Lots of Updates

I am "multitasking" in a meeting right now (shhhh) and since I'm not on my regular computer I don't have access to pictures, but I thought I'd give a few quick updates on what we've been up to since the great stomach virus incident.  Phoebe has turned into quite the social butterfly, and we've really enjoyed taking her out to visit with friends and to introduce her to new places and experiences. 

The weekend after the stomach flu, we went to a graduation party for the seniors in our department on Saturday.  It was really fun to introduce Phoebe to some of my students - although several of them didn't know her name, so they referred to her as "mini-Kate" throughout the night :)  The party was at the home of another faculty member and it was beautiful!!  The directions to get there were pretty crazy (e.g. "look for the white arch, drive under the arch and angle left through the green gate") - quite the adventure.  The house is nestled into the hills, is full of windows and has an amazing view of the valley and mountains - definitely a reminder that we live in a beautiful part of the country.  Of course, we figured the only way that we would ever live in a house like that is if the hosting faculty member would adopt us :) 

That Sunday, we all went to Palo Alto for a birthday party - Phoebe got her first official invitation!  A friend of mine from graduate school has a little boy who turned one and they had a lovely party!  We all had a great time and Phoebe especially loved watching the older kids attack the pinata (there were only two minor injuries involved).  While we were there, we met another couple with a baby the same age as Phoebe.  This baby was normal four month size which just kind of drove home that Phoebe is giant for her age.  We joked that we hope Phoebe never wants to take up ballet because she clearly will never have the necessary petite frame.  A friend said "well, it's never too early to get her excited about rugby" :)  After the party we met our friends Kristen and Geoff and their little boy for dinner.  Their little boy knows lots of cool tricks, among them, he will give you a fist bump.  At one point he gave Phoebe a fist bump and she just happened to be making a fist at the time, so he assumed she was hip to the game.  Sadly, the rest of the night any time a fist bump was attempted, Phoebe left her little friend hanging - it was adorable to watch him repeatedly try though!

On Thursday, Geoff came down and he and Jeremy took Phoebe to watch the tour of California (a big bike race) since the route went right through Fort Ord this year.  A good time was had by all.  This weekend was graduation for my students, so I had a few events I had to be on campus for.  Other than that, we mostly hung around the house, did chores, and ran errands.  This weekend was a little rough because Phoebe has been really grumpy.  We are pretty sure she is teething.  Both our babysitter (who has three kids of her own) and Geoff independently suggested that they thought the munchkin might be working on a few chompers and we agree!  Teething definitely means that the fussbudget is back (at least temporarily).  It is hard for us because we just want to make her feel better, but there isn't a lot we can do.  We've been giving her lots to chew on and we make sure we take her out at least once a day - having a change of scenery and strangers to flirt with seems to take her mind off her discomfort at least temporarily.  We don't want to give her Orajel  or Tylenol - the former because the FDA has issued warnings about it (also the pediatric dentists says it doesn't really work) and the later because our doctor is really against giving medication for anything other than a fever, and we agree - we don't want to get into a cycle of continuously giving her Tylenol over a long period of time. I tried to get a picture of the little pre-tooth bumps in Phoebe's mouth, but that just isn't going to happen.  The little grumpus has been particularly uncooperative when we try to check them out. 

The other thing we've started to do is wash Phoebe's 6-9 and 6-12 month sized clothes and add them to the rotation.  My friend Kirsten gave me great advice that you should occasionally try the bigger sized clothes because you never know when they'll start to fit and you don't want to have a bunch of stuff that never gets worn.  A few weeks ago, we realized that Phoebe was starting to outgrow some of her 3-6 month clothes so we broke out our 6+ stash.  Some of it is still big, but some of it actually fits pretty well.  Thanks to my mom and some garage saleing/consignment storing that Jeremy and I did, Phoebe has most of what she needs.  The one thing I had to order is jackets.  It gets chilly/windy here, so we typically dress in layers and always make sure we have some sort of jacket tucked away when we go out.  I had gotten this really cool sweater at a garage sale that I was planning on using as Phoebe's 6-12 month jacket.  When I went to throw it in the wash, I realized the care tag was suspiciously long - uh oh.  It turns out the care instructions were: hand wash in cold water with mild soap.  Do not twist or ring.  Lay flat on towel to dry. ... for best results DRY CLEAN?  What?  Yeah, Jeremy and I don't dry clean our own clothes.  Or rather, we do about once every two years when we get invited to either a wedding or a funeral and we have to frantically find and clean Jeremy's suit.  And hand washing?  No.  If I have something that says "hand wash", I throw it in with the rest of my clothes on the permanent press cycle with our regular detergent - if it doesn't survive I assume it just wasn't meant to be.  (I did at one point have a small pile of laundry set aside to hand wash, we moved it.  Dirty.  Three times).  We are just not hand wash people   Having seen what Phoebe does to clothes there is just no way we are hand washing anything of hers either.  Given that we are often doing baby laundry at odd hours of the night/morning because we just used up the last clean sheet/sleeper/blanket everything just needs to be able to get thrown in the washer and the dryer with regular detergent and no fuss.  Instructions that say hand wash might as well say "wear once and discard".  Luckily LL Bean makes lovely baby fleece jackets that are machine washable, machine dryable and have a lifetime guarantee.  SOLD!

Since the sweater was lovely, I took it to mom group to see if anyone else wanted it.  There were no takers.  One of the other moms said "It is a great sweater - it would be the perfect jacket for a baby that doesn't drool or spit up or ... eat anything" - and we all burst out in giggles.  Another mom pointed out that probably the reason the sweater looked brand new despite being used is that the previous family never wore it either.  We joked that the sweater was probably passed from family to family as busy mom after busy mom took one look at that hand wash/dry clean label, snorted, and threw it in the garage sale pile.   I would like to say the cycle ended with me, but I threw the sweater in the donation bin on my way out of class.  I am sure that somewhere out there is a mom who happily hand washes baby sweaters and more power to her - she has a lovely gender-neutral fair isle sweater headed her way.  I think Phoebe is a fleece girl all the way (just like her parents!). 

Speaking of why Phoebe only wears machine washable clothes ... we have started some simple solids!  I was hoping to write about that, but I think I'll wait until I can post pictures (who doesn't love a good baby-smeared-with-food picture).  Whew - that was a lot of updates.  I think I am finally (mostly) caught up and this meeting is wrapping up.  I have another meeting this afternoon though, so if I left anything out I can do another post then :)  Happy Monday Everyone!