Wallingford Family

One day...

2009-01-04T16:31:00.000-08:00

I may start updating this blog again. In case anyone is wondering, we have moved to Vermont and any family-related blogging that I am doing has been preempted by the blog about that process: Orygone at Blogspot.

The toes have it...

2008-06-30T08:24:00.000-07:00

We eat a fair bit of toast around here, and it has become fairly endearing that whenever you say toast to Elinor, she looks down at her feet and grabs her toes.

In other positive news, we moved (down the hall) to an apartment that is approximately a million times better for our psyches than our previous abode. While it is only slightly larger, its layout is such a great improvement we can't believe that we just spent 1.5 years in that dark little box. Like what, you might ask? Well Elinor's room had been the dining area in the kitchen but now, there is a little (teeny) extra room for Elinor and the dining area is separate from the kitchen and larger which means that E still has her own little space and that Caitlin was able to move all of her crafting stuff from her Activspace back to the apartment. Which is better in that: losing Activspace more than covers the rent increase, it's fun to have the craft stuff here and, now that Caitlin is working full time, she never had time to get to the Activspace anyway.... But another great improvement is that we went from 4 windows (all on one side) that faced some trees, which while the trees were nice, it was oh so very dark and now we have have 8 windows (on three sides), so natural light and breeziness are all around! Anyway though, I know, too much detail. And... What about the baby?

There has been lots of good there, too. In the mixed blessing department, since we moved her nightly sleep has dropped from 10-11 hours to about 8-9 hours. But this may be because she usually takes 2 naps a day now! So that is all well and good. Though at 6am when she wakes up, it doesn't always seem that way. She has fully three teeth now, with a fourth one just having peaked out.

She talks on and on, though without any words (well, she does still say "thanks" and she did say "kiss" once). But she understands a fair bit: bottle, kiss, hug, toes, she knows what those mean. And she still practices her dancing all day long, doing some pretty crazy moves. I even witnessed a full-on "two-arm barrel-roll" from the disco dancing days last week. And though she'll dance to any music with a rhythm, the sure ticket to watching her dance is the song that the the plastic "piggy bank" plays, though it works to sing it too. It goes something like:

I'm a piggy bank
with coins big and small
in lots of colors
you can learn them all
we've got red and yellow
we've got orange and blue
what's your favorite color
there're some green ones too!
let's count the coins
from one to ten
...

(the song continues, but she always starts it over at this point)

That's about all for an update... Well, that and some pictures...

Snit for Snot

2008-05-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, Elinor has been a cute little pain these days. We think she is doing some more teething, and with Caitlin working full-time (on a schedule that opposes mine) we don't spend too much time together as a family, so Elinor has all sorts of things to complain about... and complain she does! Loudly. On the good side, she still basically sleeps 10-11 hours through the night and has a nap everyday, so we feel blessed with that! She is getting lots of time with Grandma Ginny, as she watches her three times a week now. It still feels funny to have Elinor with someone aside from Caitlin or I (and my mother keeps getting Elinor those horrible, noise-making plastic toys that she loves so) but it seems to be working out well for everyone.

And on the foot front, walking is her primarily mode of transportation now. Very little crawling is to be seen, she only drops to the floor now when she wants to accentuate her complaining. Hopefully this next tooth/teeth will arrive soon and she can return to the pain free normalcy that we know and love. But she is getting quite good at walking and with her natural freedom from fear and love of people and dogs, we now have to keep an eye out for her just trotting off without telling us...

Speaking of that, on Sunday Elinor went to her first sporting event. A Powell's Books versus Willamette Week softball game. She didn't seem to really get the interest, since there were people and dogs to try and get to, but she kept me on my toes and it was nice to get out so I think we'll start going every week.

It's official!

2008-04-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

Elinor can walk now. She walked across about 7 feet of the living room with no help at all yesterday! She still doesn't do much, but there are a few moments each day that she will just trot a few feet. Really quite exciting and fun! What makes things all the more exciting and fun is that now I'm spending more time with her... Caitlin has started working so I get Elinor when I finish work two days a week and the two of us walk home.. And then on Sundays I have her to myself for about eight hours! This week it'll be even more as her mother is working today and every night for the next five days so I'll meet Elinor at work to walk home everyday!

The other exciting thing is that walk home. Yes, it gets a bit much as she fidgits and now weighs over 20 pounds, making it a bit too much of an exercise to carry her for 40 minutes across town, in fact I may switch from carrying her home to using the stroller. But regardless, I think that it is good to get her some outside time, around the people and animals and plants that surround us. Two days last week while walking over the pedestrian part of the Steel Bridge, there were a gaggle of Canadian Geese with a mob of little greenish-yellow goslings down below us on the riverbank! Maybe not as exciting as the Sea Lion that I saw frolicking in the river the week before, but still a fun thing to be able to show little Elinor! And then today, on our stroll back from Whole Foods, we were walking down Flanders, which is a nice little street with lots of flowering bushes, and she was having a grand time brushing her hands across the flowers as we rolled by. Since we aren't fortunate enough to have any sort of yard, I feel very good about any relaxing time that I can get her outside to experience the world.

One big ol' year!

2008-04-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend we celebrated Elinor's first birthday! Due to my silly obligations, we didn't actually celebrate it on Saturday (her birthday) but on Sunday instead. But Sunday was grand! Caitlin covered the key points of the day on her freshly revitalized blog, The Gauge, but I'll hand over my own rendition here.

Caitlin and Mom spent the whole morning preparing all sorts of good food, including two different kinds of cupcakes, both of which were very good (well, too good, actually,... I've had three more today and I can't get the last one out of my mind) and our dear friend Brooke and her wonderful Douglas and Sebastian generously donated their house and yard for the festivities!

They have a wonderful yard (complete with three adorable young chickens milling about) that even had a nice blanket out with a sun umbrella! It was all fun with lots of friends and family, including some that I hadn't seen in a while! After extensive socialization, we sat down for present time, and the blanket in the backyard was perfect for this. Though Elinor still doesn't really understand the opening of presents (and I become a little flustered trying to get her focused on getting them opened one at a time) it all worked out dandy... Aunt Jennifer even gave her a nice wicker chair that she could sit in for present opening time while Sebastian brought her presents to open and even helped her open them, as she's not quite up for that yet. She got all sorts of good stuff: her wicker chair, an xylophone, books, plastic singing/noisemaking things, a metal chicken that moves around and lays eggs, her first "little people", summer outfits, and much much more! Now we'll need to expand her toy storage beyond just the one wicker basket we use at home...

and though I, of course, wasn't planning on giving her any cake-like stuff, she ended up getting to enjoy a birthday cupcake after all! She seemed to like it quite a bit.

Excusing myself, and more big news.

2008-04-10T22:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I'm still not going to get around to making a big post or putting any pictures up today. But... Elinor has finally had her first tooth (or are those teeth) begin to emerge from her gums! Not super visible, but you can certainly feel those little razors peeking out! It's very exciting, though it is causing her occasional pain and a lot of drooling... Also, any minute, her Grandma Mickey will be here from Vermont (Caitlin is at the airport right now), so this will be the quite exciting family time and fun for all of us, as we prepare for Elinor turning one this weekend!

And I will get some pictures up here... This blog certainly doesn't get its fair share of my blogging time, but I'll try to even it out for a bit.

little frenchie...

2008-04-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, I do hope to make a bigger post sometime today, but I just had to put up a picture of how cute the little lady looks right now...

Subtle, yet true

2008-03-23T23:18:00.000-07:00

I spoke a bit too soon last time...

Yesterday Elinor took her first steps! There were just a couple, going between Caitlin and I, but steps they were... With nothing for her to hold onto!

Today she has replicated the feat a couple of times, but it seems to come easier for her when she isn't thinking about it, so the more we try, the less inclined she is... But now that she can stand for a bit on her own and can trot a couple of steps... Her reach will soon be extended! She really seems to get excited by her little trips, as do we, and it is wondrously odd and thrilling to watch her leave her babyness behind.

We're quite excited! She is now becoming an official toddler!

Certainly something...

2008-03-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

No, I don't have any pictures at this time (Caitlin does, but I haven't got her to post them yet), but there is news!

First, Elinor and I did take another outdoor trek. A much smaller one this time, but fun as we had great company and it was in one of my favorite places! We went with Kurt and Frances to The Grotto (aka, The Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother), an outdoorsy little Catholic spot with a path, a church and an outdoor chapel in a grotto in the cliff (up top the cliff, there is a rose garden, a meditation building and a priest-house, but I've only been up there once, as the road access is awkward and otherwise you need to pay to ride the elevator). Anyway, it's hard to say what's best about it! I like all of the above aspects and the Grotto itself is kind of the high-point, but what I really like is the path... You follow along the "stations of the cross", each one marked with a nice relief plaque showing big J and his adventures with his cross (I keep trying to see George Harrison coming out to help). As an added bonus, there are statues up in the woods of various saints. It's all pretty cool and I've always enjoyed going there. One thing I saw this time that I hadn't seen before is a nice mosaic of St Peregrine, the saint of cancer, complete with a red gash on his leg. Should I take it as a sign that as I was writing this the iTunes shuffled to the Bee Gee's doing "Every Christian Lion-Hearted Man Will Show You"?

But there is more exciting baby-news! One is that she has moved almost completely away from baby food. We basically just give her some of whatever we're eating. She seems to like that, and I think we all do. Plus, she can feed herself easier this way, we just put a plate of food in front of her and she eats off of it (yes, with her cute little fingers).

Secondly, we think that in the next week or so, she will begin walking! She can do it easily when you hold both her hands for balance, she can do it when you are holding just one hand (though her confidence lags a bit) and in the last 2 days her ability to turn while walking her has gone from non-existent, to quite effective. Gramma Mickey will be here in about 3 weeks (for Elinor's first birthday!) and I hope to impress her with little Nell toddling around by then!

Then, and seemingly the biggest news of all... Anyone who has read this blog at all over the last year knows that we have had lots of sleeping issues. They've come and gone, but they are generally here and she generally hasn't sleep nearly enough. A week or two ago the issues got so bad, and she was so grumpy (terribly grumpy all day long) that we went out and got a copy of "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". We didn't really read it, maybe about 2 pages, but those two pages had everything that we needed to know!

1) If the baby is grumpy, it because she isn't getting enough sleep
2) the baby must take a nap

Following the instructions from the book, this is what we did:

1) Give her a nap at 9-10 in the morning (she gets up at 6:30-7).
and
2) Put her to bed at bedtime (8:30) and if she's going to cry about it, let her.

My gosh.

She fought the nap for the first few days (fought it a lot), but now she goes along with it. Even when she was grumpy about the morning nap, she'd go down for an hour or more and her mood was drastically improved!

And the night thing? She started off complaining for 30+ minutes, but in the week or so since then, the crying (or is it yelling?) has dwindled rapidly! Less than 10 minutes of complaining 2 nights ago, not even 5 minutes last night, and tonight... For the first time ever (that's "ever"), I put her in her crib and she quietly laid down with not a peep. And she hadn't even been acting tired! Not only are her moods much improved since we started this, but she is much more at ease when she wakes up and (maybe it is related, maybe not) but she really started trying out this walking thing right after we started making her take naps and go to bed at bedtime...

It's yet another gosh-send!

A day at the park.

2008-02-25T15:15:00.000-08:00

For a long time. Well, since before Elinor was born, at least. I have had plans on taking Elinor "hiking" with me. Now that spring is approaching, it is time to start preparing. I wanted to start off small, since I don't know how much patience she will have for this sort of thing. We hope to get into a regular thing with Kurty and Frances where we can trot around outdoors, before trying out the longer hikes, but I figured that Elinor and I would start off this week by taking a test-walk through one of my lifelong favorite places. We headed off to Lower Macleay park, which, for those who don't know, is the closest in portion of Forest Park (as we all know, is the largest, forested natural area within city limits in the United States).

I took plenty of pictures (I would have taken more, but I had battery issues), which are dwelling, of course, at Our Flickr Page! So stop by and take a look. I will put a couple here though...

We started out at Lower Macleay park, one of the key areas of my childhood, and headed up the trail alongside Balch Creek. We passed the Castle and switch-backed up the hill to the Audubon Society, where Elinor had a great time, we stopped by the mews where we gazed at Julio the Great Horned Owl, then we went down the hill to the lake and looked around. Going back up the hill, Elinor got a plush House Finch that plays the house finch sound when you press it! Afterwards, we encountered a group of Audubon employees with birds on there arms, so Elinor got to meet, all close-up and with no wire cage this time, Hazel the Spotted Owl, Jack Sparrowhawk the American Peregrine and Ruby the Turkey Vulture. Great fun was had by all and Elinor learned that you can tell what time of day an owl hunts by the color of its eyes!

We then stopped for a banana before heading back down to Balch creek. Once there we did stop for pictures at the castle this time and then we headed uphill where we came across two odd things. First a big cage like nest made out of twigs and second, two little trees that someone had covered with christmas tree ornaments!

At this time, we headed out of the park and Elinor fell asleep. It was great fun and certainly something we will do more of, now that I know that she can be fine with me carting her around for two hours. I was thrilled that she had stayed awake and alert through her first "nature walk" and it makes me think she is ready for more! Since out route was a loop, the return path took us across the bridge that cross the Balch creek canyon and where our trail began, so we got some good "bird's eye views" of the beginning of our journey...

Newness abounds

2008-02-18T21:02:00.001-08:00

Oh and yes, good changes have been afoot at the Wallingford household in the last week! First off, and quite substantial, is that Caitlin has sold her shop! This is a big event, regardless of which road it leads us down, as everything we have done in the last 4 years has always had the business in the forefront of our thoughts. So now we should really be able to focus on our family and our lives in general, without the worry of the business and the focus that it required! And in other big news, our great friend Jon and his partner Celeste had a little baby of their own this week! Little Liam Conor! You can read about the great news here at Mama ni Liam. Welcome and congratulations!

Back in this hemisphere, we also had a nice three day family weekend that began the day after Caitlin's last time behind the counter... It was quite a nice weekend, involving moving some stuff into storage to clear things out a bit, some fun quality time with Frances and her folks, a handful of movies, a nice lunch at The County Cork (where Elinor enjoyed beets, lentil soup, soda bread with butter, pickles, and some cheddar cheese) some plain old nice stress-free relaxation and then, a sudden and substantial rearranging of the home, which always seems to make it even more pleasing and comfortable for us.

Plus it involved a trip to Ikea to get, among other-things, a Rocking Moose just for Elinor (like the one that she adored at the Coffeeshop) and her very own chair, perfect for relaxing with the parents...

Oh my goodness...

2008-02-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've gone and done it. Over a month without a post! Well, I'd like to say that we are just too busy enjoying Elinor to take any time out to write about it! But in short, she is doing wonderfully! We all had a couple of bouts of illness in the last couple of weeks, but all is well now! Elinor is a crawling machine and anything that dwells withing 3 feet of the floor is a potential victim of her grabby little hands! She is kept busy pursing her favorite goodies: the dog food bowl, stacks of dvd's, the remote controls, records, books, skeins of yarn, the side table, recycling... You name it, she's tried to get it! She also eats as much as she can and eats anything that she can! She likes it all, but she really seems to like things that have been spiced up a little (Bragg's Liquid Aminos, Garlicky Hummus, Toby's Tofu Pate... everything). Luckily all this crawling and eating has led to two strange things. One is that she may actually take a nap in the afternoon now, and two is that she generally sleeps about 9 hours through the night!!! I can't even tell you how life-changing that has been...

But what, you ask, has brought be out of the family blog hibernation? Wlel our good friends Trisha and Georgia at Unringing The Bell tagged us for a Then and Now, which I can't resist...

Then...

Now...

And then January...

2008-01-09T23:24:00.001-08:00

Elinor's crawling has continued to improve. She will now go from room to room seeking her mother, will search for any little thing to put in her mouth, will go off in pursuit of Lottie's tail... All over! It's very exciting, but mixed with the ability to pull herself up and get access to anything within reach, it will require us to be a bit more conscientious... But it is very exciting.

We also just spent three days at the coast (Pacific City) with two of Elinor's favorites, Ryan and Suzi! It was a lot of fun and it was great to get out of town! It rained pretty much the whole time, but Elinor and I did make it down to the beach once. The are some pictures (click here!) at our The Beach Flickr Page, though they are also mixed in with some Elinor-free pictures, so watch out! Here is a sample...

In other excitement, two days ago we started the "let Elinor get herself to sleep" trick. That is the one where, once she falls asleep, we put her to bed and when she wakes up (which she always does when we put her to bed) we just let her do whatever she needs to do to fall asleep. Of course, it is sad because she gets very mad and makes a lot of noise, but it gets easier for her. The first night was terrible and we kept going in to see her, the second night we let her be and while it took a good while for her to calm down and fall asleep, she stayed asleep for 9 hours! Which is something that has never happened, and she was in a dandy happy mood upon waking. It worked out alright, I'd say. Then tonight, back at home, she only had a fit for less than 10 minutes before falling asleep. And her fit wasn't too bad anyway. Anyway. After spending the last 8 months having to get up anywhere between 2 and 5 times per night to comfort her back to sleep (which generally took 20 minutes to an hour each time), it seems like a great relief to be doing this.

December

2008-01-09T23:07:00.000-08:00

Ah, December! Elinor's first Christmas!

Though we kept it pretty low-key this year, we actually had a nice time spending the Eve at Grandma Ginny's and on Christmas Elinor opened some presents! She didn't quite get the sense of opening the wrapping paper, but I think she got the idea of what was going on...

She also went to Laurelhurst Park With Sarah and Frances for her first night-time duck feeding! In fact, her first duck feeding at all... Sadly, she slept through the whole thing, but I did get a shot of Sarah and Frances making some duck friends.

Holiday's are upon us.

2007-12-23T11:08:00.000-08:00

And as it's been over a month since our last update, the time is long overdue for a post, especially since we aren't yet sending out holiday cards... Maybe next year.

As everyone is probably wondering, Elinor has had a good month! She remains about the happiest darn baby in town, she still has variable sleeping, the last three nights have been very good, before that, no such luck! This last week she started crawling forwards. She has a funny floppy style of doing it, and she still isn't doing it too much, but I think that we are all quite excited that she can move herself forward!

Now that she can move herself around, she is starting to get her hands into thing. Especially Caitlin's crafts stuff and books, sometimes though, we find ways to keep her out of harms way and involve her crafty interests at the same time.

She actually stayed happily in the yarn basket for quite a while.

She has moved out of the sink and into the adult tub, which I think she likes alot better...

And yes, one thing that she does do a lot is wave. She waves at us, at people across the street, and herself in the window, wave wave wave. I'll sometimes notice people waving in my direction only to realize that Midge was excitedly waving at them! She also babbles constantly, especially when we are trying to watch something on tv (maybe we need to stick with subtitles).

And she still gets quite excited when she finds the perfect outfit...

Not quite yet...

2007-11-19T06:48:00.000-08:00

This morning we decided to get up with mommy when she went to work, so this finds Elinor and I at home with lots of time to fill with fun. Kurty said that "it should be a no-brainer to at least post about the baby once in a while" and he's right. And Elinor likes the idea so here goes.

It has been raining for nigh on a week straight now so I think that Midge and I will forgo our usual morning walk to Tandem. She did get all LL'Beaned last week and we made the trek on a drizzly day, but now it just seems too cold and wet out there, so I guess we will just stay home where it's warm and wait for Mom's return. Being home gives us more time to practice her new thing... Elinor's has been focused lately on if she is about to start crawling or not! She has mastered the basics, getting up on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth, sliding backwards and even trying to push herself forward! She can move all over the place by rolling and sliding backwards, but can't quite go forwards, which she finds very troubling. She seems to be missing the "moving her arms" part. But it is a fun process to watch and we think that soon she'll be able to move forward which might be more work for us, but I think that she will really enjoy the mobility.

She's also continued to eat, lots of Earth's Best baby food (she has taken a dislike to the Rice and Lentil Dinner, but the Bananas, Peaches & Raspberries remain her favorite) and she's been spending quite a bit of time at her mother's Activspace, which is now set up as a wonderful little sewing studio (in fact, I just laid her back to bed under the blanket that her mother just made for her!). In terms of other things, this morning my eldest sister sent me some links to some family photos of her and her husband and my niece and nephew (I mean, Elinor's cousins) in NYC and D.C.. We watched those as Elinor has yet to meet them, so she wanted to see who they were. Speaking of watching, Caitlin just now sent a link to a youtube movie from her college, 13 years ago! She's only in it for a moment but I thought it was great to see it and it's funny to see her at 18! When as many years pass again, Midge will be 5 years away from Caitlin in the movie. I know, it sounds obvious, but as a papa, it seems surreal and exciting to me.

Anyway, Elinor wanted to send some 6:30 a.m. smiles to everyone...

Finally...

2007-11-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've been avoiding posting here. Well, not avoiding, just not getting around to. You know, we've been up to lots of stuff. I got a new job (though I haven't started it yet), Caitlin got an Activspace in which to put/do all of her sewing and other related stuff (which is going to be fun, her having her own little studio), I turned 40, Caitlin is almost at 32 (just 4 more days), and Elinor has been a cute little thing! She is still eating lots of baby food (and still lots of nursing), and we've started supplementing with Earth's Best Organic Formula (maybe one bottle every couple of days)... Elinor seemed a bit unsure of this part at first, but she took a liking to it. She is sleeping much better (nine hours straight last night), which is making everyone feel much better. Still no teeth though! Other things? The coffeehouse is going very nicely and we are thinking about getting rid of our bed and replacing it with a hide-a-bed thing in the living room, to free up what is now the bedroom to be a little office-type room (the things you do when you have a little apartment), but we haven't felt like we could afford it yet.

Anyway, there have been some requests for pictures, so here goes (I will post Halloween photos when I get some)!

The wonderful blue suit

more blue suit

and yet again...

At my 40th, and looking it.

480 months or 6 months, take your pick

Elinor pondering at Jim and Patty's, her favorite coffeeshop

caffeine slowdown

Oh, there we go!

Lounging around the house!

Hi!

My loves.

like a box of cracker jack

2007-10-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

This post hasn't much content, but there are presents!

I seem to have hurt my neck a bit yesterday, so I can't quite focus on posting but since the last days of our wonderful Vermont vacation are falling further behind us, I thought I would do a little something!

I have made up a flickr slide show called (click for) Midge in Vermont! for everyone to enjoy. So feel free to check it out.

It is a complement to the St Jay slideshow I put up... At StJ Slideshow, for those that don't follow the other blog...

Well, now we're back

2007-10-17T01:02:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, I've fallen behind!

It will all have to wait, until I have the energy to deal with the pictures and think about the last couple of days. Hopefully later on today.

But we made it home... Elinor flew just fine, again. I started feeling a bit ill during the flight home, which has never happened to me before, but we got into Portland about 45 minutes early, so I made it!

Waterbury bound

2007-10-12T04:41:00.000-07:00

Elinor had herself a busy day on Thursday! We went down to Saint Johnsbury to visit Caplan's to try and find something fun to buy, then off we went to the Maple Valley Cafe in Plainfield for lunch, then off to Montpelier to look at books, visit the yarn store and to look for a little something for Georgia. That town certainly seemed busy after St Johnsbury, reaffirming to us that St Johnsbury if the place for us. We then went down to Waterbury Center to meet Georgia and her folks, Tricia and Alex. We had a lot of fun and it was nice for me to see Elinor have a playmate who was more her size and temperament, since the usual playmates that I see her with are all quite a bit older then her. The girls had fun sharing Georgia's toys and we had fun hanging out with the folks, who served brownies, nachos and blueberry beer! Of course, I can't post any pictures yet, but Tricia put up some nice ones at Unringing the Bell!

We liked Waterbury a lot and one of Caitlin's childhood friends happens to live right down the road from them, so after that we went to visit her and see her house and have some dinner...

Then it was back home, which in the dark rain seemed to take forever. And ever... But it was nice to be out and about all day, to go some new places and to meet some nice people!

Motel 6 Hours away...

2007-10-10T17:26:00.000-07:00

So Midge enjoyed her first trip to Maine! The trip there was rather lame... Due to not knowing exactly where we were going or our way around Maine and the crazy congestion around North Conway... Well, it took us 6 hours from East St Johnsbury to our Motel. Which ended up being Motel 6, due to price reasons only. Though it actually ended up being pretty well placed for a convenient drive into downtown.

Aside from all of the trips in the car, Elinor did very good, and had some really cute moments... Like when we decided that to continue wandering around Old Portland we need to bundle her up so we picked up an LL Bean fleece and a blanket from the LL Bean outlet. Man, seeing her all bundled up in her little borrowed stroller? She was C-ute!

We went all around and looked at lots of baby clothes, went to a cool toy store, two yarn shops, the big LL Bean, Gritty McDuff's... She had lots of fun and got lots of ohhs and ahhs. We were really taken with Portland. And it entered into our realm of future possibilities... I liked it a lot and kind of wished that I'd already lived there (I have had loose ideas one moving there for a couple of decades) and Caitlin really liked it.

We pondered a bit which would be the best place to raise Midge (and whomever may follow) and it was hard to say. But personally, I feel the need to live the small town lifestyle. Where you actually know the people you encounter (for better or worse).

Spoon baby...

2007-10-08T06:03:00.000-07:00

All is well out here, especially with the baby! Elinor has been getting so much wonderful and constant attention from her Grandma Mickey! And everyone else. She has been spending a lot of time going around. We did a bit more of the different towns foliage fest's this weekend. In Danville (which, as always, had the best fest), we ran into the nice lady that we sat with in McIndoe Falls. We also bought Midge a nice little handmade doll. After that we took a drive up a road that Cait hadn't been up before and found another little village that we could easily call home. Little, cute, off the beaten road, it was North Danville! Very nice, it was like finding a little magic kingdom. Not quite as perfect as Green River down by Brattleboro, but easily a nice place to pass some decades.

But around home, Elinor has really got into baby food whole hog. She eats about 5 ounces of Earth's Best a day! We have about six different things we are feeding her and her tastes seem to change everyday, but it is quite fun and she isn't particularly messy. She does though get a bit fascinated with her spoon, wanting to use it for teething rather than eating... Winter Squash will soon be here next introduced food, which I think she'll like.

Anyway, we are about to head out to Maine for two days, so that will be nice.

seemingly mistaken

2007-10-05T21:27:00.001-07:00

Well, we all had a wonderful morning! Sadly, I guess I actually didn't bring the cable for my camera, so no pictures will be coming anytime soon!

As Foliage Festival events are going on all around the Kingdom this week, we went down to our favorite town, Barnet, because theirs was today. And no, none of the pictures I took were of leaves!

We started off by going to Barnet Center, where we checked out the church and a little craftsfaire, then down to McIndoe Falls where we had lunch in the back of the church (they were having a "soup and sandwich" fundraiser). We inquired when we went in if there were any non-meat items. They had egg salad sandwiches and apple crisp and said that we could get a vegetarian corn chowder. After they offered us a corn chowder with bacon, which we turned down, someone came over and said that they had a vegetarian corn chowder but it would take a little while to heat up. We went for that. We also got the feeling that they actually made it, instead of heating it up. But it was all good. We met some nice friendly folks (we were, at first, by far (and I mean far) and away the youngest folks in the room). Some of the gents had even put on there finest Sunday suits! Anyway, we had a great time.

We then went to West Barnet were we went shopping at the church store (pillowcase, t-shirt and some fabric pieces, all for $1) and then went to the West Barnet church for their "European Tea and Coffee benefit". It was also fun! There were many tables of treats and lots of nice folks and some people the wife hadn't seen it 20 years! And a nice lady sitting next to us was quite excited about Midge playing at wearing my Red Sox cap that she snapped her picture... And then some of us and she said that she would mail them to us! Everyone is just so nice and friendly, in a genuine fashion. Luckily/Sadly we had just come from the lunch at McIndoe Falls, so we weren't able to eat as many sweets as we would have liked to. But we did go up into the church (I really love churches) and it was quite a beautiful sight... Nice wood all around, stained glass windows...

Of course, Elinor got very grumpy with all the "into the car and out of the car", but she got so much attention from the Grands and the aunt and uncle when she got home that I think it well made up for it.

postcards all around

2007-10-05T04:38:00.000-07:00

Another glorious cold Vermont morning! Too cold for the coffee on the porch, but all is well. We are going to go to Barnett Center and West Barnett to take in some foliage festivities, which will be fun, and maybe even a book sale!

Elinor was having a hard time focusing on sleeping last night so I had to get her out of the bed and put her on, ahem, the floor. That little bundle has laid there silently and without moving for over 5 hours now! This hasn't happened in weeks and weeks. Sometimes she just can't sleep with her mother around...

Of course, Caitlin pointed out that it may have something to do with the Hyland's Teething Tablets we gave her, which have a notice on the side that they may put wakeful babies to sleep. It is the first time we've tried them and hopefully we don't end up making too much of a habit out of it, but it certainly is nice and she really did need the sleep.

I brought the camera and the cable along with us, in the hopes of getting some good shots of Midge in the leaves, but the folks main computer is in the shop and this old Dell laptop I'm using, maybe I'll be able to get some in here...

Success!

2007-10-04T19:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, no matter how much Jetblue tried to make us worry, we have successfully arrived in Vermont! It is our first family vacation and I already do not want to go back! We've already gone to Ben and Jerry's (on our way home from the airport), where I got a maple walnut sundae, Caitlin got a cone of frozen yogurt and Elinor just got her standard breast milk. Personally, I think I made out the best!

Anyway, yesterday was frantic with us trying to get our respective works tied up, run errands and get packed, and then today has been one of those arriving days. We didn't make it to St. Johnsbury until 3:30, napped (as Caitlin had been up was about 30 hours without sleep) and then folks here go to bed around 9pm, so it seems a funny day. But it feels great to be here. Sitting in our room upstairs, I was rocking Midge to sleep in an old rocking chair in front of a window looking out on the quiet blackness of a rural Vermont night... Thinking about the good people and this beautiful old farmhouse and, yes, the beautiful old cast iron bed here that Mom and Ron got for us and and repainted (and there is even a little iron bed for you know who), and I felt ready to while away the rest of my days in that very room! Not just the twelve more days we have here.

The trip, while it was a bit wracking due to tiredness and the tardiness of the plane, went fine. Elinor and I slept on the first leg, and Caitlin remained quite calm. Midge started to lose it a bit as we descended to Burlington, but we think it might be due to the cold that she seems to have.

Anyway, now that we are here, we shall fill our days with great things. I am looking forward to spending mornings on the porch with coffee and my family looking out at the hills! That and seeing the VT folks, family and friends, who we love to see and also going to meet Tricia and Alex and sweet little Georgia!

After that? Well, it depends, so much awaits us to do! Foliage Festivals, Maine, our old haunt Barnett, more ice cream, daydreaming at houses, stop by Green Mountain Books, maybe a movie at Catamount Arts and hopefully a trip or two to wander about Montpelier! Those are all good things. Well, those and, strange as it may sound, I like to come to Vermont for the restaurants! Hi-boy, Lyndonville Diner, the ice cream place (if it is still there), that roadside place we stopped last time that had good vegetarian options... We need to check all of these out!

No holds barred...

2007-09-25T22:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, we did successfully get Midge to the beach for the first time. It wasn't too smooth, due to my old coastal navigation habits, and I don't think Elinor liked it much, as it was cold and windy (it is the Oregon Coast, afterall). But I thought we covered some good stops! Astoria, Seaside with its famed turnaround (the end of the Lewis and Clark trail [well, kind of]) and my old standby, the Pin N Pancake! We also drove by the family's old beach house, sadly no longer ours. Tragically sadly, even. But anyway, we went to the beach at Seaside and she got sandy and everything! We also stopped by Beach Books (coastal book stores are my favorites), where she bought a wonderful book that I remember from my youth, Swimming, by Leo Lionni and got to pet the cat! And some friendly folks even took our family picture!

Her first Pig N Pancake visit!

The other big deal this week is that we have her eating peas and pears everyday! It is a lot of fun and she is taking to it pretty quick! This morning, she was barely even messy and seemed excited about the peas that she was sour on yesterday. But we got some fun shots of her eating two days ago!

all that while wearing her mukluks...

Finally...

2007-09-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

So the little doll slept for 6 hours straight last night! That is by far the best stretch of sleep in a couple of weeks! So I think it did us all a lot of good. The last couple of week, she has generally refused to sleep more than an hour at a stretch, making for some funny nights. And, she is still talking for hours and hours a day. Which is very cute, but she does it at odd times, while eating, while we're watching movies... And I still haven't discerned a sensible word yet!

Aside from that? She got her first dolls. A couple of old hand-knit Native American ladies. She has had avocado a few more times, we still haven't moved past that. Caitlin has been baking some very nice breads, which Elinor can't have... But I've certainly been enjoying! Today, once Caitlin gets off work, we hope to take her on her first little trip to the coast, where I will need to bundle her up more than usual (since I don't tend to bundle her up much), maybe she can even wear her new jacket?

her favorite doll

distracted while reading... tsk, tsk.

ready for the family walk?

midge's secoond walk of the day

All is well...

2007-09-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

Another week has gone by and things just get chippier. So much to report! Well, we are now 5 days into the Midge and Me Morning Show. Though this week it seems more realistic than last week (aka: frustrating and tired), I still really enjoy it. I appreciate having the time with her and seeing how hard it can be to try and take a shower or make a piece of toast three mornings in a row. Also, though I realize that I don't have her solo as much as Caitlin does and I don't have nearly the level of duties (the feeding thing makes things different in many ways), I feel more a part of the parenting thing, having to watch over her alone for some of the time. Even if it is only 5ish hours a day, three days a week. And I like for Caitlin to have some regular time, even if it is spent working, where she doesn't have to keep her ears and arms always at the ready for the little girl.

And she is such a great and happy little baby! I love picking out her outfit and, of course, the walk over to Tandem. I had to use a sling a few days, as I had left the pack in the car. I didn't really mind it, but it is too flexible. I work better with the Infantino, as it just has one way to work. And today even Frances (and Kurty) were at Tandem to meet us! And then Robin and Reese showed up? It was fun and kids all around and very nice.

Other news this week? Caitlin Gave Elinor some avocado off of her finger tip during lunch. It was really the first thing that she has ingested, aside from milk. She seemed to like it, but then, she has been quite blatant the last week or two about her eagerness to start eating food, so I think we will begin the progression towards that. Yams up next?

Also, my team at work had our picnic this week where, of course, Elinor was the life of the party. It was quite fun and Gloria and Brian were nice and sharp enough to get some pictures, she is such a sweet little angel...

excited to be at the park

showing off her new suit

fun at the luau

meeting new people

long time no see...

2007-09-04T22:31:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been quite the absence of Elinor updates. We've been busy with the new coffeeshop and I also seem to have lost the time... By which I mean I seem to be headed off to bed around midnight now and for months my main blogging time has been 11:30 pm until about 2:30 am... So maybe I need to start earlier? But anyway, here is a little something.

Midge is, of course, wonderful! She is healthy and happy and a great little baby: babbling all the time, rolling over, clawing at my face with her sharp little nails... There are some things that are needed, though. One, we need to find a new pediatrician, preferably a naturopath or homeopath, or someone of a less rigid ilk. Caitlin wants me to do that this week. I imagine that I could ask around work, it seems like someone there would have to know.

But she is having lots of fun, we gave her a sink bath yesterday, and it went better than any of the previous ones. She didn't get upset once, ever when we pulled her out and bundled her up. She also got to finally meet cute little Blix this week! His folks brought him down to Portland and we had a wonderful evening and morning with them! We hadn't seen them in something like a year (I know, we really should make it to Seattle more often, and Caitlin really likes it there), before any of these babies were wandering around! but it was great fun and they posed for pictures, including crazy ones on the "photobooth" in the Macbook at the Ace hotel. Too bad we can't get those out of there, but maybe wacky things like that belong where you make them...

And also, now that her mother is working early mornings on my days off, I have taken to hanging out with Elinor at home for a few hours and then strapping her into the Infantino and walking her over there to see Moppy and have some quality hanging out on the couch at Tandem. Though we're only two days into this routine, I really enjoy the walks. I like having her little arms and legs dangling in front of us as we stroll the 40 or so minutes and sing Elton John songs. She was unsure about the carrier when she was younger, but now we can go all about in it with nary a peep from her. And sometimes, she even falls asleep! It is quite nice, though the weather is still a bit too hot for my liking... But here are some pictures of her on the couch with the big blue... Um... What is that? A donkey? And then one of her locked and loaded into my carrier, all ready for a stroll...

2007-08-20T08:38:00.000-07:00

I'm going to chime in here, just because I don't want people to think we aren't crazy about our little dog - we are! We did a whole lot of soul searching when we were looking for an apartment....we wondered if she'd be happier in Vermont with a big yard a two dogs to play with, if being in a little apartment with a little baby would be too cramped for her, and whether or not she'd get all the love and attention she deserves from us. We also thought that we'd be in Vermont within a year, too - that we'd all be back together in a house with a yard and plenty of space.

It turns out we probably should have sent her to my mom's. Like Ashley said, this place is so teeny that it's impossible for us all not to be in each other's way when it comes to sleep, privacy, anything. I would rather Lottie be running like crazy around my mom's land and not here with us getting frustrated with her. That poor little dog. None of this seems fair to her, and yet she remains SO good natured. It kills me.

I think we need to be more realistic about what's good for us all. With Mabel's gone now and Vermont becoming more of a possibility everyday, the picture becomes more clear to me each minute. I can practically hear Lottie tearing around our new yard....now we just need to practice a little patience and believe that that day will come.

Truth and Consequences

2007-08-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

I though I would start off with some pictures of our little couch potato, relaxing at home after a long week at Mabel's... All lit up:

And in her peaceful yellow phase:

Obviously, she is still blisteringly cute and fun as can be, but okay, now down to business. I have always wondered how people can part with their pets once they have a baby. Honestly though, last year when we were looking for an apartment, we considered sending Lottie to Vermont. A dog makes it tricky and expensive to get a reasonable place around here. Well, we didn't, but now with the baby? The thought does occur to me.

One thing that I didn't realize before having a baby is that truly, from day one (yes, still in the hospital), my main thought would be "Will she sleep?". Now, after four months of trying to get her to sleep, or nap or something... The dog becomes too much. Elinor sleeps very lightly... The dogs claws tapping on the wood floor? The dog rolling around on her back on the rug? The dog whimpering in her sleep (poor paranoid little thing)? All of it can wake the baby up! To spend an hour trying toget her down and then a minute after she goes to bed to have Lottie wander in, clicking away with her feet and the baby's eyes pop open? Sometimes it is just too much. But honestly, I don't think we would be a content family without her.

And... Well, it isn't all the dogs fault. After spending so much time trying to get her to sleep, and then hoping for her to stay asleep, at least for a little while, you start to fear things. I fear walking around at night, taking much at night, walking into the bedroom (creaky wood floor), going to the bathroom, brushing my teeth, feeding the dog... Sometimes I also want her to wake up, just so I can get to the bathroom and bedroom without feeling paranoid that I'm am waking her.

The most important thing in the land is two fold.. 1) Getting Elinor to sleep so we can have some time to relax and, 2) Getting Elinor to sleep so she won't be fussy the next day. Everything else in the day seems to revolve around that.

all back together...

2007-08-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

Yes, everyone made it back reasonably intact. I believe the the trip was good, Elinor sure loves her Grandma Mickey and I think had just an all around grand time! Caitlin enjoyed herself too, but between all of the things that she needed to do and falling of the porch and badly twisting her ankle (she even was using crutches for a few days), there are some people that she couldn't get out to see...

But them being back there rekindled, for me, feelings of moving to Vermont and, if nothing else, we now have tickets to fly out for a longer stay in October! So that will be fun!

But Elinor got visit Aunt Sue

have her first go at a swingset

shop at the West Barnet church store (look't those red pants! Keepers!)

visit the general store where her mother lived as a child

and, of course, see her grandma...

All in all, she had a great trip, in fact, the day after she got back, she was quite thoroughly grumpy.

Nope, no pictures yet...

2007-08-12T13:37:00.001-07:00

The day has finally come! Tonight the family comes home and we are all ready for that.

If anyone ever thinks it is a good idea for their wife and 3 month old baby to fly across the country for 9 days, I would say that they are sorely mistaken. Somehow, we we made the decision that I wasn't going to go along, we hadn't thought about all kinds of things... Caitlin having to go through a layover and plane transfer with the baby, not being able to put the baby down during the flight, how much the baby would advance during this period (seemingly rolling all back and forth now... Or so they tell me). And, of course, just the plain old missing each other.

Anyway, this whole time it has seemed like a very bad idea to all of us, and we are very ready for it to be over... Today is Elinor's 4 month birthday, tomorrow is our anniversary, the Mabel's Liquidation sale started today, we have two week of Flight of the Conchords to catch up on... Then we have to catch up on Big Love (and big episodes they should be!)...

Anyway. Soon all will be back to normal, and there should be some nice pictures of "Elinor on vacation" to be posted.

Dereliction of Duty

2007-08-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

And now...

There she is!

Yes, I have not been good with the old family blog this last month. I've been spending too much time with my other blog (trying to keep up with the wife's blogging) and, honestly, things move too fast with Elinor to even blog about them... Though watching Caitlin poke her in the back and the thrill on Elinor's face when she realized that she could turn around and see who it was, that was exciting. She had a great time, turning around to see her mother, and it is delightful to watch her change and advance every day.

But anyway, the point to this post is that in 3.5 hours (it would have been 1.5, but there are some of those famous "miss your connection delays), they are getting on a plane to fly to Vermont!

Quite sad for me, as I have nine days without them to just hang around. Well, I am going to try and keep busy, with work and hiking and watching movies... But without this little face to keep me awake...

I don't know what I will do!

Of course, I really should have figured a way to go back east, since it is for the long awaited wedding of our friends Kate and Ed, who we love dearly and who were themselves key players in our wedding. But the plane tickets were, for us, prohibitively expensive, so stay behind I do. Not only will it be Midge's first time away from Portland, and the rare occurrence of Caitlin and I being apart, but I imagine that there will come a time while she is back east that Elinor will be away from her mother... And that would be the first time (since those brief moments in the hospital) that she has been away from both of us. I know it shouldn't seem weird, and she will probably be safely under the eye of Grandma Mickey, but it still seems a weird thought to me. We are so close knit that it will be odd to think of Elinor without one of us looking at her. Of course, this whole absence, though short, will be felt quite strongly...

But, it is a good excuse to get some photos of the three of us, which there aren't many of anyway...

And in the end, it will all work out fine. The girls are returning on Elinor's 4 month birthday and the day after that is our 2nd wedding anniversary, so there is lots of good stuff for us to look forward to while we're apart...

so much fun, so little time!

2007-07-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Things have been busy around here lately, with the baby vast attention needs and the increased blogging on our other blogs, the poor family blog has gone unwritten. Well, not any longer! Let's see... What's been happening?

First off, I was reading in the new issue of Mothering about the laws around public breastfeeding, inspired by the airplane incident in VT. I must say that I have a really hard time wrapping my head around it. I can't imagine that someone would have a problem with someone feeding their baby. It seems so nonsensical that I feel speechless. I mean, I understand that breasts have a sexual connotation for people and that traditionally women are blamed for "inappropriate" feelings they inspire in others (from "foul temptress" to "she had it coming"), but come on. It is a baby being fed! As I am a bit prudish, I do imagine that someone could come up with an inappropriate fashion of public feeding, but hearing about the harassment that these women have to put up with just to feed their children is infuriating! Also, in the cases mentioned in the article, the trouble seemed to be coming from other women. I know it's not surprising, but I still feel a bit shocked about that.

Anyway, back to us...

And back to the good old days. Elinor has become quite the nonstop handful once again. Sleeping through the night is certainly of no interest to her now. She likes to sleep little, eat all the time and, her new favorite hobby? Talk talk talk. Ahwa waa he ha wa awaa... Fairly loudly for hours and hours, all day. But she seems to be having lots of fun with it. Apparently it is much more fun than sleeping.

Also, she has taken quite a dislike to being swaddled, it probably reminds her too much of bedtime. So it's active time for us again: not much sleep, lots of feeding, bouncing and talking/listening to the baby. It is very tiring and can be quite frustrating, but, of course, it is also fun and very rewarding to be able to interact with her so much.

We had lots of fun activities this week, though they were rarely photographed... She went to Wilshire park with 4 friends from her playgroup and the moms. It was a first, because 4 of the dad's came along, so it was fun, a nice picnic in the grass and for us fellows, a first chance to meet the kids and mom's and each other. She also had her first trip to the Skyline diner, with Reese and family, and she wore her adorable little sailor suit (there is a picture of that suit on her mom's blog), also this week she wore her green overalls, check them out!

Then yesterday we took a road trip through North Portland (Caitlin's favorite part of town) and then up to St Helens where we looked around. It's a cute little river town and it's the farthest afield that Elinor has been, so that was fun and it was nice to get somewhat out of town. Well, for us. Midge didn't seem to enjoy the car ride at all, as usual.

In terms of her around the house fun, in between bouts of "talking" she is becoming interested in her pacifier, which she can take out and tries to put back in, though no more bottle holding. She also has little interest in rolling over, though it's very easy for her, except for the rolling back part, which she hasn't managed yet.

So basically, we are very tired again, but Elinor is most certainly the happiest baby that she has ever been!

just more and more...

2007-07-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

How much fun was this week? Well, Thursday was her 3 month birthday! So that was pretty darned exciting! She didn't want a party or anything, so we took it pretty easy. But it was a nice landmark. Funny how it seems like forever, though. It is hard to imagine a time before Midge. And it is very hard to imagine that those odd days in the hospital were just three months ago? It's crazy.

Anyway, the rolling continues... She slowed down for couple of days, but for the last few days it just keeps going! We can't leave her unattended at all, she can (erratically) scoot herself in all sorts of directions by rolling. Though she still can't roll from her tum to her back, which she seems to find a bit frustrating. She is constantly rolling over onto her tum and pushing her butt up in the air with her legs... First she would just lay on her arms, but now she holds one to her side as if she's planning on doing something with it! I know I am probably getting carried away but coupled with how strong her legs are (she spends a good deal of time "standing" with me holding onto her "for balance"), I have visions of her tromping about the place any minute!

It is all so exciting... and with how much more person like she is getting? It's too much! How aware of us and how much easier to entertain her with: reading, singing, standing, rolling, even finally an awareness that toys and such are something! Not up to playing with them by any means, but at least aware of their existence!

Though with all this moving, I did decide to get a cute picture of her napping (however briefly) during the day in her crib...

But the big excitement this week? I was sitting on the couch giving her a bottle (which only happens once or twice a week), which is nice because it is the closest I can get to feeding her but it is also a bit awkward, as it takes one hand to hold her and one to hold the bottle, so it can be very trying for me to even turn the page in a magazine. But it may all change, because tonight she grabbed onto her bottle with both hands and held it! I was actually able to keep a hand free for probably 5-10 minutes! It was totally unexpected! She was just like, "Ok Papa, I'll take that now!" Anyway, that was so exciting that Caitlin took some pictures to prove it!

Really, one of the most fascinating parts of this experience is never knowing what she is going to do next! What clever little trick?

My, what a busy week!

2007-07-05T22:00:00.000-07:00

So much these days!

Where to even begin? Well, Elinor had her first movie theater experience! We went to the "mommy matinée" at the Kennedy School Theater for, yes, Hot Fuzz! Now I've been wanting to see this one a lot, but it strikes me as an odd choice for a baby film. I guess they are young enough that they don't know what's going on and they seem to like the noise, so it works. But it was a crazy action movie with some gore and a lot of loudness! And it was great fun! It was quite well attended and everyone there had a baby... so crying and standing up and walking back and forth were no big deal. We may try to attend this on a more regular basis.. Maybe every week?

And then yesterday we made big improvements in our little home. We moved Midge's room out from the kitchen into our bedroom and then moved the TV from the bedroom into the kitchen. I know, it doesn't sound like much, but it is a big improvement aesthetically, functionally and comfortably. It's nice to have her cradle right there while we sleep.

Musically she has a fun week, listening to lots of Leonard Cohen (Songs of Love and Hate) and the new Wilco (getting ready for her first "big" concert" in August) and then she was thrilled today to get a great surprise present in the mail, her first piece of rock n roll clothing for the greatest band in the history of the universe (photos to follow)!

Saving the best for last... We finally went out and got her one of those mats you lay on the floor and you can dangle toys from and, while laying on it, she rolled over for the first time! And then tried a second time but ran into the arch! Needless to say, it was very exciting! She hasn't seemed to interested in repeating it, but it was great to witness.

home day for all..

2007-06-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, we all stayed home today. Yesterday Caitlin came down sick and feverish and wasn't feeling any better this morning. In fact, little Midge seemed a bit sniffley too. So I stayed home to keep everyone rested. Of course I was feeling a bit under the weather also. It has been a quiet day at the homestead.

Since the little one seemed a bit on the low side, I was sure to dress her up cozy. Of course, that means the jeans again and her fancy red handmade socks!

Of course, I just had to get a picture of that!

the continuing saga...

2007-06-24T22:53:00.000-07:00

I think that we have hit 7 straight nights of Midge getting 7-8 hours of solid sleep in her crib. It certainly changes things! Away have flown my silly thoughts of "nothing but co-sleeping for us"! Let her have her own bed. Plus, she always wakes up right around 7 which is just perfect for me.

What else? Well she still is getting greater and greater. Her joy in seeing people and her actually having an interest in things (ceiling fans, light fixtures...if they're shaped just right) is also exciting and so she just gets more and more fun. And more and more calm. Not that she doesn't still freak-out, but she is more and more happy to just lay around and flail her arms and legs and make her funny sounds... Which have gotten a lot louder.

She had her doctors appointment this week. Which we had been eagerly awaiting, since it had been 8 weeks since her last one. She is still tall, but not as heavy as we might have thought (only 11.5 pounds)... Of course, what made it exciting and made me both glad and sad that I wasn't there... Seemingly it was vaccination time! Um, yay?

Of course, the doctor is all for vaccinations and Caitlin has some questions and concerns about them but me? I pretty much oppose everything but the Tetanus one. Not only that, but I have misgivings about why 2 month old babies get vaccinated against all sorts of things that it is highly unlikely that they will be at risk for during their infant time. It just all seems odd to me, but then again, I have concerns about anything (vaccinations, fluoride, no water bottles on planes, prescription medications, the war in Iraq, taxation) that the "powers that be" not only expect us to buy into but also act like we are insane/traitorous/gullible/idiot/communists if we have the gall to even ask questions about them. I realize that it sort of is shirking ones societal role to try and avoid these things, but when I realize that the only way to get polio on this continent seems to be to get the polio vaccination and that they are vaccinating infants against Hep B, and vaccinating kids against chicken pox (when I always thought that the best way to deal with chicken pox was to have your child catch it)... I want to be sure that they are the right thing.

Honestly, I would rather someone get sick due to accidental exposure to germs or viruses than have them get sick in an attempt to not get sick. But really what throws me off is the early age at which these vaccinations occur and that it seems like they are looking for vaccinations for everything that anyone anywhere might ever get? All I can say is that if you are planning on vaccinating your baby, but you aren't quite sure about it... Don't read any books about it (I chose Vaccine Guide: Risks and Benefits for Children and Adults) because they will freak you out! Go to Amazon and type in vaccination and look at the books that come up, read some of them and then try to go through the 30+ vaccinations with an easy mind. Though, yes, at some level I know that I'm making a big deal out of nothing and that 99%+ of kids get nothing but a fever from these treatments... I guess it's just my Beatnik bloodlines...

Anyway, I don't mean (or hope) to start any kind of outrage, but that's what I'm thinking about this week... That and finding some cute pictures of Elinor! Including some of her first time in her first pair of jeans!

Five is a charm..

2007-06-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

Well, if things don't just get better and better! Every day her personality comes out more and more: smiling at people, enjoying herself, easier to calm down. She made a smiling face today that reminded Caitlin of me. And speaking of improvements...

Elinor is in her crib right now. It's the fifth night in a row! The first two nights we got some good hours of sleep from her in there, but night before last she slept for 7 hours... And last night? From 11:30pm until 7am! Honestly it is such a shock and such a sudden change that I feel speechless about it! Of course, I get nervous with her in there for so long, and in the next room, but I don't want to check on her too much because the floor is very creaky and she sleeps very lightly. I also managed to keep her still briefly in the carry-pack, which she hasn't gotten used to yet.

Speaking of not used to, we tried the stroller for the first time a couple of days ago. The standard story, she was fine and dandy for the first 15 minutes or so, then she became inconsolable until she was picked up. Caitlin then had a repeat on a later day. It seems that unless she's asleep, she seems to be able to handle about at most about 15 minutes without being fed or held. On the bed, in the car seat in the stroller... It doesn't seem to matter to her.

Today was, of course, the families first fathers day! It was very fun! The wife made me a wonderful little book of pictures of my little peach and got me a special camera to take more pictures with! We also made a trip to Cold Stone and Belmont Station, the beer store! A very fine day indeed.

On Wednesday we also took her into work for a visit. There she got some pictures taken.

The booties give her away...

look ma! no hands!

The first summer

2007-06-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's here. It's a bit too hot for me, but I don't think Elinor minds. Plus we've been filling the days with all sorts of fun! As an update from last week, she becomes more and more smiley everyday and really just seems to be enjoying herself more. And able to be alone more (shhh, she's sleeping in her crib as we speak! And she was even awake when I put her in it). But then I spent some time this evening trying to expand her horizons, yes, there was more of her unswaddled wiggling around on the couch...

Earlier I tried out the crib again. She kept trying to lose control but with liberal use of the Haba Balloon Music Box and rocking the crib, she was able to keep herself under control. This second time around, the crib seemed much more palatable to her but then she was pretty tired.

And of course she was tired, she had a long social day... Hours at Mom's shop (and home away from home), Mabel's Cafe, visiting with Reese (who brought her a hat to match his) and Frances... Much fun was had! And then? Off on a walk down the street to Piccolo Park (a little park for little folks) for more fun with Frances!

In the park!

In the park with friends!

Doesn't she ever sleep?

2007-06-06T00:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, like I mentioned before, the co-sleeping really works best for us but it doesn't really answer the daytime question. She doesn't really sleep at all during the day. She may doze off in the moby or when being bounced or while nursing... but it doesn't last long and she comes out of it likity-split! So you are back where you started...

But she has started smiling and basically being in a much better mood, which is a lot of fun for us. But she has so much more to enjoy now! She goes to play group and the mom's group and she's been seeing a lot of her special friend Reese (they even hung out in a hammock together... Yes, they had a chaperone) and today she visited with her friend Frances and then we had dinner with Ryan and Susie (who has a magical ability to calm little Midge down). Speaking of friends, when she heard the good news about her friend Georgia's successful surgery, she threw up her arms and danced a victory dance!

So for Elinor, it was a good couple of days... Little sleeping, no pooing, lots of friends and many many hours of nursing. I think she'd nurse all day long if we let her.

We still need to figure out the day-sleeping though, she gets very tired but really puts up a fight to stay awake. At least we followed the advice of turning the lights off at night (that certainly helped!), if only there was an equally easy cure for the daytime...

I grabbed some fun new shots of her: bundled in her velcro swaddle, and making sure that there is no space for me in the bed...

Parky!

2007-05-26T16:14:00.001-07:00

Elinor's first day at the park! And Papa walked from Powell's to meet us for a little visit. Look at those two sweeties, would ya?

She really seemed to like hanging out outdoors - she loves bustle. I loved seeing her on her little blanket in the grass. I loved looking around at all the other kids and picturing her at their ages....so much to look forward to. I wanted to dunk her in the swimming fountain, but she's too little and would get too cold. My little tiny baby! The best thing ever.

sitting around

2007-05-26T07:39:00.000-07:00

I was looking over my other blog the other day and I noticed about where I had mentioned the upcoming baby. At that point, I knew what was coming, but I didn't really know what changes that might lead to. I imagine that one really doesn't know what is really coming when a baby is expected. You don't know how labor and the birth are going to go, you don't know how those early days in the hospital will be, you don't know what things will be like when you get home: how will your time be spent, more movies/fewer movies, how will it make you evaluate your lifestyle and your environment, will the baby sleep a lot/not a lot, cry/not cry, will she have health issues, will you be watchful/overly paranoid/relaxed/absent-minded, sleep no sleep? How will all of that affect your work, your social life? How will the people around react to the baby and how will that make you feel (could I have realized that my mother would refer to Elinor as "it" and never ask for a picture of her)?

I think that when you head into the hospital you need to realize that a lot of things will be much different and you need to not be too concerned about which aspects of life may change and just be prepared to accept and prosper under whatever changes may happen.

Speaking of that, there is the sleeping question. Three hours after that last post she woke up and was done with her sleeping spell. We have tried a number of solutions, these last six weeks, for getting the baby to sleep, especially at night. It has seemed that the best solution was to put the baby to sleep in bed with us. Of course that led to both Caitlin and Elinor sleeping sporadically though the night (though I would generally sleep straight through). I have tried giving Caitlin a break by keeping the baby with me the whole night through... Elinor doesn't really like that.

Well, I think we are learning that the former is better. There may be some days ahead where Midge makes such a fuss during the day that Caitlin needs a night off, but as a general rule, I think that we will save those for the rare occasions. The baby is just so much more at ease sleeping in the bed. It seems worth it, I think, for everyone to just keep her there.

But anyway, I know that you want pictures! I'm going to try and leave the ones that Caitlin takes for her to post (I've been stealing them), so all that I have for today is this one of Midge and I sitting around...

turning a corner?

2007-05-22T23:10:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I just don't know what to say.

We've commented (complained?) for weeks about Elinor's lack of sleeping... 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there... The rare evening where she sleep 3 or 4 hours straight. Now though?

She slept fairly well last night but today? She has (literally) slept most of the day! She is currently in her basket sleeping, where she's been for probably three hours and earlier she slept in her swing chair for much longer than ever before and had another multi-hour sleep! Though the connection is dubious, Caitlin did buy, on Sunday, the most wondrous thing at Fred Meyer. Called the Kiddopotamus and it's like a swaddling blanket with a pocket to put the legs in and two big flaps that velcro shut. Man, after all of the hours that I've spent swaddling and re-swaddling, this is brilliant! And it's all cotton flannel too! Anyway, it probably doesn't have anything to do with her sleeping habit for today, but I guess I need to a straw to grasp at...

It feels so weird that in the last half hour, each of us has checked to make sure she is still breathing! Anyway, I don't know what it sounds like to everyone else out there, but in 5 weeks she has barely slept during the day and now it's 11 pm and she has spent probably half of the day asleep... Without even needing to be held! I must admit that when she has been awake, she seemed to me to be much fussier than normal.

Anyway, it is odd, but it's been rather easy though it does make me worry for the evening... But maybe she'll sleep all the way through?

I'll let you know.

In other excitement today. Grandma Ginny visited and I ended up taking a picture of her holding Midge below a painting of her mother (baby, G-ma and G-Gma)... So I'll put it up...

And also, in another fun spot, she seems to have taken to using the boppy for a chair. It's a good look for her, and I'm thinking that she is starting to enjoy the notion of sitting up...

Cutie cute and funny fun!

2007-05-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

So it's weekend time now. I had been thinking that meant it would be safe for Elinor to have a fussy night last night... but I actually ended up getting her to sleep, in her basket even, for four hours straight! So that was a nice and restful surprise for the whole family!

And we've all had a very nice and relaxing day. We even went out for lunch and she was quite well behaved too! What a little angel we have!

Anyway, I thought I should put out some new pictures...

right, wrong? fair to middlin'?

2007-05-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

There is so much to think about, some of which becomes very easy.

I was torn between the Digital Pictures? Real pictures? And then Caitlin took a CD of digital pictures of the baby to Fred Meyer's and for 19 cents each, got them printed. They look really good, nice colors, nice matte finish, nice white borders (for those old enough to remember white borders, nothing else looks right, it would be like a painting without a frame). So that makes it an easier decision.

And then? Cloth or disposable. Well, we wanted disposable and now, after 5 weeks of alternating back and forth (mainly cloth, disposable for convenience) we have decided to make the move away from Cloth. Honestly, we can't afford to do both and the baby really doesn't like the wetness of the cloth and she dirties her diaper covers very quickly. It's funny how all of these rules and notions can go away so easily.

Speaking of that. There is also this...

The television monster. First I must get this out of the way. I am not a TV person. I haven't been since I was a teenager... Over 20 long years ago. The computer and movies have long supplanted that device. In fact, the last time I lived alone, for the first year the TV was connect just to the DVD player, I never even once attempted to find out if I even could get a signal. Occasionally I would see a few minutes of television at one particular bar I went to. But no, no TV. It just doesn't seem odd to me. Shows? News? None of it means anything to me so... I'm just saying that I may have an inherent bias (I do), and it maybe also be easier for me to say, like someone who has never been a smoker condemning smoking (which is also the case)...

But now it hits a more personal note. I wonder, Is there something wrong with a persons first days/weeks/months on earth having daytime tv as the background to their everyday? The endless loud commercials and the show hosts who seems to exists in a realm of: yelling, interrupting, commanding (Dr. Phil), chastising... We don't play much music around her, so aside from us talking, it really is what she hears. I realize it probably doesn't have any effect, but like everything else, I feel the need to think it over.

What is also gnawing at me is... When Mom's talk to babies during, say, The View, can the baby discern the difference between what Rosie's voice is and what their mother's voice is? That one is a real person? I realize that they may be too young to make a difference, but I still find it hard not to ponder.

... is for Elinor

2007-05-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been an interesting week! Disregard what I said last time about "sleeping better". Now she doesn't seem to sleep at all! Caitlin estimates maybe 2-3 hours during the day and maybe the same amount at night... Maybe.

Caitlin's been running a fever on and off the last couple of days, which makes the "always awake" baby even more evident. We did get a nice break yesterday though... Kurty came by with cute little Frances (you'll remember her from the Baby Shower post)! We brought them to Elinor's favorite coffee-shop and hung around the apartment, so that was nice. And for us, it's good to see a baby with another year under her belt. There is just so much to look forward to!

But these early days are good, in their own funny way... Just more overwhelming than we had expected. We knew the saying that being a mother is a full-time job, but we didn't realize that they meant the "24 hour a day" full-time... It seems that Caitlin is always either engaged in feeding the baby or is attemping to get a few moments of rest. And though Midge was adapting to sleeping in her basket, she is past that now. It's on the bed, or nothing. Her sleeping in the bed is what has enabled me to get sleep at night, but it certainly hasn't helped that for Caitlin.

Since I can't do much for feeding, most of my time home with the baby (the few hours that she isn't eating) I work to calm her down, and I've been getting daring! Though I cannot get her to calm down in the New Native Carrier anymore, I plopped her in her crib for a brief moment again, and actually managed to get her to sit calmly (yes, awake) in the electro-swingy chair for 20 minutes once! But normally I bounce on the ball with her (and sneak some minutes at the computer, while trying to get her to stop starting at the monitor), talk to her, sing to her, play with her hands and legs... Honestly, though Caitlin spends quite a bit more time with her than I do, I think that I get more fun face time with her... Which hardly seems fair.

Speaking of that... I cannot get enough of watching her arms and legs flail...

Big day for bonzo!

2007-05-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a day filled with wonder for little Elinor. Well, maybe not, but she did do some interesting outings! First off, Midge had her first trip to the farmer's market! Sadly, she was not in the mood so the trip only lasted about 10 minutes, so she also missed out on seeing Paul and Robin there. Hopefully she'll come to like the place since her mother certainly likes to go!

Then after work we went across town to what must be the most child friendly restaurant around, Peanut Butter and Ellie's! Featuring a kid-oriented menu, chalkboard walls, a play area in the middle of the dining room, toys, games, and lots of kids... literally everyone there brings kids so there were certainly more little children than adults. We'd never been there before but what got us out there was a performance by the one and only Johnny Keener! It was quite enjoyable! He played a nice selection of some of our favorite folks songs and some other nice classics (even an Elvis tune!), so it was all around nice... We hadn't seen Johnny in probably a year and it was fun to go somewhere that half the patrons were under the ago of six.

Enjoying her first concert

Johnny!

Then, at home, after getting her to put up with Grandpa Bruce's rocking chair for while, I set her down for her first ever nap in her cradle! Luckily, it took a good 15 minutes for her to realize it...

Other news though... Lately she has made it a habit of getting upset whenever we get ready to go anywhere... Staying upset in the car and even when we arrive... But on the other hand, she is getting better at sleeping through the night (at least the last two) and last night she slept in her basket for 5 hours! So that's good. I'm feeling less rested than normal, but since it's been better on the sleep end, it must be due to the hotter weather.

And on a sad note, one of her beloved pets, Lox, passed away yesterday... Though the natural death of a Goldfish has a painless look to it, the lounging about on its side for hours certainly makes for a sad and pitiful event. We have tried to shield Elinor from it, so hopefully she'll be ok.

Nap time....

2007-05-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

Here's something to chuckle about...
Before I had Midge, I thought that we would spend the days together quietly gazing at one another, reading, knitting and making things, and CERTAINLY not watching TV.
Were all of my mom friends just laughing on the inside when I said this crap to them? First, we would die without TV. Someday we do hope to make the transition to being a family without a television, but now? Not on your life!
Also, my hands are never free to do anything but hold her, feed her (that still takes hands sometimes, because I just don't have it down pat just yet...) and diaper her. I can barely make toast for myself, let alone knit. Geez!
But the gazing part? We do plenty of that! I could stare at that face all day, and sometimes I do.
We've made an effort to leave the house each day, which is good for both of us. She seems to love being out and I love anything she loves! As Ashley mentioned, I found a baby friendly coffee shop around the corner that I really like. We also have been to Powell's (pretty good), the farmer's market (definitely not good) and Mabel's (always a hit). I've nursed her all over town, because I figure I better just take the plunge. I'm super modest by nature, so I just had to do it, and you know? It ain't so bad.
The hardest part is still figuring out the whole sleeping thing. I'll take advice from anyone who has it! It's much better now that I stopped having coffee in the morning (why on earth did I think I could get away with that?) but it's a challenge, for sure. She's such a light sleeper....are all babies?
Other than that? It's pretty fantastic. Especially when we're all home at night together...what could be better than that?

Iladvisably taking adavantage...

2007-05-04T23:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, I should be sleeping. I have found that my pre-baby bedtime of 2am or so, has switched to a time of maybe 10pm... Following the strategy of "as soon as she goes to sleep at night, I go to sleep." She has been so good and quiet tonight, that I have been taking advantage of it to do some much needed blog catching up and now it's sneaking up on midnight and if she gets wakey soon, I may regret this decision. But you know, I may be safe.

Wednesday was my first day back to work, and I don't think things went well here. I believe she was, as it is generally know, an unholy terror for the entire 10 hours I was gone. Since then though, she has generally been a little angel and has been sleeping nicely at night.

So in terms of updates, not much. Caitlin and Elinor have been attending a weekly New Mom's group at Providence, which I believe that they like, and they have a new coffee shop to go to. The coffee shop is very nearby and is super-duper baby and child friendly. That is really what Caitlin needs, something to do that is around other people and outside of the apartment. So both of those are good.

At her group today, learned a new swaddling technique that may be beneficial. And though the photos have died done, we did get a good one of her in her red square suit (it was hard, she kept waving her arms around...)

every day in every way

2007-04-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

She's growing up, right before our eyes! That neck just keeps getting stronger, those legs and feet more directed, those cute little eyes more intent. And, in terms of more important things, her sleeping. We've been trying to get her used to both sleeping a bit at night and... Sleeping without being attached to either of us... Yes, in the basket! The doctor on Friday suggested less coffee for Caitlin so we've done that and it actually seems to have improved the nights alot. Though she prefers to sleep on her mom or while I'm bouncing her, we can now get her to sleep for a couple of hours in her little bed, which eases things for us immeasurably.

And just now? She'd been unresponsive to her swinging seat, but now she spent 15-20 minutes in her swing with no complaints at all!

Her are some little close-ups!

Myth Debunked

2007-04-28T04:31:00.000-07:00

First off, the old "be sure to sleep when they sleep". Yes, I've heard that from everyone now and read it in everything but... How is it supposed to work when you need to keep moving (say, bouncing on the exercise ball) to keep the little darling asleep? I guess I have not had enough practice with the ball yet (no matter what time of the morning it is or how many hours I have spent bouncing) to be able to sleep at the same time. Finally though, just 10 minutes ago I stumbled on something brilliant!

See, this morning not only do I need to keep bouncing but she seems to get unhappy when I turn the light off. 4 o'clock AM sitting in the living room with the lights on bouncing gets a little boring. Sure, about half of the time I can spend gazing at her perfect little face, but the rest of the time I am itching for something to do with my hands aside from hold the baby.

Well, heck, I thought. I bet I can bounce on the ball with the baby in a sling! That way, I can write a blogpost while doing it!

So yes, here I am, writing a post about Elinor's third Friday while bouncing her asleep. Oh and, this night is maybe about in her top three for easy nights (in my perspective)... No loud crying yet and Mom has actually managed to get a couple of hours of private sleep. And then my sling idea? Yes, a good night all around! Though hopefully Elinor will get in a mood to really sleep soon.

So today, well, yesterday, was a big adventure day for both the wife and child. I was gone all morning so they got explore the bus system alone! Not the first time for Baby on the bus, Wednesday we bussed downtown to Powell's to show her around a little. Today though, they went off to their first New Mom's Group meeting. It sounds like a success. 20 other new Mom's and little Elinor the smallest one of all. Then, speaking of smallest, off they went to her 2nd Doctor's appointment. Of course, the Doctor was thrilled with our little dear and her wonderful health! In fact, he said that she has gained nearly a pound in the last week! Such a good little eater! She'll probably pass 9 pounds this weekend!

Here's a little picture of her in the Moby, a device that I don't think I'll ever get around to figuring out.

Birth Story, Part One!

2007-04-24T10:04:00.000-07:00

I have posted the first part of our birth story over at The Gauge! Please come on over and read it: Birth Story, Part One.

Fun is in the air!

2007-04-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, today brings us to Elinor's one week anniversary! It's been a fun week, too. Some fun company and wonderful dinners brought to us by wonderful friends and Caitlin's wonderful mother has been here for the last few days. So yes, all is going well! Elinor started off with some feeding issues, but those are all taken care of so everyone's getting some periods of sleep and she's a happy little girl and we're happy little parents (and grandmother's)!

And while today she gets her first doctor's appointment, even more exciting is that thanks to Grandma Mickey we have her little moses basket to sleep and and we have started dressing her up and even took her to Fabric Depot and her first restaurant!

Here are some fresher pictures!

Mother and Daughter

Under watchful eyes

Our own little Moses

Home again, home again

2007-04-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, the day has come!

Today, after 3 1/2 days in the hospital, we returned home with our little peach, Elinor! It has all been exciting, painful, moving, scary, crazy, sweet... Well, a little bit of every thing. But mainly wonderful, confusing, painful, moving and crazy! Now that we are home, it is all of that (except for the crazy part, and less of the painful part) and more. Though we moved here with Baby in mind and we have all of the baby accouterments, being 6 hours into her at home is an odd experience. It seems so unreal that after all these years of chatting about her and referring to her that she is actually among us! We still have a few things to learn about all of this, but it is going to remain a wonderful experience! Now that we're out of the hospital, we really get to see what this is like, to have a little one in the family, and to have a real family. I think it will feel quite natural very soon! Though good old Lottie seems a bit unsure about what to do now...

I think I will save it for Caitlin to start the story of the time in the hospital... I can safely say that these things really don't turn out how you have planned, but it all comes down to safely getting that wonderful little person and then getting everyone home, which we have successfully done. It was so full of pain and wonder and stress and touching moments and I was particularly bothered by the recent loss of my father. Anyway, maybe I'll just cut it short here and just leave this as an announcement... And include a picture... Oh, and to answer the big questions... April 12th 2007 (Thursday's child...), 7lbs 15oz, 19" long...

No, not yet...

2007-04-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I've finally given up in my attempts to get the wife to post, since, lord knows, she certainly has a lot to say! Sadly, she is ti-ti-tired... I can't say that I'm surprised. No, no baby yet... though on Sun-Mon I was sure that she was on her way, trying to get all of the last minute things left to do on our list! Suzie surprised us with bags that cover lots of the little necessities that we hadn't got yet or thought of. And this week I finally installed the car seat, which we will get checked, and just today the tiddee didee man dropped off our first load of diapers!

But back to the good stuff... A midwife guessed that the girl is about 8 lbs, Caitlin was having some good contractions on Sunday and Monday, the official due date is only 5 days away and Caitlin is re-re-ready! Boy is she! Tired and eager to meet the little lady. We do have some things to keep us occupied until she arrives... We got cable today (preparing for the beginning of the end of The Sopranos on Sunday) and tomorrow there is some kind of a Marlboro reunion... After that though, we will be free clear and ready!

But back to the baby. The pregnancy (aside from Caitlin's tiredness and, recently, inability to sleep) has been very smooth with no physical side effects or odd behavior! I am anticipating the same for the next stage. Which hopefully will come soon!.

Here are some photo's from the shower!

The spot!

-

And some of our special guests...

Korbin!

Frances!

-

And a small portion of us opening our wondrous trove of gifts!

Anyway, all is wonderful, hopefully the next post (next week?) will be post-hospital!

How ready can we be?

2007-03-22T00:52:00.000-07:00

How can so much go on, yet nothing seem to be happening? Well, we did have another midwife visit today. She went and moved our due date back to our original date... Five days farther out! I know it doesn't sound like much, but we'd been thinking that our little darling would maybe show up a bit early, any day now... To hear April 11th makes those "just a couple of days" turn into 21 days and it seems forever! Ready? We are! We have nearly everything we require, and a wondrously cute assortment it is (honest, those thank-you's are almost on their way)! I was putting together the stroller yesterday and I was thinking... "Ok, let's go! Where is she?"

Oh well, but it is all going very well, everything healthy and on target. Monday's childbirth class was a bit discomforting. The subject was Medical Intervention so we heard about: IV's, Epidural's, forceps, episiotomy, catheter's... Anyway. Though we are planning on a natural childbirth, it was an eye-opening lesson into the realities of what childbirth can be. Now we need to get to cracking on the birthplan and the hospital bags.

Regardless, we are ready and willing to move to the next (baby) step. Little baby girl? Come on down!

What's she up to?...

2007-02-17T21:58:00.000-08:00

Just a little update. All is still well, the baby is starting to do some uncomfortable rearranging, but I will have to rely on Caitlin to give you the full story, all I can say for sure is that it seems very uncomfortable! She also has good news to report health-wise... Improved blood pressure, good weight gain... All seems good, except for the uncomfortableness of whatever that girl has been up to in there for the last couple of days.

We had our baby shower on Sunday and that was fun! We closed Mabel's early and held it there. Lots of folks and good food! And, how can I forget, the presents! There were lots! I was expecting more "practical" things, but we mainly got alot of cute clothes! No, don't get me wrong, I imagine that clothes will be very practical, but I was expecting more of the "thermometer" kind of thing. Then again, I'd never been to a baby shower before, so what do I know. Anyway, Caitlin will, I think, put up some pictures of the booty (the baby shower booty), but it's been great fun to look through it... To read the books and to put away the little clothes into her little dresser. Speaking of that, we pulled the table out of the dining area and changed that area into baby land! Caitlin furnished it with the cradle and Pa's rocking chair and the babies dresser and the toy chest and the choo-choo train clock and she put the fun art from Kurty and Yancey and Robin up on the wall! It's very pleasant I say. And, as part of the aftermath, the living room and bedroom ended up improved also, so all is well.

On the other hand. It's only about six weeks (can you believe it) until the big day is due and we still haven't got around to calling a doula! But at least in another week our childbirth classes (whatever that might encompass) start, and hopefully about then we'll be able to check out the hospital facilities! I think the classes will be fun. To, you know, interact with other expectant folks should be a good thing.

Counting the weeks, and matching the outfits...

2007-02-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

Improvements keep on coming. Around Christmas, in a fit of frustration, I threw our Ikea bed into the dumpster, sadly though, if one is 6 months pregnant, one doesn't want to have to clamber up from the floor to get out of bed! Thankfully, Ryan and Susie gave up a nice basic little frame to put the mattress on, so now we have an adult bedroom again: a bed off of the floor and a cradle.

The baby, by the way, is doing all sorts of crazy movements. I cannot even guess what's she's up to in there. I imagine that one day everyone will have a little sonogram thingy in their home so we'd be able to peek whenever we want to, now though, just feeling and wondering. It is very eerie how close below the skin she seems to be! And she seems to be running out of room. I can't imagine she'll be comfortable in there for 8 more weeks!

On another exciting note, though we continue to accumulate clothing (thanks, Susie!), it's only a week or so until our official shower! I can't wait to see what the little girl gets! It's all just so cute! And so far we have succeeded in avoiding plastic things and logo/comic character/branded items (how bohemian...). I'm sure that we'll get a few cute ones (do they make Tintin baby clothes?) and it's really just exciting to see everything... Only 8 weeks until they get a baby to go inside them!

Big things, little things.

2007-01-27T13:57:00.000-08:00

Things are just moving along here at the Wallingford Family home. I had a check-up Thursday, and everything seems to be going fine. They took blood for the second gestational diabetes test and did all of the other regular check-up stuff. My weight is good, Midge's heart sounds nice and strong, she is head down and moving tons, which my midwife says is great. I really liked the midwife I met this time around - I now only have one left to meet, so I think the chances are good that I'll be happy with whoever ends up at the birth. I especially think that with a doula everything will go swimmingly.

The midwives are a little concerned with my blood pressure, though it's still fairly normal. It's been climbing these last few weeks and I've been getting headaches. I'm not swollen at all, so I feel confident that everything is just fine.

Chanin and I were talking about how your mother is basically the main relationship in your life - at least until you settle down with someone and/or start having children. It was a perfectly fine until I realized that in two months I am going to be someone's mother. I think this hits me every two weeks and then for sanity's sake I tuck it away for safe keeping. Yipes. I feel like most of us idolize our mothers, but at the same time can be SO unforgiving of the mistakes they have made (or that we perceive them to have made). All of it feels so overwhelming at times....I guess you ease into it?

Anyway, what I really need to be doing is cleaning. I got a FULL NIGHT'S SLEEP last night, so I better take advantage of this little store of energy while it's here.

Husband? You gotta post more!

2007-01-17T11:31:00.000-08:00

Any of you past pregnant ladies know a good solution for restless legs? This is something that I deal with in my everyday life and it has gotten progressively worse during the course of my pregnancy. Yesterday it actually kept me up in the night, which is a first. Oooof...no fun. Just the most frustrating feeling.

Other than that, things are just sailing along. Midge (that's our little nickname for the babe) was up and jumping all day long yesterday. She usually doesn't kick until late at night, but I think she sensed the snow! That's my girl! We can actually see her movements now. Well, I can. As soon as Ashley enters the room she is completely still. I imagine her putting her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing as he stands there waiting, waiting....

My next appointment with the midwife is in a week. I have to do a second glucola test (gross) because they think I'm at risk for gestational diabetes. I'm not so worried, but since we opted out of any other testing it's really the only time I have to put up with the poking and prodding. And as one of my midwives said, I am having a very boring pregnancy ever, so I can't complain. Boredom never sounded so good.

My two favorite topics!

2007-01-10T16:17:00.000-08:00

The discomfort has officially started! Sleeping is difficult, sitting is uncomfortable, food makes me feel too full, being hungry makes me grumpy and heartburn-y. I eat one hundred thousand Tums a day! Fun times! And 12 weeks to go!

But the excitement far outweighs (yes, it even outweighs me) the uggy stuff by far. We're already smitten with our little girl. You may have noticed this by Ashley's adorably obsessive post about the babe's newish clothes.

In other news, Lottie is eating a little patch of hair off near her tail. This is upsetting and we don't know if it's because we fed her a different food for a month or that she's bored in our little apartment. She's back to her regular food, so we'll see. Any dog owners with experience/advice? I suspect that she is catching on that we have something going on that may or may not take away some of the attention we lavish on her. Poor little pup doesn't know what's about to hit her.

Shopping season

2007-01-05T20:57:00.000-08:00

All about midwives. It turns out that I work with someone whose wife used the same clattern of midwives, so it's been interesting hearing his opinions of the whole thing. Things all around turn towards baby talk...

Speaking of baby talk, I don't think I've covered any of her holiday cheer! Of course, being a baby, holidays are all about getting new clothes. And, though the little one is filling the wife with endless tiredness, she went to Children's Exchange (the neatest place to go for baby's clothes!) for some after holiday shopping and we added some nice new outfits to her closet!

Like what? Well, First up we got her this nice little blue dress with embroidered flowers...

And this fun floral jumper...

And then this wonderful little pink dress

Something cozy covered in little hearts

A fancy red sailor shirt

and these crazy blue apple pants that I saw in the front window!

She also got a little white dress with pink bunnies on it..

Oh yes, and a matching hat!!

And, while I'm at it...

For christmas we got her these awesome spacebaby reversible overalls from Saturday Market

Some nice hats and socks (including some hand-made red socks that came all the way from Grammie in VT!)

oh yes, and not to be forgotten, the Yellow Giraffe!

But of course, beyond clothes... She got some other fun goodies and had a great holiday!

Continued goodness.

2007-01-02T21:35:00.000-08:00

We had another midwife appointment today. Caitlin wasn't too fond for this particular midwife, liking the previous ones better, so now she fears that this will be the one we end up with. Well, the odds are against it, but it does seem like one would want a midwife present that you felt comfortable with. But it was still a good news appointment! Good blood pressure, weight gain and the little girl's heartbeat was right on at 144. So the whole pregnancy is a continuing good story! Her baby belly seems to be sized a bit above normal (28 week size though we're at 26 weeks), I think we're kind of hoping that means she'll show up earlier than expected... Though I imagine we'll have to wait the whole time. Maybe the current due date is better because... Though I have yet to finish the baby sweater I started 2 long years ago, I have stumbled upon some yarn at the shop that I would like to make into something new for the little girl. So if anyone has any ideas, feel free to let me know!

13 weeks to go

2007-01-01T23:41:00.000-08:00

Well yes, thirteen short weeks until the scheduled birth of our daughter! Since she's our first, it seems like the perfect time to put together a blog for the whole family!

Caitlin and I (and our little dog too!) are very exited about this upcoming event! Ponderings of what to register for and what the natural childbirth option are and which natural childbirth classes we should take... Hypnobirthing? Birthing From Within?

There's soo much to think about! We'll figure it out... Will our movie watching increase or decrease? Lloyd at WatchThis suggests we'll either watch more, or none. Honestly, it's hard to imagine watching anything with a little family to gaze at!