Her First Bath

Last night we decided that it was time for Ruthie to have a bath. It would be her first as we didn’t allow the hospital to give her one seeing that I didn’t want her skin to dry out so quickly. Joel was talking to a friend on the phone and I had to make the most of the moment while she was awake so I prepared the tub and then my daughter.

I put the baby tub inside the big tub and filled it with warm water. I got out the diaper, the gown, the towel, and everything that I would need for her bath. Everything was ready for me to use. I then undressed her and headed to the tub. As I went to lay her in it, I noticed the water was gone. Frustrated and holding a naked, cold baby, I hollered for Joel (who wasn’t yet on the phone) for help. He filled the tub as Ruthie proceeded to pee on my hand in frustration. So we dumped the tub and started over. Then I needed pictures of her first bath. So he ran off to get the camera while I introduced her to the water. After a brief series of faces, she seemed to enjoy the feel of the water and made her self rather at ease. Joel came back, took pictures and left to place his phone call.

I thought I had it all planned out so I could do the bath without a problem but I was sadly mistaken. While holding her head and trying to keep her steady so she wouldn’t completely immerse under the water, I somehow had to get soap on the washcloth and then wash her slippery little body. Creases posed a big challenge to me throughout this whole process. I’m sure I missed a few.

Then came time for her hair to be washed. I hadn’t opened the shampoo so I used my teeth to open the bottle only to find the bottle had a foil security wrapper on it. While holding her head, I opened the foil with a very flimsy but long fingernail, and squirted just a drop on her head. Lathered, rinsed, and body rinsed, I pulled her out of the tub only to have the towel be my next obstacle. I wanted her head covered by the towel hood but doing things one handed wasn’t working very well. I ended up drying her off as best as I could and then put her on a blanket on the bed to fully get the towel on her properly so we could get the gown and diaper that I “made ready” earlier to the actual spot of dressing.
She enjoyed the actual bath but hated the aftermath and made sure she vocalized it for all to hear. An hour later, she stopped fussing and slept for an hour before waking again to be fed and deal with gas for another 2 1/2 hours.

On the sleep front, we did really well last night. I managed to get about 6 1/2 hours total. She’s done well today though this morning we seemed to nurse constantly and I think there was a bit of gas she was struggling with. Tia thinks she is going through a growth spurt which I think I would agree as preemie clothes fit differently now as well as newborn diapers. They still fit but I can tell they are getting a little smaller.

I’m in the process of getting announcements out in the mail this week. I hope to finish them off this weekend when we get more stamps. The pictures that we are sending out with them are not the greatest as we didn’t pay for “premium processing” due to shear quantity of pictures we had to purchase. As such, the coloring wasn’t corrected during the processing of the pictures. They aren’t bad but they definitely are not what I had hoped I would be mailing out to everyone. The money was spent though and seeing that we are spending a fortune on baby stuff these days, I had to give on it.

So. Thats what has been happening on our front in the past 24 – 48 hours. She is now 3 1/2 weeks old which completely blows my mind. We have Julie coming from Birmingham tomorrow to spend some time of which I thoroughly excited. I’m hoping to have a few pictures to share. We’ll see.