I caught this face on my phone yesterday. Selah loves making silly faces and I usually miss them with my camera. I love that little face!

So, to be perfectly honest, I am officially past the "bliss" of the first two weeks. Selah will be four weeks old tomorrow, and the older she gets, the more challenging she gets. She pretty much did not cry at all for the first 2 weeks, but has gotten fussier and fussier as the weeks go by. Overall, she really is a great baby, but when she cries and I cannot figure out why, it is very frustrating and defeating. About half of the times that I feed her, she goes berserk a few minutes into the feeding. She screams and gets all red-faced, arches her back, and claws at me with her fingernails. I have been trying to figure out what is causing this and I have four ideas: 1. overactive letdown (I'm choking her with my fast flowing breast milk), 2. I am dehydrated and don't have enough milk, 3. she only wants to eat a snack and is feeling force-fed, 4. this is a phase and she is just being fussy at that time, or maybe it's always something different. It happens at random times of day and sometimes she will take milk that I pump and give her in a bottle. I know it's not due to running (sometimes she's fine after I run, sometimes not) and I am pretty sure it is not due to my diet. Any ideas??

The girl absolutely LOVES to be held and I am a sucker for her cry. I have a very hard time letting her cry at all and have been trying to break myself in and let her go for at least a couple of minutes before I pick her up. I end up carrying her around the house in a sling to get anything done. She also loves to sleep with us and, frankly, we want her to sleep with us. However, I really don't want a 2 year old sleeping in my bed, or even a 7 month old. The farthest away I have made her sleep is in her moses basket right next to our bed. It makes night time easier for me, too--I can breastfeed while lying in bed half asleep, and she goes right back to sleep after eating instead of crying alone in her room. While all of this is fine and good now, I can see these habits wearing me down if I continue them... Every book, every mother, every website has different advice on how to do things. For now, I think I'll just stick with Reese's words, "Ride the wave, Joy, ride the wave".

Most of the time, the girl is just so stinking cute that I can't help but smooch her and hug her and hold her in my arms. It's only very occasionally that I want to lock her in a dark sound proof closet :)

Running! Getting easier and easier! I am nearly at my pre-pregnancy mileage (mileage while not training for ultras) and, like always, I have to get out every day to keep myself happy and nice to be around. It also is slowly helping my prego pounds fall off--8 more to go. Yesterday, for the first time, I wore (squeezed myself into) a pair (the biggest) of my normal (stretchy) jeans! Yee Haw!! Tonight, Mike is giving me the afternoon to go for a long trail run while he watches the munchkin :)