Happy Due Date Joy

Dear Joy,
Today marks your due date but instead of wondering if tonight we will go to the hospital we are wondering how many hours you will sleep. It has been a crazy, wonderful five weeks. The first four days of your life you were in the NICU at Prince of Wales Hospital and that was very hard for daddy and me. Thankfully your jaundice dissipated quickly and we were able to bring you home. Grandma Condie flew all the way from England to welcome you home. She was a great help in helping cook dinners, stay up with me in the middle of the night, help wake you up so you could nurse, she did a million loads of laundry and helped us adjust to life with you. It was very hard for mommy when Grandma left but we are happy that we get to see her (and Grandpa) in June.

We had to go to the baby clinic 4 times until you gained your birth weight but now you are a whopping 8lbs! Starting two weeks ago, you go to bed around 11 or midnight and sleep for two three hour chunks. You are a bit fussy in the evenings and have a lot of gas. I am trying to cut out certain foods in hopes that you will be a little less gassy. During the day you nurse every 2/3 hours and despite being bottle fed for 4 days you are doing a great job nursing.

You have had a lot of firsts this month:

• Every time you smile in your sleep we are eager to see you smile at us and have you live up to your middle name Basma "smiling one" in Arabic.
  
• You have gone out on many outings to the mall, restaurants (Coco's Japanese curry which is daddy's favorite restaurant), Starbucks both in the car, bus and MTR.
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• You love your Ergo carrier and love going on adventures during the day with mommy. Today you went to your first mom's group today. Mommy enjoyed meeting and hanging out with other moms.
  
• You had your first trip to the beach at Stanley and you had your first trip to Sai Kung for pizza
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• You had your first trip to the US Embassy to get your passport. Grandma and I took you to get your passport pictures taken, which was very HARD....your eyes had to be open and your mouth had to be closed :-)
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• You attended your own baby shower and were showered with many MANY presents from mommy and daddy's work.
  
• On Saturday you had your one month birthday and you went to your first birthday party of your new friend Carter.
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Daddy and I love you so very much and feel blessed that God gave you to us forever. We are honored to be your parents. We love seeing you grow and change each day.

love, Mommy and Daddy