September Update

Well, summer has come and gone, and both girls are still transforming before our very eyes.  Anika turned three while we were up in New Hampshire with Grandpa Tom and Grandma Mary, and Avery rounded out nine months while we were in Colorado visiting all the grandparents in late August.

Avery is now crawling, pulling to stand, waving, and (as of this week) sleeping through the night.  Hooray!  She is so sweet, so happy, and SO busy.  Once this kid is up and running we are truly in for it.

Anika is currently attending her first day at her new "escuela", Pine Village Preschool.  Again, she will be in a Spanish immersion program two days per week; however, this is a bigger, more school-like setting.  Also, as of yesterday, Anika is enrolled in gymnastics class!  She seemed to really enjoy it, despite her difficulty separating from me and her tendency to, um, stray from the flock.  She is becoming so grown up these days; she's fully potty-trained, talks nonstop, and her meltdowns are fewer.  So far, I'm liking age three much more than two.

So, needless to say, life for me is getting easier.  The girls are still a ton of work, but we're all generally making it through our days with less drama.

Andrew is in the process of applying for fellowships in Gastroenterology.  Beginning at the end of September he will be interviewing for positions at the University of Washington, the University of Colorado, Brown, Yale, and Oregon Health Sciences University.  It's a tough year for applying in GI, and he's still conflicted about pursuing this specialty, but hopefully he'll find an exciting opportunity along the interview trail.  We'll see...

Happy Half Birthday Baby!

As we round out six months, Avery has plainly become a very photogenic little person.  Although we're still trying to get a grip on her sleep issues, she's generally very happy and interested in the world.

In recent weeks we've graduated from baths in the sink and started experimenting with eating solid foods.  New experiences in both arenas have so far been a hit.  We've decided to try skiping purees and moved straight into finger foods.  She won't actually be chewing a swallowing for awhile, but she's been eager to knaw on everything we've given her--bread, pears, carrots and broccoli.

And just within the last couple days she's begun rolling over a lot.  I won't be surprised if she really starts getting around soon.  Her sitting is still sort of a work in progress, and well, she's eyeing a career in professional jumping.

Yay baby!  We're so glad to have those fussy early months behind us and to have a baby we love and love to be around.

Easter Egging

Here are a couple photos from Anika's first Easter egg dyeing and hunting experiences, thanks to our friends Dan, Kim, and Baby Miles.

Andrew took these with the Hipstamatic app on my new iPhone. He's enjoying my phone much more than I am.

April at Home

Photos from March

I'm just posting a few photos from our adventures at and near home this month. The warmer weather has permitted us to get out some, thankfully. Also, Avery's advancing age is making it easier to get back to some of our former routines.

A typical week for us these days includes toddler yoga, music class, a visit to the gym (and occasionally Baby and Me yoga), my second time mom's group, a few trips to the playground, and two days at "escuela" for Anika. It's always a juggling act, but I'm slowly getting used to the mayhem.



Here's Avery enjoying some freakishy warm weather on our front porch (Anika's favorite smoothie sipping spot).


And here she is enjoying the company of a few of her neighborhood peers at our local library.


Needless to say, we live in a very fertile 'hood.



Avery has become very social (and so cute!) during these past few weeks. She's beginning to laugh, and is doing lots of smiling and cooing.

Anika is becoming a non-stop talker and is very much tuned in. Whenever Andrew and I start discussing something she doesn't understand, she shouts, "Mama, stop talking! What are you talking about?" And she's very interested in what she doesn't quite understand. The word of the week is "weird"; she demands that we listen to The Beatles' song "Number 9" whenever we're in the car, and then laughs about how it's "weird" and "so silly" as she listens.

Hooray for Art!

Here's Andrew and Avery with our friends Dan and Baby Miles at my gallery opening last week. I'm in a show called "Within" at The Alcove Gallery this month. The owners (and my co-exhibitor) are actually Anika's preschool teachers. This is their first show; I'm very happy/honored to have been invited.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the hands or presence of mind to take more photos, but the opening was very fun for us all. Even if I don't have the opportunity to make any more work in the foreseeable future, I'm glad to have had a show during our time in Boston (and to celebrate Mama's art with my daughters).

Also, it was really nice to have so many of our friends stop by. We are really beginning to feel like we're apart of a community.

More Nearly 3 Month Photos

These photos were taken just a few moments before Avery first rolled from tummy to back. So much for tummy time!

12 Weeks!

I feel crazy saying it, but a part of me is glad Avery was such a grumpy little baby. We appreciate her new happy disposition all the more for it... And I'm convinced I can do anything after having survived these past couple months.

Avery's newest achievement is discovering her hands and she's now extremely interested in the visible world...

She's Delightful After All!

I'm just writing briefly to say that as of about noon on Tuesday, Avery is a whole new person. Still a needy little baby, mind you, but such a reasonable and sweet one.

I guess it was colic, given how suddenly the problem evaporated. Now we need to reintroducing dairy and soy into my diet, try taking her off of her reflux medication, and catch up on some genuine bonding.

Truth-Telling Time

Here are some photos from January--at home and on our trip to Denver. We thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent there with all our family and friends. Anika, our big "two half" year old particularly enjoyed her grandparents. Mama and Dada enjoyed all the extra hands.





And Avery is, well, Avery. To be honest, in spite of all the wonderful moments and beautiful smiles we've shared, the past few weeks have been completely exhausting, exasperating, and frequently just awful. I feel terrible admitting it, but after ten weeks together, we still have not developed a fondness for Avery that is on par with our feelings for her sister.

I cried all the way home from my our Baby & Me yoga class this morning, and expect I'll continue crying off and on all day. Last time I attended (four weeks ago) Avery woke during class at 10:30am and then basically cried until midnight with the exception of two hours around dinner time. Andrew had to work overnight that night, so I was alone dealing with her and Anika (who luckily got to be in preschool for the first six hours of the ordeal). I wanted to cry then, before that whole scene began, because all the other moms seemed so much happier and attached to their babies.

And then today, when Avery awoke during the middle of yoga class and started in crying, I nearly burst into tears in front of all those happy women and their placid little babies and tried to leave. The yoga teacher convinced me to stay and then held Avery (who was inconsolable, of course) during most of the remainder of the class. At the very end, I managed to nurse her to sleep (which was a minor miracle), and then had to leave feeling completely embarrassed because it looked as though I'd made a scene over a baby who was merely hungry.

But it's so much more than that. We've tried everything. Although there are times when she's totally reasonable, she still cries for hours upon hours most days. And I can't even articulate how helpless it makes me--us--feel.

At this point, I can only hope that what's bothering her is colic because that means there is an end in sight. And in the meantime, I will cling to images such as these with the desperate hope that they hold a truth I struggle to see in animate life.

Discovering Reciprocity

After some really awful weeks of near constant fussing and spitting up, Avery is finally beginning to show us some love. She's been smiling occasionally for a couple weeks, but has generally been too busy being miserable to be social.

We've decided that she probably has a combination of a milk/soy protein intolerance (like her sister) and reflux. Now that I've given up dairy and soy consistently for over a week, I think we're just dealing with reflux (which Zantac doesn't entirely fix). BUT, she's spending more time asleep and more of her awake time happy. During these past few days she's transformed into a whole new person--I'm really hoping the cranky little newbie phase is finally behind us...

Avery at 5 weeks

The photo below might just be Avery's smile, though we're still not convinced that she's smiling in earnest. Even if it's not though, she will assuredly be grinning often in the very near future.


On the whole, Avery is growing well--nearly three pounds during her first four weeks! Pretty unbelievable considering all the spitting up she's doing...

Although Avery is in many ways an easier baby than Anika, she does seem to have some GI issue that appears to really bother her at times. We've been medicating her for reflux and I've given up both dairy and soy because we suspect that (like her sister) she has a milk protein intolerance. I'm not wild about restricting my diet again, but after a couple 'good days' I'm slowly coming around. Fussy babies are the worst.

Andrew is frequently working 30 hour shifts this month. It's been challenging for us both, particularly last weekend when I had a fever off and on for about 36 hours, but we're hanging in there. And very much looking forward to a trip to Colorado in about two and a half weeks!