Baby it's cold outside

Dad's home on vacation this week while Fran started back again at the University hospital. Erin's taken this in stride. The biggest change she's noticed is that it takes us so much longer to get ready to leave the house-- look at all those layers! Fall weather is definitely here. We went on a walk to a nearby park today. She looked so cute in the baby bjorn, I had to take a picture using the bathroom mirror before we left. My timing was good on the first picture, the second one maybe a little too late ("Daaaad, it's hot..."). Not sure why my mouth is open in both?



Speaking of open mouths... Erin + rice cereal = love. She sits at her chair and just goes nuts. Like catnip for babies. We tried pureed green peas a couple days ago too, that got a more lukewarm response.


Finally, one of my favorite parts of the day is the time she spends on the changing table (before and after the dirty diaper). She's always giggly there, and lately she realized how easy it is to buzz her lips together-- she does a good one in the middle of this clip. Maybe she'll be a trombone player after all (we've got to wait until she's walking to decide if she's drum major material!).

Big girl

Erin is now sitting up like a champ. She needs to be spotted, but will sit happily for minutes at a time without needing any help. She seems to love her view from this new position and has fun playing with the toys in front of her. Duncan also likes this because it puts them face to face again. Good stuff.

Matt and I were both home this weekend both days. It was such a treat. It's funny to think that we used to take 2 days off for granted and now it feels like so much time. It was a beautiful weekend here with mild temps and clear blue skies. The leaves have all changed, but most of them are still on the trees. We took advantage of the day and went for a nice walk through a local park with Jan and Dean. Erin got to enjoy the view from the baby bjorn and could not have been happier about seeing the trees, birds, squirrels, ducks, etc. Everything is fascinating to her.

Anyway, I'd better head off to bed now. I'm heading back to work again tomorrow and need my beauty rest, wish me luck.

Stinker

Erin and Duncan continue their love affair. It's a good thing that neither of them have a very well developed sense of personal space because ideally they sit with their noses about 2 cm apart and adore one another. Erin has begun petting Duncan whenever he's close enough which is really just eye gouging and hair pulling. Luckily he adores the attention and he's been patient with it all. I think that somehow he's hit pay dirt and she will provide him with lots of goodies in the future.


Every day Erin is showing us that she can sit up a little longer on her own. She can sit for ~30 seconds on her own before toppling over. She's even getting a little bit better at adjusting her balance to keep herself upright. She can now reach for toys while she's sitting without always falling. For the last several days, she given up babbling and giggling and is just panting whenever she's excited or happy. Maybe she is spending too much time with Duncan.


It is really becoming fall here and the weather is much cooler. Erin sleeps in many layers at night and we have fun bundling her up for our walks outside. I've had to adjust the straps on the car seat to accommodate her sumo suit sized layers.


We've tried rice cereal a few more times. Erin seems to be enjoying it more and she seems to understand the idea of eating a little better now. There is still an awful lot of mess and Erin may enjoy eating the bib as much as any of the cereal.


Matt and I got a chance to go out for a date on Sunday night. What a treat. Jan and Dean came over to watch Erin and Matt and I went out to a nice dinner and saw a Taj Mahal. It was so much fun and we actually got a family picture before we left. I realized that our last family picture was on mother's day when Erin was a few weeks old. Oops.


Erin, Matt and I had a tough weekend and Monday. Erin was on a nap strike and was very cranky. To further complicate matters, she decided that bottles are terrible and must be avoided. She hadn't had a bottle for about 2 weeks while I was at home and while we were in Portland. I wasn't worried since she'd never had any trouble with bottles before our trip. Oops, it seems that she's more opinionated now than she was previously. We do seem to have averted disaster though, she seems seems willing to set her ideals aside when she's hungry enough. Jan took her for the day yesterday and was able to get her to drink a few bottles and now she doesn't seem to be protesting as much.

Sleep seems to be another area where she is developing a stronger will. While she is still sleeping well at night (thank goodness) naps and bedtime are a source of conflict. She really fights to stay awake and our soothing bedtime and nap time routine have become anti-soothing. The swaddle makes her agitated, sitting quietly makes her agitated, nursing at nap time makes her agitated, singing at nap time makes her agitated... the list goes on. It's getting a bit trying. Matt has more luck with her than I do, but we have been listening to a lot of crying lately around sleep. The poor kid just can't give it up and rest. Because she is sleeping so little during the day, she's pooped by the end of the afternoon and we try to play catch-up at night. Lately bedtime is around 5:30-6:00. Ugh.

For Muggy part two

Erin is just so cute these days. She's usually happy, drooly and full of smiles. I forgot to mention that Matt had redecorated parts of the house while we were gone. I was afraid of what I might find (Muggy may remember the short lived shelves by the kitchen door) but I was delighted to find lots of new framed pictures of Erin scattered about. If she stays this cute, we may totally fill our house with pictures of her. In the mean time, I will just fill the blog instead.

For Muggy

Muggy asked for more photos, so today I took a bunch. Some of them are a little repetitive, but cute none the less.

Erin is sleeping better now that we are home. She even slept 11 hours a few nights ago without getting up. It was fantastic, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much.



Erin has started blowing bubbles again. She did this about 6 weeks ago for a few days and then dropped it from her repertoire. Now it's back with a vengeance. I'm sure that someday soon I'm going to regret encouraging her to spit, but it's just so funny. She must have spent a good long time blowing spit bubbles before letting me know that she was awake this morning because she was covered in drool by the time I got her. She also makes the funniest face when she's about to start. I tried to catch it, but I'm afraid that I mostly just got a damp baby.


I can't remember if I mentioned it in my last post (and I'm too lazy to check) that Erin's dexterity is improving by leaps and bounds. She can transfer object from hand to hand. She can manipulate her pacifier and get it back in her mouth. The down side to this is that even when she really wants to just suck on it, her hands are so busy that she can't keep them off it. It's like the brain controlling her hands really doesn't talk much with the part of her brain controlling the rest of her. She also discovered that she can chew on the pacifier, make funny squeaking noises with it rubbing on her gums (she used to need help with that one) and blow spit bubbles around the pacifier. So much pacifier talent for a child who really only gets one when she's supposed to be sleeping.

Home again, home again

We had a great trip to Portland, but it's really nice to be home.

Erin did fine on the plane rides. She is certainly more difficult to travel with now than she was at 5 weeks, but we managed. She is very curious about everything around her and had a tough time relaxing enough to sleep on the flights . I had to do a lot of nursing to keep her calm. We also discovered the perils of disposable diapers: they leak like crazy. It was tough to keep enough clothes in her diaper bag to keep her clean all the time.

We got to see lots of family and friends and Erin liked everyone a lot. But then again, she's never really met anyone that she wasn't fond of . She also loved being around other kids. She's too little to play with them, but she is captivated watching kids play. Lucy was a constant source of wonder. We picked up Brennan at school one day and Erin was mesmerized by all of the kids playing on the playground. It's fun to see her so aware of everything going on around her.

Sleep was less than ideal while we were in Portland. We'd managed to get to a point here where she was only up once or twice a night and was going to sleep pretty easily most of the time. In Portland, we didn't really have the option of letting her do any crying and Erin was restless sleeping in a new place. Thus, we were up 4-5 times per night and she spent more time than usual in bed with me. She also got harder and harder to put to sleep as the week went on. This continued for her first night back here, but now we're settling back into more of a routine. Thank goodness, it's hard to get back from a vacation and feel way more tired than when I left.

Matt and the rest of the Prekker clan keep exclaiming on how much Erin's changed this week. I noticed it too, even being with her every day. First of all, I think that she's put on a bit of weight this week. She did a lot of comfort nursing at home and it shows. She is also much more coordinated and now manipulates her pacifier and toys much better. She's trying to get her hands on everything and we can't eat with her on our lap anymore. She's stronger and almost always wants to be standing and it takes less effort to keep her standing now. She is also very close to sitting on her own. In fact, she can sometimes sit for a few seconds before toppling over. She's also close to rolling from her back to her front. However, she's not that motivated about this rolling thing and may never follow through considering that she would end up on her tummy and she doesn't actually like that much.

We got to meet Keats while we were there. He's two months old now and is such a cutie. He's very alert and takes in the world around him, but seems to have less of Erin's constant movement. We also got some quality time with Anna. It's going to be great when they are all old enough to really play with one another. For now, Anna plays and the other two watch.