Another photo

It's a bit fuzzy, but it has the full on dimples and tongue grin, so I had to share! :)
-Claire

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, everyone! Here's a do it yourself family photo (set timer...run...CHEESE!) and another photo of our beautiful girl, Mirah, who had her 2 month check up and first shot (ouch!) today.

She actually smiles at us now and it's just melt your heart cute when she does. She even grinned and wrinkled her nose at me one time, and sometimes she sticks out her tongue too. And she likes to say "a-GAH" in various tones (the angry, sweet or sleepy versions...)
She's now 12 lb. 7 oz and 23.5 inches long, and 15.75 inches around her big noggin, that she's starting to be able to hold up. She also likes to try to "stand" if you hold her, she'll push with her feet, and she reaches for us sometimes, though doesn't usually manage to grab us yet.
She also got her first little cold, which is very pitiful because there's nothing we can really do for it, but she hasn't had a fever (knock on wood) and can still nurse ok (even if it's noisy, snort snort) We're all looking forward to Christmas and the grandparents coming to visit from Charlotte!
-Claire

1 month old!

So Claire already updated everyone on the whole pediatrician visit and how fast Mirah is growing (2 lbs 9 oz in 1 month!), so here are some more examples of gratuitous cuteness.  Seriously, I could just snap pictures of her unbelievably cute face all day.  I am defenseless against it.  These first two are just a few random 'Mirah is so cute I should take a picture' pictures.  Bask in the fuzzy warmth of the concentrated cute.

So.....cute.....

Yesterday was Mirah's one month birthday, so we celebrated with a candle in a ginger snap.  Small lady, small cake.  She slept through us singing to her, but I'm sure she was dreaming a wish when Claire blew out the candle.  Since Claire ate the snap, Mirah gets to have some of her birthday treat indirectly.  Sort of a new take on cookies and milk....cookies as milk.

This is one of Mirah asleep this morning.  Again...overwhelming cute.

Extreme close up of extreme cute.

Mirah got dressed up for her doctors visit today, as well as to visit some of the folks at Several Dancer's CORE, so I of course had to get a picture of her looking all gussied up.  You can tell she's pulling out all the stops because she actually has shoes on.

Mirah was vaguely concerned about heading to the pediatrician before she dozed of in the car seat.  Fortunately, shots were not in the cards for this visit.

-jeff

Check up

No photos from me today but Jeff might have a couple of Mirah in the outfit we put on her to go visit the pediatrician. It was a good check up--she only fussed when the doctor looked in her ears and when Jeff put her in the car seat to leave. She is 11 lbs and has grown half an inch in length since birth! Her head is also 1.5 inches bigger around! So she's growin like crazy (we knew that but now we know how much!) No wonder she always seems to be hungry!
-Claire

Mirah's outgrowing stuff already...

So Mirah is wearing this adorable little jumpsuit for the first time because it's cold enough today to wear it...and yet it's already about to be too small! Actually, it says it's newborn size, for up to 8 pounds. Well she was more than that at birth! But she can still fit in this for maybe today...and not sure how much longer! I've also tried to put socks on her to keep her tootsies warm...but that is of course a futile exercise! We've lost one for good somewhere between here and the roof deck, after the first pair (and her first 2 outfits and one of mine this morning) were all lost to spit up.
But another thing we found out today, she likes The Postal Service (band not the USPS!) Jeff put on their album and was rocking her to the music and she stopped fussing. The music stopped and she was fussy again...so we listened to the album twice, until my arms got tired anyway. And eventually she took a nap without the music going...and she's napping now so I may go do the same. :)

Naps, frogs, baths and faces

We've been all about nap time lately, since no one (except Simon) is sleeping more than a few hours at a time.  Here are a couple of shots of naps in action.  First, both my babies, dozing in a sunbeam.  Simon's contortion level is usually directly correlated with how asleep he is.  Here I'll say 8.5 out of 10.  Mirah is rocking the baby hammock.

Here Claire and Mirah doze between feedings and diaper changes.  Note the similar head pose when sleeping.  She's definitely her mama's daughter.

For Halloween, my princess was a frog, or maybe she was a baby being eaten by a frog.  Given the size of her costume, you can make the call.

So far Mirah's a bit ambivalent about baths, all 3 that she's taken.  Once she's old enough for bath toys and a real tub, I'm sure she'll be a bigger fan.

The rest of these pictures are ones I snapped the other day of Mirah as we were both waking up.  She goes through a crazy range of faces when she's just waking up and stretching, and I tried to capture as many of them as I could, though I think I missed some of the better ones.  Still, pure concentrated cuteness.







-jeff

More baby pictures!

I know I've been bad about putting up pictures since Mirah was born.  Fortunately Claire picked up some of the slack, but here are a few more pictures of the cutest baby ever off my phone.

Here's the picture I sent a lot of people of Mirah when we were still in the hospital.  Face...so....cute....

Here's another picture of Mirah in her tanning bed.  She had a bit of jaundice, so she had to spend about two days soaking up some rays.  The bed had this kind of jacket thing that you had to put her in, and another light pad that went on her tummy.  She had to spend most of her time in it and couldn't be held so she pretty much hated it.  Note the awesome green hat that Claire knitted (in the midst of contractions before Mirah was born no less).  Also, those things on her hands are actually socks, but they were warmer than the mitts the hospital had (you can see one of those to the right of her head).

Here she's ditched one of her sock-gloves.  She is pretty much not a fan of socks or gloves.  Gotta be able to wiggle the digits.

The fluorescent lights in our hospital room weren't very good for taking pictures, but here is Mirah at two days old.  She's already so much bigger...

Suggly baby!  Here is Mirah asleep in her straight jacket shirt at the hospital.

Here is Mirah getting her first ever bath (aside from when she was cleaned after she was born).  On Monday her umbilical cord fell off so now she can have real baths instead of just sponge baths.  On Monday she also giggled for the first time in her sleep.  I wonder what babies dream about.  Whatever it is it must be really wild given the range of facial expressions she has when she's dreaming.

Look at those baby cheeks! Here is Mirah being burped (or trying to eat Claire's hand).  I prefer to think it's the later since it bodes well for having another omnivore in the house...

Hopefully now that things are 'settling down' I'll be more regular in posting updates.

Mirah's here!

Here's some pictures finally! Newest one on top from today. The bottom one from right after Mirah arrived. Then Simon cat and Mirah gettin' along (though Simon is jealous of the attention of course...he's been good around her.) And another cute one from a few days ago. Not sure if you can tell how much bigger she's gotten in just 10 days!
-Claire

shower pics

Thanks to Sue for hosting, to everyone for coming to the shower, and to Whitney who sent these photos from it! That afternoon we had a fun time making little pillows of lavender that will go on a bigger pillow for Mirah. And there was a rattle tree and a wicker heart that people added bows to along with their well wishes for baby. I really appreciate all the friendship and of course the practical part of feeling much more prepared for once she gets here is comforting too. :)
-Claire

Probably the last belly pic

It is huge!...but most likely cramped.  No doubt the baby will try to escape soon.  Also, we have picked a first name....

Mirah :)

Like meerkat. (No British pronunciations here)

The search for a middle name continues...

-jeff

Labor Day--NOT "labor day" (yet!)

So this weekend was a fun long one--my sis came to visit and we went to the GA Aquarium and IKEA and what not. We looked for cribs at IKEA but they're still out of stock! I don't know if they still haven't gotten any, or if we missed the brief window where they had them before they were all snarfed up by the rapidly expanding population of Atlanta babies!
We did get a dresser though, which is good because I just received another large hand me down box of goodies from another friend whose daughters are a little older. I know our little girl will grow into them quickly but I'm glad we'll have somewhere to put them until then. In general, hand me downs have been great! I got some maternity clothes that way, and now we're pretty much going to be able to dress baby purely from hand me downs for at least a while. Yay for bein' green and savin some money :)
--Claire

Cute baby stuff

So we were at Ikea the other day looking at furniture (which we did not get) and we happened across baby gear that was too cute for Claire to pass on.  In this case, baby towels which are a cross between a towel and some kind of halloween outfit (a multifunctional purchase).  I can only assume that this first one is some kind of frog-creature, maybe a cross between a toucan, a frog and something with blue ears.  Still, very cute.  It's kind of a hood and cape design.

This second one is pretty clearly a rabbit, unless you unsnap its head.  Then it's just a white beast with paws.
-jeff

New pic...

Well, in all fairness, the last pic was 2 weeks old and I certainly feel bigger since then, even if it's not all that apparent in the pix! (or maybe it is?!)
I am currently trying to decide on a doula for the labor, and a pediatrician for baby once she arrives (have to have one before we send in the hospital form, and I need to send in that hospital form!) I'm being terribly indecisive, because, well, I tried to get referrals from the midwife, but most of hers are for OTP (outside the perimeter for you non-Atlantans), and I tried to get referrals from friends, but a some are lukewarm about where they take their kids, or they absolutely LOVE them and of course, those docs not accepting new patients. Well, at least in this case, we can always change our minds if the first doesn't work out.
The indecision about baby's name on the other hand...where she's stuck with it for life (unless she decides it's so awful she has to change it legally) is totally stumping me/us! (Jeff can speak for himself, but we certainly haven't picked anything for sure yet either.) Maybe we just have to meet her...
-Claire

More belly!

Claire felt like the last belly pic might not have done justice to the glorious rotundness that is THE BELLY so I snapped another pic of it last night.  :)

-jeff

33 weeks and couting

So I went to visit the midwife this morning (a different one this time...trying to meet them all in the next visits) and they did all the usual tests etc. All's good so far. I have to start going back in smaller intervals now--starting with 2 weeks from now and then apparently going to weekly until baby girl gets here. We also go for the hospital tour this weekend and may or may not have the third session of our childbirthing classes (we're doing it as a private lesson because of scheduling conflicts so it's flexible.)
Also, we went to hang out last night with our friends Nick, Angela and their adorable 6 mo old daughter, Samantha (their blog is here - you can see pictures!) Sam was really good as usual--she doesn't seem to get upset about anything. She shrieked a little at the end of dinner but they were enthusiastic shrieks, not upset ones. We talked about baby gear and what they have that they like and use etc. They also gave us another big bag of hand me down clothes so that's great! We're close to set with just those, I think (they gave us one other big bag of newborn sized stuff earlier on.)
So 7 weeks seems like a long time to me at the moment, but I'm sure it'll go by fast!
-Claire

It's a girl...we're sure this time

It was not ambiguous this time.  We're definitely having a little girl.  They estimated that she weighs about 4 lbs. 8 oz., though there's a pretty big margin of error on that.  She was really squirmy before and during the appointment, and at one point the tech even had to start over measuring the amniotic fluid because the baby was kicking so hard.  Like before, she was not at all cooperative in taking ultrasound pictures, but we did get a few cute ones.  In this first one, you can see her leg (the longer thing on the left) and she's holding her foot with her hand (the smaller thing on the right).  She was using the other leg to kick Claire at the time...

Here we have a nice profile shot.  Look at that cute baby face!

This last one is the best shot of her face the tech could get because she didn't want to move her hand.  Still, you can see the right side of her face (forehead, eye, nose) and that blob underneath her right cheek is an arm.

Birthday ideas

I know we haven't received many comments (though hopefully a few people are reading this...) but I figured I'd toss this out anyway.  Claire's birthday is Sep. 20th.  She's going to be the big 30.  Does anyone have any cool ideas for something a woman 9 months pregnant could do to celebrate three decades (aside from going into labor...to that end, I kind of already discarded the idea of a surprise party...)?  I have a few thoughts, but all suggestions are welcome.

-jeff

The obligatory belly pic

We haven't put one up yet, and since my phone now has a camera, I figured I might as well snap one for posterity.

-jeff

Yeah, happens all the time

Yeah, Jeff's right, I get it all the time. Apparently I'm even bigger than I feel! (is that possible!) The really demoralizing thing is that it's been happening for months now ("no, I'm NOT due next week--I've got 4 months left!"). And continues (the people at the bank today, too.) I wonder if it's just that any time anybody sees an obviously pregnant woman, they just assume that the baby's almost due? Or maybe it's just me (being short does not help things.)
Interestingly enough on the flip side of that, I had a few awkward encounters early on with acquaintances who didn't ask or mention anything, though I felt like I was already showing and pretty obvious. I understand that side of things though, you don't want to ask only to find out the person isn't preggers at all! Another friend of mine has THAT happen to her all the time...strangers asking if she's pregnant when she's not (and she's not a big person at all--it's very odd.)

Everyone seems to have a guess

Much like a woman's age or weight, it's probably a bad call to venture a guess as to how pregnant she is.  If you do feel compelled, just like age and weight guess low.  (And if you do guess wrong, don't compound your mistake by then making an incredulous face when she says she's got 2 more months to go than you thought she did).  I'm not sure I'd have thought about it much before, but it seems to happen to Claire a lot.

-jeff

Not really baby related

Yesterday one of the folks who trains at my dojo and is a professional photographer took some pictures of my friend Matt and I doing some aikido.  I think this one turned out really well.  (I think it's pretty clear, but just in case, I'm the one in the air ;))  If you dig it, you can check out more of Keith's photography at www.keithtaylorphotograpy.com.

(c)www.keithtaylorphotography.com

Eggsies

So we had our first birthing class today. We discussed nutrition for Claire among other things. Apparently, Claire should be eating two eggs a day. We're pondering purchasing a chicken...
-jeff

Anniversary gives baby the hiccups...

So last night Jeff and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary! We went to eat at Home, the place in Buckhead run by the guy from Top chef. It was upscale Southern with a twist, very tasty. Fried green tomatoes...with savory herb ice cream!(I'd never had a savory ice cream...Jeff thought he had, but I mean, they do it all the time on TV, but not so much for sale in the frozen section at the grocery store, ya know?) and my salmon had a sort of guacamole and... watermelon! And Jeff had the biggest pork chop I've ever seen. Anyhow, we stuffed ourselves and had a nice evening.
In the middle of the night I was woken up by the funniest sensation. I had heard that babies around this age can get hiccups in the womb, but it hadn't happened before. That had to be what this was, it was so odd! Eventually they went away and we all went back to sleep (at least until baby woke me up again this morning...)
-claire

Don't leave out Simon...

Just so our other "baby," a.k.a. the incredibly ferocious and sometimes snuggly cat, Simon, doesn't feel left out (because ya know, when we're at work he's totally reading blogs all day, when not busy sharpening his claws) I thought I'd put up a pic of him too...As you can see he's a huge fan of cardboard, especially the kind with catnip on it (kudos to the person who figured out to make cat scratchers from cardboard! It makes a huge mess but he loves it!)
-claire