my belle

Golly Clara is so much fun. She woke up cooing in her crib this morning. I went to get her and she was all smiles for me. After feeding her, I grabbed a couple of her stuffed animals and brought her into bed with me. We spent the next half hour giggling, singing and playing. I got up to make breakfast while Jeff slept and laid Clara on her back on the playmat on the floor. When I peeked out of the kitchen to check on her a few minutes later she was on her stomach and facing the opposite direction. Checked again a few minutes later and she'd continued to rotate around into a full 360. Hah hah, as I'm typing this all the sudden her crib aquarium has turned on. She must've just rolled over in bed and bumped it. Anyway, Jeff played with her for a little bit this morning and then we sat down for breakfast. We decided to start having Clara sit at the table with us more. So we plopped her into her highchair and gave her a plate and spoon to play with. And she managed to get that spoon right up into her mouth. I've been debating starting her on solid foods...I think she might be ready. And I'm so excited to try. After breakfast, Clara took a shower with Jeff. She's so funny in the shower, doesn't mind being full in the stream of water at all. She just blinks her little eyes...Jeff said he even got a smile out of her in there this morning. This afternoon we all went to see The Incredible Mr. Limpet with some friends and their baby. Clara's getting to be quite a good stander-upper, Jeff had her hanging on to some railing and standing up all by herself today. We ran a few errands and everywhere we went Clara was getting heaps of attention today. Everyone was oohing and aahing over her red hair and just general adorableness. And tonight, I've been falling more and more in love with her. I had taken her up to her crib to get her ready for bed and I decided to let her play naked for awhile. She kept rolling over which I don't get to see her do very often so it was funny. And grabbing her toes and pulling them up into her mouth. And playing with her aquarium. And trying so hard to crawl, but actually just flailing around. She was cooing and laughing and smiling and it just melts me. I decided to make a little video of her. And as I was making it, she peed all over her bed. Today was probably the most playful she's ever been. Smiles are coming so much more easily out of her. And she's getting more and more ticklish and developing a sense of humor. It is sooo much fun having her around.

drawers

Clara's four month old now!! This has been such a crazy time of development. She looks so different. All plump. She can almost hold a bottle by herself. She can make raspberry noises like nobody's business. And oh boy does she spit up! We've entered 24/7 bib wearing at this point. I was hoping it wouldn' t come to that. But when I started having to change her clothes 3+ times a day I decided enough was enough. Now there are just multiple bib changes per day!

She gets along sooo good with her nanny, Cory. Clara smiles really big as soon as she sees Cory and even starts jumping in my arms. I'm not sure she even gets that excited for me!

Clara loves sleeping on her side right now. She can't quite get into position by herself though. She is just transitioning into sleeping in her crib and will start out the night on her back but when she wakes up about 6 hours later she is trying so hard to roll onto her side. A push of her legs to get them into position and she'll fall back asleep. She's pretty much sleeping through the night now (8pm-7am). Some nights I haul her into bed with me somewhere between 4:30am and 6am, but some nights she sleeps the whole time. Often, I have to wake her up at 7am. Soo awesome to wake up to her cute baby smiles.

She went to her first concert a couple nights ago...Violent Femmes played at the zoo. And a gang of us packed a picnic dinner and went for the evening.

We've had lots of family visits this past month, too. Grandma & Grandpa Boltman came with Great-Grandpa Swartz (who passed away just two weeks later), then Aunt Jenny, Uncle Keith & cousin Ben, and then Aunt Julie and cousin Katie came, too. Katie had sooo many hugs for Clara. Clara wasn't too sure she liked it at first. But we headed to Michigan a week later and she got lots more hugs from Katie and seemed to like them just fine at that point!

Aaah, Michigan...Clara and I flew to Michigan without Jeff. It was scary for me, but Clara was a star as usual and didn't fuss. I don't know why I was worried. She is such a great baby. We got lots of great bonding time since it was just the two of us...well the rest of the family helped out a bit. But I changed more than my share of diapers that week!

Speaking of diapers, Clara is smiling as she fills hers right now!

tight squeeze

we hosted the peps group at our house last night. our facilitator didn't bother to tell us that there was going to be a new family bringing the group up to 13 adults and 6 babies to squeeze nto a room in our tiny house! sheesh. it was a good discussion night though. we're all getting a bit more comfortable with each other i think. so comfortable that one of the moms called about a half hour before she arrived to ask if there was a private room she could use for her baby since she was trying to keep him on a sleep schedule. i said sure and raced around to get the guest room where i'd tossed all the laundry and miscellaneous crap cleaned up for her. she arrived with a boombox and a cd of white noise for him. it didn't work though...she spent 45 minutes trying to get him to sleep and then finally gave up and joined us. apparently she's been reading a bunch of baby sleep books...it just seems to be stressing her out. almost every parent last night complained about being soooo tired and exhausted and barely able to function. i didn't want to say it, but i feel great! i mean i was tired waking up with clara last night but it's more of an inconvenient tired than the debilitating tired that these people were explaining. i am so lucky. hopefully it is helping that i don't have any expectations for clara in terms of sleep. i am just happy that she does it. but i'm feeling like a bit of a slacker...i should start reading about more ways to interact with her when she's awake. i've been singing to her and playing with her a bit and talking to her (and feeding her of course!)...but there is only so much you can do. and of course i still like my me time and offloading her to her swing for some quiet time. i want to get the most out of the time we do spend hanging out. the mom that's reading all the sleep books is not only doing peps but also another moms group plus doing all these mom & baby exercise things she read about in a book. guess i could try something like that. emily & i have been walking greenlake for the past couple of days...but clara sleeps the whole time. i don't feel like i really need any other mom interaction. maybe i do...i dunno. i'm hoping to get together with the girls from my childbirth class more...we'll see if that happens.

giggles

i think clara laughed today. it was while she was sleeping but still! it was so cute! i can't wait till she does it for real.

sage spent the night here last night. he's such a good kid and he loves to play with crush & clara. at one point he was talking about how we're like his second family. aww! we set him up with a bed in one of the cubbies upstairs and he woke us all up at 6:30 this morning with a "rise and shine, everybody!" luckily he contented himself reading some books for 20-30 minutes while we woke up a little more. emily and i went for a walk with crush & clara at green lake after dropping sage off at school and then after picking him back up we all had lunch together. sage made up stories for clara and sang her songs and she smiled away at him. it's so cute how much babies like little kids.

in great news, emily is going to take care of clara for me when i go back to work! yay!!

2 months!!

Clara had her two month checkup today! It's hard to believe she is that old and yet it seems like she has always been with us. The checkup was really good. The doc said he is really pleased with her progress. She's now up to 9 lbs, 2 oz which puts her in the 25th percentile for weight. She's 22 inches which is the 50th percentile for height/length. And her head circumference is 25+ percentile...it's pretty funny that they measure that. The doc said her new rolling over talent is "off the charts" as that's a skill that isn't usually demonstrated until 4 months. After all the good checking up, she had to get immunizations. Four shots!! poor bugger. She cried at the first one and kept on crying. But it was such a sweet cry. I felt so bad for her and when the nurse left us so I could comfort Clara, I started crying too as Clara snuggled up into me and whimpered. My poor peanut!

Amazing Baby!

Clara rolled over tonight!!

We went to a reunion of babies/moms/dads for our childbirth class tonight. Three little girls and one boy. Clara was the youngest. She had gotten pretty fussy and jeff decided to just lay her on the floor on her back. She enjoyed that for awhile and then got fussy again so he flipped her over to her stomach. We were all telling stories at the time so I wasn't watching her but Jeff and a bunch of the other people were and all the sudden she dropped her shoulder and rolled over! Everyone started cheering...though Jeff had a look of shock on his face. I had him put her back on her tummy so I could see it and sure enough she did it again. He did it a few more times and she even dropped her other shoulder and rolled the other direction! Fun!!

She's been smiling more and more every day and we've found that she really likes hip-hop music...it always makes her dance.

We'll try to get a video of the roll so you all can see...hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as us!

my little sis, her husband & baby were just all out visiting for the past week. it got so hot here. up to 90+! we went to the ocean for a night but it was grey and windy cool there. too cool. and the town we went to was pretty dull. their visit was fun. little ben was a doll. i could squeeze his cheeks and smile at him all day. he makes the most adorable raccoon noises.

i'm going to start working later this week or beginning of next. just some stuff from home. the company is moving to a new building at the beginning of july so i'm helping out with some special projects for that. really need to start figuring out what i'm going to do about clara-care. i have been totally procrastinating on it. emily mentioned the other day that she could watch her. which would be awesome. i need to talk to her more about it. jeff's mom is going to send an email out to see if there are people in her church who would do it too. and then i guess i have those options and daycares (in home or centers). i dunno what to do. i mean obviously emily is number one choice. i am just worried she doesn't really want to do it as much as i need it.

this week is going to be kind of busy. for me anyway.today i've gotta clean up the mess which is my house. it got pretty trashed having company this week. ben tore up kleenexes and has toys strewn everywhere. tonight we've got our PEPs group (parent support group) meeting. tomorrow this friend/PR person for Impinj wants to get together with me. thursday i've got my postpartum doctor's appointment. my boss's wife is about to have a baby so the work gang is talking about having a last minute little get together to wish them well on thursday or friday. and sunday we're getting together with the couples/babies and instructor from our childbirth class for a post-baby reunion. i've only seen one of the couples so that should be fun. ireally want to go shopping this week.

golly clara is a cutie...i've entered that mommy gaga phase. she's starting to smile now. this morning i got giggling while talking/looking at her and she kept smiling and smiling at me. i'll have to try to catch a picture of it.

i am thinking about starting to do a clara journaltype of thing. which i'm sure will be pretty boring for anyone but me and family to read but right now it's really what i've got going on and it will be fun to capture all the stuff that is going on and photos i think.

so...we took clara on her first outing today...went to lunch. she slept the whole time. she is only 4 days old. so crazy to think about. we're so in awe of her as i guess all new parents are.

crush is amazing. he's been soo good with the baby. he's getting over his initial need to sniff her face all the time. today i let him lick her feet a couple of times which made him happy. he seems to be getting protective of her too. today jeff tried putting her in the baby bjorn while i was in the shower. i guess she was screaming her head off and crush started getting upset about her getting upset and started barking at jeff! hah hah. he usually just lays down at the foot of whatever clara is in. his bed is right by hers, and when she's in the swing he lays down by it. very cute. today he and i were in a room together and all the sudden we heard clara start crying in another room so crush immediately took off to find her. sooo sweet that puppy!