Adventures with our little dude and little misses: Kinley is 1 month old

Our little Kinley is already one month old! Life has become a little more difficult now that I am working again and Tyler is still testing our patience at every turn. Kinley is turning out to not be the happy and easy baby that I've been bragging about. She likes being on the boob or being held and moving around and if she's not doing either one of those, she's generally fussy. It's a very familiar story to another little boy I know, although she doesn't quite compare to how difficult Tyler was as a baby. The crutches I relied on to calm Tyler (the bouncer with the vibration on, the swing, a car ride, a walk in the neighborhood), don't necessarily work for her. Instead, they tend to upset her. What baby doesn't like to swing??? Seriously. If she's too fussy, I put her in the bathroom and turn the blow dryer on and that almost immediately calms her. We've been using the Moby wrap (a baby carrier) this past week. I bought it for Tyler, but I had trouble figuring out how to use it and being confined only upset him more, so it's been in my closet until now. Kinley seems to love it! We've been on a couple of walks, made a trip to Wal-Mart and she's even taken a couple of naps in it while I'm working(!). It's definitely helped in allowing me to get things done, so I'm excited about that!

She still sleeps a lot, but it's been very broken up during the day and she typically wakes up three times during the night. She's constantly grunting and I think it disrupts her sleep time (not to mention mine!!). She has done this since we brought her home from the hospital and we've been laughing it off as a weird quirk, but it seems to be getting worse, especially at night, when she'll grunt for hours at a time when she should be sleeping. It doesn't seem to be associated with any pain, but I started giving her Mylicon gas drops last night to see if gas could be causing this and I actually think it made an improvement in her. I also talked with Anna (our pedi) last night and she assured me that grunting can be very normal in babies, but we're going to monitor her over the weekend and we may possibly put her on an acid reflux medication next week to see if she's having heart burn issues. I tend to think she may have a little of that going on since she hates laying on her back and is more comfortable laying on her side or sitting upright in the bouncer. I guess my fingers are crossed that gas or reflux could be the cause for her fussiness and maybe we'll still end up with our easy baby. I can hope, right?? And I know you all want to know... yes, she's sleeping in my bed! Hey, we're in 'survival mode' here. It's easy, convenient and she sleeps better next to me and Anna says she isn't forming any bad habits... yet. :-)

She's changed a lot in appearance. I can't put my finger exactly on who she looks like, but I mostly see both of my brothers in her and I've had a few people recently tell me that she's starting to look like me. :-) Whoever she looks like, she is getting cute! Even Travis has changed his tune and says "She's going to be beautiful...like a model." haha. She weighs 9 1/2lbs now. For comparison purposes, Tyler weighed 9lbs 6oz at his one month pedi appt., but he was also 21 1/4inches. I'm not sure on Kinley's length and she doesn't have a pedi appt this month (since we're 'experienced parents'- ha), but I seriously doubt she's gained a lot in length. She has rolls on her thighs and I call her my little meatball. :-) She lost all the hair on top of her head, but it's continuing to grow in the back, so she looks like a little old man. She can hold her head up really well and is starting to notice objects that we put in front of her. It's exciting going through all of this again!