The Photo Gallery, part IV

Having the day off from work, I took the opportunity to have a bit of a photo shoot with Addie this afternoon, the results of which you shall see shortly.

We had a meeting with a woman from an organization called Parents as Teachers today. The basic premise of this organization is that learning begins far before children start school, and that it's a responsibility (and a joy) of the parents to ensure the proper development in your child, intellectually, physically, and everything else. Anyway, Addie is pretty much right on track as to where she should be at this point in her life, which is always good.

The baby is beginning to smile considerably more, and now apparently in response to us and not just because. Before, she would just sort of get a contented smile on her face after feeding or while sleeping, but these weren't done with open eyes. Now she's actually looking at us and smiling, and I'm pretty sure that I got the first one. If people could see us when Addie smiles, I'm sure they'd get a kick out of it. Her smiling sets of a chain reaction where the parents act just about as giddy and goofy as possible, which leads to more smiling, which leads to more giddiness and goofiness, and so on. I'm not sure if Addie's subsequent smiles are because she realizes that we're excited and are encouraging her behavior, or if she's just smiling because we look so darn silly.

Addie's eyes, which were a dark gray when she was born (which is normal) are beginning to turn a rather deep blue, like mine. It seems she's got her mom's eye shape and her dad's eyeballs (or eye color, if you wish).

Addie has also began to vocalize more. Just this morning she began making new sounds that we hadn't heard before, ones which were much more 'specialized,' for lack of a better word, than her previous sounds. And they were really cute, too, which means more parental goofiness and, specifically, more squealing from Ame.

I don't know that there is much more to add other than the pictures, so here you go.



"Hey mom! What's a gal got to do to get a drink around here?"



"How big was that fish? It was HUUUGE!"



"Aaaaayyyaaaaaahhhhh!"



Always a fashion-conscious baby, Addie pauses during the photo shoot to ensure that her hair looks acceptable.



And, finally, the whole baby:



I lied. That wasn't the last picture. We also have a few pictures that Shana, our doula, took a couple days after the baby was born. (She has her own miniature studio in her basement.) So, even more pictures:

The Photo Gallery, part III

In honor of Addie turning one month old today, we present to you -- as is implied by the title of this post -- pictures.


Addie is in a somewhat frustrating habit of deciding that she's hungry nearly every time we sit down to eat. Perhaps she's thinking, Hey, they're eating. I want to eat too. Or maybe her eating schedule just unfortunately corresponds with ours. Either way, Ame has taken to placing Addie in the sling -- which usually puts her to sleep rather quickly -- in order to have a chance to eat a hot meal every now and then without resorting to the microwave.

This has, however, led to crumbs being dropped on poor Addie's head while Ame eats. To combat this problem, we have developed the following device, whose patent is currently pending:

(Yes, it's a napkin.)


Addie in her bouncy-seat. I'm not sure why she doesn't have a shirt on. I think we just didn't get around to it.



Sleeping Addie. When her tummy hurts, which is typically evidenced by some rather unhappy screaming, I can put her in my arms like this and she calms down almost immediately. I think it has something to do with putting pressure on her stomach that relieves her pain. And when Addie's happy, Mom and Dad are happy too.



And a close-up of that same pose, because she's just so darn cute:



"I'm not so sure about this guy..."



And another cute Addie picture. Don't mind my chin.



Just hanging out in Dad's lap:



Sometimes she's not so great about keeping track of her clothing. I'm beginning to suspect that she has little ejector seats or something on her feet, a la Inspector Gadget.




Life as a parent is becoming increasingly more doable, save for a few "oops" instances. For example, we've been using cloth diapers, but used disposables exclusively when we were in Springfield, for convenience' sake. So, I got into the unfortunate habit of not putting anything on top of the diaper after changing her. When we got back home and went back to the cloth, I maintained my non-diaper-cover diapering. (The diaper cover, for those of you who don't know, is designed to retain the contents of the diaper.)

I, however, was spared the experience of discovering that a diaper cover had not been put on the baby; Ame was generous enough to discover this for me, which she did by noticing (on two separate occasions) that baby's bottom was quite wet. A certain not-too-amused wife of mine let me know that my forgetfulness was less than appreciated, but I got back on track eventually.

Looking through Ame's baby book last night, we discovered that Addie looks incredibly like Ame did at the same age. We'll scan in Ame's baby pictures in the next couple days for comparison. I guess this settles the Look-A-Like Contest.

That's all for now. Happy one month, Addie.

The first (official) bath

I say "official" only because this is the only bath in which the camera accompanied Addie into the bathroom. We sponged her down a couple times, gave her a partially-submerged bath in a dish tub, and finally gave her a full-out bath very much reminiscent of this one. But I think that we both felt a little bit better calling this one the first bath since it comes with pictures. It seems like one of those "baby firsts" that you should have photographic evidence of.

She really took it quite well, despite the somewhat bewildered look on her face. She was rather calm in the water, which was nice. The conveniently-positioned washcloth in the third picture was more for keeping Addie warm than keeping her covered, but I'm sure that it'll save some embarrassment by not posting the au natural pictures. I'm sure she'll thank us later.


That second picture reminds me: Ame and I both think that Addie has just about the cutest chubby belly ever. Ame actually squeels at times when she sees it.

Addie is doing well. She's up to over 10 pounds, and her head has grown a full inch in circumference since she was born. She's actually in the 95th percentile for her weight and around the 85th percentile for her length (i.e., 95 percent of babies [or maybe just girls] her age weigh less than she does, and 85 perfect are shorter than she is), which means that she's eating well. Our baby isn't fat: this is a case where bigger is actually better.

I guess that's all I have for the moment. Until next time...

Wild weekend

Just so you know, we're all still alive and well.

We drove to Springfield last Wednesday to visit my mom and see some friends (for the weekend, not just Wednesday), and were hit pretty hard by the ice storm. My mom lost electricity, so we spent Friday night at Landen and Greta's house, hoping the power would be back on soon.

It wasn't. So then we packed up and headed on to my aunt and uncle's house down around Branson, where we stayed for two nights. We had a short one-night bout with what we thought might be the beginnings of colic, but Addie got over it (and the parents let out a collective "whew"). It must have just been gas. Anyway, then we packed back up and drove to my mom's house, filled the car with our stuff, and came back to Kirksville.

All in all, not what we had planned, but it could have been worse. It's funny to think, though, that some people wouldn't even be taking their babies out of the house yet, and here we are with 3-week-old Addie driving all across the state and back in icy weather.

Anyway, I'll have more to add soon, but I just wanted to get something up so you all know we're okay.

The Photo Gallery, part II (and some words, too)

I was beginning to think that this second installment of The Photo Gallery may indeed include too many pictures, but then I realized what a ridiculous proposition this was. Too many pictures of Addie? No such thing.

But... you don't get to see them quite yet. A few words from the Dad first:

I try to make a conscious effort to talk to the baby while changing her diaper and her clothes, if for nothing else to alleviate the boredom (either for her or for myself). While taking her clothes on and off, this often takes the form of describing what, exactly, I'm doing, so that I'm saying things like "And the right arm goes through the right armhole. And you put the left leg in..." Then I realized yesterday that what is really going on is the world's slowest game of the Hokey-Pokey. You put the right arm in. You put the right arm out. You put the right arm in, and you shake it all about. She hasn't quite made it to You do the Hokey-Pokey and you turn yourself around, but give it time.

On to less amusing news: Addie's umbilical cord stump fell off yesterday. That's really all there is to say about that.

Depressingly, the baby seems to have developed a food allergy to something in Ame's diet. Parts of Addie's face, neck, and chest (and, unfortunately, much of the diaper area) has broken out into bunches of little bumps. Ame consulted the local La Leche League leader to ask about this and was told that it's likely either milk or wheat, both of which are consumed in large quantity by a certain two members of our household. So, Ame's homework for the next month is to cut dairy from her diet. Pronouncing this upon a woman who drinks upwards of 30 ounces of milk per day is not unlike submitting her to Chinese water torture. I'm sure that calls of sympathy would be appreciated.

One of the unexpected questions that we had to field a handful of times at church yesterday is "Is she a good baby?" It seems like such an odd question, but apparently it's a normal one, if based only on how often we heard it yesterday. The cynic in me wants to respond, "Actually, she's a demon child straight from the pits of hell, but we love her anyway." I have, of course, yet to tell anybody that, though.

Thus ends Hunter Story Time, which means you get to look at pictures now.


I'm not sure what this pose is. She appears to, perhaps, be practicing her boxing:


Addie on another one of her tirades:


The "Let me think..." pose:


Dancing, perhaps? Shakin' the booty, it seems:


Sometimes she sneezes. And sometimes we have to have pictures to embarrass her with when we meet her boyfriends. Nice snot, Addie:


Cute baby:


Cute baby, again:


Life is tough, kiddo:


And, lastly, that crazy hair:

10 Days and Counting

Addie turns 10 (days) today. It seems like she's been here longer than that and not nearly that long, all at once. The redness and swelling from the birth has pretty well diminished, so she looks a little more like a real person now. And, yes, there will be photographic proof of this at the end of the post.

Having a baby, to me at least, is not nearly as difficult as I would have imagined. Of course, I'm not the one nursing her every 1-2 hours, and she hasn't reached the point in her life where she can do things on her own, but it hasn't seemed to drastically affect our lives, at least not in terms of how we spend our time. I do imagine, though, that this is due in large part to the fact that Ame and I both are sort of home-bodies; we never really go out to do much other than taking a trip to Wal-Mart.

Cat is gone. She left on Sunday, a week after Addie was born. Having her around was really helpful, because she did a lot of cooking and cleaning, freeing up me and Ame to focus our time and energy on the baby. Still, we're glad to have her gone. While her help was much appreciated (and while our apartment looks better than it has since we first moved in), it's nice to just be the three of us.

One of Addie's unexpected (to me, anyway) developmental stages was farting. I'm assuming that this has something to do with the whole digestive system and all. Or maybe she just swallowed a lot of air in her first few days. Either way, the smell of rotten eggs was not a foreign one to the Hunter household for the first week of Addie's life. She's still letting go of a few -- which has led to more than one precautionary diaper check -- but the air as a whole is fresher now. All in all, that isn't a stage that I think I'm going to miss.

Nights are getting easier, too. I think that Addie is getting more used to this whole life thing, and she's sleeping more at night. This in turn means that Ame is sleeping more, which is something that I think we're all happy about, though I'd imagine that Ame herself is leading the "Happy That She's Sleeping" brigade, as the after-birth adrenaline has finally worn off. No longer can she go all day on only three or four hours of sleep.

It's fun getting to know Addie's personality and temperament. For one, we're beginning to recognize various faces that she enjoys making. For example, she has about three after-nursing faces that are quite common: the "Ahhh, I'm satisfied" face, the "No more milk" face, and the "I can't believe I ate that much" face. We have a good picture of the last one.

Also, she seems to be developing an "I don't want to do that" type of personality. This is best evidenced by our attempt to use saline spray on her a couple of nights ago. She's been a bit wheezy and congested, so we bought some saline spray from the store to use for her tiny little nostrils. The first time we used it, she seemed completely unaffected, almost as if she wasn't quite sure what to make of this newfound sensation. The second time was more or less a repeat of the first. The third time, however, she had figured out the game, and had decided that she didn't want to partake in this anymore. Ame propped Addie up on her knees, like the first two times, and got the spray ready. Addie, however, though half-asleep, wasn't going to take this one lying down. We held the spray bottle up to her nostril and she promptly twisted her head to the side. Fair enough, we'll try again. Again she did the same thing. So we tried holding her arms down to her sides and holding her head straight, but she still didn't want to take it. All this without a fuss or a tear, and with eyes firmly shut. Eventually we won, but I don't think that the job would have been any easier even if we had an extra three arms. A feisty (and strong) little bugger, she is.

I think that's about all I have for right now. Except, of course, the pictures.


Sleeping is still a strong point for Addie:



The aforementioned "I can't believe I ate that much" face:



Despite being dressed in a boy-looking shirt (that was, in fact, her father's), fashionista Addie strikes a pose:



Sometimes she's amused...


...and sometimes she's not:



It's tiring to be a baby (and a mother, too, it seems):