Two Weeks Old!

Clara is two weeks old today!

She is so super sweet, y'all.  I mean, look at that face.

Clara has her sister's lips, her daddy's nose, and her brother's eyes, eyebrows and brow. 

She loves to be held and cuddled.  I think it's probably safe to say that Mommy is still her favorite person, although she likes for Daddy to hold her, too, of course (although I have to say, it's gratifying to be the only one who can make her stop crying as soon as I pick her up).  And Noah and Jane, well, they can't get enough of her.  It's actually a challenge to keep Jane from loving on her too much or too hard.

Clarabelle (the nickname we call her sometimes) is a pixie of a girl, compared to our other kids.  By the time she was four days old, she'd lost nearly a pound and was down to 6 lbs., 14 oz.  Now, compare that to our other kids, who were both born at around nine pounds, and she seems tiny to us.  As of yesterday, she had gained half a pound and was back up to 7 lbs., 6 oz., and she still seems so small.  As, in fact, she is.  Here are her stats from her first two pediatrician visits:

At Birth:
Weight: 7 lbs., 11 oz.
Length: 19.5 inches

Four Days Old:
Weight: 6 lbs., 14 oz. - 30th percentile
Length: 20 3/4" - 94th percentile (this has to be wrong--the measurement looked generous to me)
Head Circumference: 13 1/4" - 31st percentile

Two Weeks Old:
Weight: 7 lbs., 6 oz. - 27th percentile
Length: 20 1/4" - 57th percentile
Head Circumference: 13 3/4" - 46th percentile

Basically, she's like Noah and Jane, in that she is long and slender.  But she is definitely much smaller than they were.  I've never actually had to buy newborn size diapers before (by the time Noah and Jane came home from the hospital, they were already in the next size).

So far, we've done a lot of rocking, nursing, swaddling, snuggling, kissing, and admiring.

We love our little snuggler!  Clara Grace is a sweetheart!

Clara's Name

As usual, Nathan and I went to the hospital not having decided on a name.  It's kind of Nathan's thing: he likes to meet our baby before making a decision.  We had narrowed it down to two possibilities, though.  One of them fit within the parameters we had used for Noah and Jane's names: one name being a family name, and one being biblical.  And the other possibility for this baby still did fit within that scheme, but much more loosely.  We ended up going with the latter:

Clara is a family name; I think I had a great-great aunt named Clara.  But I never knew her, and, strictly speaking, we didn't name our Clara after Aunt Clara.  We named her Clara because we liked the name.We took about a half a day to decide what we should name our little baby girl, and between this and the other first name we had chosen, our baby just seemed to be a Clara.

As for Grace, well, we've always liked it as a name for a girl because grace is such a lovely and significant heavenly truth.  And it was the middle name of my grant-grandmother, who I did know.

"Clara" means "clear," "bright," or "brilliant."   So one of the reasons we liked the name Clara Grace is because it means "clear grace" or "brilliant grace," which is pretty cool.

And, lastly, Clara's name seems to fit in with the rest of our family's names, and it is particularly in the same vein as "Jane."   Classic, simple, and elegant.

Clara Grace Benesh

Miss Clara Grace Benesh
was born on September 7, 2012 at 8:08am.
She weighed 7 lbs., 11 oz. and was 19-1/2" long.

She is very precious, and we love her very much!

Happy Birthday to Me!

 Happy Birthday to me!

And Happy One Week Birthday to Miss Clara Grace Benesh!

More about Clara soon....

39 Weeks

I am 39 weeks pregnant today.  Tomorrow, at 39 weeks + 1 day, I'll have a baby.  A brand new baby girl.

This time tomorrow,
She will have eaten.  Several times, probably.
She will have cried.  Several times, probably. :)
She will have had a bath.
She will have been held and cuddled and admired and photographed.

I wonder how much she will weigh.  (Will it be 9 lbs. again?)
I wonder if she will be bald or have a shocking head of hair. 
I wonder if she will look like Noah or Jane.
I wonder if she will look like me.
I wonder what her name will be.

True

I just read something lovely on Ann Voskamp's blog, and it is so beautifully written and, well, true, that I had to set it here so that you could all read it, too:

Never look back unless you are going that way, is what Thoreau said.

But sometimes when you look back, just at the top of the hill, before it all slips behind, a memory, that’s when you see how the trees blazed and how you were all living right under the whole, spreading sky, right there under heaven, and you never wholly knew it until right then, till you try to wave your hand goodbye.

Now that is some beautifully poetic prose, right there.  And doesn't it ring true for you, too?   That the beauty and preciousness of a period in life doesn't quite all come together until you look back on it and see how pregnant with meaning and blessing it was?

Anybody want to comment?  Is there a part of your life that, looking back, evokes that sense of I-didn't-fully-realize-how-wonderful-it-was-until-afterwards?

Two and a Half

Today, sweet Jane is exactly two and a half years old.  For Noah's half birthday this summer, I made him a cake, so I did the same for Jane today.  I made a chocolate cherry sheet cake.  With chocolate sauce on top.  And do you know what her reaction was?

She cried.

Out of disappointment.

This is what she said, while one great big tear rolled down her cheek: "Mommy, I wanted pink icing!  You didn't give me pink icing!"  "Well, Baby, I don't have any pink icing.  But I made you a cake with chocolate sauce on top!"  "Noooo, Mommy, I-wanted-pink-icing-like-you-made-for-Papa-all-I-want-is-straaaaaawberries!"  (I made my grandfather a strawberry cake for his birthday a month ago.)

And then she ate every last crumb.