3 Months

Natalie’s been doing lots of fun new things lately. She’s definitely discovered her hands! She’s constantly shoving her fingers into her mouth and sometimes tries to devour her entire fist! She also likes to pull my hair and has pulled one of the toys in her swing to her mouth and sucked on its leg. Her movements, at least with her hands and arms, are starting to become more organized.

She’s also been very vocal, as usual. On top of her typical babbling and cooing, she’s started screeching and I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly provokes it. It is definitely random at times, but sometimes it seems like it might be due to excitement- like when Daddy gets home from work. And now she’s almost rolling over! She kind of rolled over in our bed (maybe accidentally?) the other day, but hasn’t done it since. Plus, she was swaddled at the time, which might have made it easier to roll. Speaking of which, I tried to wean her from the swaddle this past week because I read some conflicting research about the need for babies to exercise their arms during their sleep. But, after two nights of restless sleep for both of us, I gave in and just started swaddling again. We only do it at night and I seriously think it makes her sleep better since she’s constantly flailing about!

On the 16th, Natalie turned 3 months old! Already... I’m having a hard time keeping up with how big she’s getting so quickly! According to our scale at home, she’s about 11 pounds now. To celebrate her quarter birthday, Eric and I had lunch at Sweet Tomatoes with his mom. I considered taking professional 3-month portraits, but I ended up just taking some at home to save a little money. We got a couple cute ones- but she let me know right away when she had had enough! I'm not the best photographer, so we'll definitely be enlisting Danielle (our babymoon photographer) for her 6-month portraits.





Now that Elaine’s shower has come and gone, I’ve been focusing my extra time on artwork for Natalie’s room. I feel absolutely terrible that her nursery is still incomplete! But she’s not exactly sleeping in her own room just yet... so I still have time. Anyway, I used her under-the-sea quilt as inspiration and drew three images on canvases. Once they’re done, they’ll hang over her crib (pictures to follow). Speaking of the nursery, I finally cleaned up her room! We’ve been using it mostly for storage since the move and all the clutter has been driving me nuts! Lucky for me, Natalie took a nice long nap with Daddy on his day off, which gave me a nice chunk of time to get it done. I also ordered a safety gate to keep the cats out of her room and keep her in her room once she’s mobile.

I’ve also been devoting some of my time recently to meal planning- all too often we look in the freezer in the evening and say, “What’s for dinner?” To avoid this and hopefully save some money while I’m at it, I’ve compiled a list of our favorite dinners and plan to start assigning dishes to every day of the week and shopping accordingly. It will take some extra planning each week, but I think it will save us time in the long run and cut down on our beloved Jack-in-the-Box runs!

Unfortunately, my little birthing “complication” is an ongoing battle and still not better... even though I’ve been following doctor’s orders and trying to alter my diet. It’s beyond frustrating and extremely painful most of the time. I’m really hoping it starts to heal soon.

Eric’s finally on the mend from his sinus infection, but he’s been really tired lately- and not exactly because of Natalie! Over the past two weeks, he’s has had to work mandated overtime twice. Because he’s relatively low on the totem pole in terms of seniority, his supervisor can force him to work overtime if they can’t find coverage for a shift. The extra pay is a perk, but the time away from home certainly isn’t. And it’s quite irritating when it conveniently happens only on weekends or holidays, thanks to Eric’s undependable, careless coworkers. I’m highly considering starting a new job search for him...

Elaine's Baby Shower

I hosted a baby shower for my sister Elaine this past Saturday and it turned out great (she's expecting a girl on 4/1)! I started planning quite a while ago to ensure that I’d have time to organize everything. Since Elaine loves Hello Kitty, the theme for the party was an easy choice. And since Elaine threw such a great shower for me, I wanted to make sure that her soiree was just as awesome!

First step was making the invitations. Besides the fact that I would never be able to find a ready-made Hello Kitty invitation for a baby shower, I knew I’d have fun making them! Luckily I love all things crafty, and making invitations is definitely one of my favorite things to make. In the past, I’ve made my own party, graduation, and even wedding invitations! So I made a few trips to my local craft store to pick up a bunch of supplies and started to assemble them during Natalie’s naps and feedings. They took longer than I anticipated (as does everything while caring for a two-month old!) but they turned out great (see below).

Second was finding a location. Since our place is much too small to host a party of more than just a few people, I wasn’t sure where to hold it. Then, one day when my mother-in-law was over, she suggested that I reserve the clubhouse at our condo community (which didn’t even cross my mind and would work perfectly). So I checked in with Elaine and reserved a date!

Third was organizing a few baby shower games. I didn’t want to do the same ones that she planned for my shower, so I scoured the internet and came up with two good ones. First, a “Memory” matching game where guests have to match word pairs on a poster board and then receive candy for correct matches. For example, “11-pound baby” with “11-pound baby” (prize: Whoppers) and “epidural” with “epidural” (prize: Lifesavers). Second was “The Price is Right” where guests have to guess the prices for various baby items and the person closest to the total price wins.

Fourth was finding inexpensive, but cool favors- which is not easy to do when you’re planning for 30 guests! With a budget of about $2 a favor, I managed to put together these awesome goodie bags that contained two chocolate truffles, a compact mirror, and lip gloss, complete with a custom Hello Kitty favor label and “It’s a Girl” ribbon.


Then came all the details: Hello Kitty tableware, “It’s a Girl” balloons, Hello Kitty decorations (that I made myself!), tablecloths, centerpieces, and of course food and dessert. I made all the food for the party, including chicken and pesto sandwiches on focaccia bread, a fancy spring salad with spiced walnuts, dried cranberries and feta cheese, a tortellini bean salad, and fruit kabobs. I also made a big chocolate cake that tasted great (but wasn’t as decorated as nicely as it could have been due to lack of time), and put together a pink sherbet punch.




It was raining really hard on the day of the shower and unfortunately Eric was mandated to work overtime the Friday night before the shower! I was counting on him to take Natalie for a few hours while I set-up everything and finished a few last-minute details! Luckily I was able to get everything done the morning of the shower and I was really happy with how everything turned out. Natalie even had a nice time with Daddy for a couple hours and took a bottle while I was gone! More importantly, I think Elaine had a great time and she received a lot of neat things for her little baby girl (like baby high heels that we had fun trying on Natalie)!

Valentine's Day

We had a very low-key Valentine's Day this year. Since it was a Monday and Eric was working, Natalie and I spent the day at home making a card for Daddy with some of my left-over paper crafting supplies. She was surprisingly coopertive, and together, we made this cute keepsake:

On Saturday, we went to Lisa and Peter's second annual Hearts Party. Last year's party was a blast! It was the first time I had played the card game, but I quickly caught on and had a lot of fun. This year, I sat out to take care of Natalie, but ate lots of good food and chatted with one of Lisa's friends who also brought her baby. I had to leave early once Natalie started fussing (she did make it until almost midnight), but Eric stayed behind and ended up winning! I'm kind of sad that I missed the crowning, but he told me all about it when he got home. Good times! We're already looking forward to next year's tournament. (photo courtesies to Lisa and Andre- I take my camera everywhere but I've been really bad at actually using it!)

12-13 Weeks

Natalie grasped a rattle for the first time this week! She grabbed the little plastic handles when I put it near her hands and started to shake it! Then she brought it to her mouth and drooled all over it. Exciting!

I finally got around to painting Natalie's bedroom over the weekend. The condo we're in currently is very nice, just like our old place, but obviously the previous tenant did not take care of it as well as they could have. The walls are horribly scraped and patched all over the place, which really bugs me. And the worst room by far was Natalie's room, so I figured it should be the first to be painted. Of course a little bit of touch-up work doesn't fix the problem since stupid Kelly Moore doesn't "make" this particular color anymore, so the best I could do was have it color matched, but it still isn't quite right. So painting the entire room was really the only option. Natalie fussed with Eric while I painted, so I had to take a few breaks in-between walls. She did not want to take a bottle from Eric at all and we ended up wasting almost five ounces of breastmilk! We're going to have to work on that- I'm thinking we should offer her a bottle at least once a week from here on out so she can get used to it. Anyway, her room now looks so much better! Hopefully I'll be able to paint the rest of the rooms at some point. I also made a quick little door hanging for her room- I painted letters to spell out her name and decorated it with some sea-theme foam stickers. This was a lot easier to do than paiting her room, since I nursed her while I painted at the kitchen table!


Eric tried out the pack carrier one day this week. We walked down to park one afternoon and she quickly fell right asleep with daddy. It's been nice to be able to go outside a little more now that it's less rainy and cold. We even took her over to Terry's house for a little superbowl party and it was warm enough to dress her in just a onsie! I just love her chunky little legs and arms- they're just starting to get that classic baby chub, which is just so adorable! You can see it here in her bath time picture- I was able to snap a quick photo when her legs were posed in just the right spot, so it's modest enough to post :). This kid loves baths!!


In other news, I'm still feeling pretty terrible. It is so frustrating that I'm still having to deal with post-birth issues!! I finally broke down and called the Kaiser advice line Sunday after Eric's insistence and was told I may have an anal fissure. Horray. Just what I wanted to hear!

Enough about that. Here's another cute picture that I just had to share- Eric's mom always tells us how Eric used to suck on his middle fingers when he was a baby and I finally caught Natalie in the act!

Rock on baby, rock on! :)

11-12 Weeks

Natalie has started sucking on her fists just recently- now they're constantly in her mouth! I think it's safe to say that she's officially discovered her hands. And I think my implementation of block-feeding has finally started to make a difference. Now I can start pumping again. I have to build up my freezer stash before I return to work...

I am just about done shopping for Elaine's baby shower. I've ordered most everything online, with exception of one trip to the party store for some basic supplies like table cloths, balloons, and streamers. But I haven't been able to find any Hello Kitty decorations that I really like. Most are either Happy Birthday theme or really juvenile looking. So I've started making some of my own! While Natalie eats, I've been busy drawing. I think I've mastered the ability to multitask while breastfeeding!

Elaine and I took Natalie out for her first offical shopping outing this past Saturday! We walked around Downtown Walnut Creek to find a few things for Elaine's hospital bag. We stopped at the maternity store to buy a few things and luckily I was able to nurse Natalie there and again at the Nordstrom lounge (they have a fantasic mother's lounge- separate from the bathroom with comfy chairs, a changing station, and its own sink- I really don't understand why more places don't offer this). Very soon we'll be shopping around with two strollers in tow and I'm really looking forward to it!

Before we headed out for our shopping trip, I insisted we stop by Heather Farms just down the street from our place so I could take some maternity pictures of Elaine! It's been kind of overcast lately, but the lighting made for some nice portraits. My plan is to display some of them at her baby shower for everyone to see. Here's a few of my favorites. They turned out really nice!




Eric and I took Natalie to the library together this week. It's so nice when Eric has a day off during the middle of the work week so we can run a few errands or take Natalie out, without the worry of crowds! We checked out a few more picture books and Baby Einsten DVDs, since she seems to enjoy them. Then we headed over to Costco to pick up a few things and had lunch. I carried her in our new pack and she did really good! Then we came home and relaxed. I think we wore baby out a little!