Happy Birthday Miguel!

Mom, Sophie, and I drove out to Grand Rapids on Saturday to visit the Estrada side of the family.  In addition to being Mom’s birthday, we also timed it just right to be at Miguel’s 1st birthday party.  Sophie did a fabulous job on the ride…not so great once we got there.  It all ended up just being too much stimulation, too little time doing what she wanted (we can’t take everything with us – just don’t have room to pack a lamp, swing, ceiling fan…), and probably too much gas.  Maybe next time she’ll be a little cheerier when it comes time to hang out with family.

It was great to see all of Kelly’s kids (well, sans Robyn) and marvel at how big they’re getting.  Sam got to put his big brother skills to practice by making Sophie smile and Kaelin had another baby to marvel at.  Aunt Pam got Sophie some clothes and a set of headbands (of course Mom and Pam set to work right away getting a picture with one of those – something that I’m sure Keri will appreciate when she sees it!)  The best thing about the clothes is that one of the shirts says something like “Happy Day” and has a rainbow and smiling sun – it’s the perfect shirt to remind me of Pam.

We’re gonna try to head to the city tomorrow for pictures – hopefully she’ll be more cooperative than the first time we tried.  Wish us luck!

Enjoy a picture of all the “kids” and their bottles from the party:

A few of Sophie’s favorite things…

Ok, so you may remember a post a few months ago about a few of my favorite things – I thought I’d do one now with a few of Sophie’s favorites (from her perspective).  Also, her eyes are starting to change from gray to a color…still not sure what it’s going to be though.  The right eye definitely looks brownish but the left eye seems more green.  Did your kid’s eye color change at different rates?

Included a clip of Sophie watching the mobile…I hope you enjoy my editing and storyboard!

Sophie loves:  lamp, mountains, light, elephant, bird, rattle, bears, and Zeke!  (She’s really noticing Zeke more; it’s cute.)

Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde

That would be our daughter – Jekyll and Hyde!  Monday she woke up (after sleeping the entire night!!!!) as the happiest baby in the world.  She was smiling and laughing at everything.  Then something happened Monday evening; not sure what it was, but she progressively got crankier.  How did she sleep Monday?  Well, how does 9:30, 11:00, 1:00, 3:00, and 6:00 sound to you?  Plus, she was up at least an hour each of those time and had a terrible time falling asleep.  Then she was a stinker for her Aunt Michelle.  She was asleep when I picked her up and she stayed that way until about 9:00 that night (I guess she had some catching up to do!) 

Since then she’s kind of settled in the middle for the rest of this week – not sleeping through the night but not screaming through it either.  There are a couple of things to be thankful for: 1) she doesn’t rely on the pacifier; sure, she likes it sometimes but she’s never really looking for it, and 2) she does a good job falling asleep on her own; just this morning I put her back to the crib and she was wide awake but she just fell asleep on her own (after some tossing and turning, but no screaming).

I have a video of her watching her mobile go around (and you can really see her fascination with the elephant – she’ll watch the other animals but not as long as the elephant, plus she really seems to look for it.)  The hippo is her second favorite animal (probably because it’s gray like the elephant so it tricks her).  The giraffe also gets some attention but the lion is the least favorite (maybe because it’s after the elephant in the rotation).  Anyway, didn’t feel like hooking the camera up right now so that’ll have to wait.

Anyway, hope you guys are enjoying the blog.  It really takes the place of emails for me (as those of you waiting for responses have probably figured out!).  Take care and check back soon!

Weekend Recap & an Excuse for Pictures!

Tom played in a the Arenac Eastern 3-on-3 tournament on Saturday.  They were done after 3 games – seems like if they would have had a break in between games instead of back to back to back they would have done better.

Kiddo was good today – mostly just sleeping.  She definitely needs some days like this because she has some VERY awake days.  Played in the tub again today during the bath.  I’ll have to get some videos of that sometime, she really enjoys it.

Zeke still loves his Waggers – he’ll go bring him out of whatever room he’s in just so that he can snuggle with him.

OK, here’s some pics, including a St. Patrick’s day one.  Sophie really loves “naked time”.

 

Catching up…

Well, I feel like it’s been ages since I posted so let me catch you up on things:

Sophie had her two month check up.  Things were good…until the shots.  That was a pretty sucky experience all around (especially with all the tears – she had so many that they were forming little droplets on her eyelashes.

Which brings me to eyelashes, it seems like they are getting longer and longer every day.  Her hair seems dark some days but lighter others.  And her eyes; still don’t know what color her eyes are going to be.  They are still mostly gray but they sometimes look like they have hints of dark green in them.  We’ll wait and see.

Another side note, is it “grey” or “gray”?

Here’s an update on spring weather:  it’s snowing!

Won $30 at the casino today…Mom won $47.  She’s always luckier than I am!  The $30 is better than the $0 I won last week though!  At least I’m not losing.

Mom, Sophie, and I are thinking about heading out to Grand Rapids next weekend, so that’s nice.

Tom has a basketball tournament at Eastern later today.  Wish them luck – after all they’re getting old!!!

The kiddo has been cranky at night lately; not every night but off and on.  The upside is that she occasionally will sleep 7 hours or so after her 2 hour cranky fit.  Not sure if part of it might be early teething.  The book (yes, it’s like my bible) said that babies can have symptoms of teething 2-3 months ahead of time (and I guess I have a family history of early teeth) so that could be it.  It could just be overstimulation, but the teething fits because she drools sometimes (not spitup, just spit), gets mad when sucking on the bottle even though she’s hungry, and can be calmed by chewing on fingers.  But them I’m not sure because that doesn’t always help.

Question of the post:  what diapers did your baby like and how close to the pound sizes did they fit?

Busy Busy Busy…

Well, I started back to work last week and it was good to get back to school after being pretty well sequestered for the last couple of months.  Sophie had mixed results staying with Michelle, Ingrid, and my Mom.  Some days she just slept all day, other days she was a stinker, and then other days she was somewhere in the middle.  She’s been pretty good today and it seems like she smiles more and more every day.  When I walk in the room sometimes she’ll be laying awake in the crib and when I peek over the edge she gets the biggest smile…so that’s cool!

This week is a big week – she has her 2-month checkup and will be getting shots :-(  I’ll keep you posted after we’re done.

I was thinking the other day that it’s really weird that the English language can’t come up with unique words for everything but instead has duplicates with seemingly unrelated origins.  “Bay” is the word that set off this thought process.  Go ahead, think about it.  This thought-exercise is almost as interesting as finding words that just sound funny sometimes (“soup”).

We took advantage of the warm weather and took Sophie and Zeke for a walk on the golf course today.  Sophie slept and Zeke ran so it was pretty much perfect.  Oh, and Tom found golf balls so it was a good day in his book too! 

I’m going to try and keep taking monthly pics with Sophie and her bear to see how much she grows.  I’m reposting the February one with the March one for comparison.  Another interesting fact:  she’s really grabbing her bird rattle thing on her mat now (instead of just punching it with her fist).

Decided to join the board for the AuGres Pirate Festival.  If there are any booths/tables/vendors that you would like to see, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.  Stay tuned for more info.

Just thought of something…

I just thought of something I wanted to blog about and instead of adding to the last post, I figured I’d throw a new one up (that didn’t sound great, did it?) since it would give me an excuse to add another picture!  I just adore this little jacket cause it’s so fluffy and has cute ears on the hood – she got a chance to wear this on our walk.

So anyway, the thing that I wanted to talk about was sizes.  Oh, and baby books.  I finally got Sophie a book and filled in what I could up to this point.  See, I figure she’ll have this blog to eventually look back on as a sort of electronic baby book (that’s a crazy thought isn’t it, how much of our lives will be accessible for future generations just because of our increasing attachment to computers) that is about our lives (but admittedly is a lot about her); however, I know I personally like to have tangible things to touch and browse.  Real historical documents are way cooler than scanned images.  If they weren’t, people would be content with the pictures of the Constitution in the history books and wouldn’t wait in line at the National Archives to walk by the real thing for a few seconds.

But I digress, back to clothes sizes.  It seemed like Sophie was stuck in the newborn size for a long time but she has really had a growth spurt that doesn’t show any signs of letting up.  She’s on to 0-3 months now, but now I’m dealing with the frustrations of how vague those numbers really are.  For example, most of the onesies she wears are 0-3, but Gerber onesies are a whole size off so she wears 3-6 months for those.  Some sleep and plays are too short but other ones are so long her hands won’t stay out of the sleeves.  Then there’s two-piece things.  It really seems like she can handle a smaller size of these since we don’t have to worry about her legs not having enough room.  I have found the weight information on the tags to be a much closer approximation to what will and won’t fit.  So yeah, that’s just my little rant about clothes and their sometimes misleading sizes.  Enjoy the extra pic!

Sweetie Pie

Things have turned a corner here.  For a few days (week maybe?), our little darling was quite the little stinker.  It could be a coincidence or a correlation, but I drank a lot more milk than usual during this time so perhaps she is somewhat lactose intolerant.  It probably isn’t a full-blown allergy (or even serious intolerance) since there is lactose in her formula and she was fine for a while.

Not much else new to report on.  We were able to take advantage of the recent nice weather and go for a walk in the neighborhood.  The added benefit to this (as opposed to walking in the school) is that I can bring Zeke along and let him burn off some of his energy.

I’ve included a new video.  This one has Sophie enjoying a dream while sitting in her swing.  What can she possibly dream about at this age?  Eating of course! 

I used Soapbox for the first video and YouTube for this one.  I’d be interested in feedback from you guys as to which one you prefer (if either) for viewing these little tidbits.

Sophie sleeping in swing

Book Review: The Amnesiac

A bit long and somewhat self-indulgent, I would still recommend Amnesiac if you’re looking for something new to read.  The story was truly a trip down memory lane – all the talk about memories invariably led me to think of my own.  I can relate to all the existentialist thinking by the protagonist and enjoyed the thought process that the book followed, even if I admittedly skimmed some of the wordier parts.  I also appreciated the use of different fonts and absence of chapter numbers to delineate the different perspectives.  All in all, it was an enjoyable read, even if the last third was a bit predictable.  The middle of the book reminded me of Lost – there were clues everywhere and you start to look for connections between seemingly mundane facts.  The main thing is that it is a unique enough book for me to recommend.  Let me know what you think.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

It seems like Sophie is needing less and less sleep during the day…and at night.  She used to give at least 4 hours between feedings at night but now it seems to be that she is going 3.5/4 hours pretty consistently.  She is definitely more and more interested in faces and voices now, so that’s cute.  She also really likes her changing table.  When she’s cranky we’ll take her in her room and put her on the table and she calms down.  Go figure.

As you can see from this picture, she’s losing her baby hair.  I thought that it would thin out evenly and then be replaced by new hair but she’s going with the “receding hairline” look.  We’ll have to get a picture of her and Grandpa Mike once she loses a little more!  (In his defense, Tom had a really bad head cold in this picture.)

Growing Galore!

Holy cow is Sophie growing!!  You may have noticed less posts lately – that’s a direct correlation to how much Sophie sleeps during the day.  For the last week or so she’s been VERY awake during the day.  Her first morning feeding is around 6-7 (I don’t consider the 1-2 am feeding a morning feeding…however, I am starting to consider it a slow form of torture), she usually falls asleep after this feeding in my arms…I can usually put her back in her crib where she stays for all of about 20-30 minutes.  Then she’s up again to play.  Sometimes she’s content to sit or lay with me and play with a rattle or just look around.  Other days, like today, she fusses until I put her on her mat and she’s pretty happy there.  Of course, she’ll “talk” to me to let me know when I need to start the music again.  After staying awake for an hour or so Sophie works up an appetite and wants to eat again…and start the cycle again.  Today I was able to lay her down at 4 for 45 minutes (so far, I think this might be a long nap!!) which should give me a break.  Of course, I could be folding laundry right now, but I figured I’d get a post up and a new picture.

Yesterday we had our appointment at the cardiologist.  He confirmed that she has a small hole between her top two ventricles and that she also has an extra vessel between two of her arteries in her chest.  He believes both of these will resolve with age and we don’t have to go back, so things are good.

Sophie was weighed at the appointment and came in at a whopping 9 pounds 6 ounces which means that she gained a pound and a half in the last 2 weeks.  Wow!!  She’s finally outgrown newborn size and is in 0-3 months.  Every day is something new and exciting for us – things are going good.  I’m also including a riveting video (about 15 seconds) of Sophie trying to hit the rattle on her play mat – the sun rattle and the music light are her favorite toys.

Sophie hitting rattle on activity mat

Random Thoughts of the Day

• What does how you write the date (2.18.09 or 2/19/09 or 2-19-09) say about you, your style, or your mood?  It seems that I form a (perhaps unconscious at times) impression about somebody based on this fact. 
• Leads into the next thought:  If you have some completely different handwriting styles (as I definitely do), will handwriting analysis be able to determine I’m the author of all of them?
• Read The Road by Cormac McCarthy a couple of months ago (thanks to Kelly for the suggestions…Sophie’s arrival interrupted my reading of the rest of the list for now).  Highly recommend it.  Initially I was annoyed by the author’s style (you’ll see when you start it) but after just a few pages I felt that it really fit the story and mood and it kind of pulled me along from one page to the next. 
• It’s snowing…again.
• I’m tired…still.
• Sophie’s stroller has a really good shock absorbing system.  I had a chance to use it at the mall last week.  I definitely think I’d be a mall-walker today if one was closer than 50 minutes away!
• Sophie enjoys her play mat more and more each day.  Yesterday it really seemed like she was consciously hitting the rattle that hangs.  Some of the songs really capture her attention.
• I have to include a pic!!!!!

 

View Full Album

Baby Me

Dug out a couple of baby pics of me when I was about Sophie’s age.  I also came across a little older one of me and Becky in the bath…we’ll have to take an updated one on this theme when her little one is here (with the babies, not us!)

View Full Album

Tech Tip of the Day

For those of you who use Firefox (and I would recommend that over Internet Explorer), I’ve got a tip that you may or may not be using.  It seemed like there were times when I’d go to the same websites every time I opened the browser (email, ofoto, blog – or the 6 or so store websites I check for diaper sales).  If you seem to do the same thing, here’s a shortcut for you: 

1. Open all of the sites in tabs of one browser window (ctrl+t to open new tabs)
2. Go to Bookmarks > Bookmark all tabs
3. Name the folder something useful like “Bills” or “Diapers” or “Everyday” or “Deals” or “Shopping”
4. Browse all the sites without forgetting what you were going to look up next

One Month (tomorrow)

Tomorrow is Sophie’s one month birthday.  It’s crazy to think how much she has changed already…and even crazier to think ahead to how much more she’s going to develop in the coming months.

Tuesday was her visit with the doc.  Overall things went well.  Her height and weight are in the 50th percentile but her weight is in the 10-25% range.  She’s gaining well (one lb. since last visit) so the dr. isn’t worried.  However, she did hear a small heart murmur (which she admitted she probably only heard since Sophie was sleeping) so we’re off to the cardiologist.  Tom really doesn’t like to go to the doctor so all of Sophie’s extra visits frustrate him.  It sometimes feel like they are way too overly cautious but we understand that' it’s better safe than sorry.

Not much else is new…I haven’t heard of any jobs for next year yet, but I’m still looking.  Tom’s office relocated across the river – hopefully that should be his last move for a while.

Here’s some pics from today.  We tried to get some at Sears on Tuesday but she wouldn’t stop crying…maybe next time we’re in the city.  These aren’t up to Ofoto yet but there are some February ones (use the link on the side).  Thanks to all those who have been leaving comments on pics and blog – I enjoy reading them!

Wakey wakey

Sophie is definitely waking up to her world these last few days.  It’s nice to see her awake at a time other than when she’s hungry.  Mostly she enjoys just looking around and taking in her world.  The TV catches her attention when she’s being burped and she’s spending some time on her floor mat just looking at the toys that hang on its bars.

She’s also close to smiling on her own.  There’ve been a few moments when she was looking at me that she started to smile…I think that since we were looking at each other it was more than gas.  That’s what I’m telling myself anyway!

I oscillate between thinking she’s getting bigger and maybe her clothes are just shrinking in the wash.  Tomorrow is her one month appointment so we’ll have a chance to see then how much she’s grown.

3 Weeks & 1 Day…Today Was Supposed to Be Her Birthday!!!!

February 4th, the day that was circled in red on the calendar.  Sophie had other plans though; she wanted to make sure that we were on her schedule from the very beginning.  Generally, her schedule hasn’t been too bad but yesterday and last night were not my favorite.  I think she might be going through a growth spurt because she wanted to eat A LOT and OFTEN.  Plus, she didn’t want to be laid down after that.  For some reason she likes to be held for a couple of hours during the late night feeding.  She’s a stinker like that sometimes.  A couple of other Sophie-isms is that when she’s getting angry she starts kicking her legs…this is usually followed by crying unless she can be calmed down; the other thing that is interesting is how much she likes to either hold her hands or put at least one of them on her face or head.  She doesn’t scratch herself or even suck on them (unless she’s hungry), she just likes to have her hand on her face.  My Mom says her hand-mannerisms remind her of Grandma Peggy.

Here’s a couple of pics – Zeke got to hang out with her on the floor today.  He’s very interested when she cries.  I also included a picture from 3 weeks ago and one from today:  her birthday and her due-day.

 

Zeke & Sophie

Most have asked how Zeke’s doing now that Sophie is home and the answer is that he’s responding very “Zeke-like”.  He sniffs her from time to time and comes running if she’s really crying (usually at diaper changes), but for the most part he just ignores her.  We’ve also been trying not to ignore him – his walking frequency has decreased, but that is also in part due to the deep snow on the course.  We’ve been out a couple of times, but not too much.  We’ll work on some Zeke/Sophie pics in the future, but for now I figured I’d include one from this fall.  Oh, and we didn’t come home from the hospital empty-handed:  we brought him a stuffed bear (hopefully he will stop trying to steal Sophie’s bears from her room!)

Interesting Tidbits…

Many of you were aware of my attachment to my “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” book – well, now that Sophie is here I’m past the interesting tidbits of “I’m growing a kidney this week” and on to interesting facts about our baby that I can glean from the “What to Expect:  The First Year”.  I thought I’d share a few of those with you, along with some more personal facts about our little kiddo.  Also, since today is the last day of January be sure to check out the Kodak Gallery link to pics to see all of the pictures from this month.  Thanks to everyone who has left comments on the blog and pictures!!

• Though she sometimes gives a full smile, Sophie usually cracks a half-grin which shows an adorable little dimple on her right side (I think she has one on her left too, but she really works that right one!)
• Newborns don’t get tears until near the end of the first month
• Right now her vision is best between 8-14 inches away from her eyes
• Yesterday when Tom was holding her it was like all of the sudden she saw her hands and realized that they were hers – great expression!
• She reminds us of Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights:  she doesn’t know what to do with her hands…they drift upwards
• Some babies stop breathing, sometimes for as long as 10 seconds, while they are sleeping
• A baby’s grip is strong enough to hold their body weight when they are born

Home Sweet Home

The decision we made to move back to AuGres did not come without some sacrifices:  Tom had to leave an office full of friends, some that he’s worked with since his time at Mactec; I had to leave a full-time teaching position (not an easy find in this economy) at a school that was supportive and colleagues that I thoroughly enjoyed working with; we couldn’t sell our house so we have to deal with renting that out with the hopes (*please*) that we can sell it sometime in the near future.

There are times though when we have the opportunity to experience and enjoy the reasons that we did make the move though.  When we can wake up in our own bed on Christmas morning (one of my favorites.)  When my Mom can come over a couple of times a week to visit her granddaughter.  Knowing that Sophie will be surrounded by family as she grows up instead of just being a visitor.  Even a little thing like being able to hang out for a couple of hours and go snowmobiling with Tom’s family is something that we wouldn’t be able to do at the drop of a hat if we lived a couple of hours away. 

So yeah, despite some of the hardship and sacrifice that has come with the move (I sure do miss Dos Pesos and their steak quesadillas), it really is nice to be home sweet home.

Enjoy the pics of Sophie with her grandparents; hopefully we’ll be able to add Grandpa Grant’s in the near future.