Daycare Report from Monday

Jeremy reported that when he got to daycare this morning one of the teachers was outside cleaning up the playground.  She looked up and said "Oh, it's Phoebe, I'd better go inside".  Good to know our little punkin' is making an impression :)

When I got there to pick her up they said "Oh, you would not believe how fussy she was from 1 to 2 this afternoon.  We were going crazy trying to calm her down."  Apparently after screaming bloody murder for an hour, Phoebe completely filled a diaper - it was apparently impressive enough that both women in the baby room remarked on the quantity of her "output".  After that she took a nice long nap and was all smiles and giggles when I picked her up. 

We tried to capture some of those smiles with the camera, but Phoebe was pretty uncooperative.  Every time she saw the camera she would do this:

or this

 

As soon as we put the camera away, she would go back to smiling and laughing.  Laughing is kind of a new thing - she really laughs now.  Phoebe will laugh when you do something silly and she'll also laugh socially - Jeremy was laughing tonight so Phoebe joined in.  Baby laughs are 100% adorable!  We're going to have to try to get video this weekend - although any video of the baby laughing will also be video of us doing something ridiculous to get the baby to laugh so we'll probably have to think twice about posting it on the Internet :)

Weekend Report

We had a pretty good weekend with the fussbudget.  Saturday she was pretty cranky, but we did make her run a bunch of errands so that might have something to do with her attitude.  In the morning we went to Trader Joes to do our grocery shopping for the week.  It is never a good idea for two sleep deprived people to go to Trader Joes with a cranky baby with the intention of just "seeing what looks good".  We should have had more of a plan for what to buy.  Instead we ended up with a ham.  It is delicious ham, but it is a lot for two people to eat.  We're going to have to start getting creative with working ham into our dinner plans, especially since most of the tasty things I can think of with ham in them also contain large amounts of the forbidden dairy.  Sigh.  I am looking forward to making bean soup with the bone though - YUM!  Danger, of course, has been offering to help take some of that excess ham off our hands.  He goes NUTS at dinner time.

While Danger is a huge fan of the ham we brought home, he is less of a fan of the baby we keep bringing home.  I am not sure, but I think he might be starting to get a little jealous.  Although, he seems more jealous that she hogs the bouncy seat than that she hogs our attention:

Here he seems to be saying "who put that thing in my chair again?!"

In this picture the depressed kitty tries to get some attention but there is no love (and no bouncy seat) for the poor kitty.  Actually, despite Danger's assertions to the contrary, he is getting plenty of attention and lots of kitty treats (not to mention daily ham).  It is just really hard to please the kitty:

Anyway, Saturday afternoon we went to Babies R Us to look at car seats.  Right now we only have one car seat, so daycare drop off (done by Jeremy - I do the pick up) requires a car swap.  Since our current car seat is a loaner from friends who are having another baby in September (yay! baby!) we know we will have to invest in a new car seat by then.  We figured we'd go ahead and buy the car seat now and keep it in Jeremy's car to make the daycare drop off easier.  Since Phoebe is growing like a weed, we're going to go ahead and buy a convertible car seat rather than another infant one.  There are a lot of options.  Car seats are tricky.  There's the super-expensive ones that have been extensively crash tested, but you wonder are they really *that* much safer than the ones that cost $300 less?  Then you immediately feel horrible for being willing to potentially compromise your baby's safety to save $300.  After spending a long time at Babies R Us and reading a bunch of online reviews, I think we finally settled on a make/model of car seat.  It turns out that several other brands are just as safe (and much less expensive) as the fancy pants expensive brand.  Plus, if we wait until next weekend to actually buy the car seat we can use a coupon.  Double win.  Although, since we aren't going with the fancy brand, I have to give up on being able to order the seat in a print called "Cowmooflage".  You can talk yourself into an extra couple hundred bucks for safety, but not for cow-print fabric. 

After Phoebe's cranky day on Saturday we were reconsidering our "no selling the baby to the gypsies" policy.  True to form, Phoebe seems to be able to sense when she really needs to turn on the charm and Sunday was wonderful!  She woke up a little early so she and I came downstairs to let Jeremy sleep.  Phoebe was all smiles and giggles and then she decided to take a nap so we snuggled up on the couch and we both ended up getting another hour and a half of sleep!  Yay for long naps!  It was the first nap longer than 20 minutes that the fussers had taken in a long time.  It did wonders for both of our attitudes :)

After her big nap, Phoebe was super smiley and sweet for the rest of the morning.  She played, cooed, and was an all around amazing baby.  Deciding to press our luck, we took her out for lunch.  She ended up quietly napping through the whole meal!  After lunch we wandered around the farmers market for a bit.  After perusing the big displays of fresh organic veggies, we heard that the bakery was having a special - all pastries were 2 for $5 and cookies were 3 for $5 so ... we left the farmers market with nothing but a big sack of pastry and a side order of guilt.

On the way home from the farmers market we stopped by the beach for baby's first trip to the ocean!  (It is still kind of weird to think that we can just "stop by the ocean" on our way home).  At first Phoebe was not a fan:

But then we realized that she just didn't like the wind, so Jeremy zipped her inside his jacket and then she was fine.

I joked with Jeremy that when Phoebe looks at the pictures of her first three months, she is going to wonder why she didn't have a mom :)  Since I always have the camera, there are almost no pictures of the two of us.  Hopefully next weekend we'll get a few.  I also want to play around with the camera a little to see if I can get some really nice pictures of Phoebe.  We were going to take her somewhere to get fancy pictures taken, but given that we can never predict when she is going to be super-cranky it seemed best not to inflict her on the fine folks at the Sears portrait studio.  [Yes, I did just refer to the Sears portrait studio as "fancy"]

In other Phoebe news, the eye goop is back.  We ended up taking her to the pediatrician last Thursday because she woke up with her eye fused shut with goobers (I am sure that is the actual medical term).  The doctor said it is the same tear duct issue as before, so we're back to trying to put ointment in the baby's eyes twice a day.  I say trying because we're never sure how much actually ends up in her eye and how much gets smeared everywhere BUT her eye.  We try.  Phoebe is getting very good at avoiding eye ointment and getting her nose suctioned out.  She has learned that if I start coming at her with the nose syringe, she can just wildly flop her head back and forth.  We're still suctioning boogers because the poor little thing is still congested.  I brought up that she'd been congested for two weeks and the doctor just shrugged and was like "yeah, that's daycare for you".  Anyway, the most important thing we learned at the doctor is that our little munchkin is up to 13 pounds and 1 ounce!  She is getting so big!  Or, as Jeremy pointed out, she has gone from a "little bowling ball" to "one of the really heavy bowling balls".  He really has a way with words - so poetic :)

Wednesday

Today when I picked Phoebe up from her half-day at daycare they said "Phoebe sure has a lot of personality".  Yeah, personality, that's it.  Actually, I thought it was a good sign that they had found a good way to spin her cranky pants behavior.  Apparently she was on a bit of a nap strike today and when the baby doesn't nap, NOBODY is happy

After I pick Phoebe up on Wednesdays, we go to our age group class at Parents Place.  The nap strike continued until the very end when Phoebe slept for maybe 10 minutes.  Definitely not long enough to count as an actual nap.

The topic in class today was baby proofing - yikes!  There is so much we need to do in the next couple of months!

Anyway, after we got home, Phoebe continued to promote her no-nap platform right up until bedtime.

Thankfully she is now (finally) asleep.

PS. In case you were wondering why I coldly snapped photos while my baby was crying, let me assure you that Jeremy was doing his best to comfort her in all of these pictures.

Tuesday

Today was a pretty busy day around here.  Phoebe got up pretty early and it was my turn to take the morning shift, so we started with some tummy time on the Boppy

Here is Phoebe towards the end of tummy time - it is hard work for the baby!

Around 9:30 we left to go to a class at Parents Place.  Now I am going to take a little break from talking about Phoebe to talk about playing by the rules ...

When I was a youngster, my parents taught me to play by the rules.  Or, I guess to be precise, they taught me that you can't beat up little boys at preschool when they make you follow the rules for Chutes and Ladders.  I may have also announced in preschool that rules are "what you can't do when mom is home" so maybe I didn't completely absorb the lesson, but still, I have a general sense that things go better when we just all do what we're supposed to.  This is a lesson that should perhaps be taught at the California DMV along with things like "use your turn signal" - something else that Californians apparently never learned.

Today, on the way to Parents Place we hit a little road construction.  There were no fewer than FOUR signs alerting drivers to the fact that the left lane was ending so they should merge right.  When I saw the first sign, I waited for an opening and merged just as I got to the second sign.  If all of my fellow drivers had done this, traffic may have slowed a bit, but we would have all kept moving.  Instead, there was a major cluster-f*ck on the highway.  Why?  Because half the people on the road consider themselves too important to follow the rules.  There were actually people who swerved out of the right lane into the left lane so they could speed down the side of the highway to try to gain a couple of car lengths.  There were also a bunch of jerks who sped up the exit ramp on the far right, swerving back into the right lane at the last minute. 

This still wouldn't have been a disaster, but if half of Californians feel entitled to break the rules, the other half are so used to being terrorized by the first half that they end up making the problem worse!  Half the people in the right lane would get to the front of the pack, see all the cars speeding up the left lane and just sit there while they let 5-10 people from the left lane in.  I am sure that it was all they could do not to get out of their minivans and say "hey, while you're driving like a jerk and cutting me off, why don't you help yourself to my lunch money". 

Anyway, while a situation like this would normally rankle me a bit, with a crying baby in the car I found it even more intolerable than usual.  Typically, I will let anyone with a turn signal merge over after the first couple of signs but when it gets to the actual lane closing, I ride the bumper of the car in front of me preferring an accident to letting in the self-entitled jerks that sped up the closing lane.  With the baby in the car, I figured I needed to drive a bit more cautiously though and didn't even flip off the jackwagon in a pick up that cut in front of me even after I had already let another car in.  He had a decal Calvin peeing on something in his back windshield, so I figured his life was tragic enough already.  That's probably why he couldn't merge earlier.

Anyway, all of that to say we were late for our class because a stretch of highway that should have taken 2 minutes (or maybe 5-10 with construction) took over 20 minutes to get through.  Grrrr. 

Once we got to Parents Place, the class was good, and we met another baby that was born the same day as Phoebe - in the same hospital too! 

When we got back from Parent's Place, all three of us went to Chipotle for lunch.  Today a portion of the proceeds were going to the athletic department at my school, so we figured we HAD to eat burritos.  For the children.  We were only thinking of the children. 

When we got home, Phoebe and I hung out while Jeremy took a nap - he has been feeling a little under the weather.  Now that Phoebe is in daycare it looks like Jeremy and I are going to end up getting every icky kiddie illness out there.  I've started drinking Emergen-C every day, I figure my immune system needs all the help it can get! 

Constant illness aside, we do feel like we're getting a little better at figuring out life as parents.  We even managed to make chicken and sweet potato curry for dinner tonight which is officially the most involved dish that has been cooked in this house since Phoebe was born.  Of course, it did take three days to get it done.  I grocery shopped on Sunday, Jeremy chopped everything on Monday, and we finally got it cooked tonight. 

Well, I have to run because Phoebe just woke up crying which she almost never does after Jeremy gets her down for the night.  I'll leave you with a cute picture of Phoebe and her pre-bedtime daddy time tonight

Monday

Not too much to report here.  We're all pretty tired.  Jeremy pointed out that it is a good thing we live on the west coast because he never would have made it through the basketball game in the Eastern timezone.  We are definitely an early-to-bed family these days!

Here is a picture of Phoebe from this morning.  She is playing with a toy that our friend Maria sent her - one of the current favorites.  This particular toy is crinkly and has a squeaker in the middle - which really drives home just how little difference there is between a cat toy and a baby toy at this age.  I think we have something very similar for the kitties. 

Speaking of baby toys, the new bouncy chair is a big hit with everyone around here:

If you look closely, you can see that the vibration for the chair is turned on.  From the expression on Danger's face, I would guess that he thinks a little butt-vibration is the LEAST we owe him for bringing that baby into his house. 

When I picked Phoebe up at daycare today, they said "She likes to be held and talked to, doesn't she?".  Apparently she was a little needy today- but the teachers seemed to take it in stride.  One of them said she thinks it is proof that Phoebe is extra smart - of course we agree :)

 

Weekend Report

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days.  My laptop has been acting up and every once in a while it decides to take a little break.  We're not sure exactly what is wrong with it, but we're always able to get it up and running again after a little bit so for now we'll just cross our fingers and hope everything is ok.

Phoebe went to daycare for a full day again on Friday and seemed to have a great time.  When I picked her up, she was sound asleep and getting some snuggles.  They said she had a good day on Friday, but she has been kind of fussy all weekend.  We think that she must really like daycare and is a little frustrated to be stuck with the "amateurs" all weekend.  Sadly, I think I jinxed us by talking up Phoebe's new sleep habits.  Lately she has regressed to two middle of the night feedings.  One around 11 or so and then one around 3 or 4.  At least this weekend she has slept in a bit, so we're not having to get our day started at 5:30!

Bedtime is still pretty consistently between 7 and 8.  Phoebe loves bath time, so we use a nightly bath to break up the evening fussies - usually around 6:30 or so.  After bath and jammies we let her play until she gets tired.  Then it is time to get swaddled and read stories.  Some time in the middle of stories she'll start to get fussy again - then Jeremy works his magic to get her to sleep and down for the night.  We've started running the fan at night to provide a little white noise and that seems to help her sleep a little better.  Here are a couple of pictures from story time on Friday: (thank you Grandma Joyce for all of the books!  Phoebe really likes them - especially Brown Bear - I think Jeremy and I both have that one memorized now)

Saturday I volunteered to judge a robotics competition, so Jeremy had Phoebe all day from 8:30 - 2:30.  When I got home, he was a little frazzled - he had planned to make it to Trader Joe's to get our groceries for the week, but ended up home all day.  Like I said, Phoebe was pretty fussy all weekend.  To his credit though, Jeremy did get a bunch of laundry done and the bathrooms cleaned.  He also only needed a little break from the fussbudget before he was back to his regular self.  Saturday night we went for an early dinner with our friends Sathya and Leslie at the local deli.  Luckily that place is almost never crowded and they are very tolerant of the occasional baby outburst.  It is nice to feel like we can have a little bit of a life - even if we do have to make dinner plans for 4:30 PM.   Here is Phoebe responding to our request that she be on her best behavior at dinner:

The other exciting thing that happened on Friday, was Phoebe's new bouncy chair came in the mail.  When we were in Maryland, Phoebe borrowed her cousin Nathan's bouncy chair and she LOVED it.  Jeremy and I were a little skeptical at first because it is one of those bouncy chairs that includes lights and music (to this point we were pretty anti-toys that have lights and music), but like I said Phoebe LOVED it.  After watching her be entertained by the chair over and over, we decided we would get her one when we got back to California.  Of course, Fisher Price no longer makes the right model and the newer ones that we checked out at Babies R Us were not as nifty.  Luckily, we found the exact same chair on eBay:

You can see that Phoebe really likes her new toy!  From the parental perspective the great thing about this particular chair is that there is a volume control on the music!  Also, it is kind of neat - there are sensors by her feet and she has to kick to activate the lights and music.  And, (this is where we forfeit our shot at parents of the year) it is really nice that she can self-entertain for at least 15 minutes in this thing!  Not that we don't enjoy spending every minute of the day with our super-special little snowflake, but every once in a while we at least need a potty break ...

Phoebe is getting really good at grabbing things (and shoving them in her mouth).  This weekend she has also been working on her kicking skills and figuring out her feet in general.  She has started kicking at the little animals on her jungle gym:

Right now she is trapped in a battle to the death with the little monkey.  She grabs onto the little ring but then gets supremely frustrated when she can't get the monkey into her mouth.  Jeremy is taking pity on her and bending the side of the jungle gym down so she can get in a couple of good monkey chomps.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!  Welcome to April!

Congratulations Jeremy!

I know that everyone comes here for Phoebe pictures, but I have to take a minute to congratulate my awesome husband on:
(1) Earning all A's last semester
(2) Getting picked for a really great (local) summer internship program

I am really impressed with how much he has accomplished since starting school this fall - especially with Phoebe added to the mix.  On top of doing great in school, Jeremy is amazing with Phoebe - he takes on the pre-bedtime fussies every night and manages to get the baby to sleep.  That might be his most impressive accomplishment :)