Nineteen days ago I could not imagine my schedule being totally run by a little baby. Rebekah has essentially become my life now. I told Joe yesterday morning that he could catch up on sleep this weekend. Well, Rebekah had other plans for us - one of these days we'll teach her the meaning of "sleep in", but for now I suppose I'll continue to wake up and feed her at 4AM when she wants it, and then proceed to hold her, rock her, and comfort her for 3 hours when she wants that too.

A couple weeks ago we placed a rolled up receiving blanket beside Rebekah in her carseat to keep her from flopping over. Today we removed it. She's grown so much that she no longer needs it! We took her on her first shopping trip. We went to Babies R Us and bought Rebekah's crib, mattress, and bedding set.

Tonight, Rebekah had a long quiet alert period. I took her upstairs to get ready for bed and then lay down with her and introduced a new toy...a plastic rattle. I helped her put her hand around it and hold it, and then helped her discover how to move it so it made noise. Joe joined us, and we spent a half-hour playing with her. In one hand she had the plastic rattle, and in the other, she held the stuffed zebra rattle from her jungle set.