Oh ho, lay-ee odl lee-o, hod-l-o-dl-lee-o-lay!

O ho, lay-ee o-dl lee-o, hod-l-o-dl-lee-o-ay!
Happy are they, lay-lee o lay-lee lee-o! O lay-lee o lay-lee lay-ee-o.
Soon the duet will become a trio, lay-ee o-dl, lay-ee o-dl-o.
--From The Lonely Goatherd, The Sound of Music

On one of the last nights my parents were here on their five-week visit to Geneva for Lexi's birth and first weeks of life, I pulled out my Sound of Music accompaniment book and we had a Broadway show tunes singalong. We sang this well-known ditty, but I had forgotten some of the words and realized when we sang how they apply to us. Indeed, happy are we that the duet has become a trio, and we are yodeling from our giddiness here in Switzerland!

A little over a month into parenthood, things are still going quite well. Sure, Lexi still has some fussy periods during the day and is sometimes hard to get back to sleep after feeding at night. And she doesn't always follow the same schedule every day, which means she is still a bit of an enigma to us. But overall, we're not finding parenthood overwhelming or too taxing on our sleep or lifestyle.

In the past several days, Lexi has started to show a new level of awareness and engagement. She fixes her gaze on things for several seconds, and she can entertain herself while lying in her bassinet for a few minutes longer before the gas in her tummy makes her cry out to be held and comforted. She is also starting to hold her own head up and is gaining strength in her legs.

Lexi is also growing at an amazing pace. We notice how long she is, and she is putting on a healthy and visible layer of baby fat. I think she looks funny with her big bald head and chubby cheeks. I'm just afraid that I will drop her sometime when I pick her up because she's also getting heavier quickly. We're having a hard time keeping up with new clothes because she grows out of her pajama suits so quickly.

We got the paperwork in at the U.S. consulate to register Lexi's birth and get her a Social Security number and U.S. passport (remember that, although she was born on Swiss soil, she was born to American parents, and so she is a U.S. citizen, according to the Swiss). This all became possible once we finally got her birth certificate from the City of Geneva. She has left the country (illegally) already - we went with my parents one Sunday afternoon to Yvoire, just over the border in France. But she will take her first legal trip with us when Sarah's parents come in the second week of October and we all take the train together down to Venice for a few days.

Otherwise, we are busy with the daily (and nightly) routine and chores that come with a newborn.

Hodi lay-ee
Hodi lay-ee
Hodi lay-ee
O-de-lay-ee o-dl lee-e o-dl lay!