7 Weeks

According to the experts, lots of things are supposed to happen in your newborn's life at around 6-7 weeks. Let's take stock:

1. At 6-8 weeks, the baby's immune system should finish developing.
At the potential expense of being rude, Matt and I closed our house to toddlers for the first 6-ish weeks of Elise's life. We also disallowed Kalina from playing at her friends' houses or in close quarters with other kids (and frankly, our little introvert seemed glad of the excuse). We wanted to give Elise the best start in life possible.

Instead, between the 4 of us we've managed 5 bouts of illness in the past couple weeks, including a cold that Elise came down with a full week after the rest of us were mostly recovered. Oops. Poor Elise is currently congested and coughing, but is weathering the inconvenience in stride. I have plugged in a humidifier to help, but she seems to be doing okay on her own.

2. At 6 weeks, the baby will go through a growth spurt.
Yup. Not only did Elise eat all the time, but she tried hard to stay awake during all daytime hours so that she'd know the exact instant she became hungry. Fortunately, she only added one feeding to her night sleep, so we all survived. It's officially over, I believe. For at least a few weeks.

3. Around 6 weeks, or 7 weeks if the baby was born a week early, the baby should begin to have a long stretch of sleep at night.
Yes, she does, as of late. Except when she was growth-spurting (so, all of 4 times already), Elise has slept from 9:00-ish to 2:00 or 2:30-ish. Which means that Matt and I both try to be asleep as close to 9:01 as possible. Then we hope that after her middle-of-the-night feed, Elise can make it until at least 6:00 a.m., which she sometimes can.

I'll note that Kalina did this too, by the way--and then regressed into her newborn-esque patterns around 3 1/2 or 4 months. So my hopes are not up yet.

We all feel mostly human in the mornings (once we've showered, anyway), although this could change once Elise starts actually sleeping in her crib (or, more likely, not sleeping).

4. Crying peaks at 6 weeks.
Here's a rundown of Elise's crying:
"Waaa!" Translation: Something's not right here.
*silence* Translation: Oooh, cool, a stripe pattern!
"Waaa!" Translation: Hmmm, somethings still not right.
*silence* Translation: Well, I guess it's not that bad.
"Waaa!" Translation: Although maybe it needs some attention.
And so forth.

Suffice it to say, the peak of Elise's crying is quite manageable. Yes, she has her moments, but they're predictable and easy to remedy. Did you hear that? We have an easy baby!

The rest of the time, she simply grunts to let us know if she needs something. We much prefer grunting, not only because it's more easily ignored, but because it hurts our ears less. We do, by the way, jump to her rescue in the event of panicked grunts.

5. By 6 weeks, your baby will most likely be honoring you with grins.
Matt and I have both been smiled at, and I believe Kalina was once, too. Elise is more likely to light up at Kalina's egg shaker toys, though, or a crinkly plastic Gap bag.

Elise has also managed to roll over several times from front to back, and she's become very aware of the world around her as she stares at her sister's brightly colored toys. She's also already getting used to being a second child, as Kalina loves to pile stuff on top of her (sharing her toys!), bring her all the pacifiers in the vicinity whether she wants them or not, and pet her like she pets the cat.

And although I'm already missing the teeny tiny newborn days, I'm remembering that each stage seems to be more fun than the last. Looking forward to each one of them.

Photo: An attempt to get Elise to smile for the camera.