Posts filed under ‘Work’
2 months
Elena Mae, 2 days old
Elena will be 2 months old tomorrow and I’m flabbergasted. How did this happen? My baby! She’s already grown up so much. She gives us huge, gummy grins and pouts with her bottom lip stuck way out. She stands up, balancing precariously on her toes, as we hold her steady. She charms the socks off of every curious face at Safeway. And she curls her feet up, tucks her arms in, and snuggles her head into our neck when Jesse and I hold her.
She would like to spend her naps sleeping ON you, thank you very much, and generally disagrees with being put down at all. When carried around, she peers over your shoulder with her neck stretched out like a turtle and if you don’t walk around enough, she’ll whack her head into your face. She grunts and squeaks and coos and says “hmmm” as she’s falling asleep. She tries to talk to us in coos and woos and whos.
She likes to eat, and eat and eat, and thinks a pacifier is a cold, cruel substitute for being soothed by Mom. When she’s hungry or grumpy about not getting her way, she pumps her legs up and down in anger.
Sher loves to be tickled. But don’t overdo it, or I’ll spit up on you! She tries to stuff her fist in her mouth, she tries to stuff my fist in her mouth and she likes to chew on arms. She does NOT sleep through the night, not even close. Her poops are explosive and she usually goes while I’m breastfeeding, more often then not, making a big mess of every layer of clothing. Completely at random, she’ll spit up lumpy curds for an hour and then demand a meal.
She so precious. Her skin is the softest ever and her hair, on your cheek, is dreamy. She splays her fingers in her sleep and melts in to you. When she smiles, her tongue curls up and one eye (her left) is bigger then the other. She loves to look in the mirror and having her diaper changed.
She has brand new downy hair on top of her head and her eyelashes are longer than mine, but blond, like mine. She still has milia, the small white freckles (keratin deposits, I found out) on her cheeks and she has an impressive and expressive double chin. She has a very bit of a belly, but is mostly long and lean, with chubby thighs. Her belly button is like a little cinnamon roll. Her left eyebrow is permanently ruffled, like Jesse’s, and her ears have little curled bits, like mine. She’s somehow 5936750928 times more beautiful then either of us.
Elena Mae, Ellie Lu, Lainy, Ellie Mae, you are the sweetest little bit of vibrant life. I’m looking down into your angel face right now. As much as I’d like to freeze time and preserve you in this soft, cuddly, smiley time, I can’t wait to see what happens next in the story of our new, crazier, happier, tired, loud, busy, and messy lives.
To commemorate, I finally uploaded pictures to flickr. See them there on the right side of the page.
Now it is your 2 month birthday! At 5am on this morning, two months ago, my water broke in bed…
4 comments December 7, 2008
Baby and Vacation
Gah! I did the “worried pregnant lady” thing today and called the doctor to ask questions about some minor weird little things from the past few days (do you really want to know? Are you all women out there? I’ll tell those of you that would want to know on the phone, how’s that?). She surprised and scared me by telling me I should have come in immediately! It’s my third trimester! I have to be careful! Come to the office! Gah!
First off, of course, nothing is wrong.
So after a short cry (she scared me) while I was changing out of my houseclothes (boxers and a ripped up old t-shirt of Jesse’s) I got in a cab to the doctor’s office to see a giggling, 50-something, French ObGyn. They went through all the motions; weight check, blood pressure, pee in a cup, etc., and then took a look at my cervix, which was, as always, pronounced very healthy. It’s actually quite reassuring to have always been told how healthy my lady-parts are. They always get praise.
And then I got another ultrasound. Score! I have another set of pictures of a chubby baby face. I asked the technician how the size of the baby was and it’s measuring just right – 60th percentile or somewhere around there and somehow from measuring around it’s head and body and legs or something like that, she came up with a weight of 1.23kg which is somewhere over 2 lbs.
All together, it was a good time! All is well in my uterus. I jumped the gun on my scheduled monthly appointment, which was next week, so they canceled that and have decided to check my cervix (great) just once more a day before I fly.
Geez, I’m sorry. I think I’m rather single-mindedly tuned in to all-baby-all-the-time talk these days. There must be more I can share with you. Ah, yes! I taught my last class at Jesse’s school yesterday, finishing up a course I created for beginning students where we read, discussed, and played around with some short (simple) stories. It was fun and I’m going to miss those students. Jesse’s really darn excited about coming home, too, but feels he’s going to miss teaching quite a bit. You know what? He’s a very good teacher.
Oh, also, we went on a little mini-vacation this last week. We took a 4 hour bus ride to the base of the nearest mountains to Shanghai (hills, really, but craggy ones) and then a taxi up the mountain to a small town. The “taxi” was actually a mini-mini-van (smaller than my honda) and the road barely fit two of them to pass. We careened up the mountain around hairpin turns so tight they had mirrors to see who might be coming and a 20 km/h speed limit. Our driver went around 40km/h despite his engine starting to steam (or smoke?) alarmingly about halfway up.
Once there we settled into our very nice and clean hotel and found a sandwich to eat at a “lodge” ran by a foreigner. It was not so hot as Shanghai, but really steamy and thunderstormy. We went for a walk around some trails and through bamboo forest, but after my 7th mosquito bite, found a place to have a real lunch. After our lunch of bamboo and tofu, we returned to the hotel and reclined in the steaminess and read our books. For hours. It was awesome.
We had a late dinner of some more bamboo (don’t get me wrong, all this bamboo was delicious) and egg and something else. Back in our hotel we rinsed off in the shower and drifted off early, like barely after 9pm.
Jesse (purposely) woke up at sunrise (this means 4:30am in China) and took a walk through the forest, getting some really fantastic pictures. He came back around 7:30, just as I was waking up. I went in the bathroom to pee, at which point the power went out and I accused Jesse of turning the light out on me. The power never came back on, but it made no difference, except we missed having the fan. Also? The proprietors never mentioned it even when we were checking out, despite the lights flickering on and off while we were chatting with them.
We had an awesome traditional English breakfast at the “lodge” and read our books again for a few hours before a taxi came to careen us back down the hill. We had been up in the mountains for exactly 24 hours. After another bumpy, swervy, horn-honking, 4 hour bus ride, we were back in Shanghai and grabbing some McDonald’s to go for dinner.
And that was our vacation! Actually quite relaxing and beautiful.
1 comment July 18, 2008
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