Another Thing

Another thing she started doing the other day is clapping against my open palm. She seems to like doing anything that makes noise.

I can't keep up with milk production for this little piggy of mine. She is taking 4-5 ounces every 2.5 hours. Yesterday she took 6 ounces in the afternoon... a record, I think. This is good news. It seems like her growth has been relatively slow the past month or two (According to the doctor's scales.) She is now 12 lbs 3 oz. and 24 inches long. She has gained an average of an inch per month. She has been gaining a litle less than an ounce per day. She is a very active little girl, so I guess its no surprise that she is gaining a little slower since she expends so much energy playing.

more laughter

The visit to the neurologist went well. She is pleased with Claire's progress. Claire has met several expected benchmarks....she transfers objects from one hand to the other. She tracks visually all the across her field of vision, and can hold her head up and look around when on her tummy.

Claire ate a lot today! She also napped well. I was sorry to waken her when we arrived in Westwood for her Doctor appt.

When we are playing on the floor she will look around at the various toys nearby and grab one and play with it and when she lets go she chooses another one. This afternoon she laughed when her dad kissed her cheek when we were waiting fot the doctor. He kissed it again and again and she laughed and laughed. Her laugh is music to my ears.

Back home

We are home again. Many thanks to my parents for all their help taking care of Claire (and things around our house) the last two weeks. It was great to spend time with Mark this weekend.
Claire does some new things:
She rolls from back to side and side to back. She like to put some weight on her feet and practice standing. She loves to sit up with support. She sometimes sticks her finger in her mouth when she's drinking from the bottle. She loves looking at books and like to help hold them, bat them, feel the pages and turn the pages. She has agreat time making noise with her lips (rasberries) That's all I can think of at the moment.

We had a visit from a substitute Physical Therapist. Today and Claire had a good time using the exeercize ball with her.

She napped really well today and I got a few snoozes in too! I wonder if this signals another growth spurt.

We visit the neurologist tommorrow.

sewing project

My goal for today was to sew a diaper cover for Claire. (We use cloth diapers part time.) I printed out a free pattern I found online. I had to modify it to fit Claire. Then I cut it out and put the velcro in the wrong place! I think I can still make it work... We'll see. I didn't get started till around 4:30 pm. My mom had to run some errands so my dad and I took turns with Claire. He watched her while mom and I took a much needed nap. Hopefully I will be able to finish one cover and try it out to see if I should make more.

Claire downed an entire jar of peas this afternoon. This is the first time she finished a jar in one sitting. She seemed to really enjoy herself. She blew peas everywhere towards the end of the feed and was very proud of herself. She also wanted to help hold the jar and kept reaching for my hand. She also like to help the hand with the spoon in it. Even so, almost all of it got in the mouth and down the hatch.

The constipation problem is cleared up. Whew! Last night she woke up every two hours. (I don't think I can survive too many more nights like this... She's only had one good night since we got here.) (A good night means waking up twice during the night to eat.)

Helpful links:
http://www.geocities.com/mamabirdcloth/page_2.html

http://www.ottobredesign.com/en/print/pdf/vaippa_en.pdf

uncomfy

Today was an eventful day. Claire was uncomfortable due to constipation and woke up 5 times by the time I handed her off to her grandmother at 4:45 am. In the morning and early afternoon she had several painful stools that got progressively softer. (We've been giving her stewed prunes and prune juice to help.) Finally this evening she had a very soft one and seems to be done with the constipation whew! Besides that we had lunch with my Grandma- she brought over yummy beef soup. I got to take a long walk and work on a craft project and go shopping at Joann's Fabrics where I purchased some decent safety pins to replace our non-sharp 99 cent store ones.

The craft project consisted of painting on Tyvek which I want to use in cardmaking and bookmaking eventually. I bought dome fabric for sewing diaper covers from Joann's.

I'm planning to post some more pictures to Flikr once I'm done blogging.

a few new photos

There are a few new photos on Flikr.

Something I've noticed about Claire recently is that when there are several toys nearby and she is playing on the floor she will grab one and play with it for a while then drop it and pick up another and try it out for a while. A few weeks ago she would usually only grasp a toy if you held it up to her hand. She especially likes shaking the fishy rattle that came with her tummy time surfboard and her silver rattle from great grandma. she plays them lie a tambourine tapping them agains her leg or belly.
--Jen

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Mark is stuck in California with no camera. Major yardwork today--stuff we'd been wanting to do since literally 3 years ago when we moved in.
--Mark

Traveling

Traveling with my parents the other day went really smoothly. Claire didn't seem to mind the trip at all. She slept a good deal but I also managed to engage her is some play time.

Friday was a mellow day. It snowed off and on all day. Now the landscape is covered in a white blanket. We spent most of it at my parent's house doing the usual... feeding, napping, playing, pumping. Claire's naps were short and her meals were smaller and closer together which unfortunately translated into her waking every two hours during the night. UGH! I slept in till 9:30 and didn't even hear my dad come in early this morning to get Claire.

Yesterday we made a quick trip to the health food store because I was out of multivitamins and we needed some grocery items. Several adoring fans in the store cooed at Claire and asked her age. I was carrying her in the Snuggli carrier. Then we went to great grandmas so mom could get her computer working. While we were there I got Claire laughing really loudly by first swooping in over and over and kissing her cheek and then her belly.

Before we left on Wed. the physical therapist got Claire to sit without support for several seconds!
She is also demonstrating the ability to roll from side to front and back to side. It looks like she will soon be able to roll any way she wants. She also demonstrates other mobility... scooting to the top of the crib and turning herself around like a clock hand on the floor.

Rescue

Mark updated to the latest version on blogger.com. One result of this was that I couldn't log in this week. Now I'm back.

Green Clean is coming this morning and our house is more chaotic than usual. We still don't have everything put away after the delivery of the new fridge and we have extra people in the house.

My parents are here to rescue us. My dad is going to help Mark with a hydronic heating project and mom will help me with Claire and my to do list.

cold

The Book parents arrived on the coldest day of the year. Hope we have enough blankets.

Domestic Hero

We decided to replace our decades-old refrigerator with a more energy efficient one and Fry's threw on a vacuum cleaner for free. How hilarious. It is one of the new bagless cyclone ones and Mark was so inspired that he vacuumed most of the house this evening. Go Markos! (He is, like his Uncle Jerry and our friend Gary, enthralled by these new machines.) I haven't had a chance to try it yet. The fridge arrives tomorrow.

Claire was awake for Communion today and didn't spit it out. Hurray. (This is different than her usual.) She wore her cute blue velour overalls from the Allens. She also fell asleep in the sling during luncheon which was nice. The service was especially nice since today we celebrated Epiphany and two of our catechumens were Chrismated.

There are new photos of Claire on Flikr. :)

slow start

I had big plans for this morning, mostly to do with tidying up around the house and doing some grocery shopping and food prep. I had to abandon all of the above because I woke up with multiple plugged ducts and Claire wasn't interested in nursing to help unplug them. She was busy dealing with her own issues. (Being constipated from iron in the multivities which I have been giving her more regularly lately.) Her issue and mine were resolved by about 1:30, so by 3:00 we packed up the family to go shopping for a more comfortable chair for the nursery. We found one we like at Plummers but I had to get back home to pump and there was a line to speak to a salesperson...maybe later.

Claire is really enjoying interacting with the toys she got for Christmas. She likes shaking them and batting them and discovering what nioses they make and how they feel in her mouth.

Transition

The transition back to life at home after vacationing with family is a challenge. We went to Lompoc to visit Mark's Mom for New Year's Eve, so we've just been back a couple of days. We look forward to visits from my Folks and Mark's mom this month.

Adding to the challenge... we had to have a plumber over to replace a busted pipe which was apparently leaking while we were gone for the weekend. Thankfully the pipe in question was in the front yard and not inside the house.
gotta go. Claire calls.