Bring on the Brenks

On Wednesday, Megan and her 18 month old son Andrew arrived in town for a nice, long visit.  Megan was my first and best friend in London, and we hadn't seen each other since we both moved back to the States last summer.

We visited playgrounds and a children's museum, went to story time at Barnes & Noble, played at Gymboree, took walks into town, read stories and played with toys.  After the kiddies went to bed, Megan and I cooked  together, ate our weight in ice cream, and caught up on old times.

A few shots from their visit

At the Children's Museum

Andrew's favorite toy at our house - Jason's shoes

Hey!  Wanna read a book together?

Look, I'll show you how

Where's Andrew?  I think Claire needs to work on sharing

Whatcha doin' Aunt Ashley?

Reunited :)

Claire and I LOVED having them around - the house feels so empty and quiet now. 

The First of Many

Vacations!

Last weekend, we drove up to Vermont for a ski weekend at Stratton Mountain - Claire's 1st Vacation!

Sadly, only Jason's skis and boots made the trip.  I had planned to ski, but after throwing my back out the week before, there was no way I was going to be able to.  Claire still won't take a bottle, so it was going to be difficult to get many runs in in between mealtimes, but I was prepared to give it a go.  Instead, Mom and I hung out together, did some shopping, and enjoyed playing with Claire.  She's pretty much the best consolation prize!

We spent our evenings sharing cocktails and dinner with Mom and Dad's friends, Mark and Janet, and their children and grandchildren.  Their condo was bursting to capacity with the 5 of us in addition to Mark and Janet's group of 12, but we had a great time. 

Mommies

Roughly 3 weeks ago, I e-mailed two Moms whose profiles I saw on a Meetup.com mommies group I joined before Claire was born.  Their babies were born within days of Claire, and I thought it would be nice to form a playgroup.  Luckily, Amanda and Stephanie were enthused about the idea too.

We had our first playdate 2 weeks ago, and the second one just yesterday.  Stephanie has a daughter, Rowan, who was born Dec 3 and Amanda has a son, Wesley, who was born the day after Claire on the 7th.  Stephanie and Amanda are great, and the afternoons always pass by quickly when we all hang out.  It's nice to have people to talk to while feeding and changing diapers, and in my case, any company is entertainment for Claire.  We hope that when our kiddos are older, they'll like each other too.

Claire and Rowan hanging out together on Rowan's playmat at our first playdate.  Wesley is always sleeping - he's quite the party animal, so no pictures of him yet.

2 Months

I'm not going to lie, time has NOT flown by.  In some ways it has, but it's hard work caring for a newborn baby, and up until recently, it was a lot like groundhog day around here.

Eat, sleep, pee, poop, kick legs, look around, cry.... repeat.

Once we started to get more regular smiles, coos and other noises, and some real response to us and to toys, the days started to go by faster.  We have so much fun with her now, and she's constantly making us laugh with her new tricks, facial expressions, chatter and emerging personality.

Claire had her 2 month Dr. appointment this week.  She's weighing in at 12 pounds 4 ounches in the 90th percentile and in the 50th percentile for height.  I told you she likes to eat!  She had her first round of vaccinations, and she was a trooper.  She screamed her head off during the shots (and Mommy cried too), but after sleeping it off most of the afternoon, she was back to her normal self by dinner time. 

New tricks since 6.5 weeks:

Drooling and lots of it.  We've had to resort to putting her in a bib all day to keep her outfits from getting soaked and to prevent her chin and chest from getting chapped from constantly being wet.

Mr. Sun.  The blinking sun on her activity mat is still #1 in her eyes,.  She now "talks" to him.  Mr. Sun gets FAR more conversation from Claire than either Jason or I do.

Tummy time.  She's not really a big fan, but she can now do straight arm push ups to lift her head up, and more often than not, she'll roll onto her back.  Claire loves to watch TV, so if she wants to watch, she has to do it during tummy time by pushing herself up so she can see.

We might be starting to get into a routine.  I say might because I'm not sure, and with Claire, things could change tomorrow.  But, for the moment, she gets up sometime between 5 and 6 am.  She and I go downstairs and have breakfast and playtime before a little nap sometime around 7 usually for about 30 - 45 min.  Jason gets up and plays with her for awhile before he leaves for work, and then she and I have more play time until around 10-11 when it's time for another nap.  Lately, she's been taking a rather long nap around this time.  I usually try to get out of the house and go somewhere with her whether it be the gym, grocery store, mall, etc.  She likes to nap in her car seat, and so I go with it.  After nap is over usually between 1 - 2, it's more play until bedtime around 9:30.  I'd love to get an afternoon nap in here too, but I really don't.  She does get extra fussy in the evenings and wants to be held more, but she won't settle down for a snooze.  BUT, more often than not, she sleeps through the night from 9:30 to 5ish, so I don't complain too much about the lack of afternoon napping.

What I didn't mention in her schedule are meal times.  With Claire, that's usually every hour or every 2 hours except for her long morning nap and overnight.  She's an eater, and I can't complain really.  She seems to be thriving, and the more she eats, the more ice cream I can eat.  And THAT is a good thing.

Oh The Places

When you travel with an exclusively breastfed baby, you should expect to feed her in some unusual locations.  My list from our trip to Richmond - and I'm pretty sure I forgot some

1.  Rest stop 95S on NJ Turnpike
2.  Hardees Parking Lot
3.  Random fast food parking lot
4. While shopping in a children's consignment shop
5. In frozen yogurt shop
6. Side of the road in random neighborhood
7.  Bank parking lot
8.  Macy's bathroom
9.  Side of the road in a retirement community
10.  Standing outside Annie's window at Cedarfield
11.  Cedarfield parking lot
12. Suzanne's house
13. Polly's house
14.  Rest stop 95N
15. Gas station parking lot
16. Liquor store parking lot
17.  Rest stop 95N on NJ Turnpike

Sometimes, I used the Hooter Hider.  More often than not, I didn't.

Road Trip

Claire and I spent the past week in Richmond.  We had planned to visit with my Grandmother, Claire's Great-Grandmother Annie, but things didn't quite go as planned.

I drove to Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon.  Jason, Claire, and I spent the morning together at home and then we went out for brunch before Claire and I hit the road.  Jason had tons of studying and work to do, and we knew we'd be a distraction if we hung around all weekend.

Bibi and Pop were happy to have us, so off we went. 

On Monday morning, Bibi, Claire and I set off for Richmond.  The normally 4 hour drive took 6 hours with a baby who wanted to eat 3 times on the way down, but she was SO good in the car otherwise.

When we got to Richmond and called Cedarfield to set up a visit with Annie, we learned that Cedarfield was on a virtual lockdown due to an outbreak of a gastro-intestinal virus.  Since Claire hasn't had her vaccinations yet and she's still so young, there was no way she was going in Cedarfield. We tried to have a visit with her outside so Annie could at least SEE Claire, but we had to wait to make sure Annie didn't show any symptoms of the virus.  We planned a visit for Thursday.

In the meantime, Claire got to meet her Uncle Jeff for the first time, have quality time with Aunt Mini, go shopping, meet her pseudo great-grandmothers June and Polly as well as her pseudo Aunt Suzanne and be spoiled rotten by all of the above including her Bibi.

On Thursday morning after saying our goodbyes and having a quick photoshoot (see pictures here), we stopped by Cedarfield on our way back to Philadelphia.  Unfortunately, Annie had started to show symptoms of the virus, so we could only visit her through her apartment window.  We trudged through the lawns of Cedarfield up to Annie's window, and while she saw us out there, she wasn't having a good day and seemed confused and was unable to answer her phone when we tried to call and talk to her.  Bibi and I were so upset, but we're going to try to introduce Claire and Annie again in April around Annie's birthday.

We had a great week, and after spending Thursday night in Philly to break up the drive, we finished our trip home on Friday morning.  Thank you so much to Courtney and Jeff for having us but especially to Jeff for cooking nearly every night and putting up with a house FULL of women.  Can't wait for our next visit......

No Longer a Newborn

Claire woke up this morning, and Jason and I both agreed that she looks like a baby now and no longer a newborn.  She also slept an unprecedented 7.5 hours straight last night, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Likes and dislikes at 6.5 weeks:

Likes her playmat.  She'll spend upwards of 20 - 30 minutes on it at a time now.  She likes to stare at the sun that blinks and plays music.  She checks herself out in the mirror, and she bats at Chiara and Gianpierro (the two little dolls that hang from it - of course, they're Italian)

LOVES to be held.  Her favorite positions are up over the shoulder and in the crook of your arm facing outwards.  Both give her a good view to check out what's going on around her, and she likes to have constantly changing scenery to keep her interested.

Likes the tv.  We don't let her watch it, but if it's on, she will crane her neck to see it.  This is going to be a problem in the future - I can already tell.

LOVES to eat.  Loves, loves, loves it.

Likes dance parties to "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus and "Raise Your Glass" by Pink.

Dislikes eating from a bottle.  We've been trying nearly every day for the last 3 weeks, and she's not having it.  I'm still hoping one day she'll just do it, but for now, she and I are attached at the hip.... or the boob rather.

Dislikes taking naps.  A decent nap during the day is rare unless she's in her carseat/stroller or in someone's arms.  She sleeps better at night if she's napped during the day, so I think daily outings in the car are going to become part of our routine.  She will nap in her swing sometimes, but mostly she just likes to rock in it and check out what's going on around her.

Dislikes wearing a hat.  It's been freezing this winter, and I try to be a good mommy and cover up her head, but she hates it.  Fortunately, her carseat keeps her VERY warm.

There aren't that many dislikes really.  She's a pretty happy baby, and she's growing up and filling out so fast.  She's holding her head up more and more every day, the smiles keep coming, and I'm convinced that a little giggle coo is around the corner.