june

this month we:

hit up some more parks. lake jennings and lindo-lake to be specific.
lake jennings: beautiful. but it'll cost you $1 to walk around. i'm not kidding.

lindo lake: nice to take a stroll around. but don't let the name fool you- it's less of a lake and more of a pond. but a pretty pond, nonetheless. and people fish in it, from what we saw. oh yeah, and there is this... faux-gym equipment chillin' around there also (kiiiiinda ridiculous. but whatever). we had a few laughs on those contraptions.

and then my sister got married. as beautiful as she was, i got zero pictures of her, because i was very busy holding little nora who was not-a-happy-camper that day. BUT i did happen to convince my big-little-bro take a few pictures of our tiny little fambily in front of the temple while we were waiting.

we will be going inside there someday soon, i think. :)

then we went to this bonfire with mr.&mrs.B and other friends/coworkers of chris. it was a good time.

the end.

happy 3 month birthday!

little nora bora is 3 months old... hooray! this is the benchmark that chris and i have been looking forward to with great anticipation- the conclusion of the "missing trimester", the age when babies supposedly figure out how to quit screaming all the time, and so forth. in celebration of this miraculous "coming of age", i drank a little bit of milk for the first time since i found out it gave her awful, demonic gas (about 11 weeks ago). verdict: it still gives her gas, but she can handle it MUCH better than she used to. awesome possum.

anyways, nora's 3 month birthday landed on father's day. and unfortunately, her daddy-o had to work that day, but we had a grand ol' time anyways.

see? grand ol' time. she is trying to eat her dress here.

nora is also a growing fiend. we're not exactly sure how big she is now (her next doctor's appointment is still a month away), but just this past week i had to retire some of her cute 3 month old clothes because she's already too big for them. awwww. but that's ok, because there ain't nothin' wrong with a sturdy, chubby baby. :)

see the chub.



some of the fascinating things she's learned to do this past month: drool profusely, nom-nom on her hands, and make a variety of different, happy noises. she's a regular little cutie pie. we love her.

may's show-and-tell.

well, we've wrapped up the month of may, and summer is well under way (yessssss!). essentially, this month has pretty much been an assemblage of doctor's appointments for all of us, but we did find time to squeeze in an outing here and there. here's where we went:

my two kids & the jungle gym

el monte park: a GIGANTIC park located in the bowels of lakeside. it's actually pretty nice. we went there on one of the hottest days in may. there was nobody else there... unless you count a skittish wild turkey. with the entire park at our disposal, chris decided to have fun on one of the many jungle gyms (like the big kid he is). oh, and although this isn't in any way related to the park, i just want to mention that on the way home, a bird hit our windshield (such a memorable experience).

shhhh... no one can tell we're trespassing, right?

el capitan reservior: not because we have a boat, or even have friends who have a boat. we went there because we wanted to see the lake, and then ended up hiking our way up a "restricted road", which, we believe, would have eventually led us straight back up to alpine. we would have found out for sure, had there not been a giant, locked gate a few miles in. so we turned around and walked back the way we came. it was nice- very pretty country back there.

chillin at the bistro

del mar: mcdonald's bistro and then the beach afterwards. what is a mcdonald's bistro? essentially the fanciest mcdonald's in the existence of all mcdonald's, with an expanded menu. we hung out with the chef there for a while and then took a twilight stroll on the beach. nice area, del mar. you know it's a nice area when you follow a ferrari out of a fast food restaurant that has a chandelier in the bathroom. {side note: ever driven directly behind a ferrari? nervewracking. that's one car you really want to avoid rear-ending if you can help it}

lake laguna. nilly nora is chris's joey for the day.

the lagunas: with our fantastic neighbors, mr.&mrs. B! it was initially their outing to begin with, but they were kind enough to invite us along with them. they happen to have a baby daughter as well, so her and nora got to ride around with us in matching front carriers all day. mr. B also had a serious looking camera, with which he took this photo (so nice of him- thanks mr. B!).

2 months!

little nilly nora turned two months old this week, and how more appropriate to celebrate her 2 month birthday by a visit to the doctor and some immunizations! :)

{scene from the doctor's office:}

nurse: "well she must look like her daddy because she looks nothing like you!"
me: "yeah, pretty much. if i didn't personally give birth to this baby myself, i wouldn't think she's even mine."

and that's the truth. but she's cute though. like her dad. ;-) so i'll keep her.

so turns out our little girl's head isn't as gigantic as i imagined it to be. i used to tease chris all the time that she had his "big giant head," but now it looks like i can't really do that anymore. turns out, her head's a rather normal size. however, as far as everything else goes, she's definitely in the "big giant" category. she's in the 95th percentile for height, and 83rd percentile in weight for her age; which explains why she's busted out of the clothes in which she should be fitting and is, instead, wearing 3-month old size clothes. but this works for me for a couple of reasons:

a) the more nora eats, the less calories i have to burn off
b) lifting and carrying a 12lb baby around all the time is totally helping me see a return in arm definition.

of course, as far as the shots were concerned, she didn't quite like those all that much- poor baby. as sad as it was, it had to be done. i had the opportunity to study most all of the diseases for which she was immunized back when i took microbiology. after learning what i did in that class, there is no way i'd let my child go without getting vaccinated. even though she had to endure a few boo-boos for it.

2 month old nora, stylin' with her bugs bunny bandaids on her legs from gettin' shots.

so far, it seems like nora is developing a bit of a personality. like, a rather high maintenance sort of personality. she seems to want a lot of attention all the time or else. chris refers to her as "princess nora" and has a special "throne hold" for when she is particularly fussy- whereby he carries her around and around the apartment, narrating as he goes. example:

"and this room is the bathroom! it has a bunch of mirrors and lights!... you like that? hmm? ... no? you don't? ok then. on to the next room..."

and so on, and so forth.

that's the hold i'm talking about.

when she's not too busy fussing, she does actually smile. she actually squeaked out a few laughs the other day. a welcome (albeit brief) respite from her usual agitation. i'm thinkin she'll be a whole lot happier once she can move around on her own- she's been able to hold her head up and steady for a while now so she can check out what's going on around her; she's doing all she can to roll over (she's almost got it down); and during "tummy time" she's already doing push-ups and trying to scoot. all a little early, i know, but she's chris's daughter- she's got places to go and things to do! i have a sneaky feeling that this child might give me a run for my money here in the future... we will have to see. :)

 

 

 

 

the month of april.

so this april has basically been a blur of sleepless nights, changing diapers and doing baby laundry and it doesnt seem like there's been time for much else. but of the things that happened this month there are these:

chris is on a new schedule- after over a year and a half of working on the day shift, he decided to switch it up a bit and work the swing shift- which goes from 5pm to appx 2am. therefore, he gets home around 3:30am and sleeps until noon. he likes it. i think it's weird.

chris has another birthday- another one?! how old is this guy anyways? answer: 16. just kidding. he's 28. he only acts like a teenager occassionally. since i have oodles of time for reflection and contemplation when i sit and feed the baby a dozen times a day, i figured i could probably put a little bit more thought into his present than the prior years when i was working and schooling. therefore, i hid his gifts and made him go find them by means of a treasure hunt. he liked it, and i was amused. a win-win.

on daddy's birthday. nora is actually asleep. daddy is being silly.

easter- chris totally got the hook-ups from the easter bunny this year. i did not. i think that's because the easter bunny knows i'm currently on chocolate restriction for the time being. but the easter bunny did get infant gas relief drops for nora, because she's been a really angry, gassy baby as of late. so that was good (writing about one's self in the thrid person is awkward. so is pretending to be the easter bunny. no one really puts that one in marriage and parenting books.) anyways, since i didn't go to church that day since i'm still sheltering my baby from large crowds of potentially sick people, the highlight of my easter sunday was spending the whole afternoon and easter dinner with my family. unfortunately, chris had to work that day/night so he couldn't come. but it was wonderful nonetheless.

six week mark- for me. technically, you're considered "recovered from childbirth" at six weeks... HA! "recovered from childbirth" as if you're back to your old, normal self again after that amount of time. not so. it just means that you're given the go ahead to do normal stuff again like running, and ab workouts, and chilling out in a jacuzzi. realistically though, my figure hasn't fully recovered from pregnancy- i've still got a pesky 10lbs hanging around that i'd rather not be there and am no where close to fitting back into my old size 4 jeans. at this point, i'm actually wondering if i'll ever fit back into my old clothes again... but what's life without a good challange, right? at least i can work out again- i've got my therapy back. ;-)

nora can smile- circa the middle of the month. like the type of smile where she looks at your face, and opens her mouth into a giant, toothless grin. CUTEST. THING. EVER! the past few days she's even cooed a bit. nothing beats hanging out with a happy baby (especially when you know what she's like when she's not so happy).

she's exactly a month old in this picture. this was a "she's smiling again, hurry up and get the picture" cell phone camera shot. awesome.

1 month old!!

our little nora is 1 month old!!! who knew that one month could be so long and so short at the same time? (yes, it can be both things at once. i don't care if it doesn't make sense.)

our little lady has grown up so much in a month... okay, maybe not so much "up" as she's grown "out". out of her newbie clothes and diapers- by her 4 week check up she weighed in at 10lbs 7oz... that's a full 2 pounds of gain since she was born! she also grew about 2 inches in that amount of time as well... i guess that explains why baby-girl's two favorite things are chowing down and sleeping.

we've definitely learned a lot during our first month as parents. i've listed some of the more pertinent things below:

• a "blow out" does not only refer to having a tire-crisis on the freeway
• desitin has magical properties
• chocolate, as far as baby is concerned, is the devil.
• dairy, as far as baby is concerned, runs a close second to the devil.
• cranky baby > cranky mommy. therefore, cranky baby wins, and mommy has to forego milk and chocolate.
• babies create a LOT of waste output, and therefore use a TON of diapers. like, way way more than we EVER expected.
• cars were invented for the sole purpose of putting fussy babies to sleep.
• according to many sources, babies are only newborns for 28 days (and that's just about how long they fit into newborn sized clothes and diapers).
• 4 hours of sleep in a row is a rare, amazing occurance.
• having bloodshot eyes and being incoherant is not necessarily an indication that one is under the influence of an illegal substance. it could also just possibly be a sign of a very sleep deprived new mother.
• spit up is non-discriminatory. it does not care if you're wearing silk or cotton, or if it's headed for your hair or your lap. it is coming up anyway.

as demanding as taking care of a new little baby is, nothing beats the payoff of watching her grow and learn. :) we're just starting to get smiles out of her. seeing one of those grins is worth all those sleepless nights and hours of fussing. :)

newborn nora

1 month old nora. complete with essence of squirm (hence the blurry left arm).

notice the diapers are the same size in both pictures- you can see how much she's grown! :)

vacation?

so i'm not going to do a "march" review because most of it would be a lot of "noel goes to the doctor again for a progress check" and "chris wants a vacation from work still" and "noel walked around a lot," and none of that stuff is very interesting. since we all know when the baby was born, i'm just going to sum up the last week of march, because that's when the interesting stuff happened.

so the couple days following nora's birthday, both of us were in the hospital. i wanted to go home THE DAY after she was born, but instead i was detained for 2 days, because my little girl couldn't figure out how to eat (you'd think that was innate, right? apparently NOT, and that's why lactation consultants have jobs). my doctor wanted to make sure that my baby wasn't going to starve to death when she got home, and so i stayed the extra day even though i SO did not want to. i didn't sleep very much at the hospital- maybe a grand total of 2 hours the whole time i was there- and by the time i was discharged i was so sleep-deprived i was delerious. chris was ok though, because he went home at night. as jealous as i was of his nightly reprieve, it made no sense to have both of us strung out to our wit's end when that was only requisite of one of us. and so, when i got home i passed out for a few hours while chris took care of the baby.

the following few days were a blur for me because i was still so low on sleep. i was so so happy to have chris with me at home- he did a good job of dealing with his wreck of a wife for that time. it was a week of learning for all of us: nora was still learning how to feed, chris was learning how to change diapers, and i was learning how to relax with an infant in the house, which is apparently something that i generally fail at (it's a lot harder to do than one would think, for reals).

chris's goal for his vacation was for us to successfully watch all of the lord of the ring's trilogy, from start to finish. he'd been planning on that for months. therefore, every night from around 9 to 11 we sat in front of the TV while nora slept right next to us. funny thing about those movies- the ring wraiths sound just like nora. once she woke up during a scene with screeching nazgul, and i didn't recognize that my own daughter was screeching along with them until after the scene changed (yes, our daughter is a loud screamer. the nurses at the hospital said she had "personality"). in any case, chris's goal was met, and we now have that epic series freshly emblazoned into the forefront of our memories.

by the end of chris's 9 day vacation he was ready to return to work. chris's coworkers had prompted him to take a full 2 to 3 weeks of vacation with the baby, but i know my husband better than to think that he would remain sane without working for that long. therefore, i urged him to take a shorter amount of time off, although i would have loved to have him at home longer. i suppose taking off from work to take care of a newborn isn't really a vacation at all. chris jokingly said: "man, i'm going to have to go back to work in order to get a vacation from this baby!" and so we affectionately refer to nora as our "new boss". which is actually pretty accurate, all things considered.

boss lady. 6 days into it.

also: this was taken in the middle of the night, because what better of a time to be completely wide awake?