Kendra's First Photo Shoot

For my baby shower, Amie gave us the cutest bib that said "Peanut." This was the basis for our first home photo shoot with our adorable girl.

We had a lot of fun!

(No, she can't sit up yet - or even balance her head 100% of the time - but pillows work wonders.)

Check out the rest of our August pictures here.

Natural States

Here we are in our natural states...

Baby in her boppy with her binki. She does love her binki!


Dan with his little girl by his side, Wii controler in hand and the ever present laptop.



Me with our little one, and all the accoutrement's of motherhood: laptop, Kleenex, burp cloth and binki.

A Day at the Dog Park

Saturday was an amazingly beautiful day here, so we did what every self-respecting PacNW would - spent the day outside. We loaded all three dogs and one baby in the car and headed to the Sand Point dog park.

Kendra slept through the entire thing. :)

Three hours later we came home - wet, sandy and tired. Dan grilled some chicken and zucchini for dinner. An after dinner martini (yum!!), some Wii and it was a perfect day.

We Have A Newborn

I forgot to mention in my previous post that we had another pediatrician visit last week. Kendra is officially up to 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 20 inches long. Congratulations - we have a newborn!

She got a (mostly) clean bill of health. We had noticed a day or two before that her belly button suddenly popped out about an inch. She has a hernia, but the doc says its harmless. We are supposed to keep an eye on it, but hopefully it will heal up on its own.

Surviving the Seattle Heat Wave

We have survived a Seattle heat wave! It was in the 90s for a few days - and before all you midwesterners scoff at me, remember that very few people have air conditioning. So when it's 95 outside, it's also 95 in your house! Baby Girl and I sat on the couch with at least 2 fans blowing on us at all times.

Saturday we decided to get out of the heat, so we went to Carkeek Park. The park is right on the edge of Elliot Bay so there was a wonderful, cool breeze blowing off the water. A friend sponsored an "ethnic cookout" - everybody brought food based on their ancestry. We decided to go with Dan's Texas roots and brought hamburgers and a big jug of sweet tea. Everyone's food was delicious - everything from curry to shepard's pie to octopus.

After we ate too much, we walked along the beach with Baby Girl. Although she was less than impressed (she slept through it), we enjoyed it. The water was ice cold, and felt wonderful to walk through. There were people swimming and kite surfing (despite how cold the water was), plus all the sailboats and ships. All in all a beautiful day (and much cooler than in our house!)

Sunday was slightly cooler, but still warm so we decided to start Baby Girl's cultural education. We spent most of the afternoon at the art museum enjoying the new Impressionism exhibit (and their air conditioning). Afterward we had a fabulous dinner at the Icon Grill.

My confidence level is growing in regards to taking our little one out of the house with each trip we take. It's amazingly difficult to haul a baby around - and only partially physical effort. Did we bring everything we need? What if she gets hungry? (We're still having breast feeding issues.) What if she's cranky and starts fussing? What if I can't calm her? What if a satellite looses orbit and falls out of the sky, landing directly on us? The things you worry about.

Dreams

I dreamed last night of my breast pump. Granted, in my dream Kendra and I were on a bicycle tour of Egypt, but still...sigh.

Dan says he's been hearing the swishing sound of the pump in his sleep for weeks :) Ah, what we do for our kids.

From the Other Side of the Table.

Anyhow, I think it's worth it to note publicly just how hard Karen (and I presume any new mother) works at being a mom. She does get frustrated trying to decipher our little one, but then Kendra isn't going to be able to help with that for a few months yet.

Let's see....

Breast feeding an uncooperative premie?

Poorly defined sleeping schedule?

Diaper changes? Disposable or cloth?

Ever growing collection of unwatched CSI episodes?

Incessant pumping?

Doctor visits?

Cranky husband?

Mastitis?

Laundry?

Barking/wimpering dogs?

A Seattle "Heat-wave"? (umm it hit 82. That's high, or something)

That's a LOT to deal with! Just the same, I do think that's a napkin on the baby.

How Can One So Cute...

be such a frustration? Babies should be born with the ability to talk - it would make life dramatically easier. Nothing is more frustrating than your child crying, you having no idea why and nothing you do helps. Thank goodness there are two of us - one gets frustrated and hands her off to the other.

So far, I've learned the following things about motherhood:

1. Sometimes ice cream and a spoon is necessary. Dan saw my frustration last night and handed me the carton of ice cream and a spoon.

2. Chocolate is your friend during late night feedings. I keep a stash of various candy bars that are easily broken into small pieces on top of the fridge. It is much more enjoyable to trudge down the steps at 2am and again at 4am and again... if you know there is chocolate as your reward at the bottom.

3. Nursing is hard. People have been nursing forever, yet it is one of the more difficult aspects of motherhood. Frustration levels are high, and tears (from both of us) aren't uncommon.

4. There is a HUGE size difference between "newborn" clothes and "0-3 month" clothes. And none of them will actually fit a newborn, unless you give birth to a linebacker.

5. Despite the frustrations and tears, she is the most amazing thing to ever happen to me.

Update on Life

So much has happened since we brought little one home. Everyday I said I was going to post, but somehow there just isn't time! (Everyone warned me about this!)

Dan's Mom - She was here for 10 days, and was a tremendous help. Much to her delight, she was here when we brought Kendra home from the hospital. We did a bit of sightseeing with her when Bryan and Cheryl were in town, but mostly we hung out at home. She helped Dan cook, kept the laundry caught up and the house clean. I got a chance to know my baby a little bit and practice being a mom. She got to dote on her first grandchild - and has the pictures to prove it. :) On her way home she was bumped off her flight and got a free ticket for her trouble. She's planning a return trip for Kendra's first birthday. We can't wait to have her again.

1st Pediatrician Visit - July 30 we had our first pediatrician visit for Kendra. We have a very healthy little baby. She had gained more weight, and was officially 5 lbs, 14 oz and 18 1/2 inches long. (3-13 and 16 inches was her birth stats). She also had her first vaccine - Hep B. She wasn't all that fond of it, but I think it hurt Dan more to watch her get it.

Despite her clean bill of health, the doc wants us to keep her as isolated from people as possible. No going to stores, parties or restaurants - anywhere there are large crowds of people. Children are especially off limits - they are little germ factories. Outdoors is fine, so we've been going on lots of walks around the neighborhood with baby and dogs in tow.

Seafair - Seafair is a huge summer festival here. The Blue Angels fly over Lake Washington, and hydroboats race across it. They actually close I-90 for parts of it and let people walk out to watch the show. Wen live about 1/2 mile from Lake Washington, so for several days prior to Seafair we had the fighter jets flying overhead at various points in the day. It was crazy loud, but luckily didn't seem to bother Kendra any.

At the same time, the largest and oldest African celebration takes over the three parks across the street from our house. There are basketball and music competition, booths selling stuff and a huge carnival.

Between Seafair and the African thing, we couldn't have left our house by car if we'd wanted to. Traffic was bumper to bumper on both sides of our house. The police were directing traffic, but since several major roads were closed for the parade, traffic was re-routed through our little street.

We had decided to walk to a friends house (he lives on the lake) to hang out and watch the show. Lucky for us we walked. Other friends who tried to drive said it took over an hour for them to get there - and they lived less than 5 miles away. Traffic was amazingly crazy - even by Seattle standards.

I think that's all for now. I'll (hopefully) start to be more regular with posts as I get the hang of this all.