Friday, June 26, 2009

Family Time

Yesterday, Maddie got to meet her cousin for the first time. Maddie's counsin Annika is almost 2 months older than her, but that is definitely close enough that we're pretty convinced they'll be friends forever.


This is: Me with Maddie, Aunt Jeannie with Annie


And here's Grandma with Maddie and Annie.

They'll be more family fun this week, since Jeannie and Annie are staying right through the Fourth of July. Hopefully, we'll even be able to introduce the girls to the cottage, although it's looking like a pretty rainy week.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Technology is my Frenemy

My Mom was listening to NPR the other day and heard a segment on people searching for jobs that had an interview with some company-exec about what he looks for in job candidates. Hopefully, people don't look for writers that do not use 20 prepositional phrases per sentence, because clearly I would never have another job again based on that opening sentence. What he did say was that he disqualifies any candidates who have an aol.com email address because it shows they are behind the times. Wha?? Yes, I realize my aol address is old, in fact it even has the year I started it in the address (talk about dating myself!) but there's a reason I haven't changed it -- and that reason is based on intelligence and convenience not lack of tech knowledge. Why would I change an email address? So that all my contacts loose touch with me and have can't send me emails? Whatever stupid employers.

Meanwhile this guy also says he checks Facebook and blogs of potential employees. There's no real surprise there -- and I feel pretty safe with both technical elements. I don't feel that I post anything sensational to either sites, in fact I'm a pretty un-sensational person (though fabulous in nature.) But I am of course reminded of my friend who told me of a potential employee who listed her blog ON HER RESUME, despite having some questionable material posted. This gives me hope that my job searching efforts will meet with some success.

Yes, the very topic of this blog does suggest that I will be returning to work. I am thinking and planning and searching, but my favorite thoughts do pertain to this job:

Meanwhile, enjoy my forays into the tech world which include lots of facebooking and blogging (mostly including one-handed typing while holding a sleeping baby), as well as regular photo posting on flickr!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Father's Day '09

Ok, here's the recap of Rob's first Father's Day:


Maddie helped me get ready while Rob was at work. We wrapped Rob's gifts in the New York Times, and Maddie signed Daddy's card. Her signature is very legible because she's the smartest baby on Earth.


Then we made Rob a sign that said "We <3 Daddy" and we waited under it to greet him.


We had a special dinner of burgers and salsa and chips.


Rob opened his gifts. He got new pajammas for all that sleeping he gets to do;) and a book on the search for the perfect cup of coffee. And Maddie sat with us while we ate dinner.


Followed by Strawberry Shortcake with fresh strawberries!


Then we took a family picture -- notice that Maddie's onesie matches both her blanket and her pacifier! She's very artistic and stylish.


And Rob got to cuddle with his Maddie Girl.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Daddy's Girl

I told you so.






I was thinking that this is the first Father's day that I have celebrated since 1994. I'm so happy to have the tradition back! Unfortunately Rob has to work all day today. But I'll be making him a special dinner tonight and giving him Maddie's presents. Plus he got to sleep undisturbed last night, so hopefully that will make his day a bit special. And a special shout-out to JK^, the other awesome new father in the family. Happy Father's Day!

One more:


Saturday, June 20, 2009

Naturally Sweet


"It's my 2-week birthday! Yeah, I'm a little surprised too."

Friday, June 19, 2009

Just an Interesting Non-Baby Story

Look, I've already blogged more now that Maddie is here than I have during most of the months that I was pregnant. Truthfully, I feel amazingly more cognizant than I did than. When I was pregnant I kind of felt like I was in a daze, whereas now, though tired, my mind seems to actually be more in my body (as my friend Julie would say.) All of which is neither here nor there. I'm going to tell you all a story...

The other day my Mom and I were talking about my Grandma K. My grandmother was a very loving person, though she has caused me a great deal of puzzlement in recent years. I had an amazing relationship with my grandmother. My cousins however did not and seem to have a great deal of family angst towards her. If you took my recollections of Grandma and theirs, it would appear we were talking about two different people. The Grandma that I knew was the most kind and caring person. One of the things I remember most was laying my head in her lap and her playing with my hair. She used to walk her fingers across my forehead and narrate it by saying, "There was a little kitty, and he kittied and he kittied...." I now do this with Madeleine and it instantly calms her crying.

The first Sunday after my Mom married my Dad, my Dad told her he was going over to see his parents. My Mom said she would join him and so started a tradition of them always visiting my grandparents every Sunday. They were a close knit family -- no in-law required, just an extra set of parents for my Mom.

So here's the story: My Grandma used to be in charge of the family finances. When my Grandpa got paid, he would bring the money home and she would divvy it up into different band-aid boxes. A box for bills, a box for savings, etc... They never had a bank account until they retired and started getting social security. At that point my Dad convinced them to open a checking account. When Grandma got her first statement she asked my Dad to help her balance her account. While he was looking over everything he noticed that the signature on the checks didn't match my Grandpa's. When he asked my Grandma about it, she said she signed the checks. Dad told her that the bank might give them trouble for forged checks and Grandma told him that the bank had no clue what Grandpa's signature looked like because she had signed his signature card too.

I loved this story, simple as it is -- just because I like to imagine what Grandma was like as a business woman and how different their generation was from our own.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Welcome Home!

My aunt Clare Marie lives in Africa. She has just moved from the Congo to Cameroon (or at least she will be there soon). Meanwhile she is home for a visit! Aunt Clare Marie comes home about every 3 years -- last time she was home, Rob and I got married. As Clare Marie said, we timed the wedding very conveniently -- and even planned the color scheme around her: She wears habits of beige and browns and chocolate brown was one of the main colors of our wedding.

Now she's here in time to meet Madeleine. Ironically, Clare Marie was just moving out of Cameroon in 1978 and on her last day at the convent, she received a letter from her mother telling her of my birth. Then 30 some odd years later, she had just arrived in Cameroon when she received an email telling her of Madeleine's birth. We've decided she either needs to stay in Cameroon until Rob and I have decided we're done having kids, or we'll have to plan something for 2 years from now when she'll be likely to visit again! Meanwhile, here's a picture of Madeleine meeting her Aunt:



The woman on the left is Sr. Frances, a dear friend of the family and my Sophomore English teacher at Mount Saint Mary's. I loved having Sr. Frances for a teacher. Oh, she was tough, but she was fascinating. She introduced me to some of my favorite books including Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier and Jane Eyre. She also made us memorize "The Quality of Mercy" speech from Merchant of Venice and used to quiz us if she bumped into us in the hallway. Scarily enough (she did not teach me grammar), she also remembered that I got a 95 in English that year -- which she told Maddie she will have to do as well. It was so cool to see Sr. Frances and it reminded me that I need to keep up my studies (and my grammar).

This may not be my child

I've decided that if I did not clearly remember giving birth to Maddie that I may be convinced that she is not actually my child. She looks absolutely nothing like me and clearly is not too much like her Mom (short of being brilliant of course.) The main evidence though is that I have never in my life had this much trouble waking up:



Everytime Maddie wakes up she has what we call an "Adjustment Period." There is a great deal of whimpering, wrinkled browing, almost crying, covering of the eyes, giving the "Ay Dios Mio" gesture. Then she wakes up, quickly falls back asleep and eases back into the Adjustment Period again. This is quite a bit like her father, I guess who has always resisted waking up from naps. But nothing like me at all, who has never had any trouble waking up and making a quick transition from sleep to complete wakefulness.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Scheduling Conflicts

Boy oh boy did I mess up Maddie's schedule today. I'm one of those lucky people who have had a baby that is pretty much born on schedule and goes along with the flow with very little fussing or crying (though we have decided to call her Fussy in keeping with the family tradition: Grandpa Fuzzy, Dad = Fuzzy Jr. and now Fussy). After we bumped her up to more formula per bottle, we got to extend the joy of her goodness with a perfect night: 12 am feeding, 4 am feeding, 8 am feeding. That is so ideal!

But then this morning, Maddie fell asleep during her bottle and only took an ounce or two. And I let her sleep. Which means that she woke up about an hour later hungry. So I gave her another ounce or two before she fell asleep again. Now I'm waiting for her to wake up again to see how much she will take. Let's hope this doesn't mean that I'm in for a day and night of off and on sleep. Of course, tonight is Rob's night so really I don't need to worry about anything;)

Monday, June 15, 2009

Caffeine good...

We went to the doctor today and all is good. Maddie loves her doctor but puts up a huge fuss because she hates being nekid. She is such a little lady, it's just too undignified for her. Maddie has lost a bit of weight since she was born (pretty normal) so now she gets to chow down on more formula each day while I get to try to figure out how to mix weird amounts of formula when the package only tells you how to do even amounts. Why do they expect new parents to do math? Really? Fractions?

After our doctor's appointment, we went over to my Mom's house for Maddie's first visit to Grandma's. Grandma had very kindly offered to babysit for a bit so Rob and I could have a little bit of time to go out and do whatever we wanted. We went out to lunch and then stopped by the grocery store. I got an iced latte for the first time in 9 months! God, I forgot how good caffeine is! We came home not long after because Rob is exhausted from his nightshift duties last night and wanted to nap. I've been a whirlwind of activity getting a ton of stuff done ever since I got home. Caffeine is awesome, what can I say.

Here's a picture to tide you over. We'll call this Maddie's face of the day:

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Baby Photos

I don't know about you guys, but at my house we had a Baby Album. My Baby Album was smallish, about 60 pictures maybe. Then I had an album for when I was a little kid -- that was more extensive but maybe about 200 pictures.

I'd like to say that at this point I have already taken almost 200 pictures of Maddie and she is exactly 1 week old today. Thank God for Flickr (and Kat who gave me the awesome gift of an unlimited account!) Can you imagine if I actually printed all these pictures and scrapbooked them? Maddie would have to have a storage facility in order to hold onto all the albums.

Well here's a little picture to keep you all entertained:

Friday, June 12, 2009

Are you guys bored of me raving about my daughter?

Last night Rob and I were sitting here talking about how awesome Maddie is and how we could talk about it for hours. And then while I was burping her she spit up and turned her head and wiped her wet, spit-uppy face on my cheek giving me kisses. And Rob and I both thought that was the cutest thing EVER. That's a sign that we love being parents, right?

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Just a few more pictures...

I started writing this post last night before bedtime and as I was looking at all the pictures I was thinking, "hmmm, I hope she wakes up soon!" And then she did. Hence, the post had to wait until morning!


Sleeping on my shoulder


This is me burping her (not strangling my child!)


The hands of a little lady


And the feets!


Hanging with her grandma

Sleepless night

So, I had a rocky night -- not Maddie, no I think she did really well. Yesterday Rob was able to nap a bit and caught up on some sleep so he took the night shift. Staying up until about 1 or 2 am and then getting up around 4 -5 am. He's so cute the way that he turns off the monitor in the bedroom and stays out in the living room to make sure that I can sleep! He's taking such good care of me! And Maddie too!

But I keep sleeping so lightly because I am now in a constant state of worry. Is she ok? What if she stops breathing? What if the monitor isn't working and we didn't hear her needing something? Oh, the joys. Then I must have fallen asleep pretty deeply because the monitor was on and I incorporated her cry into my dream, woke up thinking "hmmm, what was that sound?"

At any rate, I woke up early this morning just because I want to see her! But it's a little mean to just go in and wake her up for my selfish purposes. So I'm waiting patiently for her to wake up.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Hello World!

I'm sitting here with a few minutes of absolute quiet and kind of don't know what to do with myself! Rob is napping and so is Maddie (and a pretty sound sleep at that, I might add!) I'm sure she'll be up soon, but I'll take a moment to tell you all how it is going.

We brought Maddie home on yesterday around lunchtime. She's been a perfect baby not just at the hospital but at home too. I could just go on and on about how perfect she is, all her little facial expressions and the little sounds she makes. She loves to pick her head up and look around, which is really weird for a baby so young! And she loves to have her hands by her face and even holds in her own pacifier. See?


My mom helped us get home yesterday, and she has been helping us SO much! Doing cooking and picking up and watching the baby while we take naps. Even shopping for all the little things we didn't know we would need.

Right now I have a little bit of an adrenaline rush. I got two good nights of sleep at the hospital, so last night though I was sleepy I was able to be awake and alert. Rob took the first shift which happened to coincide with Maddie's first thunder storm (she does NOT like thunder). And then I got up just because I wanted too, and wanted to be with her. Then I finally fell asleep this morning while Rob was awake and got to sleep until 10 am! Maddie was up quite a bit, getting used to her new surroundings. Plus she really likes to be held more than lie in her crib -- go figure. We'll see what tonight brings!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Friday, June 5, 2009

Thursday, June 4, 2009

The Calm Before the Storm



Poor babies. They have no clue whatsoever what they are in for. Enjoy the calm napping now!

P.S. Can you tell I found my camera cord and can now upload pictures for my blog?

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Rob Says: Challenge Accepted

It seems that a challenge was issued in the comments of my last post. Rob has decided to accept this challenge:




Success! And this one even has claws.

However this one was a little more challenging.





Rob's comments at the end of this second mission was "We need bigger diapers." My response: "No, we need smaller cats."

Monday, June 1, 2009

Reasons why Rob will be a good father:

He's good at calming fussy things.

He never gets tired of playing "Uppie."

He can cradle babies of any size.

He's fun to be around.

He's good at rocking babies.