Some Latest Photos

 

Everyone sleeps when Fiona is on them. She’s like a cat.

She’s looking at me dubiously:

In the bath:

 

Normally she really likes the bath. I’m not sure why she looks so unhappy tonight.

I’m pleased to report classes are going well, but I hate leaving Fiona at home. I miss her so much. John thinks she misses me too because when I get home she wants to eat, even if she just ate.

Concert in the Park

John and I had our first outing together since Fiona came home from the hospital. On Saturday we went to the Ventura Hillsides Conservancy Music Festival at Arroyo Verde Park. My mom baby sat. There were four acts: WPA, The Gin Blossoms, Colbie Caillat, and Emmylou Harris. We saw Emmylou in Telluride in 2002 at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and she was awesome, so we thought it would be nice to see her again. Al bands put on a good show. WPA wad a cool song about sunny summer days that was very appropriate because it was about 90 degrees on Saturday.

The lead singer of The Gin Blossoms was a little angry and seemed annoyed to be here. He answered someone’s cell phone rather rudely. It wasn’t really funny, even though he probably thought it was. I think he was mad because no one was really singing along, because let’s face it, these guys haven’t had a radio presence in how many years? The lead singer kept saying that they woke up in Atlanta seven hours before:

Colbie Caillat, who I ordinarily don’t care for, was mellow and a good crowd pleaser. She sang a song that she wrote with Jason Mraz about being in love with her best friend. People sang along with her. She knows how to work an audience.

I liked the song a lot. Emmylou was great of course, singing old bluegrass songs, mostly sort of sad ones.

The poster on the stage is of Two Trees, a Ventura landmark that is technically on private property, but I’ve personally hiked there at least three times. Also saw the biggest coyote I’ve ever seen there (and I grew up in the desert where coyotes routinely run across the road at night, so I’ve seen quite a few in my day).

Here I am with my first drink since last October:

Yes, I was wearing sun block. White wine is a plastic cup never tasted so good. It gave me a mighty head rush, but that wore off very quickly. I saw lots of little kids dancing around and I can’t wait to take Fiona to such events.

When we returned home, we saw this sight:

Safta Susan and Fiona asleep in the chair.

Later that night we weighed Fiona:

Yup, she’s ten pounds now (scale is adjusted to compensate for the blanket and diaper). I love my Chunky Monkey.

Soooo Busy!

 

Last week was a long and busy one.

First, Fiona’s 6 week growth spurt was in full swing, and she was waking every hour or so to eat, resulting in NO sleep for me. It started when John was sick. By Wednesday morning, I was practically hallucinating. Luckily, she finally settled and by Thursday night, was back to getting some sleep. Three hours never felt so good.

On Thursday I started my first class at UCSB. It was the farthest distance and the longest period of time I’d been away from Fiona since she came home from the hospital. I could not wait to get home to her. On Tuesday I have another class. It’s the start of my PhD journey.

Fiona’s pukiness has been at a minimum this week as well. We didn’t have to do laundry at all. I haven’t been eating any dairy and  still experimenting. I think now that it is possible that she is sensitive to strawberries or corn. I noticed that twice she was pukier the day after I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, so I figured it was the peanuts. But then I read the list of ingredients on a granola bar that I eat every day: whole peanuts. She barely spit up all week so it can’t be the peanuts. So what else is in the sandwich? Wheat is an ingredient in the bread, but I ate couscous for dinner and no vomiting occurred. That leaves the strawberries and high fructose corn syrup in the jam. Yesterday I had a few sips of a strawberry smoothie/shake thing and today she has spit up a lot more than she did during the week. So is it the dairy or the strawberries? I sort of hope it’s the strawberries because they are easier to eliminate from my diet than dairy.

Here are some photos.

The new position she likes:

Lying in her crib, on her back, not crying:

Sleeping on John, of course:

She sleeps on me a lot as well, but I don’t take pictures because it is too difficult.

Oh Sleep, Where Have You Gone?

 

Lately, Fiona has been waking up three or four times per night to eat or because of gas or reflux. It’s killing me. I am soooo tired. She’s going through a growth spurt and eating constantly. Even during the day. My boobs hurt, she’s eating so much. On the bright side, she has a little tush:

 

Look at those rolls. She didn’t have those before.

The day after we get our shots John came down with a cold. He didn’t want to infect Fiona so he wore a mask. He looked like all the folks getting off planes from Asia during the SARS outbreak:

Note: he is still on the computer.

Fiona and I had fun sharing the room without John. So much fun, she had to wake up several times. Ugh!

On an completely unrelated note, I’m thinking of taking the password protection off the blog and adding Google Ad Sense. If you read this blog regularly, let me know what you think.

New Stuff!

 

Our ERGObaby arrived! It’s black and tan! Here is a photo of John wearing the infant insert on his head:

 

Today my Hooter Hider arrived as well. My mom bought it for me after the slight fiasco of feeding Fiona at Cafe Nouveau a week or so ago. My mom had to hold up a blanket so that I wouldn’t flash the waitress or my dad and it was very frustrating. I am sure I will get a lot of use out of it.

Here are a couple of photos of Fiona smiling at me. They look funny because she moved while I took the picture yielding a fuzzy photo. I sharpened them using image editing software, but obviously the result is not perfect:

Here she is raising her hand after I asked, “Who’s got a cute punim?”

(True story, after all, she is a teacher’s child. Punim means face in Yiddish).

Got Our Shots!

 

John and I got our TDAP ad Flu shots on Thursday. TDAP is Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis (Whooping Cough). I’ve never had a flu shot so I was worried, but it turns out I had no side effects. John got blue camouflage band aids and I got pink. Then they gave us lollipops. I’m glad we got the TDAP shot because there was an article in the paper Friday about it becoming an epidemic and that nine infants died from it recently. Fi had her TDAP in August, so she is already covered.

Later my mom and I went to Tutti Frutti to help support Nicole and the PHS Academic Decathlon Team. We sat and visited with some of my former students are a few colleagues. And of course ate some yummy frozen yogurt. I prefer Tutti Frutti to Pinkberry. I think it is better yogurt.

No photos in this post because I haven’t taken many or uploaded them. :(

On the weight gain front, Fiona is now in the 3rd percentile for her actual age! Woohoo! Grow baby, grow! It feels good knowing I can nourish my child after everything we’ve been through. Now her darn reflux just needs to go away and we truly will be the luckiest family in the world.

Stuff I Made For Fiona

 

Not long ago I was sitting there thinking that I’ve already taken hundreds of photos of Fiona, but don’t really have any way to show them. In the good old days, we’d get them printed somewhere and put them in an album, but today we use a digital camera. Who knows if this computer will still be around when she is old enough to want to look at her photos.

Thank goodness for websites like My Publisher and Shutterfly. I made this album for her:

Fiona 0-3 Months

And this postcard to send to the NICU:

NICU Thank You

I used My Publisher because it allows me to work offline. The software doesn’t take any time to download and is really easy to use. I used to make the guestbook for my wedding several years ago, as well as a wedding album for my parents.

If you have Windows Vista or 7, you may need to use “Compatibility View” to see the album and postcard. For some reason they display funny otherwise.

What’s New in Fi-Land?

 

I figured out how to use the Moby on my own:

 

She’s smiling more and more:

 

She still looks at me funny:

 

She weighs over nine pounds and is more and more alert.

Those with children know how they continuously surprise you and are always doing new and funny things. Fiona’s latest is that when she is upset and hungry she has a hard time latching. However, if I stand up and bounce her a little, she will latch and eat while I’m standing. It’s very odd. After a minute or so, I can sit down and continue feeding.

On an unrelated note, John and I ate the worst Chinese food I’ve ever had. Panda Express is better than the stuff we just had. It was so greasy that my pores hurt just looking at it. I would have been better off drinking a bottle of olive oil. It came from a place called China Palace and I will never eat there again. One of the things I miss most about the Bay Area is good Chinese food. Sigh.

And our ERGOBaby arrived today, so we now have two different types of baby carriers.

Tomorrow we are making a public appearance at Tutti Frutti, helping out PHS’s Academic Decathlon Team raise money. On a strict look-but-don’t-touch basis.

The Reason John Was Late to Work On Thursday

 

She was lying on me. She couldn’t make up her mind whether to get really comfy or to suck on the pacifier.

Our Other Baby

 

Poor Chinchi. He’s been sort of ignored since Fi was born. When we remodeled our kitchen, we moved him out of the living room, first to the front room, then to the computer room when we made the front room Fi’s room. We make it a point to pet him and talk to him every day, but I think he still feels neglected. Last night he cried out while I was feeding Fiona (at 5:00am). Then he cried out during the day (also while I was feeding Fiona, it’s like he has a radar).

So in honor of our other baby, here are a few Chinch photos:

Squash!

 

This year our butternut squash plant produced early and gave us two large squashes instead of many small ones. When I weighed one of the squashes, it was exactly the same as Fiona’s birth weight:

  

The squash was 9 inches long. Fiona was over 16 inches. It’s weird to hold the squash and think that Fiona was the same size because I did not get to hold her the night she was born. Now I have some sense of what she must have felt like.

A Visit

 

Fiona is asleep right now in her crib.

Yesterday we had a nice surprise visit from Nicole and her son Caz. Caz was born full term eight days before Fiona. His weight has always been more than twice Fiona’s, but she’s starting to catch up. His weight is a little less than twice her weight.

We put the babies next to each other to compare. Keep in mind that even though chronologically Fiona is only a week younger than Caz, gestationally, she’s ten weeks younger.

Their feet:

Obviously Fiona’s foot is the daintier one.

The babies lay next to each other and didn’t seem to realize there was someone next to them. At one point, Caz tried to hold Fiona’s hand, but like a typical girl, she played hard to get and ignored him. I noticed that Caz lies with his legs outstretched while Fiona still curls up in a ball.

After playing and nursing, we went outside and picked tomatoes and grapes for Nicole to take home:

OK, she woke up.

She Smiled At Me!

 

We were playing in her room and she smiled in reaction to some silly things I was doing. She did it three or four times in a row! It was so wonderful. Of course it was the one time I didn’t have my camera.

Actually, she’s been sort of smiling  for the last week or so, and reacting favorably when John plays with her nose.

I think today’s smile was a peace offering for the lack of sleep she’s been causing for the last two nights.

Yesterday was especially bad. Not only did I not get much sleep, Fiona was miserable and uncomfortable all day, crying almost constantly when not sleeping for short stretches. I think her tummy was upset because at one point she let out the loudest farts I’ve heard. They echoed off the walls and it was hard to believe they came from her. They sounded like whoopee cushions. She also threw up a lot yesterday, big globby, curdy puke. It was quite a day.

Then, she decided to have her quiet alert time at 4am. She didn’t have any quiet alert time all day, then after she ate and I changed her diaper, she was wide awake. It’s not the she needed a lot of attention for most of it, but even when she is awake she is so grunty, I could not get to sleep. Then she became needy. At 5am, I decided enough was enough and I took into bed with me, where she promptly fell into a deep sleep until 6:30.

Next time she is getting the swing:

First Run

 

Way back when, before we became pregnant, Nicole and I would see moms walking with jogging strollers while we were running. We joked that some day that would be us, except we would be running.

Then Nicole had a difficult birth and I had a c-section and it took both of us a long time to get to the point that we felt we could exercise. Neither of us thought we would run again for a long, long time.

Yesterday I went for a “run” with Nicole. I put the word run in quotation marks because we probably walked as much as we ran and it was all very slow. We didn’t go very far or for very long. It was my first run since December 31, 2009 when I was about 8-9 weeks pregnant. My lungs were burning after the first minute and I really felt it in my legs after. I knew the first one was going to hurt and I’m glad I got it over with so I can start building some strength and endurance. Nicole was pushing a jogging stroller.

Now we are those moms, but we are running. I’ll get a jogging stroller soon, when Fiona has better head control.

Today, I feel it in my legs and my ribs.

Ahh, the sweet soreness of activity.

Sorry, no photos of Fiona today.

Fiona the Supermodel

 

Fiona is between clothing sizes now. For her adjusted age, she is in the 50th or higher percentile for her length, but only in the 25th percentile for weight, making her long and thin. So even though she weighs 8 1/2 pounds or so, many clothes intended for babies her size still too big. The 0-3 sizes fit her length well, but are too wide. Newborn sizes fit her width well, but are too short. So, she is between sizes.

We have the same problem with diapers. She’s outgrowing her newborn diapers, but all the size 1 diapers are too big.

There are worse problems that can be had.

But speaking of diapers, we purchased three different brands in size 1: Huggies, Pampers, and BabiesRUs store brand. The diapers do not come in small packages, so we have about a week or two  of each. The Pampers diapers can easily fit inside the Huggies diaper, which in turn can fit inside the BRU diaper. They aren’t even remotely close to being the same size. This is worse than sizing for women’s clothing!

Here are some photos of Fiona and one of me, because I’m usually the one holding the camera, it looks like I never hold the baby. By the way, that is John’s hairy leg in the third set.