Three Weeks!

Mio turned three weeks old yesterday, and at her 2-week checkup last Wednesday, she weighed in at 9 pounds, 2 ounces and measured 21 inches long. She is growing fast, and I cried this morning when she graduated to size 1 diapers because the newborn size was getting too tight for her.

To be honest, I had never been a fan of the newborn stage, and during pregnancy I repeatedly told Dan that I wished babies came out of the womb walking and talking, because I thought they were so much cuter and more interesting at that stage. But now that I have my very own little newborn, I can’t bear how fast time is flying. There’s something so sweet about how tiny, helpless, and innocent they are during this time, and there are dozens of moments every day that I want to freeze time so that I can preserve the feeling of her little body snuggled up against me. There is no rewind button in life, nor any way to preserve and bottle these fleeting moments, and an overwhelming sadness consumes me when I think that I will have to rely on memory alone to remember these first weeks spent with my little darling. While I look forward to watching her grow and thrive, there’s a part of me that’s not willing to let go of the way she is right now. I need to slow down and appreciate this chapter because before I know it, it will be gone.

Dan and I have been snapping a lot of photos and video of Mio so that we can at least capture this time on camera…

This past week, Mio has been awake for longer periods of time during the daytime (usually the afternoon). I’ll try putting her in her swing or bassinet to try to lull her to sleep, but she fusses and will only calm when she’s held or strapped to me in a baby carrier. My mother and other older moms warn me against holding her too much because it might spoil her and get her to used to being held (called dakiguse — 抱き癖 — in Japanese), but I honestly don’t believe that a baby can be manipulative or be spoiled at such a young age. Crying is the only way that newborns know how to communicate. To me, it’s heartwarming to see your baby calm and fall asleep as soon as you hold her close because all she wanted was to cuddle with her mama.

That said, there are some times during the day that I need to put her down for a while so that I can take care of other things around the house… I wondered how I could trick her into thinking that she was still being held so that she’d continue sleeping, and I heard that it helps to put something that smells like you near them. So I tried placing Mio within my nursing pillow once she fell asleep in my arms….

We’ll conclude with this short video of Mio with her pacifier. The night after Mio was born, the nurses took her away for some testing, after which they gave her a pacifier to soothe her crying. They brought her back with a smile, saying that all the nurses had been impressed by how she was able to hold her pacifier in her mouth with her hand. Sure enough, when she is in the mood to take the pacifier, she’ll bring one of her hands up and hold the pacifier in against her mouth, so that it doesn’t fall out. Pretty remarkable!