Happy Firsts

March 16, 2010: After screaming like a screech monkey for Mama all day Amelia smiled her first "real"/social smile at Daddy 10 minutes after he got home. Thus begins my life with a Daddy's girl.


March 28, 2010: I took Amelia into her room for a diaper change. After cleaning her up i was letting her "air off" and playing with her to get the aforementioned smiles. I called Cheyenne in to see how smiley and sweet she was being and he joined in with foot tickling which gave us our first giggles from her.

In case you were wondering, her smiles are heartbreakingly sweet and her giggles are beautiful.

I promise to try and capture both on video for everyone but for now she's gone back to screech monkey mode.

Pro Photos By My Favorite Artist!

This week my favorite photographer, the truely amazing Mike Long of Katchlight Studios (the same man that did my pin-up pictures) came to the house and took breathtakingly beautiful pictures of Amelia. He will actually be doing this 4 times this year and at the end we will get a gorgeous book with 80 photos as well as a dvd. Here is the link to this session's gallery http://katchlight.exposuremanager.com/g/amelia
the password is "nichole"

if there are photos that you feel you must have here is info from Mike himself on how much and how to contact him:

"As well as the loose prints available in that gallery, I also have a few packages which save people money, but they have to be bought direct from me, not using the gallery. If you want to buy just a few prints, then use that gallery. However, I have has some great packages that save you money, if you want any of the following please email him at: mikelong@mac.com

Package A:
One 11x14
Two 8x10's
Four 5x7's
Eight Wallets
$330

Package B:
One 16x20
Two 8x10's
Four 5x7's
Eight Wallets
$400

Package C:
One 20x30
Two 8x10's
Four 5x7's
Eight Wallets
$500

More pictures from 8 weeks

2 Months Old

Gramma & Aunt Cara get to visit

Renee & Cara got to come up to Portland for a long weekend to see Amelia for the first time. We had a great time seeing them and realized after they left that neither Cheyenne or I had really gotten to hold our baby since their plane had landed...just as it should be with a first time grandmother and aunt!
Here are a couple of the pictures from the weekend, for more go to http://picasaweb.google.com/halfpint212003 the photos from the trip are under "amelias second month"

Happy St Patricks Day

Today is Amelia's 7 week "birthday", St Paddy's Day, & my dad's birthday so it's an eventful day here! Dad/Grandpa will be coming over this weekend for our traditional corned beef and cabbage birthday/st pats celebration.

Look familiar?

Is this the latest picture of Amelia? Nope. This is a picture of me when I was about the same age...it has recently been pointed out that the resemblance is uncanny.

Yay!

Since we co-sleep for now Amelia never actually uses her crib which until last week when Cheyenne went back to work was not a big deal since one of us was available to always hold her when the other needed to get something done during the day.

Now that I'm home alone with her I could really use my own set of hands let alone the extra, to get things done. So, I have been slowly working on her with the crib (which need to happen anyway since later down the line the co-sleep will come to an end). Today for the first time she took a nap all by herself in the crib (of course it only lasted 10-25 minutes, but it's a start).

Playing with Grammy

One week down...18+ years to go...

Today marks the end of my first week as a stay at home mom and I feel good about it. It started off a bit shaky but we have started to get a semblance of a routine and I'm feeling more confident and comfortable which of course means that Amelia is less fussy.
Monday mornings are a bit rough because Cheyenne has a standing conference call with the office in France and has to be at work an hour and a half earlier than he needs to Tuesday-Friday. This means that Sunday night i have a longer than normal shift and Monday morning starts sooner, for my first day on the "job" that was a kind of hard transition. Tuesday was a bit better because I had gotten more rest and we were able to stay in bed until 7:30am. Wednesday was the start of things falling into place. On Thursdays I babysit my friend Meegan's dog Betty so that she (Betty) and Josie have someone to play with all day and they get some socialization and energy out, this is totally fine but i was feeling a bit frazzled with both dogs underfoot and lots of cleaning that needed to be done. Luckily my friend Samantha came over to chat and play (we took the girls on a nice long walk through the park and spent the rest of the afternoon chatting in the sunny living room) and i must say, even though i didn't get the cleaning done it did calm my nerves quite a bit. Friday was amazing with a kind of routine to the day.
Also nice, I find it very calming for both Amelia and I for me to read to her...a lot. So everyday now we read for hours in the afternoon, she calmly sits there and listens/watches and snoozes with the blinds open and the sunshine pouring in. I think between the sunshine, the talking (which keeps her alert and unable to fall into a deep REM sleep) it's helping her get her days & nights back where they should be. As a treat for all of the reading that I've been doing for her she has started to fall asleep at 10:00pm and her nighttime feedings have gone from 30-60 minutes down to 15-30 minutes. Much nicer!

New pictures...

My dad just had shoulder surgery and is taking time off to recover which means that he gets to come over and play with his granddaughter at least 1-2 times a week. She adores him...

and just for fun here's a picture of Amelia cruising around the house with her dad, she likes to be face out so that she can look at everything.

Too much time to think about things?

I was reading to the baby and here's what I've got to say: Mother Goose should be locked up. The "big bad wolf" is in back to back stories (3 little pigs & little red riding hood) and it is more than clear that this is a description of a STARVING DOG - this is supposed to teach my child a moral of some sort? All i got was that the ASPCA can go screw itself according to Mother Goose. And speaking of Ms. Riding Hood, here's a story about a mother who sends her small child off into dangerous woods alone (where are child protective services), a brat kid talks to a stranger and leads him to an helpless elderly woman's home (hello stranger danger) and in the end is saved by a burly axe wielding man (pedophile much). Not Cool! Then there are the 3 little bears which not only does not send Goldilocks to the clink on a B&E charge (as should have been the case) but they never talk about these poor animals being removed from their natural habitat and placed a sweet cottage instead. Puss & Boots is basically a story that promotes theft from the start to the end. Very messed up I tell you

5 weeks already

Amelia is 5 weeks old today and things are going quite well actually. The colic that we were having trouble with around weeks 2-3 seems to have gone away. I currently have to supplement breast milk with formula and our pediatrician suggested that this was to blame. She switched us over to a hypoallergenic version and it seems to have worked (a lactose sensitivity is very very common in babies and does not mean that she'll grow up to be lactose intolerant by any means). We aren't sure if it was the formula change or just growing a bit and developing more but we'll take it over crying either way!
She now sleeps a good portion of the day but is starting to wake up more and more. Every night she is wide awake at 10:00om like clockwork...which is 1 hour into her dads shift and she stays that way until about 12:00am (I'm told). My shift begins at 1:00am and she usually wakes up for a feeding at that time, she and i go sit in the rocking chair in her nursery and she eats for about 30-60 minutes then we go back to bed (we are co-sleeping as suggested by the pediatrician since it reduces the risk of SIDS and is easier on all 3 parties for the first couple of months) then she wakes up and repeats this every 2.5-3 hours which really isn't all THAT bad (though, I'll admit there are mornings when i can feel myself dragging because of this sleep pattern). Besides, they are only this little for such a short amount of time that it's pretty close to impossible to begrudge her.
Cheyenne went back to work on Monday which means that my new "job" has officially begun and not to sound naive, but, it's MUCH harder than i ever gave it credit for. I knew that being a stay at home mom is considered the hardest job in the world (because ya know....you're building a human) but there are a bunch of little things that i just never considered. For example: in order to do the dishes i have to go in stages: plates first and then a break to pick her up and talk to her so that she doesn't freak out, then the bowls, followed by another break and so on with each kind of dish. A sink of dishes can now take all afternoon to wash instead of 15-20 minutes. But this is still just my 3rd day on the job and we're both learning through trial and error what works for us and what kind of schedule not only works but is reasonable...I'm sure we'll get there pretty soon.