Thursday, June 28, 2007

Big Girl




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Monday, June 25, 2007


Hanging with dad ... her hairline in photos always makes me laugh because it looks
like a painted-on Ken doll's hair!


Watching Canadian Idol and unimpressed


I love these pyjamas ... there are cassettes on the pants...


...and old-school headphones on the shirt!
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Father's Day




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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Faces


She's all bundled up because we were at an evening campfire
and it was windy


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Saturday, June 09, 2007

2 Months Photo

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Photos of Aven

For anyone who is interested, all the digital photos we have taken and will continue to take (literally hundreds!) are on an online album you can access here

You can order prints (15 cents per 4x6, same as walmart) and kodak will send them directly to you!

I just put in my first order.... it's a biggy :)

Friday, June 08, 2007

2 Months

Dear Aven,
Hello Personality. Nice to meet you! In the past four weeks you have shown us that you are not just the passive, content little slug we thought we knew. You have lungs; you have strength in your arms and legs; you have bodily fluids; and you know how to use them all.

You know what you want, and you want it when you want it. Which is generally NOW. NOW. NOW. When you first started being a little more demanding, I was not prepared for the change. I didn't know what was wrong, and I didn't know why you didn't just "fall asleep" when you were tired. But I have learned, and after a couple weeks of wondering why you were the crankiest baby ever, I know you and your ways. I tried to put you on a routine at 5 weeks, but you were having none of it. Then, thankfully, at 7 weeks, you welcomed it and we are both much happier. You eat until you decide you're full, then you have "happy time", the most wonderful minutes of my day. You smile, you talk to us and watch our faces, you try to laugh (but it sounds more like a gasp). You are content to be left somewhere to look at toys or objects. Happy time ends when you're tired, and you let us know by saying "wah" or "nah" a couple of times in a peeved way, or turning your head away from whatever you're looking at. At this time, we give you a soother and let you start to wind down. If we miss these signals you've given us, you punish us with the saddest, most pitiful wails and bottom lips. I try not to miss the signals.

Nap time has been our biggest challenge, and on your new routine nap time always follows happy time. Even if you only sleep for ten minutes, I want you to learn that we have a rhythm so you know what to expect next in our day and so that I know what's wrong when you cry. It's amazing how much easier it is to read you when we have a routine. For the record, bicycling your legs and trying to climb me like a ladder = gas, needing to burp, spit up or poop.

You do not like going to sleep. You're afraid you're going to miss something. I discovered a few weeks ago that you refuse to shut your eyes because all you want to do is look around, but then you get overtired and it's even harder to get you to sleep. So I have a few tricks to get you to shut them:
1. pull a hat down over your eyes
2. carry you and cover my shoulder (and your face) with a blanket
3. gently stroke the bridge of your nose and between your eyes.. it almost always makes you sleepy
4. go into a dark room and rock you

Once your eyes are closed, we've conquered the biggest hurdle (although we're still not home free.. is that a mixed metaphor?). So. Where to sleep? The swing? My arms? Your crib? The couch? Swaddled or not? Nothing seems to always work for you, except me rocking you, on your side, with your soother. Once you "seem" to be asleep in my arms, I face the major dilemma: do I risk putting you down somewhere, only to have you wake in 2 minutes? Or do I continue to hold you, knowing that you will probably sleep for a good half hour (though in that half hour, there is very little I can accomplish!). If you have ejected the soother from your mouth without waking or crying (or panting or flailing), it's a pretty deep sleep. The cutest thing you do at this point is suck on something imaginary. I love watching your little lips form around nothing and work away at it like it's the hottest day of the year and you have a big old Freezie.

You have yet to learn how to keep the soother in your mouth all the time, especially when you get squirmy-tired, and paw away at your face, knocking the soother out. It's during these times that I actually wish I had one of those plastic cones they put on dogs so that they don't chew their stitches.

Even though we're still working out the bugs in our day, there's nothing I love more than waking up with you and waiting for you to focus your sleepy eyes on my face. When you finally see me, you give me a huge smile centered between the two softest ice-cream scoops of cheeks. In this moment, you are brand new every morning. It doesn't matter how much you cried the day before, or how much you were up in the night, or that you spit stinky-cheese puke on my sheets for the third day in a row. This is when it's all worth it.


Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Growing


We went away the weekend of May 26 and Aven was really cranky and wanted to eat
all the time. When we got back, we woke up in the morning and I swear she was 6 inches longer! She outgrew
a bunch of her clothes very suddenly. Now she's wearing some 3-month stuff, but only for length ... she's very long
but still not chubby.



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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Video

To see a little video of Aven smiling, click here

Unfortunately there is no sound and the picture quality isn't great. Sorry! I'm working on it.