Daphne is twelve weeks old today, so I thought it was about time I did a (not so) little update on how she's been progressing. It's actually phenomenal how much babies change and how quickly - I can now barely remember what she was like as a newborn. These days she's all chubby cheeks and fat rolls and thunder thighs - a far cry from when she was a tiny little scrap without an ounce of fat on her (in lots of her early pics she looks like ET - so much wrinkly skin!)
We took her to be weighed on Friday as we hadn't had her weighed since her last injections at eight weeks, when she was 9 pound 9. Before we went in we did a little guessing game on what she would be - Oli said 10 pounds 9 and I said 11 pounds 3. We were kind of stunned then, to be told she is a whopping 11 pound 7 now! She's more than doubled her birth weight and has leapt from the 2nd percentile at birth to the 25th for both height and weight. I'm so relieved and love seeing her looking so fat and healthy and how babies 'should' look.It also makes me want to stick two fingers up at the Breastapo because she's been formula fed for the past six weeks and is thriving more than ever. Even if she is starting to look even more like Phil Mitchell - I swear her beautiful eyes are disappearing into the world's roundest face with the world's biggest cheeks.
Other than her weight, Daph has changed a huge amount in her general alertness - she's now like a proper little person, with her own moods, and is both incredibly noisy and incredibly nosey. If we're out for lunch or whatever she absolutely hates being left in her pram - she's desperate to sit on someone's lap and look around at what's going on. She also now wants the hood of the pram down when we're walking along - I've realised she's completely FASCINATED by trees, as she stares up at them and coos every time we walk under one. It's so bloody cute.
In fact, everything she does is so bloody cute these days and she really does make my heart burst with pride every five minutes, turning me into the sappiest mother on the planet. The best times are first thing in the morning when she's always weirdly happy (something she definitely didn't inherit from me or her father), the times when she full-on chuckles at you for no apparent reason, the mania with which she greets being placed into her little bathtub (nothing makes her happier - she goes completely mental) and the smiles of recognition you get when you come into the room. Enough to make you weep, I tell you! And the noises are non-stop (this is cute except for at 4 in the morning when even the sappiest of mothers wishes she could banish the baby to another room). She coos, grunts, gurgles, 'talks', farts, burps... you name it, she does it. I never realised quite how noisy babies could be.
Physically she's getting stronger every day. She can hold her head up pretty much indefinitely these days, and her legs are capable of doing some serious damage to anything within kicking distance. When she's in the bath she goes batshit crazy kicking her legs up and down and flailing her arms around. It's quite alarming! She also now loves eating her fists (dummies get spat across rooms in favour of munching on an index finger or thumb) and rubbing them into her eyes when she's tired or has had enough of something.
The only downside to my little girl, actually, are her terrible colic sessions. Touch wood these have been better the last few days, but ever since she was about three weeks old she's cried and cried most nights. It's hideous, like some sort of torture. Sometimes she screams so hard that she goes purple, and her little bottom lip quivers and tiny tears come out of her eyes. It's almost impossible to believe that colic doesn't mean the baby is in pain when they behave like they're in total agony, but we saw a cranial osteopath who said that they've done MRI scans of colicky babies and the areas of their brains that are reactive during the colic sessions are those representing frustration and not pain. Anyway, we've been on a long old road with the colic and tried pretty much everything, so I will definitely do a post on that once we're through the worst of it. Everyone keeps telling me that when she turns three months the colic will magically stop, so we live in hope. As I said, the last few days have been surprisingly calm in the evenings, so fingers crossed...
Anyway, enough about the baby, what about me?! I decided that being fat was not something I could cope with for much longer and am now on a 1750 calorie per day diet in the hope of losing my baby weight slowly and surely. I have to say I've definitely picked the worst possible time of year to be dieting (all that Christmas food in the shops - sniff!) but it's been going quite well and I've managed to lose 5 pounds already in just under a month. I've been using the My Fitness Pal app religiously and have found it really helpful at keeping track of what I'm eating and, most importantly, thinking about what I'm eating, rather than shovelling stuff in my gob without considering it. I've realised actually that that was my biggest downfall - I'm such a 'whim' eater - if something's in front of me more often than not I'll just eat it even if I don't need it or really want it. Having to record everything I eat on the app really makes me stop and question it, and I also find being able to scan the barcodes of things childishly pleasing.
As well as being careful with my diet, I've continued doing long walks with Daph in the buggy as often as possible (although the recent grey weather has rather put me off these) and also started a new exercise regime, recommended, believe it or not, by my mum! It's called XBX (if you google it there's a few websites about it) and was developed in the 1960s for the Canadian Air Force (of all things!). It's kind of aerobics, I guess, with lots of yoga-ish stretches. The best thing about it is that it only takes 12 minutes per day and you don't need any equipment except a mat. I've only been doing it for a week but I can already feel all the muscles in my body getting stronger and more toned which is very satisfying. This morning I think I even saw a glimpse of my old waist returning. One can only hope.
The only downside of this particular exercise programme is that it involves some hopping on the spot at the end. The first few times I did the hopping, I - sob - wet myself. Only a few drops, but BLOODY HELL. So now, I'm finishing off my 12 minutes of aerobics with 12 minutes of Kegels - come back pelvic floor, I'm so sorry I never truly appreciated you before!