Mother's Day

A little backyard photo shoot before Mother's Day.

Thinking of 5 mothers that week: my maternal grandmother, who gave me my drive to organize and taught me how to sew quilts. She made a beautiful Precious Moments Noah's Ark quilt with rainbow borders and perfect corners.


My mother-in-law, who is the antithesis of nasty stereotypes for spouse's mothers. She also sewed a darling beach baby quilt for Jessica.



My own mother, whose self-sacrifice I was priveledged to watch as I grew up. She crocheted lace edges on a blanket and several brightly colored burp cloths.

And this year, I finally got to think of myself! On previous 9 Mother's Days, my feelings went from hopeful to impatient to painful to ignoring them (except to call my mothers.) When Dave said a few weeks earlier, "Hey, this is going to be your first real Mother's Day" I jumped up and down. I was so happy to be a mom I forgot to wish others a Happy Mother's Day! (I haven't sewn her anything! But I feed and play with her every day, so I'm counting that.)



And of course I thought of the wonderful mother of this little girl, who courageous went through a lot of emotions and puking and hastle to bring this wonderful creature into the world. Wherever she is and whatever she is doing, I love that mother.

And to all the other women in Jessica's life (most of whom have sewed something or clothed Jessica) I love you too! What a rich female heritage this little girl has to grow into.

Baby's First Game

Jessica taught me her first game: she loves it when I played with her lips. Like Dave's mom told us: they learn from their head down.

Sleeping Like a Baby

Dave and I both wanted to get Jessica on a regular sleeping schedule. We had watched friends and relatives who did and did not have their kids on regular rest, and we decided it was important to us. With others' advice (especially Dave's mother,) we used the book Twelve Hours Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old, something I discovered at the library when I was babysitting another little girl. Gratefully she has an easy disposition and isn't collicky.

At first she needed feeding every 3 hours, except in the evenings when she was fussy & scarfed more. At one month old, Jessica dropped her 5 am feeding. During her second month, she starting sleeping through from 7pm to 2am, her only night feeding, and sleeping again until 7am. Dave took that middle-of-the-night feeding on the weekends, and I took it during the week.

But at 8 weeks old, I was sick of it. I announced to Dave one morning, "We're waking Jessica up at 10pm from now on, feeding her, and hoping she shifts her 8 hours to the same as us." She did, and except for a few ounces at 10pm, (which we are slowly weaning her from), and a few random awakenings, she now sleeps 12 hours at night. The evening is ours after 7pm. Yay for us!

It's taken some juggling and debating to get to this point. We had to find the balance between "gentle" formula, which gives her gas, and soy formula, which gives her diaper rash. And in the evening she demands extra food and extra attention to keep her awake until bedtime: we take turns entertaining her starting around 4pm. Then Dave takes her for a walk at 6, and I bath her at 6:30; then bottle & bed. (We're enjoying it now, but I'm sure she'll get sick or start teething and it will all go out the window.)

Smokey likes to snuggle to whenever I feed Jessica on the couch.

She's so adorable when she falls asleep after food during her burping!

Dave loves to hold and feed his daughter after a long day at work. He took a lot of morning feedings so I could sleep in, too; he's such a sweetheart.

We do the 10 pm feeding with her still half asleep.

She reminds us of a limp cheetah hanging in a tree.

Her favorite starfish position.

Sometimes she arches her back so much she's halfway sleeping on her side.

And sometimes, after all that work, she puts us to sleep!

Baby Faces

(My favorites are the E.T. neck & the one-eyed pirate smirk.)

Baby Days

With a break in piano lessons, tennis, and a small lull in church duties, I've been loving time at home with Jessica. She is a great baby, and has started smiling just a little when I talk happy right next to her face. We tried a name brand formula (a gift), plastered with labels of all the wonderful things inside it. But her digestive system detected it's not "gentle" or "soy" and so has been she's been verbalizing to us to get her diet right.


Jessica's neatest feat lately is that she has slept 6, 7, or 8 hours for the last 4 nights. I still have to get up at 4 am, so I'm still a little off-kilter (read: don't get out of my pajamas til late morning.) Smokey likes to snuggle against me when I'm feeding the baby on the couch. Gratefully he doesn't try to sleep next to her.

Jessica loves her nightly bath; her little belly is round as a cantelope now. Dave noticed if you tickle her, her stomach tightens and her belly button pops out even more!

She is starting to be more patient when I make her bottle: she stares at the lights in the kitchen, then listens to the water run, then sucks her cherry gas drops out of the dropper, then puckers up tasting it. (I'm narrating the whole procedure to her, and mixing the bottle and bouncing her because she's usually desperate for food after a nap.) Then she waits while I put on a bib, and shake the bottle in front of her face. She can usually make it through all that without crying now, so hooray for routine and her learning brain.

She also twists her body during her diaper change and waves her hands at the hutch shelf. She used to pull down all her big blankets, so I had to move them, and I replaced it with a rattle giraffe. We play this little game of who can be first: me changing her diaper or her knocking over the blue toy. She usually wins. Either she's very smart : ) or just has great helicopter arms (Grandma E's favorite baby feature.)

Big thanks to Grandma & Grandpa R for buying us a lovely, soft, machine-washable, reclining, tall-enough-for-Dave, super-cushy glider rocker and ottoman. It is heaven to sit in, and we volunteer more often to rock the baby in it.

Here's Jessica, just after a neck-stretching yawn. She got a sleeper outfit from a family at church, and it reminds me of a book I used read as a kid: but we'll keep her with us all the same.