undoubtedly I will.

The past 8 weeks have been the best weeks of my life. I love being Isobel's mum: I love the fact that the first smile of the day is nearly always for me, and that each one that follows during the day is equally charming, and equally heart melting. She is becoming a very smiley little girl - yes even when a little overtired.

Yesterday she weighed 10lbs 2 ozs(4.58kgs) and was a whole 56 centimetres tall, although with all her stretching I'm sure she must be taller today! (Both measurements are just below the average but above the 25th percentile - in case you were wondering!)

This morning I have signed off my Company Accounts and I am feeling a little sad. The figures were healthy, as is the hefty cheque I now have to write the taxman, but I'm sad because it reminds me that all too soon I will have to look for a new job.

What skills do I need to secure a job that enables me to work only 3 or 4 days a week? Do I therefore have to give up some of my Isobel time to train myself? Can I ever afford my bookshop so Isobel can grow up running around the shelves?

I'm a third of a way through my Isobel time...

The Proof is also in The Red Book

Isobel's life is documented in red books: my red diary logs the time and duration of her feeds, and her Red Book Health Record has everything medical.

Today, for the first time * we went to clinic to be weighed and to add an entry to the Red Book.

Isobel now weighs 4.12kgs (9.1lbs). PD calls her chunky, the Red Book says she's average.

I know the truth: she is beautiful and far from average.

I am relieved to know her 7-10 minute feeds are more than adequate, am no longer worried my milk isn't 'good enough'; most of all I'm happy to know she is a healthy growing girl who has moved from 25th percentile to 50th. (The Red Book also contains graphs.)

Me, I can fit in my skinny jeans, do them up and sit down, but it isn't comfy!

* I was a little worried about not knowing the form and looking foolish and being judged as a bad Mother. Silly, but it was a similar kind of anxiety I get meeting people in a bar I don't know or going to any strange place really, but with higher stakes.

Weigh To Go Isobel!

Hooray, Isobel has regained her birth weight and a little for good measure!

She is such a clever girl.



Hooray for me because I'm back in my old jeans - ok so maybe not my 'skinny' jeans, but my non-elasticated pre-pregnancy jeans all the same.