It's been another busy week around here. Fran and I have been on opposite schedules at the hospital, thank goodness for Grandma Beth around the house with the dogs and Erin.

Erin's holding her head up much straighter lately. She can grab toys nearby, but hasn't figured out how to let go-- a source of some frustration. Oscar has kept his distance for the most part, but Duncan loves to stare at her and lick her feet.

Bedtime has been between 8 and 8:30 p.m. Some days she'll sleep straight thru until 6 or 7, but when I'm up early to go to work, Fran has ended up feeding her around 4 or 5 a.m. Our schedule makes a consistent routine difficult. We're happy she's such a good napper.



Last week we were invited to a BBQ with some friends from Grinnell, lots of new babies! Erin is the oldest of these four by a couple weeks. We hope she'll have some good playmates in this group.


We haven't posted any video in awhile... here's Erin in her blue chair just after dinner. We didn't manage to capture her cooing and squealing on the clip-- she's been experimenting with her voice more and more. Fran and I are losing hope that her first word will be 'mama' or 'dada', we've realized it probably will be 'duncan'!

Erin's three and a half months old! She seems to be growing up more each day. The newest thing is her hand and arm coordination, instead of flailing around aimlessly, she can reach out and grab toys or our hands. She also wants to hold her bottle with both hands now (when mom's gone). Grandma Beth is staying with us and, as usual, is a huge help. Erin was missing Muggy for a day, but now has had several very smiley days in a row.
She is definetely enamored with Duncan and watches him intently whenever he's in the room. Duncan's very gentle with her, but doesn't understand "personal space" (see above)!

We're very excited for DR and Jenn and new baby Shea, can't wait to meet her. I'm nearly halfway done with neurosurgery, and Fran's been in the ER this month. Makes the time we have with Erin that much more special.

Things here are ok, but very busy. Erin has transformed in the last 2 weeks into a real little girl. She "talks" a lot more, she giggles and she has really started picking her head up and looking around her little world. It's amazing to watch.


Erin's remained pretty mellow, but this transition has been tough on her too. By the end of last week, she wasn't sleeping as well, having real trouble napping and had a shorter fuse than normal. On the days that we are together, she seems to want to nurse all the time and spend very little time playing with me. I'm sure that we'll both settle in better in the coming weeks.

We were so lucky to have Muggy here for the last two weeks. She wins MVP of the Prekker house as she took care of Erin day and night, walked the boys, cooked, cleaned and tried to work on her own schoolwork. It was amazing. I don't know how we would have made it without her. After a very brief rocky start, Erin took to Muggy and enjoyed Muggy's singing (she still hates mine) and their long walks. Mom arrived today to take over baby and household duties for the next two weeks and Erin got to take her afternoon nap snuggled on Gramma Beth. Good stuff.

Matt and I are working a ton and seeing each other and Erin very rarely. I think that Matt worked well over 100 hours last week, so quality time is practically non-existent. We "celebrated" our 5 year anniversary with a 5 minute conversation in the ER during my shift. This is all pretty tough, but I'm sure that it will get easier.


In other news, Haley and Toby had baby boy Keats on Monday and Ann and Chad had baby boy Anders on Wednesday. What a good week for babies. Erin and I got to meet Anders this afternoon and it was crazy to see how much they really do change in such a short time.