Tot Swim!

Today was our first trip to Tot Swim with Phoebe.  I was a little nervous about taking the baby to the pool by myself, so Jeremy played hooky from class so he could come with us for our first day.  I met Jeremy at home after work, we went to daycare to pick up Phoebe and then went straight to the gym.  At first Phoebe wasn't too sure about what was going on:

She doesn't look too happy in this picture - but she sure is cute in her froggy robe (thank you Regina!!)  The pool is great!  There is a huge kiddie pool with a ton of shallow water.  The water is also super warm - it has to be at least 80 degrees in there - the babies LOVE it!

To the right of the baby pool (just out of the frame of this picture) there is a huge lap pool and a great twisty water slide.  We hope Phoebe loves swimming so that when she gets older we have a reason to play on the cool water slide.

Back to Tot Swim.  Jeremy got in the water with Phoebe and she was totally amazed.  She couldn't stop looking around at everything going on.  In fact, she was so fascinated by the goings-on it was pretty hard to get a decent picture:

Once she had checked everything out and got down to business - Pheobe LOVED swimming.  We bobbed her up and down in the water, gave her a ride on a kick board, and she kicked up a storm.

It was a regular baby party in the pool!  The student who told me about Tot Swim was there with his wife and daughter.  Their daughter is only 11 months, but she is great in the water!  Even more exciting for Phoebe - after about 20 minutes in the water her buddy Quinn showed up!  Quinn is one of our friends from Parent's Place and we just had a play date yesterday, so it was fun for Phoebe to see her pal again.  We had put away the camera by this point, but Quinn's mom took a bunch of photos, so when they email them to us, we will post a few of the girls together in the pool - it was pretty adorable!

As much as Phoebe liked playing in the pool, she got a little tired after about 45 minutes.  She put her head on my shoulder to take a rest and discovered that she loves the taste of chlorine, so she spent the next 5 minutes trying to suck chlorine residue off my face.  Quinn's mom also got some pictures of that - but I don't know if those will make it to the blog.  After we got out of the pool, we rinsed off the chlorine, dried off and put Phoebe in some really warm fuzzy jammies.  We fed Phoebe and jumped in the car.  Apparently Tot Swim wore her out:

Since the baby was sleeping soundly and Jeremy and I were both really hungry, we decided to be bold and risk dinner out.  About halfway through dinner, Phoebe woke up and let us know that she was not happy to wake up somewhere other than her cozy pack-n-play.  Despite having eaten at daycare right before we picked her up AND draining a bottle right after Tot Swim, Phoebe also made it quite clear that she was still pretty hungry.  The whole drive home she tried to eat her stuffed elephant causing extreme upset (what with stuffed elephants not being very filling and all).  Luckily we got home in a hurry, gave Phoebe another bottle and got her tucked into bed. 

All three of us had a great time at Tot Swim!  I can't wait to go back next week.

Rolling Update

Phoebe has been hard at work perfecting her rolling technique.  She is still a pro at back to tummy.  In the last few days she had managed to go tummy to back a couple of times, but this move lacks a bit of finesse - she usually ends up whacking her head on the floor which makes for a very grumpy kiddo.  I have a hard time watching her work so hard and get so frustrated.  I am never sure how frustrated to let her get - it seems like she just spends so much of her time discouraged these days.  She is slowly figuring things out though, so I guess the frustration serves a purpose.

Tonight during playtime, Phoebe was on the mat with Jeremy and she figured out how to push off of him to scoot herself across the floor (on her head of course - so this is really not a mobility strategy that we want to encourage).  Why is the baby so intent on learning to move?  Because there is so much delicious stuff out there to shove in her mouth!

Hey look - my jungle gym has these delicious looking bars

Maybe just a taste ...

Quite delightful!

Pinkies out!

Nom nom nom

Daddy's Girl

When Phoebe was born, all the nurses at the hospital told Jeremy that she would have him wrapped around her little finger before he knew it.  This information has been repeated to us by bar tenders, random people at Target, and the checkout guy at Trader Joe's.  Through it all, Jeremy has maintained that he will not be swayed by baby cuteness - he is going to be the kind of father that rules with an iron fist.  I am not so sure.  Phoebe is totally in love with her daddy.  When he comes home from school, she gets a huge smile on her face and makes happy baby noises.  When Jeremy leaves the room, Phoebe will fling her head off the back of the bouncy seat to try to follow him.  Daddy seems pretty smitten with Phoebe too.  He is always making up silly songs (I was informed that they are not silly, they are musical masterpieces) and cute little games for them to play together.  Tonight they came up with a new game where Jeremy rubs Pheobe's feet on his beard to tickle them.  It completely cheered up our little grumpus (it was also darn cute to watch):

PS (I just realized that "grumpus" in the last sentence was a little ambiguous.  I had meant for it to refer to Phoebe who had a rough day - but I think the tickle game also cheered up Jeremy so I guess I should have said that the new game cheered up our grumpusES)

For Grandpa Paul

Grandpa Paul went to Duke to talk to law students and came back with a shirt for Phoebe - even though we tried to explain that she is a University of Michigan girl.

Today we put Phoebe in her Duke shirt and tried to take some pictures:

Sad baby says "what is this on my shirt!?" :(

"I can't even look at the camera ... "

"Danger, can you believe what we have to put up with around here?"

Actually, the little munchkin was just a little under the weather today.  I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with the Duke shirt.  The other day we started looking into the projected cost of college when Phoebe is 18, so I think her next college shirt will be from Bargains R' Us Community College! 

If the shirt fits ...

Our friend Marla sent us one of our favorite baby shirts:

Apparently Marla's five year old daughter picked it out - she has excellent taste :)  Marla said she waited a while to send it to us - and we are very appreciative!  If we had gotten this shirt during Phoebe's first few weeks, it would have seemed tragically fitting.  Now, with a little bit of distance from the colic, we find it hilarious.  Thank you so much Marla and Sarah!  We only wish we lived close enough that you could see it in person!

Slobba

I think I might have mentioned in a previous post that Jeremy has started calling Phoebe "Slobba the Hut".  You might think we're exaggerating the situation, but I assure you we are not.  Cute baby:

 Close up of the drool situation:
 

That is probably 15 minutes worth of drool accumulation.  Seriously.  She is a drool pro.  We do occasionally use bibs, but the velcro on them tends to irritate Phoebe's skin and with the way she flings herself around, they seem like a bit of a strangulation hazard.  We typically let the drool go for a while and then when Phoebe has completely soaked a shirt, we'll change her.  This is why even if our baby starts the day with a cute matching outfit, she ends it looking like hobo (or like her dad dressed her).

Happy Birthday Eli!

We have a new nephew/cousin!!  Elijah Lawrence was born this afternoon and we couldn't be more excited!  He is totally adorable and we really wish we lived closer so we could meet the little guy in person.  Welcome to the world Eli!

Easter Out-Takes

Did you enjoy those cute baby pictures in the last post?  I thought I'd show you what goes in to getting a good shot of Phoebe these days (it also might explain why photo updates have gotten a bit sparse).  Phoebe is a WIGGLER!  Now that she has discovered rolling she just constantly wants to be on the move.  The pictures in the last post feature Phoebe on a blankie on the floor.  Our first attempt at an Easter picture was using the bouncy seat, and resulted in:

As you can see, when Phoebe isn't busy trying to eat the bunnies on her pants, she's trying to fling herself off the bouncy seat.  Of course, our first couple of attempts on the floor didn't go so well either:

I had to wait for Phoebe to take a little break from the non-stop motion to get a good shot.  These days Phoebe is a pro at rolling back-to-tummy.  As soon as you put her down on the ground, she starts rolling - she can even do both the left and right roll (she's pretty talented, she probably gets that from her parents).  Once she gets onto her tummy, Phoebe immediately starts trying to figure out how to move.  On her slippery play mat, she can usually get her feet under her just enough to slide her noggin across the mat - this is how we found out the hard way that her play mat was too close to the bookshelves (Best Parents EVER!).  Oops.  Other than that, motion eludes our poor little muffin which frustrates her to no end.  She gets VERY grumpy and throws mini-tantrums until one of us intervenes and makes her take a baby break.  After a short breather she'll start trying to throw herself out of your arms back onto the floor so she can get back to work.  We have decided to step up our baby proofing schedule just in case ...

No matter where Phoebe is, she is wiggling.  You've already seen the bouncy chair acrobatics.  This morning she kept trying to figure out how to use the tray on her swing for leverage to propel herself somewhere (out of the swing presumably).  Even when you are holding her, she is always on the move.  This is a new development and definitely one that keeps us on our toes!  In addition to the constant motion, Phoebe is also very curious about pretty much everything.  She is always trying to grab things or shove them in her mouth (or both).  The other day at dinner, she kept trying to grab my plate and the food on it - I had to pry a piece of lettuce out of her little baby fist.  This afternoon she yanked a handful of fur out of Danger (to his credit he didn't react at the baby, but he did shoot us a look that pretty much communicated "if I had opposable thumbs you two would be done for"). 

It is definitely fun having a curious baby - there is so much we're looking forward to showing her.  On the other hand, it totally wears us out!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from our little bunny!  Thank you Grandma Joyce for the awesome bunny pants and hat - they were a huge hit with the daycare folks and our California friends.  

We had a great Easter here.  Phoebe was so excited, she woke up at 5:00!  Yay!  We really can't complain too much though because she slept for nine hours straight last night!  She hasn't done that in a really long time, so we were pretty excited.  Jeremy says he isn't going to get too excited until she sleeps that long three nights in a row.  I guess I have to agree with that strategy since last time we were all ready to declare sleep victory after two nights and then the little munchkin went right back to sleeping no more than four hours at a stretch. 

Phoebe and I spent the morning playing and taking a nap and when daddy got up and joined us, we went to the neighborhood Easter Party.  There was a little BBQ and the police were there doing child ID kits, but the real draw was the egg hunt!  Phoebe was a little too young to participate, but she really enjoyed watching all the big kids race around and get eggs.  It was actually pretty funny, there was a huge build up while the kids counted down to the egg hunt and jockeyed for position.  Then, when the hunt started they all raced out into the park and the eggs were all scooped up within about 60 seconds.  Watching must have worn Phoebe out because she fell asleep on the walk home.

The afternoon was a little rough for Phoebe, we think she is simultaneously going through a growth spurt and attempting some milestones, so she gets grumpy/frustrated easily.  Between fits though we got a lot done.  We did some chores around the house, made some banana bread, and even sat out on the patio for a little bit.  Even with the fussing we had a nice family day.  We are really enjoying having a calmer baby that we can actually take out in public occasionally.  We're going to be extra bold and attempt a trip to Santa Cruz next weekend! 

Baby Celebrates her First Earth Day!

Here Phoebe is rocking a onesie with an environmental message in honor of Earth Day

This onesie is especially environmentally friendly because it is a hand-me-down.  While we were in Michigan this spring, I got a bunch of great second-hand outfits from my friend Jen and her two girls!  Both Jeremy and I think this onesie is particularly cute, so we're a little bummed that it is already starting to get a little tight on the Phoebster.  I think our baby is officially growing like a weed - if you've seen our backyard, you know she'll have plenty of weed-company :)

When Dad dresses the baby

Turkey!

This morning I got up with Phoebe while Jeremy slept in.  I kept hearing this weird noise and couldn't figure out what it was - it turns out there were a bunch of wild turkeys in our front yard!  I tried to get a good picture, but I was taking pictures through the window, while holding a cranky baby, so this is the best I could get:

I thought about going outside to get a good shot, but thought better of it when I saw our neighbor attempt a photo - the turkeys turned towards him and started gobbling and charging him.  Yikes!  I figured that since I had a tiny-turkey-snack-sized-morsel (aka the baby) with me, I should probably stay far away - just in case word had gotten out about that turkey bacon in our fridge :)  The turkeys were walking around like they owned the place and were definitely much larger (and meaner) than I would have thought turkeys were.  Danger was nowhere to be found during the turkey visit but came down just as they were leaving and managed to squeak out a few tiny hisses at their departing turkey-butts.  Hardly convincing Danger.  Hardly convincing.

After the turkey excitement, we had a bit of a rough morning.  Phoebe was really congested and grumpy all morning.  I knew something was wrong when she-who-doesn't-nap took two hour-long snoozes before noon!  During her second nap, Jeremy came downstairs and he wasn't looking very good either.  He had a sore throat and ended up spending the morning at Doctors on Duty (the local walk in clinic - we REALLY need to get one of those primary care doctors I've been hearing so much about).  What we thought would be a simple strep test (negative!) turned into lung-function tests which turned into breathing treatments which turned into a chest X-ray (normal!) ... all to arrive at the diagnosis that we were dealing with a flu-like virus.  They sent Jeremy home with some Advair and instructions to take it easy. 

Phoebe is still congested and still battling some low-grade eye-goop.  She's been more-or-less congested since she started daycare.  While we understand that babies get sick, we sure wish there was something we could do to make the punkin feel a little better.  We've been using saline nose spray and the big booger-sucker (bulb syringe) but she just never seems to get over whatever she has.  We're going to call the doctor to see if she thinks a humidifier would help.  It isn't that dry here, but we do sleep with the fan on for white noise so that might be contributing to the problem.  We were thinking maybe the Vapo-rub humidifier would help clear out the baby snot, but figured we should check with the pediatrician first.

Here is how we spend our sick days - we put on our sweats and our puppy slippers and hang out with our teddy:

Despite our rough morning, both Phoebe and Jeremy perked up in the afternoon.  I think Jeremy was just amped up from the drugs they gave him at the clinic and Phoebe probably didn't know what to do with herself after her THIRD hour-long nap in one day (unheard of!).  Jeremy insisted that we go run our planned errands for the day.   I tried to tell him to stay home and rest (even enlisting the expertise of WebMD/Dr. Google for expert backing) but he insisted on running errands. 

We went to the local daycare center that we are on the waiting list for, but were unable to find out where we are on said list.  Very frustrating. We really need to figure out a full time solution soon since Jeremy will start his internship in June and May is very busy for me with graduation and end of the year events for the students.  After we went to daycare, we went to the local sports center to sign up for Tot Swim!  Starting next week we're going to take Phoebe to weekly Tot Swim on Friday nights.  Given how much she likes splashing in the bath, we think Phoebe will really enjoy swimming.  Since Jeremy swam in high school, he is really excited to introduce Phoebe to the pool.  Right now Jeremy doesn't get home in time to go every week, so I'll be the Tot Swim parent until summer, then he'll take over.

The sports center is downtown Monterey (it is run by the city) so after we signed up for swimming, we went to the farmer's market.  This was Phoebe's first trip to the market and she LOVED it!  She just smiled and giggled the whole time.  Phoebe is such a curious and observant little baby - she loved all the sights and smells and sounds.  Even though she is technically still "too little" we've been letting her ride in the stroller without her car seat

You can see she really likes it!  She really enjoys being able to see everything that is going on!  When we would try to take her for a walk with the car seat in the stroller she would fuss - I guess she just gets bored looking at us all the time :)  Now that we've cut way down on the fuss-factor during walks, we go on a lot more of them

Phoebe just leans back, kicks her feet up onto the stroller and enjoys the ride!

Anyway, by the time we got back from farmer's market, both Phoebe and Jeremy had crashed.  Phoebe got a quick bath and then both dad and baby hit the hay by around 7 o'clock.  Here's hoping everyone is on the mend tomorrow (and that I don't catch anything from anyone) :)

Happy Tax Day!

Roley Poley

Phoebe has been working on rolling over lately.  She can pretty reliably get from her back to her side, but that bottom arm is her nemesis - she can rarely make it all the way to her tummy.  Usually, if she makes it all the way to her stomach it is because there was something really tasty looking that she wanted to get in her mouth.  Once she is on her tummy she has no idea how to flip back over and she usually ends up pretty angry since she is not a fan of tummy time.

Being a big fan of both rolling and her bouncy seat, Phoebe is always looking for a way to combine her two loves.  Here she is getting started:

Oooo, that bouncy seat is delicious!

And from the next day - you can see she can almost get all the way over.

 

Of course, the safety of this situation is a little suspect, so we'll probably have to start using the safety strap when we put the Fussers in her seat.  It would be the responsible parent thing to do (actually if we were really responsible parents I guess we would have been using the safety strap all along.  Hmmm.

Here is a cute picture of the Fussers from this morning

If you look a little closer you can see that our little munchkin is a real overachiever ...

That's right, those socks are size 12-18 months!  They are on our 3 1/2 month old baby.  She has GIANT feet for a baby her age.  By the time she is five, we'll probably have to special order her socks :)  Jeremy has started calling her Sasquatch - in a loving way of course.  We had to go out and buy some more GIANT socks because most of the baby socks we have are 3-6 and 6-12 month size because we foolishly assumed those would be the sizes she would wear when she was 3-6 months old. 

Phone Photos of Phoebe

Today I finally got around to cleaning some old pictures off my phone.  The pictures span the time pretty much from when Phoebe came home until yesterday so it was fun to see them all.  Here they are in reverse-chronological order (newest pictures first)


Self portrait of Phoebe and I out for a walk.  Phoebe fusses when you put her sun hat on, but she is always excited to have it to chew on during a walk.  This one is a little out of order - I think it is from right after we got home from our trip out East.

Phoebe asleep during our trip to Parent's Place last week.  She had a lot of fun during play time and song time but then she got bored during the parent discussion.

From the same day at Parent's Place, here is Phoebe doing some hard core tummy time.

Smiling (and not sleeping) during nap time in the Pack-n-Play at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Sad Baby.

Napping on the couch with Mommy.

Down for the count in the Moby.  For the longest time, Phoebe wouldn't nap well unless she was being snuggled or carried so I wore her in the Moby a LOT.  She's not such a huge fan of the wrap anymore since she likes to wiggle around more than it will allow.  

Asleep in the car seat on our way ... somewhere.  It turns out that a lot of my phone pictures are of Phoebe sleeping :)

Here's another nap on the couch - who wouldn't want to nap all snuggled up to that?

Learning to use a pacifier - I can't believe how little she looks in this picture!  The sleeper (that is now way too small) is HUGE on her and the pacifier takes up half her face!  Our baby is getting so big!

This picture was from the very first day we went to Parent's Place - again I can't believe how TINY she was!

Brand new baby in the bouncy seat!

Look how far we've come!