Fly me!!

High baby

Uncle Matt and Aunt Carrie

Playing with my baby

Daddy cuddles

A rare photo with me in it

Thanks for all the photos cece!

Opening presents

Headed to the park

Happy Birthday Baby

A day late, but here's my cutie at her birthday party:

Looks like she's enjoying that cake, huh? Unfortunately when we washed it off of her she had hives everywhere it had touched(!!). The pediatrician says it was probably the egg whites... we'll have to run some experiments to see for sure. In other unfortunate birthday news for my baby, we took her to the doctor for her check up on Tuesday and they gave her four shots. Good thing she didn't realize it was supposed to be the day we're extra nice to her. On the fun size, she's 70th percentile for weight, and above the highest line (>97th percentile) for height. We shall call her Stretch.

You saw the photos in a previous entry from our adventure in vaccination. The county of Santa Clara was having a vaccination clinic for swine flu. We waited in line for an hour and 45 minutes (well, actually, I waited in line while Chris ran around with the baby getting coffee and such) but finally got a shot for her. Chris and I were ineligible due to our advanced age. Anyway, Geneva was very brave and only cried a little when she got her shot, but was quickly distracted. But it really got to me how all the little kids were crying so hard in that big room while all getting their shots. In particular there was a woman next to us with two little girls, and one got her shot and was screaming and wanting mommy to hold her, while mommy was trying to hold girl #2, who was screaming because she had a good idea what was coming. It just seemed so sad to me. Whew... mommy hormones are something else.

On Sunday we actually did something kinda fun for her. We went to Hidden Villa and took a little hike and looked at all the farm animals. Makes me want to move to the country. Or at least Los Altos Hills.

From OctNov2009

She doesn't know a shot is in her future

The line for swine flu shots

Sleeping

About a week ago, I had reached the end of my rope regarding the baby's sleeping habits. She was waking up several times in the middle of the night and we'd have to feed her and she didn't want to go back to sleep in her crib and it hadn't been getting any better and I was exhausted... so last Monday night? Tuesday night? I made Chris help me make a plan. We had this extensive plan for how we were going to gradually wean the baby off of night bottles, then night feedings, then night wakings. It was going to take awhile, but I was committed because I sure was tired. So tired in fact, that I couldn't bear to implement the plan that very night, so it would wait for the next night. And by the way, it sure had been getting cold at night, maybe we better turn the heat on?

That night, and every night since, she's slept like the proverbial baby. Maybe it was just time. Maybe it was finally warm enough that she could sleep well. Who knows. Last night she slept straight through from 8:30 until 6:15. Woo hoo! Of course I'm still tired because I stayed up too late reading, but there's no one to blame but myself for that one.

An excellent result of all this good sleeping is that when she wakes up in the morning, she and I are both in great moods. (This was not at all the case on both counts when she wasn't sleeping well.... Chris and I learned about ourselves that we are neither patient, nor nice to each other when we're exhausted and its the middle of the night.) Now she wakes up in the morning and starts giggling and exploring and running (yes running!) all over the house and it's just incredibly fun. On the other hand, something to do with all this spurt of growth and activity, she's become very anxious about separation from mommy. Which is kind of cute for now because she's super cuddly and I love to feel so needed. I'm sure it'll get tiring at some point. Her daycare has no problem with it of course. They grab her from me and have her distracted almost before she can draw breath to get a good wail in...

In our limited free time (that is, on the weekends) we continue to go to the farmers' market and playgrounds. I've been cooking more because it's just so much easier to not try to deal with the baby in a restaurant. Chris took an extreme driving clinic last weekend and learned to drive our car like an auto-crosser, which he said was extremely fun. We went to a 1st birthday party for one of the other kids in Geneva's daycare class and this party was a notable exception to her usual separation anxiety. We walked in the door, she took one look at all the kids running around, and she squirmed to get down and we spent the next hours struggling to keep her in our sight. She just loves to play with other kids.

Cheerio bandit

*This caption stolen from She Who Is A Genius And Took The Photo In The First Place a.k.a. Anne.

Overalls

Accent game

I thought this accent game was kind of fun. I got a 33, which I thought was pretty good, but I'm just dreadful at identifying non-north-american but native english speaking accents.

Walking Video

I'm loving my iPhone video camera. That's why there's an increasing number of videos on this site, like the one above!

Chris and I have been off on our last bit of maternity/paternity leave for the last two weeks. Gonna be sad to have to go back to work tomorrow!