Ruthie Grows

As many of you know, I'm a new mom.

Ruthie is asleep in a baby sling, wrapped tightly next to my chest. It's how she sleeps best.

Yesterday I tried to feed little Ruthie rice cereal for the first time. It was mixed with vast quantities of breast milk, of course, which meant that instead of spitting it outright, Ruu gave me this puzzled little look while trying to suck on the spoon. Today, like yesterday, the feeding went well, but most of it ended up all over her rather than in her, of course.

On Sunday, I went to D.C. with Melanie and Sig to catch the tail end of the cherry blossoms. While we were there, Mel snapped this shot of me and Ruthie together. I love it because of the emotion I get when I look at it. She won't be little for very long, and I really like having adventures with her.

I can't stop taking pictures of Ruthie!

She's so beautiful.

After a few weeks of what felt like blissful happy social engagement, Ruu seems to have reverted to her prior stage of avoiding eye contact (while eagerly looking at every interesting thing in sight), smiling less, sleeping more erratically, and being generally more cranky.

So I'm slowly but surely working on training Ruu (or Roux, as my french-loving friend Emily likes to spell it) to actually take naps. It makes her a much happier baby overall, although it can sometimes take as much as 20 minutes for her to give in to sleep. I don't let her scream and wail the whole time, of course... I set a timer for five minutes so that I *make* myself give her the chance to settle down on her own. If she's not settled after five minutes, I go in, check her diaper, see if her swaddling has come undone, pat her, comfort her as needed, and start the process again.