Some Danee Highlights

The first five days of 2009 have been very good to our little Daneekins!

She continues to eat, sleep, poop, pee and grow, and she also continues to worm her way deeper and deeper into our hearts!

I'm typing this after her 10:00pm feeding on Monday night, and am waiting for her to burp before laying her back in her bed. She occasionally doesn't cooperate on the whole burping thing, but I've learned through experience that it's worth my while to wait it out with her before laying her down. When she spits up, she does it right, with milk coming out of her nose and everything, and this tiny girl gets MAD!!

So, in the hopes of getting more uninterrupted sleep, I'm waiting a little longer to put her down so I can GO to sleep... And while I was feeding, snuggling and burping her tonight, I thought about some of the highlights since she came home on Christmas Eve.

I mentioned, and posted pics of her bath time - but it's not really possible to overstate how much this little girl loves taking a bath! Cindy gave her another one today, and said that she was just the happiest baby girl in the world - and I don't doubt it, because the one I gave her last week, was very much the same way!

Yesterday, we took her to church for the first time. Naturally, she was a total celebrity, with everyone wanting to see her, and in turn, everyone being shocked at how small she is. It's funny, because to Cindy and I, we've gotten so used to her, that she looks totally normal, and those 8+ pound babies just look freakishly large! (no offense to any full term babies - you're beautiful too, just bigger!)

At one point during church, I was sitting on a couch in the foyer, feeding a hungry little Danee. A mom, out walking her toddler around the building approached and smiled... I smiled back, and just kept on with what I was doing. Then Danee stretched out her arm, and the woman watching froze in place, and exclaimed, "That's a REAL BABY??" She then explained that she thought I was holding a doll, and most likely was "taking care of the doll" while my own toddler ran around the building. I laughed and showed her that no, my baby was indeed alive! She passed by my spot several more times, and each time, smiled big and shook her head in disbelief at our tiny little miracle baby!

One of the most interesting parts of the adoption process was that we had to specify a backup guardian for the baby, in case something happened to both Cindy and me. This was a really strange thing to have to think about, because with the other four kids, there's always their other parents as a built in backup plan. With Danee, however, it's all Mike & Cindy, all the time!

So we had to think about who we would feel confident entrusting our precious baby to, should such a tragedy strike. It didn't take long to choose my sister Linda and her husband Eric. Over the last few years, Cindy and I have grown very close to them, and know them as true examples of Christ-like living. Their four kids are continuing this legacy. Their oldest, Alicia (linked in the bloglist as our Niece Alicia) and her husband Daniel being two of our favorite people to hang out with! Linda and Erica's next oldest, Nathan, is in Germany serving a mission right now. Next up is Rachel, who is a senior in high school, a world class soccer player, and an absolute top-notch student. Their youngest, Kevin, is 14, and an amazing piano player, and is the owner of a voice that has no business belonging to a 14 year old! At our Christmas Eve party, he sang "O Holy Night," and stunned everyone with how incredible he sounded!

Anyway, looking at their track record, we had no qualms about asking Linda and Eric to be our backup plan for Danee. And, being the amazingly wonderful people that they are, they accepted our invitation and are now officially in place, although it is our deepest hope that they never need to step up to that role.

Last Saturday, we happened to be in their neighborhood, and thought they might like a little Danee time... Because really, who DOESN'T like a little Danee time?? They'd gotten to see her on Christmas Eve, and Linda even got to hold her briefly, but Eric didn't, and it was such a crowded and noisy evening that it wasn't a very good environment to get to know our new baby girl.

So Linda and Eric invited us in, and wasted no time thoroughly washing their hands and snagging little Babykins right out of my arms!





Luckily, Danee seemed to like them too, so everything worked out well!

Speaking of working out well, she has finally burped. I've laid her in her crib, where now she has the hiccups. She gets a LOT of hiccups. They're really cute, and I'm having a hard time not laughing out loud right now just listening to them! But I'm supposed to get up early tomorrow morning for racketball (I got a new racket for Christmas!!) so I'm going to run a quick spell check (typing with a baby in my arms, after all) and publish this so I can catch some sleep!

Tuesday morning is Danee's next weigh in, and we can't wait to see how much she's up to now - check back here to find out!!

(p.s. I should type with her in my arms all the time - other than ONE capitalization error, everything passed the spell check test!! Of course, I'm sure I'll re-read this tomorrow, and fix several dozen grammatical errors...)