Don't hate us...

So...we have been blessed with pretty much the best baby ever. Seriously, it makes me nervous to ever have another one because Zoe is sooooo easy. Don't get me wrong, we have had our rough days...but all in all, she's pretty amazing. The first week or two was pretty hard, she had some serious stomach issues/gas pains and was crying a lot of the time, but the doctor suggested some medicine that seemed to help pretty quickly. So by 2 weeks, she was sleeping through the night. Yes, you read that correctly. Our 2-week old baby was sleeping through the night. The first night it happened, it scared me to death. When I woke up and realized, I ran in to her room to make sure she was ok. The next few nights it happened, I thought it was a fluke. Now we are at 6 weeks and I don't think there has been a night that she hasn't slept all the way through. And YES, I know how lucky we are!

Once we got back to Morogoro, I thought we might be in for some hard days since there would be so many changes for her (and have I mentioned how miserably hot it is here?) It didn't affect her sleeping at night and she actually started taking longer naps during the day (probably because of the heat). She DOES NOT like to take naps and will not fall asleep unless she is swaddled (which stinks, because she hates being swaddled). She often falls asleep while she is nursing, and I was letting her sleep afterwards....but when we got back to Tanzania, we decided we really needed to get her on a schedule. So I got in this bad habit of rocking/bouncing/swinging her to sleep in my arms and then laying her down for her naps. If she woke up, she would cry and I would pick her up and this went on for a while. So, finally we decided we needed to just lay her down in her crib as she was getting sleepy and let her learn how to go to sleep on her own.
*On a sidenote...this is EXTREMELY stressful anytime a Tanzanian is around because they think you are absolutely torturing your baby if you don't pick them up the moment they start crying. If we have the lady who cleans our house inside, she will immediately notify me that Zoe is crying and if I don't go pick her up right away, she notifies me again and again until I go get her. One time I told her (in Swahili) that if I let Zoe just cry for a minute, she will fall back asleep. She gave me this look like I had no idea what I was talking about.*

Anyway, so the first time we attempted to put her in her crib while she was still awake, I was fully prepared for some crying and multiple attempts and many days before success. So we wrapped her up, layed her down, and walked out. She screamed and I wanted to cry and go pick her up. Literally, not even 5 minutes later the crying had stopped and she was asleep. Seriously?! Could it be that easy? Apparently, for Zoe...it is. She usually cries for just a few minutes and she is off to sleep. Although I frequently get angry at Nate for his sleeping habits, I must say that Zoe has definitely taken after her father in her sleeping and I could not be happier! She sleeps for about an hour or more every 3 hours and more often than not, I wake her up to feed her (and to stick to the schedule...I'm a planner!). She is still sleeping atleast 7-8 hours at night and we are pretty much the most blessed parents in the world!

Yes, I know we are extremely lucky and most babies aren't like this. Yes, I know that if (and when) we have another, he or she probably won't be as easy...but in the mean time we are enjoying our sweet little girl (and our sleep!)

Here is a picture of her in her crib:

1 month already!

I cannot believe my little girl is already a month old! We are finally back in Morogoro after over 2 months in Nairobi. I personally miss it already, I loved being able to jump in our car (an automatic) and hop over to nakumatt (sorta like a walmart) and get things like pop-tarts and sour cream. I was even lucky enough to find Philadelphia honey nut cream cheese at the butchery right buy where we were staying. Ahh...those things will have to wait until we head back up in April for our big meeting. They were nice while they lasted and since we are driving up in April, we will be able to bring all sorts of good stuff back with us.

The trip back was not at all pleasant...oh, the plane ride was great and Zoe slept through most of security and customs...but as we were leaving Dar to drive back to Morogoro we noticed both our ipods had been taken from our car and not an hour later the clutch died on our Patrol and we had to wait on the side of the road for someone to bring us another car so we could head back to Morogoro (don't get me wrong...I'm SO thankful that we actually have someone who is nice enough to drive in Dar traffic to bring us another car...I don't know what we would have done otherwise!) We came back to a house that was SO unbelievably hot and no electricity. I think I forgot how hot Tanzania was while we were enjoying the cool weather of Nairobi. Anyway, we are home and it's nice.

Zoe is growing like crazy (more length than weight)...she has her Daddy's height. Ok, well she has her Daddy's everything (check out the picture below...DEFINITELY a nate face!) I think the only thing she got from me was the little wrinkles on her forehead. We are falling more and more in love with her every day. She is smiling at us (and when I say "us" I mean mostly Nate...I get an accidental smile now and then). Our dog, Chester, couldn't care less about her. We were kinda worried how he would react to her since he is such a huge dog. But really, he sniffs her now and then but mostly just leaves her alone. I think he is still trying to figure her out.

That's about it for now...except Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law, Liz, and my sweet God-daughter, Campbell!