Krista Is a Mom

3-year and 1-year stats

2011-06-29T07:47:00.001-07:00

Last week Molly and Penny both went in for checkups. Here are the numbers:

Molly (at 3 years)
35 lbs (85th percentile)
39.25 inches (90th percentile) I prefer to say she's 3'3"
BMI (WHAT??? They do that for kids. Ok--I'll just record it in case I'm ever wondering) is 16 (55th percentile).

Penny (13 months)
22 lbs 6 oz (60th percentile)--she's getting skinny, probably because she won't eat anything except breast milk and watermelon and kefir (and any kind of Indian curry with rice)
31" (90th percentile). She's tall, though!
head circumference 18.5" (90th) and she has a big head.

Her tall, skinny, big-headed frame is not keeping her from toddling around. The kid can scoot really quickly. Yesterday she took one teeny tiny step. She can walk really quickly holding someone's hand.

raw kale salad

2011-06-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

I discovered this salad a while back in Vegetarian Times, and we love it. It's really easy to make, and it is very nourishing as well. Last night I dressed it up with a raw beet and carrot salad I made a couple of days ago (just shredded vegetables with some oil, vinegar, cumin, salt, and fresh herbs) and some pumpkin seeds. We usually just eat it plain, though.

1 bunch kale, stemmed and torn into pieces
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt

Dressing:
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 Tbsp lemon zest
1/2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp honey or other sweetener

Place kale in large bowl with olive oil, vinegar, and salt. Massage a few minutes until kale starts to wilt. Let sit on counter for about 30 minutes. Whisk together dressing and pour over kale. We usually have enough for two days of salad--it keeps surprisingly well.

new sauerkraut and kombucha

2011-06-01T19:20:00.000-07:00

I got a bok choy in my CSA box last week. Bill spent a couple of weeks in China and Hong Kong a few years ago, and he has since not been a big fan of bok choy (really the only food he has an aversion to). When I was pregnant with Penny, bok choy for some reason completely repulsed me, and it still does somewhat (really the only food I have an aversion to). I decided to, of course, ferment it. I got the inspiration from a recipe that an acquaintance sent me that used seaweed. I happened to have some seaweed in my cabinet--Molly loves to eat dried seaweed--so I decided to give it a try. I just chopped the bok choy, added one sheet (minus a few bites taken by Molly) of nori, and a teaspoon of salt.

Molly mashed it all for me, and we packet it into a jar.

Thanks to my friend, Abacus, I have been doing some experimenting with kombucha. I made strawberry-raspberry kombucha first, and now I have some blueberry kombucha fermenting. I put three bottles of the strawberry in the cabinet for a secondary fermentation (also on the suggestion of Abacus). I will try it tomorrow. I only had three bottles in which to put the tea for the secondary fermentation so I got to drink some fresh. It was DELICIOUS!!! I can't wait to try the stuff in the bottles, which should be extra bubbly. The blueberry should be ready on Saturday or Sunday. I made the same basic recipe, except I added fresh fruit when I added the tea bags, I added less sugar because of the sugar in the fruit, and I let it ferment for four days rather than seven or eight.

Fermenting: I've missed you!

2011-05-27T13:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while about the ferments I've been doing. I ordered some kefir grains on line (thanks for the inspiration, dear Abacus), and I have been making that every day since I got them a few weeks ago. It is definitely an acquired taste, and I think I have finally acquired it. I even got both Molly and Penny to drink some yesterday. It doesn't really taste like yogurt, as I thought it would. Kefir is fermented using little grains put in milk to ferment about 24 hours at room temperature. The grains reproduce themselves so I can share grains if anyone is interested. I have been putting the finished product in the fridge to drink; the taste is definitely improved when it's cold.

On Tuesday, Molly and I made some more sauerruben (i.e., fermented turnips) from the first turnips I saw at the farmers market. They were little tiny turnips, in contrast to the obscenely large ones from last fall. Molly and I both took a couple of sample tastes today. I think it needs another day or two, but Molly kept wanting another and another and another bite. So I guess she likes it now. Here is Molly stirring the turnips.

Today we made some more kimchi. Molly's favorite thing to do is to "smash, smash, smash!!!" the kimchi before and after we put it in the crock. Here is a picture of the magic combination of onion, garlic, ginger, and red pepper (dried, purchased from the farmers market) that turns ordinary cabbage into that wonderfully delicious condiment/salad topping/side dish/breakfast we call kimchi.

And because of another suggestion by my dear friend Abacus, I have started back to my kombucha. I have had two scoby's taking up room in the fridge for the past few weeks. I've just been lazy about making a batch lately. Per Abacus's suggestion, I made a batch with strawberries and raspberries (she made one with strawberries and one with strawberries and lemon, if I remember correctly). I will also do a secondary fermentation on this one to increase the carbonation. I've never done that before, but Abacus had good success with it so I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will, too.

So right now I have kimchi, sauerruben, kefir, and kombucha taking up space on my counter.

Happy birthday, Penelope!

2011-05-24T18:25:00.001-07:00

Today is Penny's birthday. I really cannot believe it. This year has been full of changes and has just flown by. On Sunday we had a small party with family for her birthday. My mom made her a ridiculously cute birthday crown, to be worn in lieu of a paper party hat. She kept it on all day, including when she fell asleep at the end of her own party.

I realized that I never wrote the story of Penny's birth. I kept telling myself to record it so I don't forget it, and I just turned around, and a full year has passed. So I will record it to the best of my knowledge. Really, this is for me to remember the day so feel free to skip this. :)

Around 4AM on the morning of May 24th, my water broke. I had to get up to pee and immediately realized what happened because it was exactly as it happened with Molly's birth. I woke Bill up, and he said "Let's just go back to sleep, try to get some rest." Because Molly was sound asleep in the other room, and I was still tired, this seemed like a reasonable idea. Looking back, it was probably pretty silly because Molly's birth happened so quickly. We also had some people lined up to watch Molly, and we didn't want to call them so early either. Around 7 when Molly woke, Bill stretched and said, "Now, did I dream it, or did your water break?" TRUE STORY! Anyway, long story short, we called the doctor and were told to get to the hospital pronto because of my history, even though I wasn't having any contractions yet. We made all the phone calls to our wonderful friends Tamara and Annie, who had agreed to share Molly duty until the birth.

Hours passed before any contractions actually started. It's funny because I had been on bed rest for about six weeks because every time I stood up, I would have contractions. After my water broke, nothing. We ran across the street to get food. I figured I would have the baby any time so I wanted to eat as much as I could. The hospital, though enlightened in many ways in terms of their practices around birth, still had a policy that laboring women are not supposed to eat after their water breaks, in case they have to be put under for something (the nurse told us this never happens because even in almost every C-section the mother is awake). No one was watching too closely, of course, but I just would eat in between visits from the nurses (who, by the way, were absolutely fabulous for my numerous stays at Alta Bates Hospital) so I didn't put them in the awkward position of stating the policy.

Around 3:30 or so I still was not very dilated, maybe about 4cm. The doctor was starting to get a little concerned that I might get an infection because my water broke. She wanted to start induction because the risk apparently goes way up after 12 hours, which we were getting very close to. Bill and I discussed it, and we decided to go ahead with it. I was absolutely terrified. I wanted a fully natural birth, and I was nervous I would have to get an epidural because the pain would be too much. Well, as I implied earlier, Alta Bates is really progressive, and their policy for Pitocin was to administer it at about 1/10th the rate of the national standard, which meant that it would be a very, very gradual induction. I only got two doses, and I started to labor in full force. I breathed through the contractions in any position that felt right, usually on my hands and knees with my head buried in my pillow. I breathed through them all, and I didn't need any pain medicine, which I was thankful for. Between the actual contractions I remember feeling very present, talking with Bill and the nurse. During the contractions, I was in a different place. I remember hearing the nurse and Bill continue their conversation while I was moaning and breathing on the bed between them. They were attending to me, and I would use my hands to communicate what I needed or where I needed them to push to relieve some of the pressure. My wonderful group of momma friends had had a blessing circle for me a few weeks prior to my birth, and I was channeling that love and energy during my contractions, breathing through them and picturing my body as water, with the waves of the painful contractions like the waves in the ocean.

The labor was really short (though not as short as with Molly), and after about three hours I was ready to push. I remember the same feeling with Molly--when it was time to push, there was really no stopping it. I pushed about 15 minutes, and out came our little Penelope. I wanted her immediately on me, no bath or anything. The doctor put her on my chest, and immediately she started to nurse. The nurses wiped her off while she nursed, and Bill and I cried and cried and were so happy! What a difference from Molly's birth! I didn't let go of Penny for at least an hour; Bill couldn't wait any longer to hold her. I don't really remember birthing the placenta, but I'm pretty sure it was while I was holding Penny. She didn't get weighed for about two hours after she was born because we were holding her. The two of us have not been apart for more than a few hours since then.

Here the three of us are soon after the birth, before her bath and weight check.

Don't stop dancing, kiddo

2011-05-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

We went to the Louisville Loves Mountains festival last night. It amounted to a (very cool) appearance by Wendell Berry and lots of beer and very good music. Molly had a fabulous time dancing, and, I gotta say, the kid has got some moves. Here she is dancing to Appalatin. As the name suggests, their music was a mix of Appalachian and Latin music--great for dancing!

POTTY TRAINED!!!

2011-05-03T18:26:00.001-07:00

Woo hoo!!! Molly has been in big girl underwear for just over a week now. She has had a couple of accidents, but overall she is doing great. One day, I reached the point where I thought, "I am going to die--DIE--if I have to change one more crappy pull-up." She had been in pull-ups for what felt like forever, and they were just way too easy for her to pee and poop in. So on the day I thought I would die, I just told myself enough is enough. I put her in underwear and told her she was wearing big girl underwear; don't pee or poop in them. And she didn't (for the most part). I am so proud of her!

Penny's sleep has been getting better. We decided I would not to feed her until after 4AM so Bill usually will go in if she cries and try to comfort her to get her to go back to sleep. We had to take a break because the stress of her screaming for so long was, well, really stressful. But we tried again a few weeks ago, and she has actually taken to it pretty well. She will most often be able to comfort herself back to sleep within a few minutes, but if she doesn't Bill can go in, and she usually will go back to sleep.

sleep...again

2011-03-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

This lack of sleep thing with Penny is just getting out of hand. In short, I was feeding her around midnight and again around 5 or so. Then she got sick a couple of times, and it eventually went back to her waking and wanting to eat about every two or three hours. Yesterday I kind of reached the breaking point. I felt like I was losing it--I was so exhausted and just feeling pretty depressed. I know a few people who have older kids who still do not sleep through the night so I realize that my situation is not unique. Nevertheless, I am just beat.

Anyway, in a nutshell that's what got us to the point of trying to do some sleep training again. When we did it a couple of months ago, it was a disaster. That little baby is persistent! She would scream--SCREAM--for hours. Literally hours! It didn't really seem to improve as the days went on either, so we kind of gave up. But...we decided it needed to be attempted again, and sooner rather than later. So last night, we set some ground rules that Bill would go in to her (with my gentle prodding to get out of bed because the man can sleep through most anything), at increasing intervals. I would not feed her until 5AM. She actually slept pretty well; for the first time in a number of weeks she slept until about 2:30. Bill went in every few minutes. At one point he came back to bed to inform me that she was actually STANDING in her crib. She has been trying to pull herself up for a couple of weeks, but that was the first time she's been successful. It was as if she were saying, "Fine. If you won't bring me the boobs, I will walk to them!" We got a pretty good chuckle out of that somewhere around 3:15. She finally fell asleep around 4:00. So we were awake for about an hour and a half, but it wasn't as bad as it's been in the past. Rather than screaming, she was just kind of fussing, which is much less anxiety-provoking (or blood-pressure-increasing, or adult-tear-inducing) than constant screaming. She woke around 6:00, and after I fed her she slept until about 7:30.

I am optimistic that tonight will be a sleep-filled night for all of us. Keeping my fingers crossed!

corned beef modification

2011-03-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, so when I said the corned beef would not be cooked, I did not expect it to be THAT raw. I mean, yeah, I figured it would be rare, but not really raw. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was raw. I mean really, really RAW. Bill is very adventurous, though, and had a sandwich of raw corned beef last night. He said, "It was better with cheese and mustard." Nourishing Traditions promises that with the consumption of raw meet, one will have increased vitality. Bill did indeed have increased vitality today, but I am pretty sure it was a combination of the 70+ temperatures, the beginning of March Madness, and St. Patrick's Day all falling on the same day rather than the raw meat. We decided I should cook it.

And it was great--very tender. I took it to my sister's house for a little party she had, and I expected to bring most of it home. Instead, it was all gone very quickly. Yay! Bill said it was the best he'd ever eaten. I cooked it in my Dutch oven with water, a beer, some peppercorns, a cinnamon stick, some whole cloves, and a couple of bay leaves. I brought it to a boil then cooked it at 300 for about three and a half hours.

St. Patty's Day fermenting

2011-03-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a crazy fermenting day! We have had a beef brisket in the freezer for a few weeks, and I have been wanting to try the corned beef recipe from Nourishing Traditions for a while, so St. Patrick's Day was a perfect opportunity! I quit eating meat the beginning of this year, but we are still working through our CSA meat share. I believe that it is the right decision for me to eat the meat we have remaining in the freezer, though, because it is a lot of meat, and I don't want it to be wasted. That being said, Bill will still be largely responsible for the nearly four pounds of meat that is this corned beef. Just to be clear, this corned beef will not be cooked. It will ferment for a couple of days, and then we will eat it. It has salt, juniper berries, red pepper flakes, mustard seeds, and whey. If anyone wants the full recipe, let me know, and I will be happy to share it.

I also made the mustard from Nourishing Traditions, which needs three days to ferment. Included in that recipe is ground mustard, water, whey, honey, mustard seeds, and lemon juice.

And the grand mammy of all ferments....I finally made my miso yesterday! I used the recipe from Wild Fermentation. I used pinto beans rather than soy beans because I had plenty in the cabinet. I will test it late this fall, probably around November. It was a pretty easy recipe to follow, but it made much more than I anticipated--I had to use two crocks rather than just one, and my crocks are precious because I only have three. I should have halved the recipe. I am really, really excited about this--I hope it turns out. I just ordered some more miso from the same company I ordered my koji from. It isn't cheap, so it would be really great if mine turns out nearly as good as theirs. I have had other miso bought from the grocery, and it is just not so good. It does take many months or years to ferment (the stuff I bought was one- or three-year fermented) so, like most things, you get what you pay for.

And Bill and I tested the honey wine this weekend. It needs another week or two, but I am definitely happy with the results! My dad and my sister both had samples as well and were not too impressed. It does taste like homemade wine, but I like the earthy flavor of it.

Penny's stats

2011-03-08T17:38:00.001-08:00

I took Penny in for her 9 month checkup today, and here are her stats:

weight: just over 22 pounds (though just last week she weighed in at 23), 97%
height: 28.75", 90%
head circumference: 18.25", 97%

She is still not terribly interested in eating anything other than breast milk, but we are working on it. I would say, though, that she is not starving, as illustrated above by her stats. For a couple of days we have been giving her little pieces of food that she can pick up herself, rather than being fed with a spoon. This method seems to work a little better. She's doing great overall, though. Little sweetie.

I realized that I never posted her stats for her 6 month checkup. Here are those stats, from 12/9/2010:
weight: 19 lbs, 12 oz, 90%
height 27.25", 90%
head: 17.5", 93%

Penny's sleeping is improving. Please do not confuse this for "her sleep is good." I still nurse her twice overnight, around midnight and around 5AM. Her naps are also getting better, and she is getting better at putting herself to sleep in her crib. This means, though, that it is really hard for me to leave the house because Penny goes down around 10, until around 11:30 or noon, and Molly goes for her nap around 2PM, until usually 4:30 or 5:00. Penny usually takes a second nap that overlaps with Molly's. It is actually a little lonely. I was visiting with people a lot for a while until I decided I really do not want to repeat the nap troubles we had with Molly. I am considering it an investment--her napping will just be so fabulous by the time she's down to only one nap that it will be absolutely worth it. She does have to sleep in the car now and then if we need to run errands, or if there is something else we have going on. All in all, things are going pretty well in the sleep department (even though Molly did not take her nap today.)

momma's boss

2011-03-02T09:24:00.000-08:00

Molly: Who's Poppa's boss?
Me: [his name]
Molly: Who's your boss?
Me: I don't have a boss.
Molly: Yeah! You have a boss.
Me: No, I don't have a boss.
Molly: Yeah! You have a boss.
Me: Who's my boss?
Molly: probably Obama

ferment updates

2011-03-02T09:15:00.000-08:00

Well, it has kind of been a week of failures in the 'ol fermenting front. To make myself feel better, I am blaming the cold weather rather than my lack of skill. I'm pretty sure it's not because my house is too sterile. There actually isn't any skill involved so I'm betting on the weather.

My honey wine never started bubbling as expected. Rather than giving up, I went ahead and added half of the packet of the champagne yeast to it. It started bubbling so I put it in the gallon jug with an airlock, and I hope it's ready to drink in a few weeks. I will certainly try again in a few weeks when the weather is a little warmer; hopefully then the wild yeast in the air will be more active.

The dosas were also a failure. The recipe called for a whole bunch of cilantro, which was just too much. The batter was supposed to be thinner. As I am sitting her typing this, I am actually realizing that I halved the recipe so I used twice as much cilantro as I was supposed to. Yes!!! That makes me very happy because I really liked the taste of the cooked (failed) dosas, but they wouldn't stick together like pancakes, as they were supposed to. So...that means I will definitely try those again, too!

The sauerruben is delicious. It is just like sauerkraut, with just salt and caraway seeds, but it is made with turnips instead of cabbage. Molly and I shared a bowl today--we both loved it.

fermenting and sleep

2011-02-25T17:57:00.000-08:00

First, as I was typing this blog's address into my address bar, one of the suggestions as I typed "Kristais" was "Krista is awesome." Of course I had to click on THAT to see what it was. It was some kid's facebook page. Kind of a letdown.

So, my honey wine still does not seem to be taking off. I am being patient, though. It has been sitting on the counter and stove for a week now. I will give it a few more days and decide whether I should just throw it out or add the yeast to it. I also decided to keep the turnip kimchi. This afternoon I had pretty much decided to throw it in the compost. It wasn't that the taste was bad; I think the turnips were just cut up too big. I should have used my food processor like I usually do. I actually cannot remember why I didn't. I think I was holding the baby, and it was easier to wield a big huge very sharp knife with one hand than listen to her crying really hard and using two hands for the food processor. I will eat it for a few more days, with the idea that if we don't like it, I don't need to force it on the family. Molly actually really likes it.

I did not make the dosas today because our dinner got rescheduled for Sunday. I guess I will just let the batter keep on fermenting until then.

And, perhaps the most interesting news of all, my miso and koji got delivered today so I can 1) eat miso every day and 2) make my own miso with the koji. I will of course report back, perhaps with photos.

Oh, and a quick note on Penny's sleeping. Last night she only woke up once between 8:00 and 6:30, around 2:00. Woot! The night before it was twice. These are definite improvements. There are a few things working together. The researcher in me would say there are just way too many threats to internal validity to tell what is working, but I have stopped drinking coffee (though I am still drinking black tea. Still, it's a drastic decrease in caffeine, down from that pot or more of coffee I was drinking every day), we have put a very loud humidifier in her room, and her naps have become a little more consistent. I will probably reintroduce coffee in a few days and see if that makes a difference (let's hope not because I really love coffee!)

Dosas and sauerruben and t'ej

2011-02-23T12:29:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if the honey wine (t'ej) is taking off. The recipe says that in three or four days it should start bubbling, at which point I am supposed to transfer it to the jug. It has not yet started to bubble, but I am not too disheartened yet because my kitchen is really cold, so it could just be taking a few extra days. When I went to My Old Kentucky Homebrew to buy an airlock, I talked to the very helpful worker (who is probably the owner), and he told me I should probably add some champagne yeast. I bought it for $.89, but Bill talked me out of using it. As he said, the fun in what I'm doing really is wild fermentation. So I'm just going to be patient and "(t)rust that the yeast will be drawn to the sweet honey-water from the air" (Katz, 2003, p. 29).

We are having one of Bill's coworkers and his wife and daughter over for dinner on Friday. I am going to make Indian food and was thinking I would just serve naan that I bought in the store. BORING! Instead I'm going to make dosas, which are essentially Indian pancakes made with a batter of fermented lentils and rice. I soaked the lentils and rice overnight, and then I put them in the food processor with some yogurt and extra whey I had in the fridge. This batter will ferment for about 48 hours, and then I will thin the batter with some water and add a few extras (e.g., cilantro, garlic) then make them on our cast-iron griddle. I will report back on how they turn out.

I'm still figuring out what to do with all those turnips, and I found a recipe in Wild Fermentation for sauerruben, which is pretty much sauerkraut, but it's made with turnips rather than cabbage. I made it exactly the same way, shredding my turnips in the food processor, adding salt and caraway seeds, mashing the heck out of it with the potato masher, and then packing it tightly into a crock with a weight.

And speaking of turnips, I tasted the turnip kimchi today, and it is very interesting, very spicy. I think it will be ready by Friday so those poor souls coming for dinner on Friday will get to (be forced to out of politeness?) taste it.

I ordered some seeds today for my garden. I am very excited about having my first garden, but I am extremely intimidated by it. I hope I get at least some yield. The seeds I ordered include the following: beets, spinach (two types), lettuce (2 types), kale, and cilantro. I am going to start out small, with some of my favorite (all greens, including the greens from the beets) and most used (beets, for the juice) vegetables.

MISO!!!!

2011-02-20T08:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm committed now to making miso. I ordered the koji today, which is essentially cultured rice, necessary for making miso unless you have wild koji spores in the air (usually just in miso shops or basements where miso has been made for years). I haven't decided whether I will make the one that takes a year--red miso--or the one that takes only a month--sweet miso. The koji is expensive ($14.50/pound, and the miso uses 1.75 or 3.5 pounds), and the one that takes longer to ferment uses half the miso. So....I might start with that one and see how it goes. If I just love the process of making it I will probably order more koji and make the sweet miso.

I ordered on-line from South River Miso Company, and I added two types of miso to my order. I figured I was already paying for shipping so I should probably just go ahead and get some instant gratification and order some already-aged miso. I ordered a one-year fermented chickpea miso and a three-year fermented soybean and barley miso. Sounds good, huh? The red miso also requires a tablespoon of aged miso for the recipe so I will just use the miso I just ordered. I am really excited about this! The process does not look hard, just obviously time-consuming. I will get to finally use the room I have jokingly been referring to as my fermenting room since we moved into our house over the summer. The recipe (again from my pal Sanderkraut, author of Wild Fermentation) says to leave it in a non-heated cellar, basement, barn, garage etc. Bill's been busy converting our garage to his workshop so I don't think I'll put it in there to ferment because of the risk of some bits of metal or wood getting into it.

Note: the one-year actually refers to one summer so I will be able to check the miso in the fall, something to look forward to when the weather turns chilly again.

turnip kimchi

2011-02-19T12:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I started the process of making the turnip kimchi. I let the thinly sliced turnips and daikons soak overnight in a brine with about 3 tbsp. salt in 4 cups of water. Today I finished it up and put it in the crock to begin fermenting. I will check it in about a week. We have some guests coming for dinner on Friday so I might check it then and let them sample it. Here is the process (again, based on the recipe in Wild Fermentation):

Dice an onion or a few scallions or shallots (I used an onion because that is what I had on hand), grate about 3 Tbsp of fresh ginger, and put about 6 garlic cloves through a press. Put all this in a big bowl and add a bunch of red pepper flakes--I probably used about 2 Tbsp. You can also use fresh chilies. Experiment with the seasoning and adjust to your tastes. Drain the soaking vegetables, but save the brine. Taste the vegetables to see if there is enough salt. It should taste pretty salty; add more if needed. Mix the drained veggies with the onion-chili-garlic-ginger mixture and pack tightly into a crock. Press down (I use a potato masher) until juices rise above the veggies. Add some of the reserved brine if necessary. Weigh down--I use a liter-sized mason jar filled with water--and cover with a towel. I also usually put the crock inside another dish to catch any runoff brine. Now I just need to wait a week or so and taste it. I have a good feeling about it. I was a little nervous about the turnips, but I really think the onion-ginger-garlic-chili combination would make most things taste good.

FERMENTING!!!

2011-02-18T18:19:00.000-08:00

As promised (or as suggested), I am going to post about some food. I did three ferments today, including two new ferments! Now, dear readers, do not expect this level of productivity in the future. My mother-in-law had Molly all day today, and Penny napped for two hours. The three ferments were yogurt (not new), turnip kimchi, and t'ej (Ethiopian honey wine. I am not exactly sure how this differs from mead). I also have some kombucha fermenting on the counter; I got this started yesterday.

I decided a week or so ago I needed to start making yogurt again because the packaging is wasteful, and it is much cheaper and the taste is pretty much exactly the same with homemade. So I made some yogurt today. In the past, I have made a full half gallon, but that can be a bit of a daunting task for the fermenting period. I have had to find room to leave all that warm milk out for a few hours. The last two times I've made it, I've only made a quart, a much more manageable amount. The basic process for making yogurt is to heat (whole, organic) milk to about 180F, then let it cool to about 110F. It isn't necessary to warm it to such a high temperature, but it makes the yogurt thicker. Then mix about a tablespoon of yogurt from a previous batch into the warm milk. Leave it to ferment in a warm (about 100F) place for about 8 - 12 hours. I usually put it in a cooler with another jar full of hot water. If, after this amount of time, the yogurt hasn't thickened or hasn't developed that yogurt-y smell, add another teaspoon of yogurt and warm the cooler up again.

My CSA has had SO MANY turnips lately. What can you do with turnips??? Really, if you have suggestions, please list in the comments. I decided to attempt turnip kimchi. In Wild Fermentation, my go-to fermenting book, Sanderkraut gives a recipe for root vegetable kimchi, which includes turnips, daikons, carrots, and a few other root vegetables. I only put in turnips and daikons that I had left. I will post the recipe for this in another post.

Finally, the one I am most excited about, is the wine (also from Wild Fermentation). I have also gotten quite a bit of honey from my CSA lately, and I needed to clear out some cabinet space. The recipe for this is to mix 3 cups of honey with 12 cups of water, cover with a towel, and let ferment for a few days until bubbly. Then transfer to a large glass container with an airlock and let ferment for 2 to 4 weeks. I only had room in my ceramic crock for a 3:1 ratio of water:honey so I hope I can just add the extra three cups of water when I transfer it.

Few Toys

2011-02-15T12:07:00.000-08:00

We started Molly's life buying very few toys, and we have asked people not to buy her many toys. She does have a few beloved toys that she plays with, and our families are very thoughtful with the few toys they buy her (which is very appreciated!!!). This really started as a necessity because 1) we were broke when Molly was born so we didn't buy much of anything, and 2) we had a small apartment so there just wasn't any room to put any toys. This lifestyle choice is very good for Molly, though, and I assume it will also be for Penny. Parents have been joking for generations that they would buy their kids toys for Christmas or for birthdays, only to have the kids play with the boxes. This is really true! Yesterday, for example, Molly woke up and got her three dolls and then went to the diaper hamper and pulled out a few diapers. She took them into her room and laid them out very neatly and told me she and her dolls were going to do "yoda," which in English is "yoga." She did yoga with her dolls ALL DAY. She would roll up the diaper "mats" and then take them to another room and unroll them again. She would lie on the floor with them and do different poses. It was really interesting to see her imagination working. This morning she rearranged her chairs so that her dolls could sit on either side of her (and one on her lap) while she read to them.

food swap

2011-02-13T17:42:00.001-08:00

Today I went to a food swap. It was so cool!!!! I made sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, granola, wheat berry sprouts, chicken broth, and diaper cream/hand salve/lip balm (not a food, I know, but it was a hot commodity nonetheless). Everyone brought homemade or home-grown food, and it was used as currency. I came away with bread, jam, buttermilk, ricotta cheese, frozen cabbage, frozen corn, canned green beans, a knitted wash cloth, amaretto, pea soup, pepper relish, and...I think that's all. Not too shabby, huh?

From the list of foods above, you may be able to deduce that I have been really into my fermenting lately. I have made a lot of sauerkraut lately because we have gotten so much cabbage from the CSA. I will probably attempt miso next. From the book Wild Fermentation, it does not look very difficult; it just takes patience for the fermentation to occur. I was thinking about starting a blog about food, particularly fermenting. I'm not sure what else I could do, but if I have a goal to blog about it regularly, I can expand my horizons a little. Maybe I will try again with sourdough bread. I think I need to get a bread stone for that to turn out correctly. I have had trouble with bread--Abacus, do you have any tips?

Penny's sleep has not improved too much, but it has a little bit. Bill has gotten up with her a few nights so I can get some sleep. Last night and the night before, I fed her around 1:30 and again at 5:00. It's not ideal, but it's definitely an improvement over the every-hour wakings/feedings she was doing for a while.

(This is my 100th blog post, by the way!)

sleep, or as it's known in the real world, lack of sleep

2011-02-01T11:40:00.000-08:00

I thought Molly was a bad sleeper. Well, Penny is determined to one-up her older sister. We have been trying to get her to sleep through the night for weeks now. It is hard! On the third night, Molly surrendered. She slept through the night. Penny is not giving up. She can moan and cry and scream for hours on end. And, unlike her momma, she can go without sleep AND without coffee. Two night ago she slept until 5:30, and we thought we had turned a corner. Last night, however, she woke at 2:30 and was awake until 4:00, at which point I finally went in and fed her. I've been waiting until 5AM.

Now, I realize parents (particularly mommas) have been doing this forever, and there are many people whose kids have special needs and have genuine sleep disorders (I know a couple), but I just want to complain for a minute about how difficult it is to go without sleep. I forget very common words, like 'shoes.' I forget why I went into a room for something. I seethe with anger when I can't immediately locate the milk in the fridge. With one kid, I thought it was hard, but I could sleep when she slept. With two, there isn't that break. I can't imagine with three or more, though I know we always live up to our own situations. I also know many people have it much harder. Okay--I'm finished complaining. Just let me go get another cup of coffee--be right back.

And I'm not writing this just for complaining's sake. It is for posterity and so I can show Molly and Penny later just how much trouble they caused me. Just kidding. They are truly, truly delightful little people. Molly is just getting so grown up that she is no longer a toddler, but a little girl. It's amazing to watch. Again, this is something that has been happening forever, but it is a truly amazing transition. I laugh so much at them because they really are fun to be around. Molly is actually developing a sense of humor and will joke with us. Penny thinks Molly is the most hilarious person she's ever met, too. The good far, far outweighs the sleep deprivation, and I am very happy to be able to stay home with them.

Penny also does not have the interest in food that Molly had. She really just wants to nurse more than anything else. She has eaten a few solids, but she generally only takes a bite or two. She is 8 months old now, and the medical 'experts' say to start giving solids at 6 months. We have started to introduce them, but we are just letting her go at her own pace. She is clearly not wasting away--she weighs a lot, still in the 90th percentile for weight and height--so I'm not concerned about it.

sick sick sick!

2011-01-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

So once Molly recovered from her pneumonia, she apparently caught a stomach virus, which manifest itself in vomit and copious amounts of diarrhea. Ugh! She seems to be on the mend now, but she generously shared her germs with her sister. Penny woke for her 5AM feeding covered in goo, either spit up or vomit. I tend to think it was the latter because she hasn't spit up in any notable amount in months. And when she woke this morning, she had a fever of close to 102. I took her to the doctor (who I was supposed to take Molly to see, but we essentially switched kiddos for the appointment time), and she barfed all over me while we were waiting for the doctor. Meanwhile, Molly was screaming for the sucker the nice, well-meaning nurse gave her. I was waiting to give that to her until we got to the car because when she eats suckers, it usually involves a ton of red slobber--she doesn't quite grasp the whole "suck"er concept. Anyway, now both girls are sleeping, and I guess we will just wait to see how Penny's illness plays out.

It's not so bad, though. Molly is such a sweet big sister. Penny has not wanted to put her head anywhere other than upon her two soft food sources, but Molly has just cuddled with us, saying "I want make Pe feel better" and rubbed her back.

molly's story

2011-01-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

This morning, I got in bed with Molly when she woke up. We have this cuddle time most mornings before Penny wakes up (and because it is still so dark outside). She has been asking me to tell her stories before we get up for the day. Today, I was pretty tired so I asked her to tell me a story. She started to rub my head and face like I usually do to her, and she started:

"Once 'pon time there was a little girl naaaaamed....Momma! She was sad (said with a frown and a shake of the head and much fanfare). Then Poppa came along and made her happy! Then he said....The End."

She told me three this morning. Here is another one:

"Once 'pon time there was a chitten (chicken). He said bok bok. Then he said...The End!!!"

Molly is getting over pneumonia this week so she's had to take extra lung medicine. Here is a sweet picture of her getting her treatment while she and Penny play with their instruments.

Also this week, my sister returned from Afghanistan, where she has been since November. It was a wonderful reunion!!!

walking in the rain

2010-11-30T12:55:00.000-08:00

Last week was not very cold, but it rained a lot. We decided to get out of the house and take a little walk. Here is Molly on our street.

rolled over

2010-10-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

Penny just rolled over from her back to her belly! She has rolled from her belly to her back twice, but this was the first time she's done it from back to belly--usually her arms stop her. Still no teeth.

She and Molly are absolutely best friends. Here is the cutest picture you will see all year.

4 month checkup

2010-10-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

17 lb 9 oz (95-100 percentile)
25.75" (95%)

penny's 4 month checkup, age 4.5 months

2 month checkup

2010-08-19T09:40:00.001-07:00

I took Penelope to the doctor last week for her two month checkup. She was about 2 and a half months old. She weighed 13 pounds, 11 ounces (95-100%), and she was 23 inches long (95%). Her birth weight was 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and her length was 21 inches. Bill, Penny, and I are going out of town today for a wedding, and we are leaving Molly with my mom and Fred. I will write about my birth soon, but today I am in a hurry. I just wanted to make sure I recorded her stats for posterity. :)

Oh, and we have been potty training Molly. She has pooped three times, and she pees a lot. Yesterday she peed five times on the pot!

I will post pictures soon, too.

32 weeks pregnant!

2010-04-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe it has been two months since I last posted. And after I vowed to post more often! Well, I will probably have a little more time now because as of Thursday, I am officially on bed rest for (I suppose) the duration of this pregnancy. I guess if I make it to 37 weeks, I can probably start doing whatever I want to again, though. Starting on Monday, my contractions, which I have been having since I was about four months pregnant, started getting more frequent. They got much worse by Tuesday night. I work on Wednesdays, and Bill tried to talk me out of driving all the way down to San Jose, but I insisted. I don't know if it was a mistake or not, but, regardless, I started having LOTS of contractions during my classes. I called the doctor, and I was told I should come on in to Labor and Delivery at the hospital. I still had to drive about 50 or 60 miles back to Oakland to pick up Bill, who dropped me off at the hospital and took Molly to a friend's house. It was a little bit of an anxious drive, but I made it safely. I got to the hospital, and they checked my cervix (no dilation) and put me on two monitors for a couple of hours. One monitor was to watch the baby's heart rate, and the other was to monitor my contractions. The contractions were few enough while I was lying down that they discharged me. (They do really slow down while I am off my feet, which is certainly a good argument in favor of bed rest.) We had a doctor's appointment the next day, and she told me it would be best if I were on bed rest. She put me on bed rest when I was pregnant with Molly, but I absolutely did not listen to her; this time, I'm listening. And Bill is being very strict and making me lie back down when I get up. It's not the easiest thing to lie on the couch with an active toddler, but I'm doing my best, and Bill is doing a great job taking care of everything. Luckily, he got his dissertation approved last week by his committee so he is free most of the time, excepting a few last minute things he is doing while Molly naps and after she goes to bed at night. I, on the other hand, am reading a lot and just in general trying to rest.

MZ is doing really well lately, eating well, sleeping pretty well, and just growing up. She is losing a lot of baby fat so she is looking thinner and more like a little girl than like a baby. I am really curious to see how she'll be as a big sister. She is very sweet with little kids, but she also really likes to have Bill and me to herself. I think (i.e., really, really hope) that the adjustment will not be too bad for her. I know it will be difficult for Bill and me with losing sleep, but we'll manage. :)

We have had visitors two straight weekends, and Bill's mom was here just a few weeks ago. My mom was here for about a week last week, and Molly's godparents were here this weekend. My sister comes on Friday. All the visits have been great and very, very helpful (thanks, everyone!!). In four weeks (when I will be 36 weeks along) Bill graduates, and we will have lots of family in town then, too. I'm not sure how it will be with the bed rest situation, but I'm sure we can, all together, manage to get me to see my beloved husband cross that stage and get hooded as a DOCTOR!

Berkeley kids

2010-02-17T20:50:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by billstron

When Bill and I first moved to the Bay Area, my younger sister, Kelly, came to visit. We went to the Berkeley marina and saw all the kids and adults doing the sword fighting with the cardboard fighting equipment, including body armor, etc. She told me that I definitely should not have kids while we were living here because my kids would turn out weird. This picture is Kelly's prediction come true. Just look at Molly here: at Picante, our favorite taqueria, holding two cups up to her ears as though they were seashells. (That Bill and I showed her this is beside the point.) The picture is all the better, though, because not only is there one crazy kid in this picture (mine), but there are actually TWO! See the kid in the background? He was wearing his muscle-y Batman Halloween costume. His older brother, who is across the table and not in the picture, was wearing a crown. It was his older brother! It's totally fine with me, actually. Now that I have a kid I can see why people let them wear whatever they want out in public. I would without exaggeration say that we see a kid in a Halloween costume at least once a month. Just last week, for instance, we saw a kid in an all-out astronaut costume, complete with the space helmet. Seriously! He was walking down the street holding his mom's hand. Yes, he had to stand a little further from her than I would imagine he normally would because of the bulbous helmet. Bill was so taken aback, and got such a thorough kick out of it, that he got locked up. We were in the car, leaving my OB appointment, and we saw the kid while we were at a stop sign. Bill just locked up; he couldn't remember which way to turn or if we should just go straight.

We've had wonderful weather this week, and today we went to the Little Farm in Berkeley. Check out the pictures on flickr if you get a chance.

eb-bow!!

2010-02-14T11:32:00.000-08:00

Molly is starting to learn the names of many of her body parts. Last night, I was asking her where her nose, cheek, knees, feet, arms, hands, ears, etc. were. I was impressed that she knew everything that I asked her. She can't say many parts (with one notable exception of "eb-bow!" for elbow, and it is always said with an exclamation point at the end). She also knows butt--guess who taught her that one.

Today she was getting in her stroller, and she hit her funny bone. She said, "eb-bow...EB-BOW!" and grabbed her little elbow. It was really hilarious, and I laughed a lot even as she was obviously in pain. We all know it just hurts a second when you do that, though, so I don't feel too bad about laughing. It was funny, too, that it was a bit of a delayed reaction for the pain to really occur to her. It's very impressive to me that she was able to identify what hurt, without even thinking about it. This seems like a turning point to me--maybe she will really begin being able to express what hurts when she injures herself or is ill. It will hopefully decrease her frustration with communication.

at the beach

2010-02-08T20:42:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by billstron

Last weekend we visited our good friends in Santa Barbara. We got to go to the beach at sunset. It was a bit chilly, but the cold did not seem to bother Molly. She had a great time gathering rocks (and giving them to me and her auntie Abacus) and playing in the sand.

This week Molly has been cutting molars. It has not been fun for any of us. It really must hurt when those things cut through. I remember when I was having trouble with my wisdom teeth, which I eventually got removed, and I would imagine that she is experiencing similar pain. She has been waking at 4:30 or 5:00 most of this week, and she has not really wanted to go back to sleep, although she will dose somewhat on Bill's or my chest if we get up with her and sit in the nursing chair or lie on the couch. Today she actually slept until after 8, which she has never in the history of Molly Zelda ever done. This was not unassisted, however. Bill got up with her and they fell back asleep together on the couch.

Today I noticed she felt really warm, and she had a fever of almost 101. I think it must be a common misconception that teething can produce a fever, but our pediatrician says this is not true. So, if Molly has a fever, I know it is something else. I called the doctor and took her in. She has been really snotty (which I believe does have to do with teething), but in general in her usual pleasant mood, with the exception of being a little more fussy with the new molars. Our wonderful doctor (WE LOVE HER!!) told me she is definitely coming down with something, but she did not think it needed to be treated with anything more than baby Tylenol and her two inhalers. The worry is that she might have RSV. Recall from posts from a year or so ago that this is the scary, nasty respiratory virus that Molly was getting preventative shots for last winter because she was a preemie. RSV can develop into pneumonia so we need to regularly give her the albuterol inhaler, which we have here, but we only give her when she needs it. The doc told us to give it to her every four hours as long as her cough persists, even a little bit.

Today she was in a surprisingly good mood for having a fever. She just seemed a little more lethargic and needed more cuddles than usual. I know we are really spoiled here with the weather, but when it rains it is hard! Molly likes to be active and to interact with other kids. When she is sick we can't go to the park or to mommas group, and when it rains we can't even really take walks. Okay, I'm finished complaining about the weather because yesterday, while our families where in freezing wet weather, we spent hours outside without jackets, drinking milkshakes.

The past few weeks have also been a bit challenging. I know that it is Molly's age and development and sore gums, and she will soon outgrow this phase. She has just been really fussy lately. Well, she has been more fussy than usual, which honestly is not so terribly fussy, really. Bill and I have had a lot of discussions about this, though, and how to deal with our frustrations. We have come to the conclusion that she is a tiny little person who needs our love and compassion because this is not such an easy time for her, either. She cannot speak very well so she does not know exactly how to express herself. The main conclusion we reached was that, yes, she will be clingy and fussy, but she will outgrow this. We just need to be patient. Molly is a very spirited child. You hear this expression a lot, but to us, it means that Molly is very emotional. She is extremely outgoing, friendly, and affectionate, but she is also clingy and can throw fits if she does not get her way. We think a lot about how to distract her and re-direct her when she is doing something we do not want her to do, and we also try to encourage her independence. It will be really interesting to see how things go in four months when her little sister arrives (oh--we had our ultrasound last week, and we're having another girl!). There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she will be sweet, affectionate, protective, and loving, but I am a little concerned about how she will do with sharing her parents. One of my very good friends who just had her second child, who was born when her older child was about 20 months old, told me that when her son turned two "something magical happened." He just seemed to suddenly be more independent. I am holding on to that, but I am also dreading that. I love that Molly is so reliant on me, but it can also be stifling. I often become very anxious about how I will handle Molly and a newborn, but I know that I am a good mom, and I will be fine. People deal with much more challenging situations than this--poverty, sickly children, having to juggle a heavy workload and family, etc.--and they do it. I know how lucky I am to only have to work part-time and have a wonderful, loving, devoted husband who adores his daughter(s), and I have a wonderful extended family. Sometimes I just need to remind myself that LIFE IS GREAT!!!!

The Yin and Yang of MZ

2010-01-24T15:35:00.000-08:00

Happy, laughing MZ.

MZ looking tough, with her hoodie and don't-mess-with-me face.

Molly recently discovered that she could put her hands in her pockets, so I thought I'd share a couple of pictures. She's really quite the fashionista, huh?

ready for anything

2010-01-22T13:31:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by billstron

Here is MZ with her safety goggles and the mask from her nebulizer. She looks ready for some sort of attack, doesn't she? She really likes to put on both things, then take them off, then put them back on, then take them off. Get the picture?

She woke up today, for about the fourth or fifth straight day, between 5:00 and 5:30. I'm not sure what is going on. She was sleeping fine, and now she isn't. It could be the weather (which has been terrible and loud and a bit scary), which leads to no playing outside. I guess it could also be that her finger was hurting, but that seems unlikely to me. Her appetite has also decreased a bit over the past few days. This happens periodically--maybe it's the opposite of a growth spurt, maybe a growth plateau or something. Anyway, I hope she gets to sleeping more very soon.

cut finger

2010-01-20T13:32:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by billstron

Molly reached into the recycling bin and pulled out a can that I had just thrown in there. She was playing with it and cut her finger, all while I was turned around from her for about 20 seconds. There was blood everywhere! It bled for over an HOUR!!! She looks terrible. There are blood stains all over her shirt and on her hands. She fell asleep while I was putting pressure on it--it was about 45 minutes after her usual nap time--so, because I could not change her shirt, she now looks like she had a rough night at the bar, sleeping it off. Here is a picture of her passed out on the couch. Sweet little girl. See the blood all over her shirt?

She is a tough girl, though. Bill and I say she is way tougher than nails, even tougher than a hammer that pounds nails. What is there, then? An ax! She's tough as an ax. She did not cry, only whimpered twice. She whimpered again in her sleep when I painted on the liquid bandage, which I suppose stings a bit.

statistics!

2010-01-19T20:14:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by billstron

Here is Molly looking at my Statistics for Social Workers book! She went right to the shelf, pulled it off, sat on the floor, and started flipping through it.

Tonight at dinner Molly was so eager for her "bah" (bath) that she started pulling off her shirt and socks at the table, saying "bah! bah! bah! bah!" When she was finally in her favorite state (i.e., sans any clothes or diaper) she ran into the bathroom yelling "bah! bah! bah! bah!"

We have decided to start the potty training process. This weekend we bought a toddler toilet at Target (for some reason a used one from Craigslist just wasn't appealing to us), and we have begun letting her explore it with her clothes and diaper on, per Dr. Spock's instructions. She seems to be quite fond of her new piece of furniture. So far, her favorite position has been to pull the lid up and put both feet in the bucket part and try to stand up, thinking herself quite hilarious. Yesterday her chubby legs got wedged in there, which she also thought was hilarious.

curry

2010-01-18T13:07:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by billstron

Today and yesterday we have had pretty rainy weather so some nice comforting, warm Indian food sounded good. Molly and I picked Bill up from campus and went to House of Curries for lunch. Here are Bill and Molly outside the restaurant, which looks very Indian indeed, doesn't it? With that white front porch reminiscent of pre-Civil War Georgia? Anyway, the food was really good. Molly ate some naan and chicken tikka masala, and she drank almost my whole mango lassi.

new words, growth, etc.

2010-01-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

Holy cow! It's been August since I posted. Needless to say, Molly has been keeping me extremely busy. We just got back from Louisville on Saturday. Molly was there since the Monday before Thanksgiving. Bill and I went at that time, too, but I came back to CA for three days, to teach my last class of the semester, and Bill needed to come back to work. We left her in Louisville with all the grandparents and Aunt Kelly for three days. It was hard, but we figured overall it would be easier than having her fly back across the country twice and adjust to the time change so much. It went pretty smoothly, but Molly was a bit confused about the whole thing. She was extremely clingy to me when I returned.That lasted about three weeks before she got back to her old self. It coincided with the time Bill returned to Louisville, three weeks after I returned.

It was a great, long visit, and we got to see lots of family and friends. Molly got completely spoiled, of course. While she was there, her vocabulary increased tremendously. Here are a sampling of her new words. If I left any out, please feel free to remind me.
"booda," which evolved to "maNANa" and eventually to "baNANa" = banana
"I luh luh" = I love you (just about the sweetest thing I've ever heard, by the way)
"ma-MA" = momma, of course
"pa-PA" = poppa, of course
"orsch" = orange
"muh" = milk or more
"appa" = apple
"puh" = pear
"uh" = up, as in pick me up
"duh" = down, as in get me down
"cat" = cat
"potato" = potato
"ebbo" = elbow

She also learned some new dance moves and how to play the harmonica, a gift from Bill for Christmas.

Molly's growth is fantastic. We went to the pediatrician when we got back from Louisville, and she is now a whopping 2'9" (or 33") and weighs 27 pounds, 10 ounces. She is in about the 75th percentile for height and weight, but her head, measuring in at 50 cm, is in about the 98th percentile. The pediatrician said she's not worried because maybe big heads run in our family???? I don't know. Bill CLAIMS his head is normal size. Maybe I have a big head. I don't know. Regardless, she is not concerned about the bulge atop Molly's shoulders.

In other big news, come June (fingers crossed on that one) Molly is going to be a big sister! As of today, I am 19 weeks pregnant. We go for our ultrasound in three weeks, and we will hopefully find out the sex of the baby. Bill thinks he is destined to have only girls. I have been pretty sure this whole pregnancy I am carrying a boy this time, but in the last few weeks I am not sure. Hopefully the mystery will be solved in a few weeks. Only one heartbeat has been detected so all the "joking" we have been hearing from our moms can be put to rest. Whew--that would be REALLY hard. I'm a little anxious about how I will juggle two of them, but I'm sure it will be fine. Also, Molly and I have been essentially attached at the hip for the last year and a half so it will be hard for both of us to create more space for another little person. I know that parents always say that your heart somehow creates room for more love. I feel already as though my heart is about to burst with love. I'm getting a little too sentimental now.

We have a bunch of pictures on Bill's flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/billstron/) so you can see how big Molly is getting (2'9", remember).

Weaning

2009-08-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

We decided a while ago that we wanted Molly weaned by the time I start back to work so that on the days I am working Bill and Molly will have a pleasant day, rather than experiencing a meltdown that lasts most of the afternoon, resulting from Molly's inability to access the breast. Well, we have modified that just slightly to have her, by the time I return to work, only nursing first thing in the morning and right before bed. My first class is a week from tomorrow. We have been having two daytime feedings for a few weeks now (in addition to the morning and bedtime ones), and that has been going fine. Yesterday I denied Zelda the boob all day, except for the morning and bedtime feedings. It did not go so well.

I thought it was all going well until around 2:30 or 3:00. I was really proud of myself for fending her off. She has developed the habit of just pulling up or pulling down my shirt, depending on the day's attire, when she is ready to nurse. It is kind of cute and endearing, and it does not bother me at all because she was obviously communicating her desires. I was able to successfully distract her until the middle of the afternoon. Around this time, I could not calm her down. She was screaming and arching her back and pulling on my shirt and crying and crying and crying and crying. I took her to see our neighbors. I turned on cartoons. I gave her milk from the sippy cup. I gave her a snack. I tried everything (except M&M's, Kim--maybe today I will resort to that. :) ). She would calm down very briefly, but SHE WANTED THE BOOB! Bill got home around 5:45. (Usually he gets home a little after 6, but I called and begged him to come home before 6.) She seemed to calm down a little when he got here and I was able to escape to another room. It seems to be worse if she knows the boobs are in the same room as she is, but she just cannot have them. When she was finally able to nurse right before bed, she was a happy camper. She went to bed exhausted and slept later than usual this morning, until around 6:45.

Hopefully today will be better. She had a teeny little meltdown an hour or so ago, but nothing too big. I distracted her, and now she is napping. I am not quite sure of our schedule for fully weaning her, but I suppose we will probably be on two nursings a day for maybe two weeks, then cut out the morning one. The bedtime one will be the last to go, as is usually the case when weaning.

It will be kind of sad for me to be finished nursing. My whole life has pretty much revolved around it for nearly the past 15 months (well, taking care of Molly in general has been what my life has revolved around). I will not have to pump on my teaching days anymore, and Molly will be able to be away from me for more than a few hours. This was much more intense, obviously, before she started eating solids and drinking milk. My wardrobe can also change now, which is not something you really think about. You have to wear shirts that allow easy access for nursing or pumping, and a nursing bra is a must. These are not too big a deal either, but it's something different. I think about everything I eat and drink because of nursing. Probably not to the extent that some mothers do--I have not denied myself spicy food or caffeine or alcohol (I drink both caffeine and alcohol in moderation)--but I do eat a LOT. And I make an extra effort to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and to get plenty of calcium. These are all things (except the alcohol) that I did when I was pregnant, of course. Very soon, Molly will be completely independent of me, physically speaking. That is very strange to me. We have been connected physically since November of 2007. Bill calls us ET and Eliott. I know she will still need me emotionally, though.

She's awake--gotta go!

2 posts in 2 days?????

2009-08-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

Molly is napping right now so I thought I'd do a quick post. Molly was coughing a lot last week, so I took her to the doctor toward the end of the week. She apparently has a little lung condition where her lungs seem to overreact to minor irritants, such as viruses, pollutants, and allergens. They tend to produce a lot of extra mucus, and they get inflamed, causing her to cough. The doctor is treating it as a mild form of asthma, but she is not giving the diagnosis of asthma. She has a steroid inhaler that we have to give her twice a day for a few weeks. Then we will take her off of it, and see how she reacts. If she seems better, that's great; if she gets worse again, we will just restart it. She also has another fast-acting inhaler that we give her as needed. She only needed that for a couple of days, except for this morning when she was coughing some. Otherwise, the inhalers seem to be doing their jobs. The doctor said she is a little concerned about the winter, when there are more irritants around. She is not very worried about it for the long run, though, so I'm not either.

I am also trying to increase iron intake for both Molly and me. Her one-year blood work indicated her iron was low, and I think my iron level is also low (I have diagnosed myself, based on some internet research. :) ) Today we picked up a cast iron skillet so we will start using that to see if it makes a difference, in addition to eating lots of iron-rich foods.

This morning we went to the farmers market, and we saw a lot of our friends, who all have little babies. Molly got to give some hugs to her buddies. In a few minutes we are leaving for a picnic with some friends from my mommas group.

As for the tomatoes, I have decided to make a fermented salsa and some tomato sauce to make eggplant parmesan (we also got a big eggplant from yesterday's farm delivery). Those will both make good use of my extra onions and the peppers I also got yesterday.

14 months!

2009-08-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

Wow! It has been so long since I posted. Molly is an extremely energetic baby, and she really needs constant supervision. By the time she goes to bed, I am ready to just kick back and relax. She is still not napping in her crib. We have tried really hard, but it is not working. She will sleep in her crib all night, but she will only nap in the car, stroller, or the carrier. She is napping on me right now. I guess we will try again in a few weeks. She just will scream and scream in her crib during the day. Maybe it has something to do with the light? I don't know. Anyway, we will try again soon.

Otherwise, everything is really great! Molly is having so much fun. She is almost walking by herself. She can walk pretty far holding one hand. She can also take a few steps by herself. I know it is going to be so crazy when she does start walking, and then running.

We are going swimming this afternoon. I've been trying to find outings for us every day. We have mommas group on Tuesdays, we usually go to story time at the library on Wednesdays, and we go swimming on Fridays. In between, we have play dates at the swings or other outings. this week was busy, but it's difficult to think of things to do all the time. I am a little anxious about wintertime when we will not be able to go outside as often. Right now, though, Molly is pretty happy to just be outside. I think things would be a little easier if Molly actually napped in her bed because I could get some stuff done around the house, or I could just sit down and relax for a little while. But...as my mother-in-law said, if this is the worst thing I've got to worry about, we're doing really well. SO TRUE!

Molly is turning into quite the comedienne. She loves to make faces and crack her parents (and herself) up. She really is a funny girl. She has started imitating us. This morning, I was turning my head away from her, and then turning it back toward her quickly and making a face. She started doing the same thing! It was hilarious. She will also play peekaboo with us, covering her face with her hand.

I start back to work a week from Wednesday. I will be back to teaching one day a week, and Bill will resume his weekly Wednesday duties. I'm looking forward to it, though I know it is going to be really hectic and busy. We are heading to Texas next week to see Bill's sister and her husband, and our month-old nephew, Alexander. It will be really sweet to see Molly and her cousin together. She has been hugging other kids, so I hope she gets to give the little guy a hug.

What else has been going on? Hmmm...I've been making a lot of food, like yogurt and bread. I'm getting into fermenting a little bit. The bread was the most challenging, other than the first time I made sauerkraut, but it turned out pretty good after I figured out what I was doing. My friend, Abby, who also is Molly's godmother, is a really good break maker, so she gave me the inspiration to make it. The first loaf tasted okay, but it was about as dense as, um, what was it as dense as? I don't know, but it was really dense. I think I didn't let the starter ferment long enough the first time.

We started to get our farm delivery again because it seems a little cheaper than going to the farmers market for everything. The downside, though, is that we end up with tons of things that pose a challenge to full consumption. Last week, for example, we got about five onions. We ate two in the week, but that was kind of pushing it. What can I do with the onions? Any ideas? I am thinking either French onion soup or...wait for it....fermenting the onions! Onion pickles anyone? Sounds pretty good (in moderation, of course). This week I got a bunch of tomatoes. Normally I love tomatoes, but I am running out of things to do. I'm thinking tomato pie or just a big vat of (possibly fermented) salsa.

This post is getting pretty long and rambling so I will sign off. I hope to update more frequently. I am going to try my best to get back in the habit of posting more often!!!

cute picture

2009-06-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

I am so tired right now that I want to just veg out on the couch, but here is a cute picture of Molly drinking through a straw for the first time. We were having tacos at 5PM (that's why no one else is in the restaurant), and Molly was having a drink of horchata. This was taken by Bill and posted on his Twitter page.

Happy Birthdays!

2009-06-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday, and tomorrow is Molly’s birthday so this post is guaranteed to be a little sappy. I cannot believe that I have been a mother for 364 days. My life has been turned upside down and made so sweet.

Here is a recap of Molly’s and my birthdays last year: One year ago today I was supposed to be on modified bed rest because of preterm labor and a three-day stint in the hospital three weeks earlier. I was feeling pretty good, though, and it was my birthday, so I decided I was fine to spend the day out with Bill. We went to lunch and walked around a bookstore. I was feeling contractions all day, as I had been for the past two months or so, so I just mostly ignored them. I would sit down when they got stronger, but I mostly paid them no mind. We went out to dinner, and I went to the bathroom to wash my hands after a delicious Ethiopian meal (which you eat with no utensils so your hands get pretty messy). I had a bit of fluid, but I did not think it was too big of a deal. I waited until after we paid the bill and were out the door to mention it to Bill. Because of my issues a few weeks prior, he drove the car toward the hospital, despite my protestations, as I called the doctor on call. I thought there was no way there was anything wrong. We were only about a half mile from the hospital so we were there before the doctor even called us back. She said it sounded as though my water had broken, and we should get to the hospital. We were already there, thanks to Bill, and we went on up to get admitted, even though I knew this was all a big fuss over nothing. They admitted me, but they told me I might be in the hospital a couple of weeks. I could not leave because my water had broken, but they wanted to try to keep the baby in as long as they could. I slept fine that night (well, as well as one can sleep in a hospital bed, with lots of IV lines coming out of me, and a fetal heart monitor strapped around my belly). I woke up the next day, and Bill said he wanted to go get a new camera. Most of you know the story from here. Bill was gone about 2 hours, while my friend, Kristen, came to visit. Bill got back, and about 45 minutes later Molly was here.

The nurse checked my dilation, and said, “You’re having the baby.” She made some urgent phone calls, and within a few minutes the room was a flurry of doctors and nurses, both obstetric and neonatal. The sweet Southern doctor, who we had just met that morning because my doctor was stuck in traffic, convinced the nurses to let me “hold” the baby. When Molly came out after two little pushes, the wonderful nurse held Molly up to me and let me put both hands on her for two seconds, and then my baby was whisked away from me so her life could be saved. She was put in a turkey bag for warmth and given oxygen because her little lungs couldn’t support her yet. I wouldn’t get to see her again for a couple of hours. Bill followed the NICU team up to the neonatal floor while I delivered the placenta.

The day was a whirlwind of emotions: terror, joy, grief over not being able to hold or nurse my baby. The next five weeks were mostly hell, but there were a lot of sweet moments in there, too. Molly is so healthy and happy now!

The past year has been wonderful. I never realized how complete motherhood would make me feel, as I’m sure most of you mothers (and fathers, of course) out there know.

Okay, my sappy time is over. It’s my birthday! I went to see Up in 3D. It was so amazing and sweet! There were a lot of parenting themes in it that made me cry a little (because I was already feeling a little emotional today anyway, and because I am a huge sap). Bill, Molly, and I went to have sushi for dinner (Molly even ate some of the cooked fish, tofu, and edamame). Now I am going to have a glass of wine and some of Molly’s leftover birthday cake, and hang out with Bill.

I'll try to post more tomorrow and talk about our visit with Kelly and James and Molly's birthday party. Here are some pictures from Molly's birthday party.

2009-05-26T12:47:00.001-07:00

So, it's been a while since I last posted. I got really SICK about three weeks ago, and I was sick for almost two solid weeks. Not since 7th grade when I had chicken pox (yeah, I got it a littler later than average) have I been sick for so long. Then Molly got sick for a week or so. It was really hard to be sick and try to take care of Molly. Bill was great, of course, but it was the end of the semester for him, and he had a really big project he was working on around the clock to try to finish. This was a time I definitely missed being near family. It would have been so helpful to have a grandparent or auntie come and help out, or at least to provide some moral support. I felt terrible, and Molly was in a really bad mood, and it was starting to really wear on us. She was so fussy and clingy. Of course she was, right? She's a little baby, and she needed her momma. It is all fine now, though. Molly and I are well. Bill is a little sick now--he's going to the doctor to try to see what he can do for his aching sinuses--but at least now I can take care of Molly, and he can mostly take care of himself.

In other news, Molly has napped in her crib for a few days in a row. Yesterday she slept for two hours! She has been asleep now for about 45 minutes. In that time, I straightened the kitchen and living room, put a load of laundry in, folded another load, and straightened out some things with one of my students. Now, I am hoping to finish this post before Molly wakes up. Wow! Motherhood makes one rather efficient, yes? :) Oh! She is crying now, but I am going to wait a little bit to see if she will go back to sleep.

We had a nice Memorial Day weekend. We went to a couple of bbq's, and on Saturday we went to a Cal baseball game. It was SO COLD! We were wearing hats, scarves, sweatshirts, and jackets. We still left early because the game was going really long, and it was so cold.

In two weeks from today, Little Zelda will be a year old. Isn't that just unbelievable?

Okay, I don't think she's going to go back to sleep. I better go get her. I'll post again soon!

so much!

2009-05-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe it has been so long since I last posted! We have been really busy with travel, and Molly has been really busy being a maniac. Three weekends ago we visited some friends in Santa Barbara. We had a wonderful weekend tasting beer, eating, and kayaking. We drove home on Highway 1, right along the coast. There was a heat wave throughout California that weekend, and we discovered on our way out of Oakland that our car's air conditioner was BROKEN! It was not really too bad driving south, but by the end of the weekend, the temperatures were in the high 90's. Poor Molly was roasting in the back seat. On the way down, I put some sunscreen on Molly. She rubbed her hand across it before I got it all rubbed in, and she smeared some in her hair. Because we had to ride for six hours in the car with the windows rolled down, it was as if she put some gel in her hair and then took the hair dryer to it. It was outrageous, all spiked up.

Two weekends ago we went to Louisville for the Derby mini marathon. Bill ran it (in just over 2 hours), and I walked it (in just over 3.5 hours). Molly stayed with her grandparents through the race, cheering us on at two different points along the route. It was another sunny, extremely hot day. Some in our family who ran the race (we had a crew of about 10 people from our family, including in-laws and in-laws of in-laws) had some problems, but everyone has recovered now. Grandma Lola did not want to be responsible for any Molly sunburns so she went a little overboard with the sunscreen. Molly does not have too much hair so she just rubbed a bunch in Molly's hair. It was pretty gross, but she did NOT get a sunburn!

Last weekend we took Molly to a babysitter for three hours, and we went to the annual Derby party in San Francisco. Molly stayed with one of the mommas from my mommas group. She did really well! They said she was happy the whole time and played contentedly with her little friend, the said momma's son.

Molly has been crawling all over the place! She has been unstoppable for a few days now, considering no obstacle too great to her travel. She can pull herself up with no problem, too. It is not unusual to set her on the ground in the kitchen and turn around a few seconds later to see her crawling toward the cat food in the hallway. She is all over the place.

She was fussy earlier this week, and I remembered from a few months ago when she was about to cut some teeth. She pretty much only wanted me, and she mostly quit eating solid foods, wanting only to nurse. This is what she was doing earlier this week. Sure enough, Bill checked her mouth out, and she had her first molar. So now she is up to 7 teeth! In the last few days she has been a little better, but last night she did not sleep well at all. She was up at 11:30, 12:30, 3:30, and 5:30. She eventually went back to sleep, but she has been sleeping really well through the night lately, not waking up at all between 8:30 and 6:30. She woke up today with a really snotty nose so I guess she was not feeling well overnight. She seems to be in a great mood today, even if she is pretty snotty.

Sleeping, part 3

2009-04-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

Molly went to bed last night at 8:30 almost immediately, and she slept until 7 this morning!!! She woke up twice, but she put herself back to sleep in under a minute both times so we did not have to go in to comfort her. Bill and I were in bed before 11 so we got a good night's sleep too. Whew! I hope this keeps up. We are going to Santa Barbara this weekend so we'll see how it goes.

sleeping, part 2

2009-04-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Molly Zelda fell asleep in less than one minute!!!! She cried, but it was for a very short time, and now she is asleep. I hope it lasts!

Sleeping

2009-04-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

It has been way too long since I posted! For the past two nights, we have been working on Molly's sleeping. Back in November she was sleeping through the night really regularly. Since then, however, she has not been sleeping well. With Christmas travel, teething, and illness, we did not really think there was too much we could do about it. A week or so ago, I kind of started to reach a breaking point. I was constantly way too tired, and it was starting to affect my mood. (Those of you who know me well know that, at least before Molly was born, I really needed a lot of sleep. Since she has been born, I have been surprised at how little I can get by on, but the cumulative effect was starting to catch up with me.) Anyway, I talked to one of the other mommas in my group because she mentioned in passing that her daughter sleeps through the night, but it was a bit of a struggle to get her there. I remembered her saying this, and it made me realize that there is in fact something that we can actively do, rather than just passively wait for this phase to pass (most kindergartners sleep through the night, so I figured it would eventually pass, right?). She gave me a book by Richard Ferber, which has helped tremendously. He explained in the book what we were doing wrong. Letting Molly fall asleep on me, and then sneaking her into bed resulted in Molly's being startled when she awoke in the middle of the night because things were not as they were when she went to sleep. That is, she fell asleep cozy in her momma's arms, but she woke up alone in her crib. Understandably, that would result in some anxiety and difficulty getting back to sleep. So we have tried putting her down in her crib while she is still awake, and then letting her cry in increasing intervals until she falls asleep. I let her cry for three minutes on Monday night before I went in to reassure her that she was safe and that I was close by. Then I let her cry for five minutes and went in again. I was going to wait 7 minutes to go in again, but she fell asleep after five minutes. Dr. Ferber recommends that parents do this same thing when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night--no nursing as I have been doing. She only woke up once Monday night, and I only had to go in to comfort her two times, as I did when she went down for the night. Last night, we did the same thing, but instead of starting at three minutes, we started at five minutes. After five minutes, Bill went in to comfort her briefly, and then came out. Again, we were going to wait seven minutes, but she was asleep after about five minutes. The same thing was repeated around 1AM when she woke up, and Bill only had to go in one time to comfort her before she fell asleep again. Around 4AM she woke up again, but she got herself back to sleep, and we did not have to go in at all. Hopefully, the progress will continue, and she will be sleeping well through the night very soon. One interesting thing is that Molly Zelda has been sleeping on her belly now, for the first time. She gets on all fours as she is crying/whining, and she just kind of ends up on her belly. She seems to just prefer sleeping that way now.

We had a nice Easter. It was pretty low-key, but the best part of all was that I got to talk to Kelly for a little while. Yay! I miss her. She sounds good, though. We had dinner with our neighbors, which was delicious and fun as always.

Oh! and Molly has been saying mamamama and papapapa and bapa a lot. It's really cute. She says mamama when she is crying, and she will also reach for me a little bit so I am convinced that she knows what she's saying. Am I crazy? Maybe, but it makes me happy to think that she is calling for me. :)

2009-04-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

It seems like it has been a while since I last gave an update about what Molly has been doing. She has started to put Cheerios in her mouth by herself, which is pretty cute. Sometimes she misses her mouth altogether. Yesterday she finally started rolling from her back to her belly, which is pretty significant. I wasn't sure she was ever going to do that. She also really wants to stand all the time. She likes to hold on to something and support herself. She is becoming kind of mobile as she sits on her butt, scooting around the floor. She's starting doing this thing where she just shakes her head like a maniac, as though she's saying no, no, no, no, no, no. It's really funny. If Bill or I imitate her, she will pause, and then do it some more. Hmm...I think that's about it.

Last Friday, we went to the pool as we have been doing the last few Fridays. There was some problem with the chlorine level or something, so we all had to just wait around for a long time in our bathing suits (we ended up never actually getting in the pool). I was standing there with three other parents and babies, and by the end of the time, all the parents had pee on them. The babies just wear swim diapers, which are intended to catch poop only. So now we know that four out of four babies pee in the pool within the hour allotted to baby swim time. We are all swimming around in lots of baby pee, so I guess I'm glad for the chlorine in the pool. :)

Yesterday, our very good friend had a baby so Bill, Molly, and I all went to visit the little guy and momma. He was born at the same hospital Molly was so we decided to go visit our friends in the NICU. We have been talking about doing that for a really long time. I wanted to see the nurses and show Molly off, but I guess I have had a bit of an aversion to going back there. It was actually a little anxiety-provoking for me to walk in the hospital and go up the elevator to the delivery ward, which was on the same floor as the NICU. I know, it's a little dramatic, but that was the worst five weeks of my life. Anyway, the short visit ended up being very, very nice. We got to see two of our primary nurses. Needless to say, they were thrilled with Molly's huge-ness. She was in a really good mood so she was smiling and laughing as they both held her. As we were leaving, Bill exclaimed that we should have taken pictures with the nurses. We had our camera, but we just didn't think about it. Too bad.

Happy Birthday Lola

2009-04-01T11:31:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Lola
Originally uploaded by billstron

Another cute birthday picture!

Happy Birthday, Lola

2009-04-01T11:23:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Lola
Originally uploaded by billstron

Happy birthday, Mom!
We love you. We hope you had a wonderful day!!!!!

Happy Birthday Grandpa, again

2009-03-26T11:31:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Grandpa
Originally uploaded by billstron

Here is another cute birthday picture.

Also, a side note: I must be really sleep deprived because when I was making this sign, I spelled 'grandpa' incorrectly THREE times. Yup. This sign was my fourth attempt. I was at our neighbors' place because they have so many art supplies (particularly for two grown ups). Amelia offered to write it for me in pencil and let me color it in.

Happy Birthday Grandpa

2009-03-26T11:27:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Grandpa
Originally uploaded by billstron

Happy Birthday, Dad!!!
We wish we could be there to have a beer or two with you. (You know how Molly likes to chew on the top of beer bottles!)

We love you!

More Teeth

2009-03-24T22:33:00.001-07:00

Molly Zelda now has SIX teeth! Yesterday we noticed two more coming in on the top. She is looking so big and old! She has not been quite as polite the last two days while she nurses (i.e., she has bitten me a few times), but I just immediately pull her off and tell her no. She is getting better at not doing it. She is just such a sweetie, and she still really loves her milk. Molly has also been pulling herself up in her crib from a seated position--she still cannot get herself up from lying down so we do not yet have to worry about her climbing out of the crib. She LOVES standing up in her crib, and she will just stand there and laugh and laugh. It is so novel to her that she can stand there on her own.

Last week Molly and I went home to Louisville for a few nights. We got to see a whole lot of family because of Mom's retirement party, but the main reason we went home was to see Aunt Kelly before she deployed to Afghanistan, which she did this past Sunday (on her 30th birthday, no less). We had a very wonderful visit, but it was extra sad to leave.

Bill, Molly, and I will be going back to Louisville at the end of April for the mini marathon. It will be my third plane trip with Molly and Bill's first. It will be very nice to have some extra help on the plane. On the trip over Christmas, we did not really have any trouble at all. Kelly flew here to fly to Louisville with me, but I flew back by myself. Molly did really well on that trip. This trip, she was fine, but she is a lot more alert and curious now than she was a couple months ago. She liked to grab everything and touch the woman sitting next to me. It is actually quite interesting how in everyday life Molly is a people magnet (who doesn't like a cute baby?), but on a plane she magically becomes a people repellent. Fortunately, there were still a few people who did not mind sitting near us, and I was able to let some of our new plane-friends hold her so I could use the bathroom on that flight. Molly was actually quite charming on the flights, singing and squealing a lot. On the way back to Oakland, at the Chicago airport (luckily I only had to change the diaper once on the plane, and I did it right in the seat, and it was only pee), Molly peed all over her changing pad and her clothes. I had changed her diaper and turned around to throw the dirty diaper away. when I turned back and was starting to put her pants back on, I felt that everything was wet! She had turned herself just slightly so that she peed all over herself, and the pee actually ran under my changing pad. I ended up just throwing that away, thinking it would be a huge mess to clean up and try to put back in my bag.

Molly and I have been going to our weekly momma's group and to our swim "class." It is nice to have regular social engagements.

We have been trying to set a bedtime routine lately. We eat dinner, I give Molly a bath, Bill reads her a story, and then I nurse her and put her to bed. Bill comes in to give her a kiss right before I put her in her crib. It is really nice, and it keeps us on track to eat dinner at a decent time. Before Molly was born, it was not unusual to eat dinner at 9PM. That does not work so well with a baby.

Tonight Bill and I made a bunch of applesauce and canned it. It tastes really good, but I hope the canning process worked. If it does, we will probably buy a lot more apples at the farmers market and make more in the next week or two.

Needless to say, Kelly is pretty much constantly in my thoughts. I have the most amazing little sister!

Sick Baby

2009-03-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

This is a quick post because I am really tired and about to go to bed. Molly has been a little bit sick since Friday. We took her to the doctor on Friday because she had a fever. Her fever went up and down over the weekend, but she seemed to mostly feel pretty well. This morning she broke out in a strange rash so I took her back to the doctor this morning. Our pediatrician (who we absolutely love!) did not seem too worried about it. She did not really think it was a reaction to the penicillin Molly has been taking since Friday. She thinks it is probably a virus, the same one causing the fever. She prescribed the penicillin just in case the virus caused a bacterial infection. Basically, she was just being cautious. Anyway, the rash seemed to get a little worse tonight, after office hours, so I called the advice nurse on call. She said we should give Molly a lukewarm bath to relieve the itching, stop the penicillin (just in case it is a reaction to it), and go back to the doctor tomorrow. I will call her first thing in the morning and try to get Molly in some time tomorrow. She seems mostly to be feeling pretty well, but Bill and I think the rash on her back is uncomfortable for her, causing her to be a little fussy. I'll update tomorrow hopefully!

trip to the museum

2009-03-03T21:28:00.001-08:00

Today Molly and I went to the deYoung Museum of Fine Art in San Francisco. The first Tuesday of the month is free so I figured it would be a great outing. When I found out about this monthly event, it was the first week of February, but after Tuesday. So...I have been looking forward to this outing for almost a month. I was actually considering not taking Molly today because she has been unusually fussy the last couple of days. I decided to go, figuring the worst that would happen would be that I would be out the gas it took me to get there. If Molly got fussy, we could come home. At least she would get a nap in the car. Well, we ended up staying for three hours! It was pretty much a perfect day. (I even got a great parking spot in the garage, right by the entrance, so I did not have to even go out in the rain, and I could leave my jacket in the car.)

There was a very cool Andy Warhol exhibit that I wanted to see. Molly really enjoyed the exhibit, too. There was so much color and light that really mesmerized her. She just looked around at everything. After about an hour and a half, I started to walk quickly through the rest of the exhibits because I figured Molly would be ready to leave soon. As we were walking through another exhibit, she just fell asleep so I just took my time and walked around for a while longer. I just felt so peaceful and happy to have the time to bond with my baby. She was very pleasant all day. She did not even 'sing,' as she has been doing lately, practicing her most newly found pastime. This usually entails her saying something like, "babababa," and then gradually increasing her volume to a happy yell. She is so thrilled with her ability to make loud noise, but it can be kind of distracting in a public place (not to mention at dinner in our apartment).

Another Tooth, Standing

2009-03-02T10:03:00.000-08:00

Molly officially has teeth (as opposed to a single tooth)now! The second one broke the surface. The first one is becoming more visible when she opens her mouth.

Molly has been trying to pull herself up, too. Her favorite new trick is to lean over to the railing in her crib when we put her in it in a sitting position, chew on the railing for a little while, and then try to pull herself up. See pictures below.

She also is getting pretty good at standing with only minimal help from us. She does still need to lean on something, though.

She seems to be on a bit of a hunger strike; she mostly just wants to nurse. I'm not sure what that's all about. Does anyone have an idea? I am attributing it to teething and assuming she will start eating again soon. I will probably call the doctor in a day or two if she does not start eating again soon. I love nursing, too, so it does not bother me. She seems to feel great so it's probably no big deal. Maybe she just wants to make sure she looks good in her bathing suit.

Molly is also starting to move from a sitting position to all fours. I know she will be mobile soon, but right now she just usually turns over onto her back. Then she is stuck, like a turtle.

funny parenting moment

2009-02-25T16:18:00.000-08:00

Bill and I have been pretty sad the last few days about losing our ol' hound, but something pretty funny happened that I wanted to share. Many who know my husband know that he is an extremely heavy sleeper. When Molly cries in the middle of the night, I usually wake up right away, but Bill takes a little longer to wake up, if he does at all. Last night Molly started crying in the middle of the night, and Bill, ever the sweet, sweet Poppa, reached over, grabbed the monitor, and put it on his chest. I was not really sure what he was doing until he started trying to shush and comfort the monitor, saying, "It's okay, baby. It's okay."

Goodbye, old friend

2009-02-23T11:04:00.000-08:00

We had to put our old hound dog down this morning. It was unbelievably sad for us, but we know it was the right decision. I won't go into too much detail about it here; you can check out Bill's blog. Daisy started to feel a little sickly last week, but she still seemed fairly chipper, greeting us at the door, etc. Then a few days ago, she just really went downhill. She did not want to go outside anymore, and she completely stopped eating--she did not even eat the gourmet meal of chicken and rice that Bill made for her. We took her to the vet on Saturday. She seemed bad then, but then last night, she really took a turn for the worse. She barely got up at all--Bill had to carry her outside to pee. Then she started vomiting. There were a few drops of blood in it initially, and then it gradually turned into just puddles of blood. It was so sad. Bill and I took turns staying up with her last night. She never closed her eyes. It was almost as though she knew if she closed her eyes, she would die. This morning we took her to the vet, and she went very peacefully. Bill and I were both touching her as she died--the life just seemed to drift calmly out of her.

She was a crazy mutt, but we loved her so much. She was with Bill and me for 10 years, and she was such a part of the family. She was just starting to get to be friends with Molly, too.

swimming

2009-02-21T11:46:00.000-08:00

We went to the pool yesterday for swimming. It was super fun! It mainly consisted of singing songs and splashing the water. You can't see how extremely cute Molly's swim diaper is, but it has little whales on it, and there is a ruffle on the butt. We went with a couple other mommas from the group I have been getting together with every Friday. We will probably go back fairly regularly. Did you notice how big my muscles are getting from carrying around that heavy baby? :)

TOOTH!

2009-02-19T09:04:00.001-08:00

Tuesday morning I was changing Molly's diaper, and I casually asked her if she got any teeth, as we do every morning. To my surprise, there was a tiny little tooth sticking out. It's just the very top of a tooth, but it is most certainly there. AND...she slept all the way through the night Monday night and Tuesday night. Wednesday night she just woke up one time. She has also been actually napping the last couple of days. Bill's trick of getting her to nap is working really well.

On Monday I read an article about feeding babies meat, so I decided this week would be the week we would try meat. I think that did it. She decided, finally! I will let that tooth pop out. We gave her her first taste of animal flesh yesterday, a very gourmet meal consisting of boiled chicken, pureed with carrots and olive oil. Yum! Sort of. The idea of pureed chicken is kind of gross, but Bill was a huge fan of the meal, and I thought he might start doing the dad thing (well, what my dad always did and still does) and eat the rest of Molly's food. He resisted, though. She still prefers vegetables, but I think she will come around to it. Tonight I am going to make chicken soup for dinner, and we will all three eat the same meal, for the very first time. Molly's will of course be pureed.

2009-02-16T22:24:00.000-08:00

We have had a good couple of weeks, but Molly has not been sleeping very well through the night lately. I am not really sure what is going on, but we think maybe the last couple of nights trees brushing against the windows, which has been caused by the heavy rain and wind we have had, have woken her up. Usually, she just wakes up one time, and every once in a while she will sleep all night. The last few nights, though, she has woken up multiple times. She seems to feel fine during the day, though. She is not really sleepy acting. Bill has developed an ingenious trick for getting Molly to nap, too. He rocks her to sleep and then puts her in her crib slowly, keeping his chest against her the whole time, until she is lying in her crib. Then he gently lifts himself up. He showed me how to do it, and today she slept for an hour. Brilliant!

MZ is still eating like a champ. Yesterday she ate an entire avocado! That was in addition to other food. I think we will probably introduce some meat this week, which has a lot of fat and other nutrients (e.g., IRON) that is important for muscle and brain development. Today she ate egg yolks with butter and vegetable broth.

Molly has been really cute with Daisy. She smiles and reaches out for Daisy when she walks by. That good little 'ol hound we have isn't crazy about the extra attention, but she tolerates it and lets Molly touch her ears and head. We trying to make sure she is gentle with Daisy because Molly likes to grab and pull, rather than pat softly.

Molly has been responding a lot in the way of giggles to different 'cheers' and songs. For example, we have been giving her cheerios, so I started saying "Give me an 'O!'" Of course, the response is "O!!!" "What's that spell?" "O!!!" Okay, I do all the call and response, but it kind of cracks Molly up. She also was really liking the Chinese New Year greeting, "Gung Hay Fat Choy!" For some reason, that really tickles her, too. She has started laughing so hard a few times that her eyes watered. Once, she was sitting in her crib and started laughing so hard she fell over. It was hilarious! Bill also likes to play a fun little game called zero G baby. He kind of throws her a little in the air, as though she were not subject to gravity, and sings a special little song that goes something like this: "ZERO G Ba-BEEEE!!" It really cracks her up.

Let's see, what else? She likes to get her mouth wiped off after meals if you pat her face gently and playfully with the washcloth and make any kind of silly noise. That usually gets a lot of giggles while she tries to gum the washcloth. Bill's beard is getting pretty substantial, and the bushier it gets, the more Molly loves it. It really tickles her when Bill kisses her bare belly.

We went to the Chinese New Year parade last weekend, which was extremely cool. I haven't been to a parade in a long time, and I don't remember ever having gone to a night parade. It is touted as the biggest Chinese New Year celebration outside of Asia. There were a lot of lights and floats and lion dancers for Molly to look at. She slept through a lot of it, but she definitely had a great time watching the parade and the people who were watching the parade. There were a lot of really loud firecrackers, but they did not seem to bother her.

Things with Bill and me are going well. I am working all day on Wednesdays. Molly seems to be doing better with not nursing on those days. As I mentioned earlier, she is definitely eating much more solid food so that makes it much easier for her to get through the day without nursing.

Still no teeth, but we check every morning, first thing.

2009-02-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted. I right now have only a few minutes while I am waiting for a student so this might be a little choppy. Things get hectic, and it is difficult to sit down and write. Anyway, we have had a wonderful week! Molly slept through the night once, and the other nights she usually only got up one time. I came into her room to feed her, and she went back to sleep. She has accumulated quite a repertoire of foods she has eaten: carrots, sweet potatoes, lentils, spinach, broccoli, butternut squash, refried beans, beets, bananas, papaya, vegetable broth, avocado, and split pea soup. Not bad, huh? She likes pretty much everything. In the mornings she will eat a little bit, but at lunch and dinner she usually eats a bit more. I usually mix rice cereal (for the iron and other vitamins it is fortified with) and broth or milk in with her food. Two nights ago I made split pea soup for dinner, and I thought we'd see if Molly liked it. I scooped a little out before we ate so that it would cool. She LOVED it. I wish I'd gotten a little more out for her.

We have also recently discovered two new favorite activities: swinging at the park, and reading magazines. Well, it kind of looks like she is just tearing and eating magazines, but we can call it "reading." :)

She has become rather infatuated with faces. She really likes to touch my and Bill's faces. She particularly loves Bill's beard. Molly has also become rather attached to Daisy. Daisy is a good 'ol hound, and she tolerates the lovin' from Molly.

Molly has sort of regressed in her napping. She was taking good naps in the morning and afternoon (even if they were a little short). This week she has really not wanted to nap, fussing and crying for a while. She will fall asleep in the car or in the stroller on a run.

Thursday:
Okay, I did not get it finished. Now it is Thursday, 5:30 PM, and Molly is finally napping in her crib! We went to lunch today, and Molly had a bit of hummus, and she also sucked on a pickle (that's my girl!!). Aunt Kelly will be quite proud, too, that MZ is a fan of pickles. We also gave her a little plain yogurt this morning, which she kind of liked. Maybe with a little fruit mixed in she'll like it better.

Molly's new favorite book is Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! (I love that this kids' book has both a subtitle and an exlamation point.) For Z, it says, "Big Z, little z, what begins with Z? A Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz, as you can plainly see!" Well, naturally, we have nicknamed Molly Zizzer-Zazzer-Zelda.

We go back in a week for another Synagis shot. I think we have February, March, and April still on those horrible shots. Okay, they are not horrible if they prevent Molly's getting RSV, but they really hurt! We will see how much our little chubster weighs.

She is growing lots of hair. We had dinner with our neighbors last night, and A.P. swore that she grew hair between the time we arrived and the time we left. Oh, and no teeth yet.

Hectic Week

2009-01-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

It has been a bit of a crazy week! Molly has been really fussy all week, and she has not wanted to nap or sleep at night. However....right now it is 6:30AM, and she is still asleep. I, on the other hand, cannot sleep anymore so I decided to get up and take advantage of the little bit of quiet before Molly wakes up. I hope I can make it all the way through this post. :) I suppose she is teething. We've been saying that for months now, but this seems to be the worst she has felt. I know that the fussiness is exacerbated by the lack of sleep so hopefully she will feel better today. I have been just getting up with her and trying to rock her back to sleep, instead of bringing her to our bed and feeding her every time she wakes up. It is more difficult for me, but I don't want to get her or us in the habit of just bringing her to our bed to sleep. I usually fall asleep while feeding her because I just put her down between us. Sometimes I wake up and take her back to bed, and sometimes she just stays there for a while. She usually wakes up a half hour or so later, so maybe she just does want to eat. Regardless, hopefully we are back on path for her to sleep most nights through, and we will not need to worry about this much more.

We got Molly a booster seat on Monday so she has been able to sit at the table with us to eat her meals. It has worked out beautifully. She really enjoys sitting in it and watching us. She can entertain herself a bit by just looking around at us, at Daisy, and at other things in the room. She is really loving her veggies. She has eaten broccoli potatoes. She really likes broccoli, and she is rather indifferent to the potatoes (but she still ate quite a bit of them). We also gave her lentils again, and now she digs them. Next up: beets. I still have a lot of frozen food from before I left for Louisville, but I am almost out so I need to make some more batches of food, the first of which will be beets. They're high in iron and very pretty. Hopefully with a little butter she will like them and not get herself stained. I might take off her shirt to feed her, just in case.

We rearranged our apartment this week so now Molly pretty much, but not quite, has her own room. We moved the office things out to the living room so that Molly has room to play in her room, and we can rock with her in the chair in her room.

The weather her, until Wednesday, has been beautiful, with temperatures in the 70s. We went to the Berkeley marina on Monday and enjoyed a picnic, looking out over the Bay. Molly had a great time sitting and lying on the blanket in the sun. You all know me--I did a good job keeping the sun from hitting her directly.

Wednesday is my first day back to teaching, so Bill will be with Molly by himself longer than he ever has been. We both are a little nervous about how Molly will do going so many hours without nursing. She will have plenty of food and milk to drink from the bottle, but she really is comforted by nursing, and it usually helps her to sleep. We have been trying to give her at least two bottles a day to get her used to it, and she is getting much better at taking her milk that way.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

Wednesday:
It's been a while since I last posted so it will be difficult to remember everything that has happened. First, though, I would like to say that I am rather happy to be back to California, where the temperature today reached 77. I really, really miss Louisville already, but I heard that there were record cold temperatures today. I was wearing a t-shirt and no jacket today. Okay, enough about the weather.

Molly and I spent four weeks in Louisville. It was supposed to be three weeks and 6 days, but my flight from Chicago to Oakland was canceled due to inclement weather so I stayed in Louisville an extra night. While we were in Kentucky, Molly started turning over from her belly to her back, and she started to sit up for very long stretches. Her sleeping worsened, though. Before we left, she was mostly sleeping through the night, but she slept through the night only once while we were in KY, and she usually woke up multiple times through the night. About halfway through the visit, I theorized that she may be uncomfortable in the Pack n Play so I started to put her in the bed with Bill and me. It seemed to work. I guess she was getting too heavy to sleep comfortably with such a small pad.

Saturday:
I had to take a break, but I'm back now. We had a wonderful time in Louisville, and we got to see lots of extended family, most of whom met Molly for the first time.

Molly has been recently introduced to a number of new foods including papaya (liked it for two days, but not so much after that) and broccoli (LOVES it, but it is kind of dry so she probably needs a drink in the middle of a feeding). We are working our way up to three meals per day, but she just still loves to nurse so much that we are usually having one or two feedings per day of fruit or vegetable. The pediatrician says that is fine--she is getting plenty of nutrition from the breastmilk, and the milk should be her main source of nutrition now anyway. We don't want to cause any stress; we want eating to be pleasurable for Molly, and if we force it too much she may resist it more. She is clearly gaining weight (weighing in at 21 pounds on Thursday) so we can take our time.

When we got back to CA on Tuesday, we put Molly in her crib for the night. It was the first night I had not slept in the same room with Molly since she came home from the hospital. It went well. She woke up a couple of times for the first few nights, but Thursday night she just woke up one time, and last night she slept until about 5:40, which I consider sleeping through the night because Bill and I got more than 6 hours of sleep. She is sleeping right now, and I am hopeful that she will sleep well again tonight!

Pomp and Circumstance

2008-12-11T19:31:00.001-08:00

I'm all finished! As of about 3PM today, I am officially Dr. Drescher-Burke! Bill, Molly, and I went and PHileD my dissertation. It was pretty anticlimactic, actually. I took my multiple copies of the actual dissertation and the additional paperwork, and the woman in the office checked it all and said, "I'll be right back with your receipt." She left us for a few minutes and returned with a little certificate and a lollipop (really!). I can get my actual diploma in a few months. I went with my friend last May to file, and there was a long line of people. For me, there was not even a line, probably because it is not quite the end of the semester and also because it is December, and most people finish in May. I will be posting my dissertation for everyone to read (Ha ha, just kidding. You don't even have to pretend like you want to read it.) I was pretty nervous that I had forgotten something, a signature or some form. There is a 35-page booklet with instructions on how to file!

Earlier this morning we took Molly in for her second Synagis shot. She did fine, though she screamed when the needle went in her chubby little leg.

Just a few more days until our big trip home. I am so, so excited! Molly and I are really going to miss Bill, though, for that time at the beginning of the trip when he's not going to be there with us.

Molly + Food = Sleep!

2008-12-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Since Molly Z has been eating solid food, she has been sleeping so well, usually about 9 or so hours per night. It's wonderful! Last night she slept more than 10 hours, but I think it is probably because she did not feel well from all the shots she got yesterday at the doctor. She is now weighing in at a healthy 18 pounds, 4 ounces. The last time she was weighed, about a month ago, she was 16 lbs., 3 oz. She is 26 inches long, and that puts her right at about the 50th percentile for height. Her weight is somewhere between the 75th and 90th percentile! Unbelievable, really, that that little preemie runt is so big now.

I think I may have found a food that Molly does not like: lentils. I cooked some for her today because they are really high in iron. I mixed them in with the carrots, but she wasn't fooled. I tasted it, and it tasted mostly like carrots, so maybe she is just still not feeling well. She slept for a really long time this morning, falling asleep on her own, without her usual feeding before naptime, making me think she is still not feeling 100%. I will try to give her more lentils in a day or two, after she is feeling a little better. I made quite a bit to freeze so I hope she likes them eventually.

So Crafty!

2008-12-08T22:14:00.000-08:00

Bill and I had a craft night tonight, and we taught ourselves the art of crochet. Right before Molly went to bed we started. Molly sat on my lap for a little while, trying to grab the crochet hook. I don't think it makes a very good baby toy. We put her to bed soon, though, and I was able to work on my masterpiece more easily. A friend of ours showed Bill the basic stitches a year or so ago, and we picked it up tonight. Bill refreshed himself, and then showed me. I made the beginnings of what is shaping up to be a very nice, um, maybe triangular bookmark. Or washcloth maybe. For some reason my edges are decreasing in size, and what was supposed to be rectangular is becoming triangular. It is, believe me, beautiful, though! :) Bill is a little better than I am. That engineering brain is much better at crafts. Last night I finished the quilt I have been working on for a year and a half or so, for Kelly, so I needed another project.

Yesterday, we went to our friends' house and made gingerbread houses. They baked the gingerbread into the pieces of houses, and then it all got glued together with frosting. It was so fun! They had a lot of candy and things to put on the house. Bill did all the building and most of the decorating. Molly had a great time watching all the fun. There were lots of colorful pieces of candy to look at.

Molly still has not turned over anymore since she turned over three times in a row the other day. She really likes lying on her belly on our bed. She just laughs a lot and looks around. I guess she has a better view of the world from there than she does from the blanket on the floor.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we go back to the doctor. Molly will be 6 months old tomorrow! It is really hard to believe. She will get some more vaccines and her first flu shot--babies apparently get 2 flu shots. She will get the second one when we get back from Louisville. On Thursday we go back for Molly's Synagis shot. I leave a week from tomorrow for KY, and I am very, very excited!

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas...

2008-12-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

Last night we went to my department's holiday party. It was very fun! Molly got to meet lots of my fellow students and the professors in the department. I even wore a skirt. There were a lot of little kids there running around. I made hashbrown casserole, which is always a hit with California crowds.

Yesterday Molly turned over three times in a row by herself! On Tuesday she turned over for Bill, and then on Wednesday she turned over for me, but both of those times it seemed like an accident. Yesterday, though, she seemed pretty satisfied with herself. She has not done it since then, though.

Right now, Bill is changing MZ's diaper, and they are in there CRACKING UP! Bill has her going--he can get her laughing better than anyone. In the mornings, she has started waking me up with giggles and squeals instead of hunger cries. What a sweet little alarm clock! She has also developed this new move (which she started when we were in Santa Barbara, and which I thought was a book falling on the floor) where she puts both her legs in the air and then just lets them fall like dead weight. She amuses herself like that for a little while.

Oh! And I took a bath with Molly on Thursday night. I thought it would be really fun because she also likes to do her new leg trick in her baby bath, successfully drenching her Momma. I think she is still a little too small for the regular bath because she cannot sit up on her own yet. I put a wash cloth under her bottom to keep her from slipping. That helped some, but she is just so slippery when she is wet that it was difficult, especially when we were getting out of the tub. I'll definitely do that again in a few weeks, though, after she can sit up on her own. I put some bubbles in the water so she couldn't see her feet. I think she was a litte confused by that, but she'll get used to it and start playing in the bath in no time.

Time to feed the baby!

Molly + Sweet Potatoes also = LOVE

2008-12-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

I fixed some sweet potatoes today for Molly, and, as expected, she gobbled them up. I made a bigger batch and divided it into three portions. I put two portions in an ice cube tray to freeze them, and I fed her the third portion. This time, no more dainty eating. She had it in her eyes and nose and all over her hands. Auntie Kim told me that it was bound to get messier, so we will just watch, and I will try to avoid getting completely dirty myself.

Molly turned over once on Tuesday, while I was gone. I'm away from the kid for three hours a week, and she does something momentous. :) Bill said he is pretty sure it was a complete accident, though, because she didn't react at all, and she hasn't done it since then.

She has been sleeping really well this week, usually about nine-hour stretches. Bill and I usually get an hour or two at night after she goes to bed to be together.

We have a big weekend coming up. Tomorrow night is a party for school, the following night we are going to our friends' house for dinner and to help decorate their Christmas tree, and on Sunday we are getting together with some other friends to make eggnog! YUUUUMMM-EEEE. I LOVE eggnog. I think it will really put me in the Christmas spirit.

I will be home in less than two weeks! I am so excited to see my family and to introduce Molly Zelda to lots of folks.

Molly is taking a nap right now so I am going to kick back and read a novel for a little while.

Great Thanksgiving and exciting Molly progress

2008-12-01T11:19:00.001-08:00

We had a wonderful time in Santa Barbara this weekend. Molly was pretty happy all weekend, and she got lots of attention. She did not have a lot of down time, which might have interfered with her sleeping somewhat, but overall she was great. Bill and I definitely had a great time. We had a wonderful meal cooked by our friends. We went on a long walk, including to a butterfly sanctuary and to the beach where we saw some dolphins and a beautiful sunset. (They live that close to the beach!) After our walk, we came back for the best pumpkin pie we've ever had--no joke. It was delicious. We played poker a couple of nights, too. I am looking forward to playing more poker when we are in Louisville for Christmas.

Molly is still loving her fists. Now she is not only trying to eat them, but she is also staring at them quite a bit, opening and closing her hands. She is mesmerized! She is so so close to turning over! I think it will happen in the next few days. Last night after we got home we put her on the bed and tried to get her to turn from her belly to back, and she almost had it. She got a little frustrated, though, and we finally gave her a break. She will try again today.

She has been doing really well with the solid food. She has been eating bananas and carrots. Lola got us a baby food maker, which is AWESOME! I used it today to make carrots. It is basically a small steamer and food processor in one, which means much less mess to clean up.

Sorry for the choppy post. MZ just woke up from her nap.

Anniversary and Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T11:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Bill and I celebrated 8 years of wedded bliss. I was kind of stressed out earlier in the day because Tuesdays are my day to work so I was trying to cram lots of work in before we went out to celebrate. The three of us went to one of our favorite restaurants, the German place in Alameda. Bill held Molly in the Moby throughout dinner, and she slept the whole time! I did not have to feed her as soon as my hot food arrived at the table, as I usually do. I got to eat my whole meal with two hands, leaning over the table, rather than eating with one hand, trying not to drop food on my baby as she was trying to enjoy her own meal.

We are on our way to Santa Barbara right now to see some friends for Thanksgiving. You read that correctly: We are on our way right now! My brilliant husband somehow managed to get internet access in our car! He also rigged it up so that my computer will charge in the car. I don't know how he did it, and I don't really care. I know that I am extremely impressed, though.

Molly is sound asleep in the backseat, and Daisy is snoozing next to her. It's pretty cute--our kids sleeping in the backseat. We brought some carrots so that Molly can have a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal tomorrow.

We have so much to be thankful for this year. I really miss my family, but I will see them all in just a few short weeks. Here is a brief list of what I'm thankful for this year:
1. Bill and I have a wonderful, healthy, happy baby
2. Bill and I are still in love after 8 years of marriage
3. I have the best family (including Bill's family who is, of course, also my family) and friends in the whole world

Molly + Carrots = LOVE

2008-11-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

This was toward the end of the feeding. Carrots everywhere!
This was after about two bites.

Molly did a great job eating her carrots! She did not hesitate at all and just opened wide and swallowed (sort of swallowed). She did not seem put off by the new flavor or texture at all. I really think she would have eaten more, but I cut her off because I did not want her to get a belly ache.

We topped the meal off with a refreshing beverage (a.k.a., breast milk, straight from the source).

Food

2008-11-21T11:56:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a few minutes to write a quick update while Molly Z is taking a nap. We are starting to get into a little bit of a routine with naps: one around 11AM and another around 3:30 or 4PM. She seems to be doing pretty well with the schedule, and it gives me a little bit of a break. I have some veggies cooking on the stove right now for lunch, some for me and some for Molly. That's right. I am going to attempt to give her some carrots today. She has done really well this week with the rice cereal so I figured I would give the carrots a try. I was going to do bananas, but I don't have any of those in the house, and I do have carrots. She will be six months old in a couple of weeks (can you believe it?!?) so I think it is alright to start slowly on some other foods. We are not in any rush so if she doesn't seem ready, we can back off and stick with the cereal one time a day and try again in a week or so with some fruits or vegetables. The move to foods has meant I have to pump a little bit every day (bleh) to have some milk to mix with the cereal. I will probably mix some with the carrots, too, just to thin them out a little bit. I have no idea how much she will eat or if she will even like them, but I will be sure to give an update on the blog.

I definitely think she is starting to be ready for food, though. For the past couple of nights, I think she has wanted more milk than I had. She wasn't really fussy or anything, but she is draining me, which she has not done before. She is a pretty enthusiastic eater so I feel confident that it will go well.

Bill took some pictures of her eating cereal so we will get those posted soon.

I am so excited about coming to Louisville! I will be there is just about three and a half weeks. I really hope my dissertation is finished before I leave. I got some comments back two days ago from both of my other committee members. One said it looked good, and the other had some things she wanted me to revise. Bill generously took the whole day off yesterday so I could work on it, and I worked for many, many hours yesterday on it, and I think I made some good progress. We'll see how it goes.

no beach, but sleep

2008-11-17T13:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we did not quite make it to the beach. Molly ate, napped, ate again, we ate, etc. By the time we were ready to leave, it was about 2:30, and we decided the drive to the beach would not be worth it because it starts getting dark around 5, and is usually pretty dark by 5:30. So we walked around the lake and the surrounding areas instead. It was a great way to spend the day.

Poppa Bill had the brilliant idea to try to get a Papa John's pizza, which is a Louisville institution that is simply unavailable to us here in Oakland. Except!!! that we could drive 15 miles to Hayward to pick it up. We ordered it on-line (not something we ever did when we were in KY) and drove down to pick it up. Brilliant! We haven't had a Papa John's pizza here in California. It was a good treat.

We left here around 6:45, and Molly fell asleep in the car. When we got home, she woke up for me to change her diaper, and I figured she would want to eat. I put her down in her crib in the office/baby room so I could go wash my hands, and by the time I came back she was asleep again. I figured she would wake up soon to eat, probably just about the time I was taking my first slice of pizza to my mouth, or taking my first drink of the necessary-with-pizza beer. She never did wake up throughout dinner. I thought she would surely wake up before we went to bed, but she never did. Bill picked her up to take her to bed when we went to bed around 10:15, and she never woke up. She did not wake up until almost 6AM. I, on the other hand, woke up at our previously-agreed-upon meeting time of 3:30, but Molly was a no-show. I of course checked on her about 4 times, but she seemed fine. This morning she was in a great mood, after about 11 straight hours of sleep, not to mention two great naps yesterday (one before our walk and another during out walk, in the stroller). Right now she is napping again.

I hope she is not sick. I don't think she is, though, because she seems really happy. I doubt it's the rice cereal either. We never gave it to her yesterday because we were planning on giving it to her whenever she woke up, but she never did. We gave her some more this morning before Bill left for campus, and she ate quite a bit more than she did on Saturday. We plan on giving a little bit to her every day. We also decided it would be a good idea to start giving her a bottle of pumped breast milk every day to get her used to it. We hope to take advantage of some babysitting over Christmas (if we can get one, which is probably iffy) so we want her to be really comfortable with the bottle.

She is waking up now, so I gotta go!

big baby week

2008-11-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

We had a big week this week, in terms of baby-hood. We made our first attempt yesterday to give Molly Z "solid" food. That is in quotes because it was really just a bowl of breastmilk with a tiny bit of rice cereal mixed in. The pediatrician told us it was a good idea to just get her used to the idea of eating with a spoon. It went alright. She spit out a lot of it, but ya gotta start somewhere, right? Dr. Spock says that if the baby pushes out a lot with her tongue, she is not completely ready to start eating with a spoon yet. We have to remember that developmentally she is a couple of months behind. We're really not in any hurry to wean, but we do want to try to get her eating at least some things soon (even though I still plan on breastfeeding her until she is at least a year old). I might try some mashed bananas or some stewed apples in a week or so, if she doesn't take to the cereal. We'll keep trying a little bit every day, though.

We also stopped swaddling Molly over night. I got a really cute sleeper that goes over her pajamas that is like a blanket that she wears. She was starting to wake up trying to break out of her swaddle so we decided to give it a try without the swaddle. It seems to be fine. She still is swaddled for her daytime naps, though.

The last week or so she has not been sleeping through the night. She has gone back to getting up one time around 3:30 to eat, and then sleeping another few hours. No big deal, but it sure was nice to sleep all the way through the night. I'm not concerned, though. We'll get back there eventually.

We have had a heat wave here. There have been records set all over the place so today we are going to go to the beach and enjoy the hot weather, probably for the last time until next spring.

Molly just woke up and needs to eat!

Happy Baby

2008-11-12T08:01:00.000-08:00

Molly is trying to eat my wrist. You can see she is losing quite a bit of her hair. She has developed a bit of an affinity for sucking on her parents' hands, in addition to her own fingers. It is pretty dang cute.
Yesterday was a really good day. Because it was Tuesday, Bill stayed with Molly all day so I could get some work done. I am sooooo close to finishing my dissertation! My chair has approved it, and the other committee members are reviewing it. I worked all day on getting the last revisions finished to send it out. I have a couple of tiny little things I need to talk to someone at my fellowship about, but that (I hope) should just about do it, after I make revisions wanted by the other two committee members.

Bill made us a very nice dinner last night, and the pictures are of Molly and me in the kitchen while Bill was cooking.

We had a very nice visit with Grandma Kristine and Aunt Andrea. Andrea was only here for 38 hours or so, but we made the most of the visit. On Saturday, we did our usual routine of going to Arizmendi and to the farmers market. I got some vegan soul food (thanks Aunt Cathy for trying this and then getting me hooked), which everyone shunned, except for Kris who tried a little bite. I know, it sounds like an oxymoron, but, I tell ya, it's delicious. Anyway, later we did a little shopping and then went out to dinner. Sunday morning we had to take Andrea to the airport. Because we were already in SF, we went to the Ferry Building to just wander around. We came home and had supper. Kris had to leave really early Monday morning. Molly smiled and giggled a lot. We got some good pictures (check out Bill's blog--he posted more pictures). It was a wonderful visit, but, as all family visits, just ended way too quickly. It is really sad to be so far away.

Molly has been sleeping really well through the night, generally. She usually goes to bed some time between about 9 and 10, then she usually sleeps until 6:30 or so. About three times a week, though, she will wake up around 3:30 to eat. The last two nights she has woken up then to eat, but the general trend is certainly sleeping through the night, which is just wonderful. She smiles so easily these days. She will also just let out squeals of pure delight, and she giggles and laughs a lot. It is extremely contagious--you just can't help but laugh with her.

More Weight Gain

2008-11-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we took Molly to Children's Hospital for her first monthly shot against the nasty virus, RSV. She will have to get the shot once a month until the season for this virus is over, which I think is April. The nurse was wonderful! She will be the same one we see every month. She knitted a bunch of hats for all her patients, so Molly came home with a new, handmade hat. Isn't that just so sweet? She also gave her a very cool touch and feel book of farm animals, which Bill loved. It was rather emotional for me to go to the hospital. It wasn't the same hospital Molly was born in, but there were a lot of sick kids there, and it was kind of sad. But, as Bill said, thank God there are these hospitals around. We ran into a mom and dad there who had a baby in the NICU at the same time we did. Their baby is doing well, too, though she is about half the size of Molly.

Speaking of size, Molly now weighs, are you ready for this?...7.35 kilograms. That is 16 pounds, 3.2 ounces! DANG!!! As soon as we walked in, the nice nurse said, Wow, she's big! My regular diaper covers were all dirty yesterday so I put on one that we have for when she gets bigger. Well, at least we thought she couldn't wear it until she is 21 pounds. Can you predict where this is going? Not only does that diaper fit her, it is actually slightly snug. There are two reasons this could be so: 1. the diaper tags are incorrect, or 2. she is so short that her butt is actually the size of a 21 pound baby.

We had a really fun day on Bill's birthday Sunday. We went to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, which is a nerd paradise. Needless to say, Bill was in paradise. :) It is a very interactive science museum. Visitors can participate in all kinds of little science projects. We got there about three hours before it closed. We closed the place down, baby! We didn't quite make it to all the exhibits, but we got through most of them. Later we went to eat German food. It was a wonderful day!

I am making progress on the dissertation. My chair has approved the first 5 chapters (there are 6 total) so I sent those chapters to my other 2 committee members for their comments. My chair also has the final chapter, and she is reviewing it now. It is hopefully about finished, then I can send that out to the other two. When all three approve it and sign off on it, I just file it, and I'm all finished! It's getting close.

Tomorrow, Grandma Kristine and Aunt Andrea will be here. We are really looking forward to their visit! Kris hasn't seen Molly for three months, and Andrea hasn't been here since Molly was in the NICU. She was there with me in the hospital when the doctor told us Molly has NEC, and Andrea was a great comfort. I can't wait for her to see her now!

Molly is just so full of life. She is such a happy little girl, and she just cracks herself up. She will just start giggling and squealing for no apparent reason. This morning, she was eating, and she would pull herself off every few seconds just to let out a little squeal of delight. It was hilarious! She can sit and chew on her hands for a long time, just looking around the room. She is still loving her hands, both watching them and sucking on them. She also seems to be losing her hair. It is still red, but seems to be getting lighter. It is difficult to tell if this is because it is actually getting lighter or just because it is getting thinner. She is getting the bald spot on the back of her head that most babies get just from lying on her back, but it is turning into a ring of baldness, and she is losing it on the top of her head, too. I seem to remember my mom saying Kelly lost all her hair--is that right?

We watched the election results on Tuesday night. What a momentous occassion, huh? A black man as the U.S. president! I think it is really cool that Molly will live her whole life with knowing that a minority can be president.

Poppa's Birthday

2008-11-02T07:04:00.000-08:00

Today is Bill's birthday, and Molly and I are very excited--we love birthdays! Molly tried to make it to mine this year, but she was about 13 hours late. :) We are going to go to the Exploratorium in San Francisco and out to dinner tonight. It should be a very fun day, with the three of us inseparable. Bill is still in bed now, but he will be getting up soon. I ordered him a cake from the bakery around the corner, which I can pick up in a couple of hours. When he wakes up we'll open all the cards he has received in the mail and have a nice breakfast and probably watch Meet the Press.

I have been sick with a fever since Friday, but today I am feeling pretty good. We thought it might be a reaction to the pertussis shot I got on Thursday, but I called the nurse at the campus health center on Friday, and she said it was very rare for someone as old as I am (sigh...) to have the side effects I was having. The headache and body aches, in addition to the fever, meant I was most likely just suffering from a virus. I had to wait it out and drink lots of fluids. Half the day on Friday Bill took care of Molly and let me sleep, then he had to go to work. All day yesterday he waited on me and let me sleep a lot. Molly took two long naps with me, too, which was wonderful. She doesn't seem to be sick. She has been more sleepy than usual the past couple of days, but if that is the worst she would experience this illness, I'm really happy with that. She hasn't been any less smiley or giggly, just a little sleepier.

I'll write another post a little later--Bill just got up!

Almost Halloween

2008-10-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

It's been way too long since I've posted--sorry! It seems to have been a busy week, but I can't say exactly why it's seemed that way. I just haven't found the time to give an update on Molly. On Saturday we went to see some friends and carved pumpkins. The couple who hosted us and the other couple who came over used to live in our neighborhood, but they moved out recently. It's sad--we miss them all. We had a great time, and Bill took some pictures today of Molly and me with our very scary jack-o-lanterns.

On Saturday Molly and I went to a prenatal yoga reunion. We went to one a couple months ago, so it has been fun to see how the babies are growing.

Molly is continuing her fascination with her hands. She loves shoving them in her mouth and sucking. She recently decided she could get a better taste of those slimy things by using one hand to push the other one in further. It is pretty cute. She has also been sucking just her thumb, which is just adorable! Her giggling is much louder these days, and it comes with hardly any effort on our part. She will easily smile and coo when you make faces at her. She will also just laugh sometimes for no reason. It's such a pleasant sound, and it makes me smile when I hear her laughing at something she just sees while we're walking around.

She is still not quite ready to turn over, I don't think. She doesn't particularly like tummy time, but we keep at it to build her arm muscles. She is getting closer to sitting up, though (I think).

We finally got a new crib this week. Bill will be putting that together soon, and she will be out of the cradle. I can't believe Molly Z is so big! A week from Sunday she will be five months old!

Tuesday I got a whole lot of work done on my dissertation. It is really close to being complete. I know I keep saying that, but it is! I hope to send it out to my whole committee for comments within the week, and then it should just be a matter of final editing (knock on wood). Tuesday night I went to the movies with a friend. It was really strange being away from Molly for most of the day. Bill had her all day on Tuesday, as usual. I was here to feed her for most of the day, but he took her out a lot, and then I left for a couple hours in the evening. It was actually a little sad (though I know it's important for me to get out and do some things without Molly) to be away from Molly and Bill for so much of the day.

Bill and I got our pertussis shots today (thanks for the reminders, Aunt Cathy) so we will hopefully not contract whooping cough, which could be really hard on Molly if she were to catch it from us.

We have a pumpkin costume for Molly, but she is too big for it. She probably would have fit into it if she were less than three months, rather than her real age of almost five months--she is just too big! We could probably put some orange clothes on her and that would be enough to dress her as a pumpkin. (Okay, no more jokes about my chubby baby.)

Visit

2008-10-22T17:16:00.001-07:00

Aunt Kelly and Grandpa Joe D. left today. :( We had a wonderful visit with them while Poppa Bill was out of town. I will get back to the visit in a bit.

On Friday we went to the doctor for more vaccines. Molly is officially a very huge baby, weighing in at 15 pounds, 7 ounces (and that was almost a week ago now!). She is HUGE! She is in the 75th percentile in weight now, but only the 25th percentile in height. Pretty amazing that that tiny baby born just over four months ago now weighs more than 75% of the other babies born that week. Crazy! We went up a size in diapers, and they fit her much better. She got some vaccines, too, so she was very unhappy for about a day and a half. We did not give her iron Friday because we knew it would be traumatic for her to get her vaccines, and we did not do it on Saturday or Sunday either to let her get over it a little longer. I also did not give it to her while her auntie and grandpa were here because she would have been vomiting all over them.

Speaking on vomiting...yesterday we all went to the Jelly Belly factory. Aunt Kelly LOVES Jelly Bellies so we were overdue for a visit to the factory. We all had to wear hats because it was a factory. That includes Molly. Molly Z had to wear a little paper hat, too. It was very cute. We got some pictures, which will be posted soon. Grandpa Joe finally came around to the wonders of the Moby yesterday, too. He had been carrying her around all week, swearing she was not heavy. Neither Aunt Kelly nor I believed him. She gets heavy pretty quickly. Anyway, he finally agreed yesterday to wear the Moby while we were on the factory tour, saying he would do it because he thought Molly would be more comfortable. After we were finished, he agreed that it was more comfortable for him, too.

I haven't forgotten about the vomit. At the end of the tour we could sample all the flavors of jelly beans we wanted. They actually had vomit flavor. I know. They also had booger flavor, rotten egg flavor, moldy cheese (which Aunt Kelly tried), ear wax flavor, pencil shavings flavor, baby wipes flavor, and black pepper flavor. I tried the vomit flavor. It did taste like vomit. I had to spit it out--it was absolutley disgusting! I figured it would taste fruity or something, and they just called it vomit flavor to be funny. I won't fall for that again.

On Monday, we kind of got a slow start after we had our morning walk down to Arizmendi. We ended up going for pizza for lunch and to do sake tasting. There is a sake factory in Berkeley, and they have a little museum and tasting room. Molly was very happy the entire time until we were on our way out the door. As we were leaving, she threw up all over the pristine floor. We yelled that there was a little mess on the floor and promptly split.

Today we walked to Arizmendi and then took our breakfast down to the lake to eat. It was a beautiful morning, and we just talked and solved all the problems of the world.

Molly loves her aunt and grandpa so much! She had plenty of smiles, giggles, and squeals for them. Grandpa Joe was impressed by how well she can hold up her head and stand on her legs with a bit of support.

She didn't sleep very well while we had visitors. I don't know if it was the excitement, or that she is just too big for the cradle.

Coutdown to the Weekend

2008-10-16T21:19:00.001-07:00

We have had a good week this week. We have been more diligent about giving Molly her iron, but she just throws it all up that it is difficult to continue giving it to her every day. The doctor said we don't have to give it to her every day, but we have been trying to on most days. Today she threw it all up and just was not happy in general after she got it. Now she is sleeping peacefully on my chest in the Moby.

On Monday we went again to yoga. I had a wonderful time--it's such a nice class. Molly also had a great time, just lying on her blanket looking all around. There is so much for a baby to look at: pictures on the wall, other babies, other mommas, lots of decorations and plants and statues. She just would make a little squeal of happiness every once in a while, and she even fell asleep for a little bit after I fed her (while I was doing some light yoga so I didn't have to miss anything).

Bill and I have tried to put MZ in our other carrier, the Ergo, but she is still a little short for that. The Moby is fine for a while longer, but I think the Ergo will be easier on my back, which is starting to hurt a little from carrying around this chubby baby.

Molly and I have been going on lots of walks in the stroller. She really loves to do that, too. She falls asleep a lot in there, too, but not as much as when she is being carried. She likes to look around from the stroller. She also has still been valiantly attempting to eat her entire fist. It is really cute when she tries to stuff that little "handhock" in her whole mouth. Sometimes she even tries to eat it while she is actually nursing so I have to pull her little arm away so she will really eat.

Earlier this week we ran into an acquaintance from the neighborhood who has not met Molly yet. She said, "She looks so...healthy." I said, "Is that code for 'fat?'" She laughed and said that when she was a baby she was so fat that her grandfather was worried she "wouldn't be married off." Bill and I got quite a kick out of that. So I suppose we don't need to worry that Molly will not be marriage material. :)

I just took a break, so now it is almost 12 hours later. We did a little shopping today because Bill needs a couple of new things to wear for the conference he's going to Sunday through Wednesday. The three of us had a great time together! We went to a few vintage clothing stores, which was a fun way to spend a few hours. I am really looking forward to Sunday when Grandpa Joe D. and Aunt Kelly will be here to visit. Grandpa Joe D. will be meeting Molly Z for the very first time! I'm sure he will get lots of smiles and probably a few giggles.

Bill posted some new pictures so if you haven't already, check them out!

Big Week

2008-10-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

We've had a bit of an eventful week, at least compared with our usual, fairly uneventful weeks. Tuesday was our usual Tuesday, where I worked all day, and Bill took care of Molly. I worked more on my dissertation on Tuesday and throughout the week. I was able to turn in another draft to my chair on Friday (yay!). Hopefully it is really close to being finished. I will need her approval, and then I will need to get approval from my other two committee members.

On Wednesday we went to a wedding, Molly's first wedding. Our neighbors, who are gay, got legally married, and Bill and I were their witnesses. Why get married on a Wednesday? Well, they had a big wedding two years ago, and that was their anniversary. They did not want to have two different dates to celebrate, one their actual wedding, and the other the legally binding ceremony. Molly wore a very cute dress (Bill promised to post pictures soon). Bill and I also were dressed up a bit so we got some good pictures of the three of us.

On Friday, Molly started throwing up in the morning after I gave her her iron. We are supposed to give it to her every day, but it makes her throw up so we don't give it to her every day. Well, yesterday she was just throwing up all morning, much more than usual. I called the doctor, and because it was Friday and she would not be around on the weekend, she said we should take her in. She is absolutely fine, but the doctor checked her iron level, thinking maybe she does not need it anymore. Her iron is still low, though, so we have to keep giving it to her. The pediatrician explained that babies usually get a lot of iron in utero during the third trimester. Because Molly Z missed that third trimester, her iron is low. I hope she will be able to get off the supplement when she begins eating some regular food. In the meantime, though, we will continue giving her the iron, and I am also going to try to increase my iron intake via food (which I just feel like is better absorbed than supplements) so that it will pass to her through my milk, and she will hopefully actually get more of it than she does with her supplement, which is usually all regurgitated. I don't know if my eating more iron will make too much of a difference, but the pediatrician said it probably would. I figure it can't hurt, either way. We go back to the doctor next week for more vaccinations, but I doubt she will have her iron checked then--I don't know when she will have it checked again, maybe in a couple of months.

Today my friend, Trudi, brought her daughter for a visit, and the four of us went to the farmers market while Bill went to watch the UK football game. We had a great time! Molly slept in the Moby while we shopped. Tomorrow we are meeting a woman I work with and her husband and baby, who was born in January.

Molly has been sleeping wonderfully! This morning and yesterday morning she slept until 7:15!!!! One day she had a poor night's sleep, waking up a couple times, but the rest of the week she slept until about 6. We are starting to look on Craigslist for a crib now because Molly is starting to outgrow the cradle she has been sleeping in. MZ has also been holding her head up really well--we don't have to support it much at all these days. She is still enjoying attempting to fit her fists in her mouth, sometimes both at the same time. Molly has been smiling so much, and her little giggles are adorable! She is also really good at making and holding eye contact.

Yoga

2008-10-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

Tonight Molly and I went to a postnatal yoga class where I went for prenatal yoga. It was the first time they had held a postnatal yoga class. It was really great. Molly had a wonderful time, as did I. I took a thick blanket for her to lie on during the class so that we could see each other and make eye contact. There were three other new moms there with their babies. It was really comfortable. At some point during the class, we all had to nurse our babies and comfort them. It was really relaxed, but my legs are still sore. I held Molly Z during part of it, which added a bit of extra weight and made the poses and stretches a bit more challenging. I'm so glad I went, though. I considered not going because I had to load Molly and all our gear in the car. It was great seeing some of the women I was in the prenatal class with, and their babies. The babies were all so cute!

Molly has been sleeping really well at night lately, with the exception of last night. We have been keeping her up until about 10 when we go to bed. I usually feed her right before we go to sleep (I think that was why she didn't sleep so well last night--she was asleep so I didn't feed her), and then she sleeps until about 5 or sometimes a little later. It is really wonderful to be getting good amounts of sleep.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, which means Molly and Bill will spend all day together, with my providing meals when necessary, while I work. I am so close to being finished with that dissertation!

2008-10-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I posted! We have had a really nice week. Early in the week Molly was feeling a little under the weather, sniffling a lot and being pretty fussy. She seems to be feeling much better today. She has discovered her hands recently, and she thoroughly enjoys sucking on those little ham hocks. Lola and Bill both suggested that she might be teething--all the sucking on her fingers and the fussiness may indicate that. I looked it up, and babies don't usually start teething until between 4 and 7 months. Molly will be 4 months old in a few days, but developmentally she is only about 2 months old. I would be surprised if she were teething this early, but I guess we'll see. Any of you new parents reading remember when your little ones started to get teeth? right now Molly is lying next to me, and my computer is right at the same level as her face. She started licking the side of my computer. Maybe I should pull it away since she is putting her lips and tongue in the usb (is that what they're called?) ports. Okay, now she is licking my jeans. Now she just spit up all over my jeans. Okay, now she seems to feel better. So, I don't know if she is teething or just going through that oral developmental stage.

Since she has been chewing on her hands so much, Molly's smell has changed. Previously, she smelled discinctly like milk, which is very lovely. Now, she smells like a combination of milk and baby slobber. That sounds really disgusting, but baby slobber doesn't stink like grown-up slobber does. I don't know--maybe it would stink on someone else's kid, but I like that I know Molly's distinct smell.

We have been taking lots of walks this week. Walking with her seems to make her fall right asleep, and she was a little bit fussy this week so that helped. We have been using the stroller for our long walks, and it works just as well as the Moby. We also tried to use our Ergo carrier this week, but she is still a little short for that. She definitely still loves riding around in the Moby, and it is still really comfortable for us, but I think the Ergo will be more comfortable for us when she is bigger.

We have not done too much exciting things this week. Wednesday Molly and I walked over to the library and checked out a book and some CDs. Yesterday we went to the farmers market and then to watch the UK game at Zeke's. Bill ran the Bridge to Bridge race this mornong in SF. He is still gone, but I'm sure he has finished running by now. Oh--he just walked in the door.

We ran into two people this week who work in the NICU. We saw the dietitian at Arizmendi (the bakery by our apartment). We saw her again at the farmers market yesterday. She lives in our neighborhood. She was happy to see Molly so healthy and getting so big (I didn't tell her our pediatrician told us we didn't need the milk fortifier). We also ran into one of the resident doctors who took care of Molly the first two weeks she was there. (they rotate every few weeks so we had a few different residents). It took her a second to remember us, but then she said, "Oh! This is Molly! Last time I saw her her stomach was exploding." That was the NEC Molly had to deal with. Needless to say, she too was thrilled with how big Molly has gotten. She was there the day Molly was born and was on the team who saved Molly's life by keeping her breathing. She asked us if the memory has faded yet. It IS fading, but it is not gone completely yet, especially those first few days. I'm sure it will eventually, though.

Advice for the NICU

2008-09-30T10:19:00.000-07:00

The woman who was my prenatal yoga teacher has another student who is about to have a baby, and they know that their baby will be going to the NICU for a heart condition. Jessica gave her my contact information in case I could offer her any words of advice. I don't think there is really any advice anyone can give in a situation like that, but I listed a few things. I think if I had been in her situation, I would not have appreciated any advice so I tried to keep it pretty general and not too preachy. I decided to put it on the blog in case I have to go through this again (please God, no, no, no!), or in case anyone stumbles across it from a google search. If anyone wants to add anything, please let me know.

1. Don't let the downs completely take you out. They are to be expected. The nurses and doctors were WONDERFUL, but I would get a little frustrated with them when they did not take the "downs" seriously. I thought when Molly was having a bad day, it was a huge deal, but sometimes they didn't make a big deal out of it. I slowly began to realize that was not because they didn't care; it was because it was all part of the recovery period, and they knew Molly was on the path to being a healthy baby. I have said numerous times that if there really are angels on earth, the NICU nurses are certainly true angels.

2. I'm not sure how it works at UCSF, but at Alta Bates and at Children's Hospital Oakland, parents are encouraged to pick primary nurses who will care for their baby whenever they are working. Take advantage of this. All the nurses are absolutely competent and take good care of the baby, but pick a nurse who will take care of YOU and your partner. It was a huge help for us to have primary nurses who were very communicative with us and who also talked to us like regular people (i.e., talked about their own kids and what they were doing over the weekend, etc.). You will be spending a lot of time with them so you want to have someone you are comfortable with.

3. Ask any questions you can of the nurses. They were a wonderful help with breastfeeding, bathing, changing diapers, teaching us how to take Molly's temperature, baby massage, anything! I would feel like I was bothering them at first (especially with the breastfeeding because that took some time, and we had a lot of trouble getting that going because Molly was so early), but they are happy to help and they are full of useful advice. It was sort of like we had our own private parenting class and were able to ease into baby care.

4. Go home at night and sleep. I felt horrible guilt about leaving Molly at the hospital, not to mention utter sadness at being away from her when we would go home at night. I admit I didn't do well on taking my own advice here, but sleeping and eating well are absolutely imperative for keeping up your spirits, energy, and milk supply.

5. And, yes, get caught up on all the novels you have been wanting to read. There will be (hopefully) a lot of down time where your baby will be sleeping peacefully so you can just relax close by your baby's bed and read and rest.

What a Week

2008-09-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

We had a WONDERFUL visit with Mom, Fred, and Aunt Cathy. It was very, very sad saying good bye last night. Molly took to all three of them very quickly, giving them lots of smiles and even a giggle or two (at least it sort of sounded like giggles). They got here on Wednesday afternoon, and Molly Z and I met them at the airport. We went to dinner at our favorite German restaurant that evening. On Thursday, Bill worked, but the rest of us rode the ferry over to the Ferry Building in San Francisco. It was a great way to spend the day, pretty low key and relaxing. The weather was absolutely perfect. After we rode the ferry back, we went back to the house where they were staying, and Mom fixed us a delicious meal. Bill met us over there after he was finished working. On Friday, Bill had to work again, and the rest of us drove up to Muir Woods. We came home over the Golden Gate Bridge and took a detour/driving tour through San Francisco. We picked up pizzas to take back to their house so we could watch the presidential debate. Bill made it over just before the debate started.

On Saturday, we all went to the farmers market and decided to spend the rest of the day playing poker, which was a really great idea. Bill and Aunt Cathy were the big winners, with winning totaling around $9 between the two of them. Sunday we celebrated Aunt Cathy's birthday. We started the day with brunch, and then we went to Berkeley for the How Berkeley Can You Be festival. It started with a parade of art cars (which we missed), but the cars were all parked at the festival so we got to check them all out. We took lots of pictures so Bill will get ours posted soon, and I'm sure Mom and Fred will share theirs. After looking at the cars and watching many, many Berkeley hippies dancing (again, it was a beautiful day and great barefoot dancing weather), we went back to their house for more poker. Aunt Cathy won so much money she couldn't hold it all. My two-day losses totaled about $3, but as Grandpa Joe D. would say, I had $30 worth of fun.

It was a wonderful visit, and I'm so happy Molly got to spend so much time with her extended family. She was so happy all weekend, held by everyone!

Tuesday

2008-09-23T18:25:00.001-07:00

Today was the usual Tuesday where poppa Bill stayed with Molly all day while I went to my seminar and did other work. I worked for a long time today on my dissertation. It is so close to being finished! I just have some fairly minor (but still requiring a bit of time) edits to do. Before and after my seminar, I was home working, and I just fed Molly when she got hungry.

Tomorrow Lola, Lopa, and Great Aunt Cathy will be here. We are really looking forward to the visit! I am not sure what all we will do, but I'm sure we will spend a lot of time playing with Molly Z. We might go to the How Berkeley Can You Be parade (you can google it). Bill and I have never been, but it always seems like it would be fun. I'm sure we will eat German food, too.

Molly is starting to get some muscles! You can hold her up, and she will keep her legs rigid on your lap, like she's standing. She also likes to look around at things. You can just tell her little brain is trying to absorb everything.

posting comments

2008-09-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

I think some people have had trouble posting comments, but I have changed the setting so that now anyone should be able post if you want to.

Day at the Beach

2008-09-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day Jason and Abby were here. We had a breakfast consisting of the rest of the smoked salmon, bagels, and eggs. After that, we went to Alameda to go to the beach. It was beautiful!! Bill had run there when he was training for the marathon, but I had never been. What a wonderful idea. Next summer we will definitely be spending some time there, when Molly is a little bigger and more likely to like the water. We walked along the beach for a while, and then we stopped at a very good Italian deli for sandwiches. Molly stayed, can you believe it, in the Moby for the whole time, and she was was very content. Her first trip to the beach and she couldn't care less.

Molly's hair is getting very red. It really is cute. She has also been sucking on her hands a lot. Her smiles are getting more frequent every day. She is such a joy! Bill and I are so lucky and happy.

Meeting Lots of People

2008-09-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our friends Jason and Abby came up to see us and to meet Molly. They brought their dog, Chester, who promptly gave Molly Z a nice, big lick on her head upon meeting her. Last night we did not do a whole lot. Abby was nice enough to bring a wonderful dinner of homemade black bean soup, and she made quesadillas with smoked salmon (that they smoked themselves), cream cheese, and capers. It was delicious! Today we all went to the farmers market. Bill and Jason went shopping in SF, and Abby and I went to the Ferry Building in San Francisco, had lunch, and tried lots of samples. Friends of Bill's parents were in SF on vacation, and we met them this afternoon also so that they could see us and meet Molly Z. She has been asleep in the Moby pretty much all day, but when she came out to meet Rhonda and Steve she had lots of smiles to share. I have had to change Molly's clothes already three times today (spit up, spit up, pee), and I am about to do it again (more stinky spit up).

Another Good Night of Sleep

2008-09-19T09:19:00.001-07:00

Here is a picture of Molly after a good night's sleep. She is smiling more, but they are still infrequent and pretty fleeting.

Molly had another wonderful night of sleep last night! We put her to bed around 10, but we stayed up until almost 11. Her last feeding had been around 9, and she woke up when we went to bed so I fed her at 11. She slept until 5:30 so we got 6 and a half hours of sleep! Yay!

Today we are going to a little get together for a woman I know who is having a baby in a few weeks. Later today, Jason and Abby will be here. We are looking forward to introducing Molly Z to more friends.

Okay, It Was a Fluke

2008-09-18T09:34:00.000-07:00

As the title of this post suggests, Molly's sleeping through the night was, sigh, a fluke. Last night we kept her up until we went to bed again, but she woke up at 3:45, and then again at 6. It's okay, though! She is making progress, and we don't mind getting up with her. (She is, after all, a little baby.) She ate at 3:45 for a little while and then went back to sleep. She got up at 6 to eat again. I was so tired, though, that I convinced her to sleep a little more on my chest while Bill went for a run. (He is running five days a week now, and I am really proud of him!) We got to sleep until about 8 or so. Now it's only 9:30, and she is asleep again, lying on me while I am typing. She was fussing a lot while I was making my breakfast so I figured she was just hungry. When I tried to feed her, she ate a little, but kept crying. I cuddled her a little more, and she settled right down. I think she might have been cold. Regardless, she seems to be happy now.

The weather is certainly getting cooler, as fall-like as it gets in the Bay Area. Molly has been wearing pants with her onesies.

Well, my chubby little baby is waking up now so I suppose it is time to eat again!

Through the Night!

2008-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

Our alarm went off at 6AM, and Molly had not woken up all night! Amazing! We put her to bed a little after 10, when we went to bed, and she was not ready to get up until about 6:30. I feel good today because I got such a long stretch of sleep!

Yesterday we took Molly to a bookstore. Today, Molly and I are having lunch with my friend, Kristen. She is also going to get a bath today. In two days, Jason and Abby will be here visiting us, and they will get to meet Molly Z. They are friends from Lexington who now live near Santa Barbara. Jason used to be Bill's office mate at Lexmark.

In one week from today, Lola, Lopa, and Great-Aunt Cathy will be here to see us!

Molly is feeling better since Monday, when she got some more vaccines. She was not feeling well at all on Monday, but she was starting to feel better yesterday, though she was still a little fussy. This morning she seems to feel really good. She is lying here next to me right now, just stretching and grinning now and then at me.

Some Things I Forgot

2008-09-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

I forgot to put some things in my post from earlier today. Molly has started sucking on her hands, which is very cute. She is also getting very good at following faces and voices. Just now she was facing to her right so I shook her rattle on her left. She favors her right side, so the doctor told us to put interesting things on her left side. It was so neat! With a little bit of effort, she turned her head to the other side to look at the rattle.

Molly was definitely not feeling well today since her visit to the doctor. She got some more vaccines so, like last time, she was very fussy. It was quite obvious she did not feel well. She was crying real tears and just being generally unhappy. (Kelly and James picked the right day to go home.) She seems to be feeling a quite a bit better now. I have given her two doses of baby Tylenol and have just spent a lot of time cuddling her today to try to comfort her. When she got her shots this time, she really screamed and cried a lot. It brought a few tears to my eyes, to see her so unhappy. Bill and I think she is just maturing a bit, and now she can feel discomfort more than she could a few weeks ago, at her last visit.

We go back to the doctor in a month!

Visit to the Doctor

2008-09-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

We just got home from the doctor, and Molly has certainly grown! She is up to exactly 13 pounds, and she is 22 inches long. Wow! She has almost tripled her weight since she was born. She is now in the 50th percentile for weight. So amazing! She is exactly average weight for a baby born June 9th. We are so happy with her progress, and so is the doctor.

Kelly and James left this morning. It was really sad. We had a wonderful weekend with them. You can read Kelly's post to see her perspective of the weekend. Molly was crazy about both of them. Coincidentally, her smiling frequency has greatly increased over the last few days, just in time for Auntie Kelly and Uncle Jimmy's visit, so they got lots of smiles from their little niece.

Girls Gone Wild

2008-09-14T16:39:00.000-07:00

WHAT A WEEKEND...blessed and beautiful!! This is Aunt Kelly...only the proudest aunt in the whole world, or atleast one of the two, to include Aunt Andrea! Yes, Uncle Jimmy and I are visiting beautiful Molly and proud Momma and Poppa here in beautiful Oakland. It's been a wonderful weekend full of walks, blockus, and Molly, Molly, Molly. Krista and Bill have been so great, giving Uncle Jimmy and me all the holding time we can steal for the short visit. I got to carry her everywhere in the Moby. Carried her in the Castro, where Krista, Molly and I got some alone time Fri to shop, at the farmer's market on saturday, and at the bar where we watched the bucs game today for Uncle Jimmy. I held her the whole time and Molly was SOOO GOOD. She never fussed at all! Really!! Unbelievable! She's the best, most beautiful baby ever! I have to say, there is just not enough holding and staring time for the little cutie. Really, I could stare at beautiful Molly poop, sleep, and spit up ALL DAY!! How can she look so adorable doing it?

Krista let me burp Molly Saturday morning (after her first of about 50 feedings that day). Observative Momma noticed while I was burping her that there was something on the new onesie that dad had just put on Molly. Bill was waiting Molly's whole life for a day to dress her in this special, purple robot onesie, when he could be home all day to admire her cuteness. Well, with a little closer look, Krista says, "IT'S POOP!" Yes, Molly blew out another diaper all over her new, clean onesie. And you know what...I didn't even care. It was even a little cute. Who knew I ever thought poop could be cute... AND, I got to help my big sister give her daughter a bath. Molly likes baths. It's fun learning from my big sister! It's incredible how natural it is for her to be the great mom she is. I hope one day I will be even half as good.

This weekend is Uncle Jimmy's first meeting of Molly. SHE LOVES HIM!! Man, I'm going to have to spoil her big time! Molly smiles so big at him. He loves her too! They are very sweet! James and I even got to watch her this morning while Bill ran and Krista tried to catch up on some rest. (It was a good thought, but mom was needed again shortly after.) It was so fun! We just laid with her and made faces. It's fun to see Molly developing her personality and smile. She's the best!

Okay, well Bill and James are staring at me waiting for me to finish this blog so they can try to beat me at Blockus....Bill said yesterday his goal is no longer to win, but to make me lose. I love getting to them so passionately :) ....and for my disclaimer, yes, Bill beat me 2 of 3. And Uncle Jimmy wants to be sure I acknowledge his two 2 silvers and an honorable mention for coming in LAST! :)

I can't wait to come back next month....I love her so much!

The Future

2008-09-12T09:10:00.000-07:00

I had a meeting yesterday with my adviser. I took Molly with me, and Lorraine held her the entire meeting. She also bought Molly an adorable little dress, onesie, and some tights. So cute! It was a very good meeting. My dissertation is coming along, and I plan to be finished in a couple of months. The big news is that I will probably be staying home with Molly after I file my dissertation. Bill and I have been talking about it for a few weeks, and I discussed it with Lorraine. Bill and I think that the best thing for the three of us will be for me to be a stay at home mom for a little while. Lorraine told me she thinks it is a great idea, and it should not hurt my chances of getting a faculty job down the road. She is the dean, and she has been around for a long time so I certainly trust her advice. I am so excited about this! I never thought I would want to do this, but now that I have Molly, I know this is the best thing for our family. And like Grandpa Joe D. said, if it doesn't work out, I can find a job.

Aunt Kelly and Uncle Jimmy are coming in today! We are really looking forward to seeing them. Kelly gets in to Oakland in a little over an hour, and James gets in around 6:30 our time. Bill is working, so the three girls will get to spend the whole day together. I'm not sure what we are going to do. I was thinking we might go to the Castro in San Francisco and do a little shopping.

Three Months Old

2008-09-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Molly Zelda turned three months old! It's so hard to believe! She is so big and healthy, such a change from three months ago. It's really amazing. We are so fortunate. I have started the process of changing her clothes in her dresser from 0-3 months to the 3-6 months clothes we have. It is actually a little sad, but very sweet. I'm happy to say that she is starting to grow out of the little clothes, even though she is on the smaller end of her true age (three months, as opposed to her adjusted age, which is just over a month).

Yesterday I had my second seminar so Bill was home alone with Molly. They had a great time again, though the weather was much cooler than it was last week so they did not spend as much time outside.

My milk is absolutely crazy! (You can skip this paragraph if you don't want to hear more about breastfeeding). Last week, I pumped right before I left so that Bill could feed Molly fresh milk. My supply was out of control for two days! It was like it was a few weeks ago, when I had way too much milk. I was leaking, and Molly was getting all foremilk (and hence bad gas and diarrhea). Yesterday, I decided not to pump, but just to have Bill use frozen breastmilk. It was better, but it still kind of messed me up not to have that feeding. She never completely emptied one breast yesterday, which means she was getting primarily foremilk. I usually just continue multiple feedings on one breast until it is emptied, but yesterday and overnight I had to switch because she just never emptied it, and the other one was getting really, really full and hurting. I manually expressed some milk because when that happens, Molly has a really difficult time swallowing it all. Last week, right after she started eating, she pulled herself off to catch her breath, and I literally sprayed her all over her face. It was like a hose! It was kind of funny, but I felt bad for MZ. With my maually expressing some, I tried to avoid more of the firehose. Hopefully, today it will balance out to normal again, and it will not take as long as it did last week.

Yesterday I pulled an ultra supermom move. I was cooking dinner and simultaneously nursing Molly. How's that? I doubt that will be able to happen much more--she's getting pretty heavy to hold with one arm while standing up. I was pretty proud of myself, though. :)

Tomorrow I am taking Molly with me for a meeting with my dissertation advisor, Lorraine (many of you met her when you came to my graduation). We will discuss my dissertation, which I think is very nearly complete, and what my life will be like after I file that thing. I will keep you posted. Lorraine came to visit us in the hospital right after Molly was born, before I was discharged from the hospital. I am looking forward to her seeing how big Molly has gotten since then!

Bill and I have decided to keep Molly up a little later at night so that we can get a little bit of a longer stretch of sleep. When we put her down at night, she usually sleeps for 5 or 6 hours. But because we were going to bed an hour or two after that, we were getting a much shorter stretch of sleep. A couple of nights ago, we put her down at 10 when we went to bed, and she slept until 3:30 (or was it 4?). I can't remember. One night she slept until 3:30, and one night she slept until 4. It has worked out well, but the down side is that we don't have any time with just the two of us. That's fine with us, though. Bill has been working away from home so he gets a little extra time with her at night, which is really nice. When she starts sleeping for longer stretches, we can start putting her down earlier again. This whole parenting thing is all experimentation, isn't it?

Earthquake and So Much Love

2008-09-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago there was a 4.0-magnitude earthquake that we felt here. It was pretty big, and it lasted a number of seconds; I think the newspaper said 7 seconds. It happened at 9PM, a little while after we had put Molly to sleep for the night. I ran in to check on her right away, but the little girl had not even stirred. We kind of knew that because we did not hear her on the monitor, but I wanted to check on her nonetheless.

Yesterday we took her to watch the UK game at the UK sports bar in San Francisco. Today was a great day for us! It was a beautiful day, and we spent a lot of time outside. I am so happy right now in my life. Bill and I are just crazy about that little girl, and we are having a great time as a family.

Molly's hair is starting to turn red! She has been grinning quite a lot--she is so cute and sweet!

Aunt Kelly and Uncle Jimmy will be here in five days! We are so excited to see them.

I have mentioned our neighbors whose little boy is in the NICU after having some heart problems. He has taken a turn for the worse so please send your prayers and good thoughts out to the family, that they will be able to handle whatever happens and that little Simon will be comfortable, whether he gets better or he gets worse. It really makes me so appreciate how precious life is, and just how important the people around me are.

another day of motherhood

2008-09-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a great day. Molly and I went with Trudi and Audrey to lunch and to do a little shopping for work clothes for Trudi, who starts back to work full time next week. We had a wonderful time, and Molly did really well. She hung out in the Moby the whole time, and hardly fussed at all. I fed her right before we left, at a little bakery where we got dessert. Oh, and I got a parking ticket in a parking lot! I was really excited to have a parking lot to park in. It seems like everywhere I go (with the notable exception of the grocery store) I have to find street parking, which can be a total pain. But...this parking lot had a 2-hour limit, which I didn't take seriously. Well, I saw the guy putting the ticket on my window, and he said don't worry about it. It's just letting you know that this is a 2-hour lot so I just thought it was a flyer or something. When I got back, though, I saw that it was indeed a ticket. However, the twist is that there was no actual fine, just a warning that I might get towed. Interesting, huh? So I don't really know who employs that guy if he isn't really bringing in money. I digress.

The weather here has been really hot. It's the only time of year when an air conditioner would be even remotely useful. We have a fan, though, so it's not bad when we are sleeping. During the day it actually isn't too bad either, just much warmer than any other time of year. Molly has been just in her diaper most of the time, with the addition of a swaddling blanket when she is sleeping, which she is doing very nicely right now. She was being pretty fussy when I tried to put her down so I took her to visit Amelia across the hall. Amelia held her for a little while, and Molly eventually fell asleep. I brought her back a few minutes ago to take a nap in her pack n play.

I am really enjoying spending all this time with Molly. I am so lucky! I was a little worried I would feel a little lonely without much adult interaction, but that has not happened yet. For one thing, Molly does keep me pretty busy. I also have a lot of stuff that I can just walk to in the neighborhood if I get bored. Finally, I know a lot of people who I can visit with, including both new moms and non-mom friends. I also talk to Bill a lot during the day. I do not really feel too overwhelmed either. I am trying not to stress out about getting everything done around the house. I try to keep on top of laundry, but I am letting other things go if I can.

We are having a number of visitors this month. Aunt Kelly and Uncle Jimmy are coming a week from tomorrow; our friends from Lexington (who now live in Santa Barbara) will be coming the following weekend; and Lola, Fred, and Great-Aunt Cathy will be coming a few days after that! We are looking forward to it all. Of that group, just Lola and Aunt Kelly have met Molly, and she has changed a lot since they saw her. Lola has not seen MZ since the beginning of July when we were still in the NICU, and Kelly came right after we got home from the hospital. Especially for Lola, MZ is much less fragile (not to mention that she does not have any wires or tubes connected to her).

I started playing with Molly today with some toys. She seemed to follow the sound of a rattle, which was pretty neat. Later, I was just playing with her after I changed her diaper, and I got her smiling a lot. I took a picture of her with my computer, holding her up to the camera. It is pretty cute--she is smiling a little bit, and you can see how big she is getting.