Emma's First Month of Fun

Our little sleeping beauty. She does this. . .alot. Last night she slept from about 10:00 to 5:30. Not bad for a one month old. I can't believe she will be one month old on Wednesday. She has survived her first cold with grace and she also survived Lucy's first attempt at picking her up all by herself last night. That was interesting. We've had two birthdays since Emma was born. Isaac turned five and Lucy turned two. Here are scenes from those adventures. . . .

Isaac found this dino pan at the thrift shop several months ago and decided then and there to have a dinosaur party. It was great fun. Having a two week old around kept the party planning very simple. Isaac got a Dino-riddle book for Christmas and after hearing it once had them all memorized and so "read" them to all his guests. It was fun to see them all gathered around him. Afterwards we destroyed a huge dinosaur egg pinata. The pinata was quite a process. Isaac was really excited until he realized getting slimy was involved and then refused to be a part of the creative work. He was therefore assigned to blowdrying it in an attempt to finish it faster. It didn't really work. We put too many layers on it without letting everything dry completely. This created a semi-dry much too flexible dinosaur egg. Our solution? Wrap it in masking tape to fortify it. We were planning on letting the kids kick it around instead of whacking it, because we had no way to hang it in our house. So, it needed to be extra tough. Boy was it. The kids could not make a dent in that thing. Actually, they made lots of dents in it, but it was not coming close to popping.

Daman had the bright idea of a hammer, but one kid swinging it into that bouncy egg and then barely missing his eye as it rebounded back at him cut that plan short. Finally we stabbed seven holes in it, gave each kid a handhold and told them to tear with all their might. That was just as entertaining, and it got to the dinosaur teeth inside (which vaguely resembled hershey kisses, some of them even covered in blood--they were buy one get one free valentine edition). Fun and chocolate was had by all. We even had a rice krispy volcano on hand for the kids that had egg and nut allergies. Isaac scored lots of wonderful legos and the party wore on with lots of lego fun with his great friends.

Next came Lucy's birthday. She had three different celebrations actually--this picture captures the third. Notice the cake. Lucy had been dying to have her own dino cake. She absolutely adores Isaac--can you tell? Grandma Lulu came up to help me out while Daman abandoned me for MaShay's wedding. She brought up a birthday crown and provided a birthday cake and we sang our hearts out. Then on Lucy's actual birthday we went out to IHOP for breakfast and after enjoying an enormous chocolate chip pancake, Lucy was serenaded by the staff and given a birthday sundae. And finally, when Dad came home we topped off the birthday week with a dinosaur cake and another celebration with the Johnson family. Derek Johnson served with Daman in Hong Kong and he and his fun family came down for a visit. They celebrated Lucy's birthday with us and we culminated the festivities with an exploding fish--that is another blog. But, just so you know, when the bottom of a pyrex dish says "not for stovetop" they really mean that.

Spring Cleaning

Emma has been with us almost a month now and it has been quite the adventure. A couple of days after we came home from the hospital (it was hard to leave room service behind I might mention) Lucy came down with bronchitis. She was absolutely miserable--we've never seen her so sad. So, for several nights, Daman and I split duties. One of us tried to "sleep" with Lucy in our bed and the other was up with Emma. For about a week there, Isaac was the only one in the family getting any sleep. Finally Lucy was feeling better and then Emma got sick. It wasn't bronchitis, but it was a pretty rough cold. She was a real trooper though, sweet and mild the whole time, even though it was clear she was uncomfortable. I'm hoping to attach more pics soon. We are all feeling healthy finally. Emma just couldn't get the hang of nursing and when Daman left me alone with the kids for his sister's wedding, full-time pumping fell to the wayside and so now Emma is a formula baby. But, she is doing great, sleeping at least 18 hours of 24. She is wonderful and laid back and patient with Lucy's boa constrictor hugs and Isaac massaging her face into all sorts of funny looks. We are happy.
As soon as nursing was done I embarked on a detoxification cleansing diet, to try to rid myself of all the crazy sugar I've ingested over the last few weeks. I have attempted to soothe my stress away with chocolate and cookies I tried to hide from myself in the deep freezer downstairs. I felt like I needed something drastic to reboot my relationship with food so for the next ten days (actually only seven to go!) I am consuming nothing but a concoction of water, lemon juice, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. For those inquiring minds, I am journaling about the whole experience on my other blog, http://www.timeformo.blogspot.com/ I am feeling really wonderful and even resisted treats at a baby shower, and fresh-baked bread out of the oven. Hear me roar.