We've Moved!

After a month-long hiatus from blogging, I'm back. Things got kind of exciting near the end of May when we finally found a GREAT place to move to. We're renting a 3-bedroom house with a backyard and garage (if you can't read between the lines, that means we now have an office and storage space!!!), and wouldn't you know it, my favorite flower is growing right by the front door. Squeak is enjoying the extra space to explore, and also having her own room and not a corner of our "storage room" with boxes on one side, food storage on the other, and bikes on the ceiling. D's enjoying doing all the work unpacking (he really has done all the work), and I'm enjoying having air conditioning. We found out a week before moving out of our apartment that the air conditioner had been broken the whole time we lived there (since the end of last August). I thought I was just being a whiner about the heat, but when D's classes ended and he was home during the day, he said it really was hot and that we should have maintenance check it out. Broken compressor, and when they brought in a portable A/C unit to get us through that last week, the temp registered at 90 degrees in our bedroom. No wonder I was using all the ice faster than our ice maker could make it! We had the thermostat at 80 and I just assumed that 80 was supposed to feel that hot. We have it at 80 in our new place, and I almost feel cold sometimes! Of course, going outside is a different story--today's high was 110 and the heat is so stifling I can hardly breathe (and to think I used to go into the sauna by choice!), so I've even resorted to running on the treadmill--D has a gym membership nearby that only costs us about $40,000 per year, so we might as well take advantage of it!

Everyone Needs a Vacation

Hamming it up for her Great-grandparents

Puppies!

Peek-a-boo with Aaron and Elise

Tulips!

Look, friends!

Making eyes at Grandpa and Leetsy-Boy

Stewart Falls hike

Four-generation photo

Fun with Grandpa

Little James was all over that tractor

Kora had a birthday!
Check out the beast of burden at the airport!!

Squeak was pretty excited about the younger (but bigger) baby

HypnoBirthing Mommas!

Auntie Maggie with La Squeak

Yes, we all need a vacation from something. In my case, I needed a respite from loneliness. So at the end of April, I went to see family in Utah, where it was unseasonably warm. It got cold again after I left (good thing, since I had only packed a fleece). It was lovely--I spent time with D's family and my family and even some friends. The reminder that I do, indeed, have friends was splendid. Squeak really enjoyed bonding with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. I really enjoyed the adult companionship and teaching my first HypnoBirthing class.

Great News!

There she is, expending energy like she always does

Squeak eating her favorite thing--cheese!
(I mean, her favorite thing besides breastmilk)

Squeak hoping for a bird lunch

Failure to Thrive. "That's a funny way to put it, isn't it?" was what D said when we looked at what the doc had written about Squeak after her check-up at 10 months. She weighed 15 pounds. Now, that may not sound so bad unless you know that she weighed 8'12" at birth and 16 pounds at 4 months. Needless to say, I was a bit stressed because I had been working pretty hard to get her to gain weight since two months before when she was tall but on the thin side. So two months of effort and the result was failure to thrive. I decided to really dedicate myself to Squeak's new diet, so D looked up all the high-calorie foods appropriate for babies, and the low-calorie foods so I'd know what to avoid, and we put her on a strict weight-gaining diet. Lots of avocados, cheese, yams, bananas, and full fat cottage cheese and yogurt. No more peas, carrots, green beans, or squash (unless they were served as a small side dish). I started feeding her six times a day, three meals of solids and three of breast milk (breast milk is one of the best on the high-calorie list). And we prayed that she'd start sleeping more hours so she'd spend less time awake expending all that energy. Our prayers were answered. The doc ordered some tests (urinalysis, cystic fibrosis) which came out negative. We think she's just so busy-body that she burns everything she eats. I mean, I'm almost failing to thrive trying to keep up with her! Anyway, so I've been weighing her about once a week to see if I'm working hard enough. Well, she broke 18 pounds!! She actually weighed 18.4 pounds yesterday. My goal is to get her to 20 pounds by her first birthday on the 22nd. We'll see! I'm just thrilled to report her weight because it's what I spend most of my time on.

Makes me feel a little bit better about not bringing home the bacon anymore

Here's a cute little article about what a mom is worth. D's comment was, "I really couldn't pay you enough for what you do." Awwww... My favorite job description is "laundry machine operator." But they forgot about wet nurse! I think that's worth at least $25K more per year, since I spent around 8 hours per day doing it in the early months.

Easter Feast

We continued our family tradition of delicious middle eastern food by having an Easter feast with my bro and his family. Yummy pocket bread, lentils, bulgar wheat, haroset, hummus, cucumber-dill yogurt, dried fruit, grape juice, and nuts. Somehow, we forgot to serve the dates, but we're enjoying them now! By the end of the feast most of us were overstuffed and sprawled on the floor. Squeak watched us from the pack-n-play.

La Princesa

We did a little photo shoot when my mom came to visit. Check out her parade wave!

First Camping Trip

D had a school break a few weeks ago and we went camping for the first time together, and also for the first time with a baby. Squeak did surprisingly well--she got more sleep than we did because we kept waking up from the wind whipping the tent around. We didn't have a baby sleeping bag, but we put her in her little snow suit and she was warm all night. S enjoyed the sound she could make as she brushed her hand against the tent wall. We enjoyed looking at her bed head in the morning.

So proud of herself!

She's on the move like never before. Just recently, Squeak discovered that those shiny knobs on the bathroom cabinets can open and close them! Just wait till she discovers the exciting things inside (for the moment, she's content to enjoy the sound they make as they bang shut). We've made some progress on teaching her that the stereo is off-limits (I purposely left it on the low shelf for training purposes)--she hardly ever goes for it anymore. She is learning the art of "the wave"--we think she'd make a great parade queen. Well, Squeak just keeps getting more fun. We're so glad she's ours!!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I'll scan and upload that photo later...

Skipping Steps

Once, when I was six years old, I was running down the stairs, skipping steps, at our big blue house on the way to get my big wheel. Well, I slipped and fell, hitting my head on the hard cement stairs. My dad carried me over to the hospital across the street where I got six stitches. Skipping steps that day proved to be painful, but it didn't dissuade me from doing it again. Now I have a daughter who likes to skip steps (my girl looks just like her dad, but her personality is all me). Squeak is skipping steps figuratively, not literally, but it's pretty funny. She was crawling months before she could even sit up--at first she did the low crawl (aka the army crawl) but then she moved on to the regular crawl, and then she learned to sit up. Funny girl! And now she's climbing before she can even walk. D proudly says that he did that too. But today was the most astounding of all feats--she pooped in the toilet before ever peeing in the toilet. Wow, what an amazing kid!