Merry Christmas

Emily has been enjoying her first Christmas.  She likes all the presents, right?  No, of course not.  Rather, she loves chewing on all the wrapping paper.  She is pretty much oblivious to what has been going on, but of course, all the lights around the house and the fire in the fireplace have been interesting to her.  In the picture above, Emily is all dressed up in her Santa outfit.  This was taken when we were waiting for Abbie's Christmas performance at school to start.  It was Emily's nap time, and I thought that she would fall asleep in the Bjorn during the show, but she was too interested in looking at everything that was going on.  Fortunately, though, this did not lead to a subsequent meltdown.

Contrary to most of the pictures that we have of Emily, she really would rather be upside down.  Stretched across someone's lap, staring around the room is her preferred position often times.  I have no idea why.  Perhaps she likes to stretch her back or her tummy, perhaps she likes the ceiling lights, perhaps she just likes to be a contrarian.  Who knows.  Anyway, I think it is pretty funny.

Sweet Potato

In addition to her rice cereal, we have tried feeding Emily applesauce, pears, and carrots but nothing has clicked for her.  At last, however, we have finally found something that she seems to like - sweet potatoes!  In retrospect, this makes perfect sense - an Irish/German baby likes potatoes.  Not much of a surprise there.

Emily's talking has gotten very interesting lately.  No googoos and gagas for her.  Rather, our little wild woman likes to growl.  When she is content she can often be found chewing on her hand or her bib or just about anything else that comes within her reach, and growling at the same time.  Pretty funny.

As you can see above, Emily's big sister likes to pick her up and hold her.  Emily adores her big sister and is usually pretty good about it.  Although, yesterday I had laid Emily on Abbie's bed and I was getting clothes out of Abbie's dresser.  All of the sudden, I looked over at the bed and Emily was hanging half way off.  "What is going on here?" I asked.  Abbie said, "Oh, I was picking her up."  Yikes!  My poor baby could have been pulled right off the bed, and I didn't even notice.  Funny how being in the same room just isn't enough sometimes.

Six Month Check-up

Today was Emily's six month check up.  Here are the new stats: 14 pounds, 6.4 ounces (21st percentile), 25 inches (25th percentile), and head circumference of 42 cm (38th percentile).  As I recall, her weight percentile has fallen a bit, her length percentile is roughly holding steady, and her head percentile has increased.  Basically she is just a little less chubby than she was last time.

Developmentally, she is going great.  She isn't a big fan of sitting, but I did get her to sit on her own without falling over for at least a minute this morning.  I guess the doctor defines anything more than a few seconds as officially sitting, so apparently she is officially sitting.  However, it will be awhile yet before we can just leave her sitting in the living room on her own.  She really likes to topple over.  Actually, her preference is to stand and many times she will insist on standing rather than sitting.  Of course, obviously she can't stand on her own, but her little legs are definitely pretty strong.  The pictures above really sum it up - the uninspired look on her face when sitting and the pleased look on her face when standing.

Right now the little peanut is napping, totally worn out from having to get four shots and an oral vaccine.  No fun at all.  I'm bracing myself for a rough couple of days.  As for solid food, Emily is still getting her rice cereal in the evenings.  We have tried to introduce some applesauce and some pears, but she really wasn't a big fan of either one.  So, for now, we are just sticking with the cereal.

Other than that, not much to report.  As long as she gets her way, she is a very easy and happy baby.  She really likes to laugh and be tickled.  Also, she has been trying out some new mannerisms lately.  The funniest one is when she just starts shaking her head 'No'.  I think she does it when she wants to get our attention and get us to play with her.  The doctor claims that it is a pretty common baby thing.  Also, she really likes going for walks in the Bjorn.  As soon as she sees it she gets all excited.  I think that part of it is that she enjoys being outside.  The weather has been pretty nice lately, so it has been pretty easy to get her some fresh air everyday.

Cereal

We decided to start Emily on some rice cereal last weekend.  She had been indicating to us that she was ready for it, so we decided to see what she'd do.  She seemed to really like it.  She didn't get super excited the way that Abbie did, but as she got used to it, she definitely indicated that she wanted more.

Since then, she has continued to be excited about it.  She has tried a variety of methods for getting the food into her mouth.  First, she tried using her tongue to suck her lips into her mouth as a way to suck the cereal off her face.  She has also tried following up on the spoon by jamming her fingers into her mouth to make sure the cereal stays put.  It's pretty cute to watch.  She is also pretty funny in that she doesn't quite understand that if she opens her mouth when it is full of cereal, the cereal will spill out.  A couple of times now she has stuck her tongue out with a big mouthful of cereal and all the cereal has come out with it.  Slowly, though, I think she is getting the hang of things and is definitely excited about this new phase.

Our "Twins"

Emily is a Gemini, represented in the Zodiac by twins.  It is certainly the case that sometimes I think she is two babies in one.  She has moments of such simple happiness, giggly and care free, and then moments of such complex intensity.  In these intense moments she is quiet, thoughtful, and serious.  The look that comes over her really is amazing and it makes me wonder what she is thinking about.  This picture definitely captures one of her more serious faces.

She is very observant, always studying, learning.  She particularly likes watching her big sister, both for entertainment, and for important lessons about life.  Of course, I think Abbie enjoys having an audience.

In other news, Emily is getting really, really close to rolling from her back to her front.  I thought for sure that she had it tonight, but she just didn't quite make it.  She definitely knows that it is a way to get things that are close to her, so I expect that it will happen sometime very soon.

Four Month Check-up

Emily is 19 weeks old now and today was her 4-month check-up.  She did a great job with all the vaccinations.  She actually was most upset by the oral vaccine, and didn't seem too upset with the shots.  Funny girl.  Perhaps the oral vaccine is too reminiscent of having a bottle pushed on her (and we all know how she feels about that).  Anyway, she is growing really well.  She is now 13 pounds, 6 ounces (46th percentile), 23.5 inches long (24th percentile), and her head is 40 centimeters (24th percentile).  So, her weight and height percentiles have increased since the 2-month visit and her head percentile has fallen slightly.  All the statistics aside, the doctor thought that she was doing really great.  She said that with Emily's chubby little cheeks she is the perfect representation of a healthy baby.  Also, the doctor remarked that she doesn't have a single patient Emily's age with so much hair!  The long and plentiful hair really is confusing for people.  It makes them think that Emily is much older, but then they can't understand why her body is so tiny.  Too funny.

Chewing

Emily is into chewing anything and everything lately.  This includes her hands, other people's hands, her clothes, her burp cloth, her lovey, her blanket, her Bjorn, and her toys.  As long as it isn't a bottle of milk, she is all over it.  :)  It is pretty funny when she gets a hold of someone's fingers.  Whenever a hand gets too close to her hand she'll grab it and pull it to her mouth to gnaw on - just like a little piranha.

As of today we have a sense that she has changed suddenly.  Up until today, she has always been very content with just laying around the house.  But now, it seems that she has a strong urge to be moving.  If she could take off crawling, she would.  She seemed really happy to get out today and go for a walk in the Bjorn.  We went to CostCo and then we went for a walk in Old Town.  She was pretty pleased with this.

Of course, everywhere we go, she is being admired for her blue eyes and her great head of hair.  Personality-wise, she is just really fun - laughing and "talking" a lot these days!

16 Weeks Old

Emily is 16 weeks old today.  Last week, to commemorate being 15 weeks old, she decided to roll over from her tummy to her back.  She has done it a handful of times now, but I was trying to get her to do it this morning and she wouldn't, so I guess she is still getting the hang of it.

We now have her sleeping in her crib at night.  She has been sleeping there for naps for a long time, and we finally took the plunge at night last weekend.  It has taken some getting used to for her, but last night went really well.  Of course, the one thing we know about babies is that whatever happened yesterday is unlikely to happen today, so we are still taking it on a day to day basis.

Emily is still refusing a bottle, which we have long since accepted, but it makes my teaching days tough for everybody.  She is not showing signs of being ready for rice cereal yet, so we are just in a holding pattern for awhile.

It took a long time, but we have finally found a nanny that is working out really well.  She is very sweet and loving with Emily, which is great.  Last week was her first week with us and Emily took the week to get used to her, displaying a clear preference for Mommy every chance she got.  This week is going more smoothly.  She is used to Paula now and smiles and flirts with her when she sees her.

The Many Faces of Emily

Here she is thinking to herself, "See, I really do have a neck.  I'll prove it to you."

Emily is a big fan of chewing her fingers.  She often has a hand shoved in her mouth and sometimes even chokes herself with it.

These pictures of our changeable little Gemini were all snapped within minutes of each other.  She is just so expressive and sometimes has looks of such intensity.  These days she is really into reading books (or rather having books read to her).  She loves Dr. Seuss (who doesn't) and we can blow through The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, The Foot Book, Hop on Pop, and I Can Read with My Eyes Shut, plus others in one sitting.  She just loves it and she stares really intently at the pictures.  I think she most likes the bright colors and the funny faces.

All Dressed Up

Emily did a great job at Greg and Elizabeth's wedding this past weekend.  It was also a great opportunity for me to dress her up in a couple of outfits that we have had since Abbie was little, but that she never had a chance to wear.  Here is Emily just lounging on the hotel bed a couple hours before the ceremony.  Grandpa also got a really adorable picture of her at the rehearsal dinner that I may be able to post sometime soon . . .

 . . . well, this isn't the photo that I was thinking of, but it is a pretty cool photo because it shows her beautiful blue eyes!

Two Month Check-up

Emily was nine weeks old on Thursday and had her two month check-up on Friday.  She is doing great - now weighs 10 pounds, 2 ounces (about 33rd percentile), head is 38 cm (also around 33rd percentile), and 21 inches long (about 8th percentile).  She is a shorty, for sure.  She survived the 3 shots they gave her - very mad and sad, but doesn't seem to be too sore.  However, she has been fighting a little bit of a stuffy nose the past few days.  The burden of being a younger sibling, no doubt.

At only 2 months old, Emily is already becoming an experienced traveler.  We took her to San Francisco last week for a few days and she did great - slept the entire flight, continued to sleep well at night.  Later this week we are heading to Washington DC for a long weekend.  This flight will be much longer and I can't imagine that she will sleep the entire time, so we'll see how we all do.

Emily is still really mellow (and probably always will be).  We have two major "issues" at this point.  First, she has developed some cradle cap, which just makes me nuts.  Second, she is still really opinionated about using a bottle.  Every time we think that we've got it figured out, she decides to resist it.  I have pretty much decided to quit fighting the losing battle.  When I need to be out of the house, she will need to do the best she can with it.  When I don't need to be out of the house, I will just let her nurse.  Most people that I have talked to tell me that by 6 months kids are cool with a bottle, so I assume that at some point this issue will just go away on its own.  I'm just not going to worry about when that will be.

Mellow Baby

Emily is such a mellow baby.  She has lots of times where she likes to be put down to kick and to take in the scenery.  The other day, she was lying on her exercise mat and the next thing we knew, she was asleep.  No fussing, nothing, just passed out.  Too funny.  The only time when she seemed to be stubborn or difficult was when taking a bottle.  This week we got her some preemie nipples, rather than the newborn nipples.  This makes all the difference.  The milk comes out much slower and she does better with it.  Turns out that she wasn't stubborn, she just didn't like being water-boarded with breast milk.  :)

Cheeks!

Emily is quickly becoming known for her cheeks, which seem to have filled out a bit.  Above, you can see them in both the upright and reclined position.  Even more adorable is the place where her chins meets her body.  For most people, this is referred to as their neck.  For Emily, it is just a little crease that likes to gather sweat and spit up milk.  I am constantly trying to clean it for her, but she rarely lets me at it.

In the bottom picture, she has a little half-smile going.  She has actually started giving us big open-mouthed smiles.  They say this doesn't happen until 6 weeks, but both Chad and I are convinced that these are purposeful, directed at us, and not caused by gas.

Emily is still sleeping on about the same schedule as she had been and it seems to be working OK for all of us.  Also, she is slowly getting used to taking a bottle.  She'll only go for it if she is really hungry, and it is taking her a little while to adjust to how quickly the milk comes out, but we are definitely seeing progress.

Almost 3 weeks

Tomorrow Emily will be 3 weeks old.  The time has really flown by.  Already she is so much bigger than she was when she was born - I can actually feel her getting heavier.  She continues to be increasingly alert during the day.  Also, she is starting to have periods where she is more fussy.  This peaked at about 5 weeks with Abbie and then started to get better.  I expect that the same will be true for Emily.  She is able to hold her head up now when she is in an upright position.  Sometimes I have her over my shoulder and it is so cute to look over and see her head up as she looks around the room.  She has big blue eyes and we have a suspicion that they will actually stay blue.  She is VERY observant and is always looking around at us and at the house.  She loves looking out the window and at the ceiling fan.  Also, she seems to really enjoy time on her exercise mat.  Little does she know that in a few days we will be starting tummy time on that mat!

Emily is still doing a great job at night.  We have started swaddling her now.  It helps her sleep and causes her to fuss less.  She usually starts with a 3 hour block of sleep, then eats, then sleeps 2 more hours before eating again.  The only catch here is that after 3am she turns into a little grunter.  She seems to sleep just fine, but the grunting has been something for me to get used to.  I am starting to do a pretty good job of sleeping through it - I'm not sure if its because I'm getting used to it, or if its because I am starting to get more and more fatigued!

During the day, Emily is a GREAT nap companion!  When we aren't napping, she prefers to be held (as all babies do).  The nice thing is that she is totally cool with being put in the sling if I am trying to get stuff done.  Abbie never tolerated the sling, which made life more difficult, but Emily seems to be a total trooper about it.  Yay!

Awake!

Now that she is a week old, Emily has started spending time each day wide awake and looking around.  This morning, Chad laid her down on her exercise mat and she spent a really long time looking at all the colors and even batting at a stuffed elephant over her head.  Most people would probably say that her actions weren't intentional, but they sure do seem as if they are.

Key for me is that all this new awake time is happening during the day and not at night.  She is still doing a great job of sleeping in about 2.5 hour stretches before she wakes up to eat.  Then, after she eats she is usually pretty easy to get back to sleep and will even fall asleep on her own without being held or nursed.  I'm trying to be a bit more conscious of this to avoid all the sleep issues that we ran into with Abbie when she was a baby.  Hopefully it will work.

A big yawn - just for fun.  It is really fun to see all the little faces and hear all the little noises that she makes.  There is no way to capture it all with a camera.  I need to spend some time filming her with the video camera.  I know Abbie did all this stuff, too, but it is just so easy to forget once they start getting bigger.

More photos

Here we are in our first family photo after Emily's arrival.  All in all a pretty good picture of us, and Emily even has her eyes open (a rarity).

Here is Emily all ready to leave the hospital.  She looks so much like Abbie looked when she was born.  It'll be interesting to see how much they look like each other as Emily gets older.

Meanwhile, life at home has been good.  Emily just sleeps all the time.  She is a really good eater and has already put on an ounce since she left the hospital.  Last night she had a couple of hours at dinner time when she was awake and looking all around.  It was so nice to see her eyes and to feel like we could really interact with her.

Announcing Emily Marie

We are happy to announce that after weeks of contractions that seemed to go nowhere, and after a quick 4-hour labor that started in the wee hours of the morning, Emily Marie made her entrance at 6:13am this morning.  She weighs 6lbs., 12oz. and is 18+ inches long.

The upside of this quick, "easy" labor is that mommy is feeling great and that Emily never developed the classic cone head, so she is looking great.  The downside is that she didn't have much time to make a smooth transition and has been struggling all day with amniotic fluid in her tummy that she keeps spitting up.  :(

That being said, she is doing all the classic baby things - sleeping, trying to eat a bit, and pooping.  We are expecting to go home tomorrow morning.  Hopefully once she gets all the junk out of her system she'll be even more interested in eating.  Stay tuned, as more pictures and updates will surely follow over the next few days.

Approaching 39 weeks

Here we are at almost 39 weeks.  Initially, I didn't think that I looked much different than I did at 36 weeks, but upon further inspection, I think I do.  Apparently Chad thinks I do, too.  He informed me that I look like a moose.  Half joking, of course. 

I am definitely antsy to have this baby.  I have been tracking the moon and the changes in barametric pressure.  The full moon is scheduled for the 27th (Thursday) and the barametric pressure is currently climbing.  I am hopeful that a fall in barametric pressure will coincide with the full moon later this week, but we'll see.

Abbie has been talking to the baby and is getting really excited to see her.  Her big thing lately is to tell the baby, "Baby, don't you make Mama explode.  Come out of there."  I agree.  I really would prefer not to explode.  :)

36 Weeks

Here we are at 36 weeks.  I tried to replicate the picture from 31 weeks so that I could make an accurate assessment of whether I was bigger or not.  While in theory this sounds like a good idea, it turns out that providing sound evidence that you are bigger is not always the best idea from a mental health perspective.  :)

Anyway, I think that Chad, Abbie and I are all ready for this baby to make its appearance.  We are not ready for all the work and sleepless nights, but Chad and I are ready for me to start getting back to a more normal shape.  Meanwhile Abbie is really ready to have a sister to interact with.  She has been touching and poking at my belly a lot lately and she is often talking to the baby, asking her what she's doing in there, etc.

I think that most of the baby needs - diapers, etc. are covered.  I was able to pick up a boppy and a vibrating baby seat from Craigslist this weekend.  Other than picking up some Desitin and a nightlight or two, I think we have everything we need.  Now, we just have to wait . . . .

31 Weeks

Here are baby and I at 31 weeks. Now that her arrival is getting closer, I have finally taken the time to give her her own blog. Of course, there is not much to report right now. She is always busy, kicking away, and growing all the time. She has been head down for awhile now and I am hopeful that she will stay that way. Last night I felt her moving to more of an angled position, so I promptly stood up and encouraged her to go 100% head down again. I didn't want to run the risk that she would accidentally pop right side up. As I told Chad, "We need to keep these kids in line - literally." :)