Life Just Keeps Getting Better

Or at least that is what I tell myself to get through the early morning awakenings that have been going on for a week or so now. I chalk it up to the fact that Julia feels like there is just too much going on in the world for her to miss out on a minute of it. But her mama knows better; if you let the girl come to bed with you or hold her in your arms on the couch, she will sleep for another two hours. It is really cute to see, especially when she starts dreaming and smiling in her sleep. That is something that I haven't seen since she was really little.

We did our unofficial weighing last week and she is up to 17.6 lbs. I don't know how long she is, but some of her jeans are finally starting to look like they are the right length. I guess that is what happens when you make your 7 month old wear 9 month old clothes. Some of her newest tricks include turning the pages of the book you are reading to her, pausing in her enjoyment of the book to look up at me, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees, and moving quickly from sitting onto her hands and knees. She still will only go in reverse, but seems quite content with that. Actually she seems pretty happy just to rock back and forth. Meanwhile the other little bambinos in her group are crawling and cruising all around. We recently started three meals a day (although mama has to make her some protein foods) and on Monday she will start sleeping on a mat at school. We will see how much that upsets the nighttime sleeping.

We had a wonderful vacation in Oregon with Dan's family from Olympia. Julia was fascinated with her cousins, Clare and Ed. She also enjoyed watching dogs and birds at the beach and managed to stay awake for the entire return leg of our hike out to Cape Lookout. She was not too impressed with the traffic on the way home though and we took her around downtown Chehalis to calm her down. But she did well on her first road trip, despite her nasty cold and a suspect case of pink eye (I think it was part of the cold, but daycare disagreed). We're into our own Christmas rush now, with only two weeks to go before we leave for Baltimore and other points east. Which means two more weeks to get the shopping done, presents shipped, and all the experiments done at work. With the snowstorm here earlier in the week, it has put me a little bit behind at work. But it was nice to have a day off to spend with Julia. I think she enjoyed it too.

Thanksgiving Weekend in Oceanside, OR

Admiring the view with Dad on Thanksgiving.

View from the living room window.

Relaxing with Mom before heading out for a morning hike.

Keeping warm on the beach near Cape Kiwanda.

Looking south from Cape Kiwanda.

Seastack near Cape Kiwanda.

Cape Meares, Oceanside and Netarts Bay from the Cape Lookout Trail.

Munching on a pear at the end of the Cape Lookout Trail.

View south toward Cape Kiwanda from Cape Lookout.

Enjoying the ride.

Utter Bliss and Ambitiousness

Things have been a little crazy here lately. Julia's first teeth have started coming in and they don't seem to bother her too much. Unless the current refusing to fall asleep for forty minutes is because of her teeth. It doesn't seem to be because rubbing her gums or giving her a cold washcloth or teether doesn't seem to help. Maybe she has decided that she just doesn't want to sleep anymore? Or maybe she has been getting too many co-sleeping ideas from one of her bedtime stories? The little book is cute, but all of the little baby animals get to sleep snuggled up next to their mothers. Except for the little human baby. Of course that baby just closes her eyes and falls fast asleep.

But there have been so many nice things to offset the trying times. We see so little of Julia awake these days that I am almost glad for the 5am feedings. Everything is quiet (except for the cat), Julia just snuggles into my arms, nurses eagerly, then falls asleep with a smile on her face. It is so nice. And it is nice being wanted by her too, especially when I come home from running errands on the weekend and see how excited she gets to see me. She is trying mightly to figure out foward crawling, but isn't ready to take the risk of moving her arms forward. She has almost achieved the downward dog position though. I think that girl has yoga in her future!

Another nice thing has been my Sunday afternoons. We decided that at some point on Sunday I will take Julia with me to run errands. Then when we get back, I can go for a walk, find a coffee shop, and knit for a couple of hours while Dan and Julia play. So nice to have a break! And this way we both get a break for a little while on the weekend.

And finally, someone asked us the other day how we handle dinners when we get home from work. I said that we made up a menu for the week (most weeks) and pretty much made dinner every night and ate with Julia. This person remarked that it was rather ambitious of us and that comment gave me pause. It never occurred to me to do any differently. I think I could count on one hand the number of times my family ate out growing up (if I'm wrong, please correct me Mom). It always seemed that my parents made dinner for us and we all ate together. So I don't see why I should do it any differently. But maybe I am crazy for thinking this way?

Halloween Antics

Looking pretty for the camera before school...

Before we left for the Queen Anne Halloween Walk

Later that night, all hopped up on candy! =)

I love you, now never leave me.....

Yes, we have been dealing with a little bit of separation anxiety here in the Klein household. Not on my part, but on Julia's. There are some moments where she absolutely needs to be on my hip or in my arms. Just seeing me or being next to me while Dan holds her is not enough. I thought that when we visited family back in Baltimore her anxiety was bad, but this is much worse. She usually takes a bath with Dan every night, but now, if she even hears my voice or catches a glimpse of me from the bathroom, the bath must end immediately. It is nice to feel so needed, and as my mom said, "It will not last forever and there will be a day when she doesn't want to be held by you anymore". So I am cherishing it now, even though it is slightly annoying at times. The worst part is how bad I feel for Dan, especially when she tries to lunge out of his arms to get to me.
Add this to the fact that he has had to give up watching MNF because of its move to ESPN and because Julia's bedtime coincides with the game and I think that he is feeling pretty bad lately.

But in other news, Julia turned seven months old today!!! We took her to the doctor last week for her lower gi issues (which have resolved after giving her a probiotic thank you very much), and she weighed 16lbs, 1oz. So she hasn't doubled her birth weight, but she is still gaining. She has been scooting backwards on her belly like a pro for weeks now and recently seems to be getting tired of going backwards all the time. So tonight for the first time, she pushed up even further and tentatively tried out being on her knees. It was so funny to watch! We will have to get the childproofing finished or else she is going to be into everything!

Her other big achievement is the babbling. As we were leaving school the other day, she just started to say "bla, bla, bla, ba, ma". Like she has been doing it all along. And like I completely understood her. Sometimes she moves her mouth, but no sound comes out. But the best times are on the car ride home. Dan and I will be talking science in the front seat and from the back we hear, "Blah, blah, blah, blah..." Then when we look back, Julia has fallen dead asleep. I don't guess that she will be a scientist.

We don't have too many pictures as life has kept us busy and the camera batteries always seem to be dead lately. But here are a few gems....

This hat is just a wee bit too small, but I'll smile anyway!

Finally, they are feeding me again!

Mmmm....carrots.

A Little Fall Spirit

We took Julia to a farm this weekend, the South 47. And while we didn't do the corn maze, we still found enough there to keep us entertained for a few hours. We wandered through the pumpkin patch and marveled at all the other kids there. It is hard to imagine that sooner rather than later, our little Julia will be one of the toddlers running around, looking for a silly-looking pumpkin. We took her to see the ducks and some pygmy goats. She was absolutely fascinated by the ducks and rendered speechless. I think she was amazed that there exists another animal in the world besides Sierra the cat. We stood her up next to the wooden yardstick to see how tall she was. The answer: not very. We also showed her all of the exotic pumpkins and found a small pumpkin for her very own jack-o-lantern.

The rest of the weekend we spent trying to get Julia to sleep and comforting her when she wouldn't sleep. She had a fever Saturday night that then led to some lower g.i. issues. It is hard to see her sick and not feeling good, but it is also so nice to have her snuggle in my arms too. On Sunday night, before she woke up four times, I held her in my arms after nursing her in the darkness of the living room. And as she lay there I thought back to one of the first mornings I had with her when my mom was in town. That particular night had been really rough and it ended with Julia only wanting to sleep in my arms on the couch. As I held the 6 month old Julia in my arms I marveled at how quickly she has grown up from that little newborn. And I have to admit, that on some level, I miss feeding her in the middle of the night. It is so nice to have her all snuggled in my arms and sleeping quietly.

Tonight I finished seaming her purple sweater that I had started after she was born. I need to find some buttons for it though. When I was a kid I loved to look through my mother's buttons in her sewing basket. I think that a local bank had given away small containers of buttons as a promotion once and my mom had four of them. I would open each box and pour through the buttons; finding ones that matched, grouping them by their designs. When I left for graduate school I took one of the button boxes with me and I started my own button stash. I put in the leftover buttons from projects, like the silver star buttons from a curtain I made in New Haven. There are also the extra buttons that come with your pants or shirts. And then there are the buttons that I buy when they are on sale. I found the cutest little bunny buttons that are crying out to be put onto an Easter sweater. And I have some little pink plumeria flower buttons that either need a sweater or some delicate shoes to grace. But I couldn't find any buttons for the purple sweater. Maybe at the knitting store near work, where they have three boxes of buttons to pour through, all arranged by color.

Anyway, here are some picture, which is what I know everyone is coming for anyway.

Oh! What a glorious Pumpkin!

I'm tall enough for the ride!

Are you sure those are pumpkins?

Hanging out with Mom and Dad on the couch....

Some Six Month Stats

Julia had her six month checkup awhile ago now, but here is what the doc said: She is 15lbs 10oz and 26.5inches long. I think she weighs more now and the doc had to measure her three times to get the 26.5 number. It seems like she might turn out to be long and slender like her dad though. She took her shots like a champ and weathered them much better this time than last. The doc said not to worry about her rolling over, but then the day after her official six month birthday she rolled over twice. We have only seen her do it once more since then, but last night I caught her in the crib trying to roll over from her back to her stomach. Or at least practicing it. Made for an interesting 45 minutes.

Life has generally been pretty good. Julia has warmed up to solid foods, using her fingers to help her suck down more food. We think she might be allergic to either bananas or green beans. Her poor little bottom is so sore and red and her poops have been very odd for the last 24 hours. I hope it isn't the green beans, because she seemed to like eating those more than the banana. The banana she kept spitting out and pushing away. She has been such a joy the last few weeks though.

We're trying to decide if we need to move to a bigger place. The abode, while easy to keep clean, has been feeling cramped at times. Plus the wet season is coming back and it seems as if the mold is promising to be worse this year than others. We haven't found anything yet that would allow a small cat, but we will keep looking. Anyway, enjoy the pictures!!!

Sittin' in the high chair! Where's the food?

She toppled from sitting to this position...and didn't seem to mind!

Sitting up like a big girl!

Our PEPS group at the BBQ two weeks ago

PEPS BBQ

We had a BBQ yesterday with our PEPS group to celebrate the end of summer. It was a lot of fun, especially to see how all of the babies have changed since we started back in June. Julia had a good time I think; she even spent some time on the floor with the other babies. She didn't hold her head up much and spent most of the time rocking forward and backward on her belly. Some of the other babies, in addition to rolling over, at starting to get up on their knees and try crawling forward. Our girl can grab cheerios though, and is saying boo more and more. She has also really improved at sitting up and can be left alone now in the boppy to play for a little while.

We started solids too. She seems to really like sweet potatoes and hasn't really warmed up to carrots yet. Cereal is best liked in the evening...she really is uninterested in food in the morning. Julia does love to grab the spoon out of your hand though and put it into her mouth. She also likes to smear the food on her face, her feet, her pants, the highchair tray, and tonight, her eyes. Luckily she still loves to take a bath so we can get her clean each evening. I have some pictures of her eating, but they haven't been downloaded yet.

I really love these pictures that our PEPS leader took. Julia just looks so beautiful. But then again, I am a little biased. People are starting to say that she looks more and more like Dan and I have to agree. Something about her eyes reminds me of him.

Julia, the Cross-Country Traveller

Julia had another first in the last two weeks...her first plane ride! She did very well on the four planes that we flew on, two each way to Baltimore and back. We went to visit Dan's family and celebrate his brother Patrick's wedding. So Julia travelled more than 6000 miles and added an aunt to her family tree all in one week. She never did seem to adjust to the time change and now she has started waking up at night again. Hopefully it will not take too long before she remembers how to settle herself back into sleep.

Playing with great-Granddad Klein on the floor!

All dressed and ready to go to the wedding! Didn't Aunt Anne make a great dress?

She looks happy now and later on in the evening her father caught her dancing on a table!

The day after the party with Uncle Pat and Aunt Lizzie

We are still waiting for those teeth to make more of an appearance. They are just flirting with coming out; at least they don't seem to be causing her much pain. We started her on rice cereal when we got back from Baltimore....we have pictures but they haven't been downloaded yet. She doesn't seem too thrilled with it, nor with the sweet potatoes I gave her tonight. I think the novelty of solid food has worn off and she is just kind of confused about it now. She does like to move her little mouth as though she is chewing and has also started to experiment with blowing the food out of her mouth. I think that we will need a raincoat for her before too much longer. Or maybe one just for me.

We had some unexpected news when we got home from Baltimore....the basement of the house was flooded again and this time it didn't seem to be going away. Turns out that the plumbing for the house is all wonky and the pipes have been completely invaded by tree roots. So we had to pack our bags again on Tuesday (just eight hours after being home) and head out to a hotel for two nights. I don't think that all the moving around is helping Julia's sleeping, but it cannot be helped. Thankfully the plumbers fixed the problem (and introduced two new leaks in the process) and we are back at home.

Julia took right back to daycare like she never left. She has been doing really well there and everyone thinks she is the sweetest thing. Mike mentions how she gets this look like she is going to burst out with something really important, then....crickets. She doesn't say anything. She has been perfecting her "boo" though as well as the "bppppt" sound that produces raspberries and allows her to spit out her pacifier with great force. Everyday just gets better and better.

We have a few more big events coming up soon. I'm taking Julia along with me on my departmental retreat in Leavenworth, WA on Wednesday. Then next week Dan goes on his retreat in Blaine, WA and the girls will be alone. We have two more PEPS meetings and a BBQ planned as well. Plus on Friday we get to see all of the little babies that were in childbirth class with us. Hopefully we can get another couch line-up shot!

5 Months Down!

Here we are, five months into this parenting thing and we are still figuring things out. Dan has been starting to feel better, just in time for Julia to be coming down with her second daycare cold. Hopefully we won't catch this one. The last one threw us for such a loop. We are also hoping that this cold does not result in another ear infection for Julia. Here are some home-measured five month stats: weight 15 lbs, 10 oz; height 26 in; smiles: always large, but not always freely given. She has also started to have some little teeth budding in those bottom gums. Neither Dan or I can remember when we had our teeth first come in, so we are going to assume she is right on track on the tooth front. They haven't given her alot of trouble yet, although she was sent home from daycare for being inconsolable. We are not sure if the teeth were the culprit though, because she had also broken out in a rash the day before. Apparently babies are constantly getting strange rashes...not too comforting though since she can be sent home for mysterious rashes.

Tomorrow we take our first plane flight with Julia. We are travelling to Baltimore to see the Beusch and Klein families and to celebrate Patrick and Lizzie getting married on Saturday. Aunt Anne finished Julia's dress and it is waiting at Nannie Klein's house. I am still working on the sweater that I started back in July. So far it still resembles a tube top, but I am optimistic. Maybe overly so, but optimistic nonetheless. Our bags are packed, the pacifiers are washed, and we are just racking our brains trying to think of anything else we might need to do before we can go to bed.

Julia has been getting more and more distracted when she is nursing lately. Which translates into waking up at least once during the night to eat. Mike at daycare says that she has also been pretty distracted for him, which makes me feel a little better. She has been trying hard to attempt rolling over, but is not quite there yet. She has started to scoot herself forward though when on her tummy...she ends up dragging her face along the floor, which doesn't look too comfortable. And finally, we bought her an excersaucer which she just loves. When we picked her up from daycare today she spent more time saying goodbye to the exersaucer there than goodbye to Mike. Anyway, some pictures of the cute one...

Dan and Julia on our picnic in Parsons Gardens

Trying to eat those keys, while making sure the beaver doesn't escape

Gramma and Grandpa sent all of this for me?!?!

Touch your toes!

20 Weeks Old!

Well, our luck just keeps getting better and better. Julia finally started sleeping through the night again, but only because her ear drum ruptured and relieved that incredible pain she must have been suffering from. Which explains why we had a very cranky babe in the evenings and one who was not smiling when she woke up in the morning. So she is getting through her first ear infection. After weathering her first cold and stomach virus, this is much harder. Mostly because it involves giving her medicine three times a day. And most of the medicine ends up on her shirt, my sweater, the burp cloth, her neck folds, etc. But she must be feeling better because we have our smiling babe in the morning again. She has definitely been hungrier as well, waking the last two nights to eat ravenously. I tell her that waking is okay, as long as it is to eat and not just get back to sleep. Hopefully she will start eating more at daycare and stop the waking thing.
Because Mom and Dad are still suffering from the head colds of last week. Actually, I think that I got a new one, but I cannot tell the difference. But she is in such better spirits now that I don't mind getting up to feed her once at night. Plus it is usually 8 hours since her last feeding of the evening so she is still technically sleeping through the night. But things are getting better, if only slowly. The second invasion of the fleas has only resulted in seven bites on my person, much better than the 50 I got the first time. We get to go on a mini-vacation in three weeks for a wedding, where Julia will wear a really cute dress made by my ever so talented Aunt Anne. She designed and made my wedding dress, which was spectacular, so I know that she will do a good job. I've started on my sweater for said wedding and am desparately hoping that I finish it in time. I might have to start staying up later to work on it. We're about to finish the Sunday crossword, which never happens. And the weather here has been great!

Anyway, here are some more pictures for your viewing pleasure....

So thoughtful and pensive...she's wondering when is the milk coming?

Why do they make me ride in this thing?

I'm all ready for school! Let's go while I'm still happy!

4 Month Statistics

Well, we took her back to the doctor for her shots and found out that she weighs 14 lbs, 5 oz and is 25" long. Which means she dropped back into the 75% for her age, which the doc seemed fine with. I guess it would have been bad if she dropped below 75%. She took her shots like a trooper, but had a worse reaction to this set than the last ones. The crankiness was so bad that I brought her home early from daycare the next day. Then she seemed to be herself for Thursday and Friday. We headed home Friday night in high spirits, looking forward to our weekend. But it seems as though events continue to conspire against us, with all three of us coming down with the worst viral infection I have ever seen. Julia has recovered fully, except for the cough and the runny nose, I am on the mend with a cough, runny nose, and extreme fatigue, but Dan has been laid low by vomiting and diarrhea. It is not pretty. Seems like all of the little kids in the Treefrog classroom shared the same virus though, so at least we are not alone in our misery.
Scratch that, we are kind of alone in our misery. It is great to be able to call my mom at 4am our time and get advice from her, but it is not the same as dropping by with Julia for Auntie Em to play with while I take a nap. And I could have used my dad's help in bringing the garbage can around to the street. I think that this episode has just further confirmed to us that we want to move back closer to family asap. I only have another year left for the traineeship payback and then we will be out of here. It has been a nice vacation, but at some point you want to go home.
The one saving grace in all of these bad weekends has been Julia. It has been so great to take some time and play with her, try to get her to laugh, etc. It just makes you forget about all of the rest of the stuff you have to deal with when trying to work and parent at the same time. I start to feel like I am doing neither one well, but then she wants to snuggle with me when she doesn't feel good and I feel like the best mom in the world. Dan took some funny pictures of her last weekend...

Lather for 15 Minutes

I do not recommend starting work after maternity leave and discovering that your cat has fleas in the same week. It makes for a lot of laundry, an angry set of parents, a very wet and upset cat, and a little girl who didn't get much attention last weekend. My first full week back to work was made extremely stressful by said fleas. It didn't help that we didn't discover the fleas until about 5pm on Saturday...too late to get some flea medicine from a vet. Instead Dan went to the local pet store and came back with some shampoo, a food additive, and a sheet of information. The shampoo would "sorta work" according to the clerk; she swore by the food additive, saying that in three weeks our cat would taste really bad to the fleas and they would leave her alone. Which is great, but we needed to get rid of the fleas immediately. I hate bugs. Especially the kind that can bite me and cause horrible allergic reactions. Like fleas.
So we dutifully shampooed the cat. Twice. The directions said that the cat must be lathered for 5 to 15 minutes in order to kill the fleas. So we thought it had been five minutes....Sierra certainly thought it had been because she tore up my arm trying to get out of the tub. There were no fleas in the water so we thought maybe the infestation was not so bad. We started to towel her off and noticed that the fleas were still crawling through her fur. So we clipped her claws and Dan got suited up for cat holding duties. This involved wearing some ski gloves and gaiters to cover his arms. We then rebathed the cat and spent another 30 minutes pulling fleas off of her and drowning them. The poor cat looked so miserable and I started to cry about the whole thing. We then had to clean up the bathroom and find some sheets so that we could go to sleep that night. Earlier we had hauled every piece of soft furnishing into the basement to be washed in hot water. Twice. All this while the baby girl slept on the other side of the bathroom wall. It is a miracle that she didn't wake up.
We finally got some flea medicine the next day, after doing a lot of reading about how if you want to get rid of fleas you have to use some medicine because while the food additive is nice, it is not going to eradicate the fleas. Apparently the little devils have been laying eggs all around the house, wherever Sierra likes to spend some time. So we have to treat the house too in order to get rid of the fleas. And oh by the way, anything you do will take at least 3 to 6 weeks to work given the life cycle of the flea. Great. More laundry.
So now, after vacuuming the apartment three times, throwing away the bag each time, debating the merits of flea spray versus flea powder, talking to two vet assistants about how to best rid ourselves of fleas, calling the poison control center about the hazards of flea powder in the carpet, more reading of webpages about the life cycle of the flea and all the horrible diseases they carry, searching Julia from head to toe looking for bites (two found so far), 50 bites covering my legs and stomach, getting Benadryl cream in the middle of the night to keep the bites from driving me crazy, and keeping the cat in semi-quarantine in the bathroom, we still have fleas. I didn't get any new bites today, but I will most likely have at least one more before I wake up in the morning. Oh, and we have lots of laundry to do.

Things that did go well in the last two weeks:
1) Julia's adaptation to daycare...on Friday she took 11.5 oz from 4 bottles during the day!
2) My biking to and from work from the Hutch...only takes 20 minutes and it makes me feel really good.
3) Visited with Dan's Aunt Barbara and Uncle Don from DC and had a nice time with them.
4) Got rid of the "mushy brain" feeling after three days at work and actually did an experiment.
5) Dan's paper was accepted into Science
6) Finished a sweater for Julia and promptly started another as well as a lace scarf for my mom.
7) Julia remaining a pretty good sport as she suffers through her first cold.

Things that did not go so well:
1) the fleas
2) biking through creosote smoke to get to work after a huge dock fire on Lake Union
3) Julia getting a very stuffy nose and bad sounding cough that is either a cold or a nascent ear infection.
4) the fleas and the immense load of laundry they create...we had to throw away our two best feather pillows.


Anyway, here's to a better week ahead (birthday and massage on Sunday!!!) and fewer fleas.

More Pictures..words to come later

Does she look good in purple or what?

Mmmm...a thumb and a Charley horse!

Yeah, I can grab things!

Just hanging out on the 4th of July

Waiting for the BBQ to begin after the soccer game