Reliving the Good Old Days

Aven loves taking a bath. I think it reminds her of the good old days, back in the womb, when she got to float around in a warm watery environment all day long. The thing she hates about the bath experience is getting out. Today, for the first time, she didn't wail inconsolably for 5 minutes strait. She let me know that she did not appreciate being removed from the bath but quieted down as soon as I wrapped her in a towel. She then proceeded to be very cute while got her diapered, lotioned, and dressed.

At last- the elusive smile has been captured! You'd smile too if your towel had a hood with a duck on it.

Taking a bath and smiling for the camera are both incredibly tiring and must be immediately followed by a feeding and a nap.

Tired From a Long Day of Mobile Watching

Aven is 6 weeks old today. She is growing faster than I ever thought possible. She's working on her social smile, which I have yet to capture with the camera, but it's absolutely precious (as if you expect the mom to say anything different).

Her new favorite thing is her mobile. She loves just watching it slowly spin while it plays its little tune. She's content to lay and watch her mobile for up to 30 minutes at a time, kicking her legs and waving her arms wildly the entire time. This allows to me get a few things done around the house, which is nice. The main problem is having to wind the mobile every few minutes. Another issue, not really a problem, is that she is so cute that I will often stand over her crib and watch her watch her mobile instead of doing the laundry or unloading the dishwasher. Oh well. I absolutely love being able to witness all this rapid development. It's fascinating and more than worth the lost sleep.

Happy 1st Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Babe, I love you :)

Thanks for helping me make this beautiful baby. You are an amazing dad. I love watching you with Aven; you are obviously crazy about her and I know she's crazy about you. I wouldn't want to go on this adventure with anyone else.

Grace Lets Out Her Inner Borzoi

Grace is one part Border Collie . . .

. . . and one part Great Pyrenees . . .

. . . but sometimes, depending on the camera angle, she likes to let out her inner Borzoi. She must know that I'm a fan of the breed.

Goofy, yet elegant at the same time.

What's Up Cuz?

Today I took Aven to meet her new cousin, Dallas. Dallas was born on June 4th (or was it the 3rd?) to my cousin Marcy who is about 4 years younger than me. It will be fun to have two babies so close together. Hopefully they'll be good friends as they grow up together. I think it's incredible to look at these two babies side by side because it really shows how much babies change in such a short period of time. They were almost the same weight at birth and even though she is a mere three weeks older Aven looks so much bigger. As of Friday she was 9 lbs. 13 oz.- a gain of 2 lbs. 3 oz. in a month. It was fun to talk baby stuff with another new mom. We exchanged our delivery room stories and talked about the wacky nurses we dealt with at I.M.C. And of course we talked about poo, because it's almost impossible to have a conversation with another new mom without mentioning it at some point. Congratulations Marcy and Jason- he's a handsome boy!


Here's a sleeping Aven. She only woke up toward the end of the visit. I'm sure she has absolutely no idea she met her new cousin today.


Here's a sleeping Dallas. He slept through the whole visit. He looks just like his dad.

Getting Ready Enters a New Dimension

I have two choices every morning: 1. Get ready for the day while Aven takes her morning nap, which follows her morning feeding. 2. Make up the sleep I lost feeding her in the middle of the night while she takes her morning nap. I usually go with the sleep because when I don't I end up very cranky by the time Ian gets home from work. So, the above photo depicts part of my new getting-ready ritual. First, I try to get her occupied by her mobile in the crib while I hurry and wash my hair. After that I set my full length mirror, hairdryer, makeup, brushes etc. on the living room couch, usually while holding a fussy Aven. The last step is to get her comfortable and content on my lap on the boppy with a pacifier so I can dry my hair and put on my makeup. It takes a bit longer and is slightly more backache producing than the baby-free method, but the extra sleep is definitely worth it.

More photos

Hey everyone, I know I've been silent on the blog lately. Having a new baby has been hard on my free time. Anyway I finally got around to putting up the majority of the photos that we have taken of Aven on the web so feel free to browse through them if you want.
http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.k.bailey

I'll try to keep posting more up there as we take them, until we hit or storage limit that is.

What's new . . .

What's new this week, you ask? Well, our daughter is still adorable and we have discovered the magic of The Happiest Baby on the Block. A wonderful method for calming a fussy, crying baby. I would recommend this to anyone with an infant. We watched the DVD, which was great. There is also a book that goes into more detail, which I hope to be able to devote some time to reading this week. The Happiest Baby method totally saved my sanity yesterday.


In other exciting news, a squirrel has decided to take up residence in the tree right on the other side of our fence. This means hours of entertainment for the canine member of our family. Don't worry, the squirrel is not in any danger, Grace is much too lumbering and clumsy to ever catch a living thing. She sure does like to stand at the base of a tree containing any kind of small rodent and watch excitedly as said rodent obviously taunts her. Well, obvious to everyone but her.