Little Angel

 Evie had another successful ballet performance this past Sunday, this time as an angel in her ballet studio's annual nutcracker ballet.  I was determined this time around to do my daughter's hair myself so I went out and bought gel and bobby pins galore... well I managed to do her hair half well this time, which is a great improvement over last time when I just threw in the towel.  And this time I had a screaming 5 month old urging me hurry the heck up because she was not happy with anything but being held (as it turns out we took Izzy into the doctor yesterday and she has a terrible ear infection, poor thing).  Anyway I say it was a half successful attempt because the bun looked great for about 30 minutes and then was a disaster...  oh well there is always the next performance.  As for our little ballerina she was not detered by the sorry state of her hair and did a great job with her little routine.  The whole time she had the cutest focused look on her face.  She also really enjoyed watching all the big girls dance after her little bit was through...

Morning Routine

Patrick and I have found that somehow, no matter how early we get up, the mornings are always a bit harried.  This is because no matter how early we get up we always can't quite get ourselves to stop the lovely part of the morning (aka sitting around in our pj's and drinking coffee, usually with Evie on his lap and Izzy on mine) until about 7 am or sometimes as late as 7:15.  This always leaves us a 1/2 hour at best to get ready for school and work.  Luckily for both of us though there are some efficiencies to be had.  The first is Evie usually gets herself ready (and is generally ready to go out the door long before either of us).  The second is Izzy's usually easy-going temperament, which most mornings allows me to let her sit in her bouncy chair while everyone else runs back and forth in front of her frantically getting ready.  The other little part of the morning routine now is Izzy sitting in her baby seat with me while I do my hair (I had to get my hair cut in a serious, and if I do say so myself, rather sassy way, which now means I actually have to spend a whopping 5 minutes doing it every morning)  Izzy just tolerates the bouncy chair part of her morning, but clearly enjoys "helping" me do my hair.  She sits in the little chair and just smiles at that pretty little baby in the mirror (don't worry I never leave her by herself there) 

Oh and in case your wondering what happens on the days when Evie is feeling uncooperative and/or Izzy doesn't want to just sit and watch the world go by... well on those days I just don't get out of the house until 9 am at the earliest and generally need to stop for another cup of coffee :)

5 Month Izzy!

I'm not gonna lie to ya, the 4 weeks that took Isadora from a four month old to a five month old have not been easy.  She went from a great sleeper (and yes we all knew that wouldn't last) to a pretty miserable sleeper.  The exact cause of this transition is not clear but I am pretty darn certain it is not due to any teeth.. given that it is pretty uncommon for a kid to teethe for 2 months straight and see no tooth emerge.  The most likely culprit is the series of colds the poor thing has had for now 2 months straight.  Early in the month she also adopted the habit of not just screaming but screeching... at. the. top. of. her. lungs.  These outbursts were so sonorous that they caused Patrick and Evie to hide in the bed under as many covers as possible.  I myself would have been there too if it weren't for the fact that after the first dozen or so I had all but lost hearing in my right ear.  Fortunately the screeching has subsided and is now only an occasional visitor.

 On other, more positive notes, Isadora started the month as a liquid only girl and now is a solid solids eater.  So far she is all about the classics, rice cereal and yams.  She is decidedly anti banana and the jury is out on avocado.  She loves the rice cereal so much that she literally gets shaky with excitement when she sees you come over with it and protests (loudly) if you take a break to oh say get a bite of your own food.  She is a pretty good tripoder but is not quite rolling over yet (although between when I started this blog and today when I am finishing it she has rolled over 3 times...)  And the best thing about Isadora right now is the huge heartfelt smiles she gives everyone and the little giggles she emits when we do things to make her laugh.  Genevieve is by far the favorite giggle inducer.  These smiles and giggles more than make up for the sleepless nights but nonetheless here is to hoping that the next month, while Evie (our own personal typhoid Mary) is out of school, we can eliminate the cold factor and all get a good night's sleep!

Thanksgiving

 We had a lovely (and warm!) Thanksgiving.  Lots of just hanging out as a family o' four in the morning, a great little walk around a park and, of course, fabulous dinner with my family in the afternoon.  The girls were dressed in matching type outfits but of course I didn't manage to actually get a picture taken of the two of them together.... oh well maybe next time the planets align and I convince Genevieve to wear what I want her to and not what she wants to wear :)

Smiley

Isadora's favorite two things: nightly massage time and her yellow blankie...

Patrick just doesn't buy it...

but I think Izzy and Evie are still dead ringers for one another... they even both have that drool problem :)

 

What you cannot see in these pictures is that Izzy's eyes are now decidedly hazel.   And don't think this means that I think they are similar in any way other than their babyish good looks because they are decidedly not!

Isadora at 4 months!

Wow has four months really gone by already? (For that matter has 4.5 years really gone by already?!)  Izzy has become decidedly more opinionated in the past month and is not content to just hang out and let the world go by all the time.  One of her favorite things to do is to face out toward the world in the moby or baby bjorn.  In fact the past few nights I have found that this is the only solution to her rather colicy self between the hours of 5 and 7.

Isadora has discovered the power of her lungs and exercises this power with large bursting screams, either of delight or frustration.  The frustration usually comes from being left on her tummy, a state that she is not a fan of and has not quite figured out how to escape yet.  She is still just about the smileiest (I am sure that isn't a word) kid I've met and that smile just melts her other Lacroix household member's hearts.  Isadora appears to be a tooth prodigy and seems to be on the verge of her first teeth... or at least I hope that is why she was uncharacteristically waking me up so much this week.

She moved into her big baby crib this month, so she went from seeming gargantuan in the bassinet to itty-bitty in the crib.  Her daytime sleep is still spotty and her nighttime sleep is not as fabulous as it once was (I think she is getting so big she needs to eat at night just to maintain her weight :)  but she is at least doing a minimum 5 hours at a stretch which is good by me.  Izzy is definitely the kid who likes to sleep in, even now at 8 am she is still asleep while Genevieve decided that she would get up at 5:45 this morning.....  She is a definite fan of her thumb and/or first two fingers and loves to put them in her mouth and suck on them all the time.  My favorite thing that Isadora does these days is what I call her naked baby dance:  Every night I give her a little baby massage as part of her bedtime routine and this makes her just about as happy and cooey as I have ever seen her.  But more than anything being totally naked makes her dance!  She uses her strong little legs to push her body up and down and squiggles all around all the while laughing and talking.  I am not sure what it is about being totally naked that makes her so happy but I really should film it for posterity because it is hilarious. 

Halloween (the real deal)

Halloween was hectic but fun.  Genevieve was a witch (for whom we could not find a hat... that I of course finally found last night on the floor in her bedroom) and Isadora was a tiger.  We carved our pumpkin at the nth hour because the pumpkin carved the weekend before was rotted by the beginning of last week... I wish I had taken a picture of it, by far the best I have ever done, thanks to last years splurge on Williams and Sonoma pumpkin carving tools, which I didn't even get to use last year because we never carved a pumpkin... so there you have it, progress in the work/life balance... this year we managed to carve a pumpkin!  Well to be honest I started the second one and Patrick had to finish it because friends started arriving at our house and Izzy was preforming her usual 6ish I act like I am hungry but by god don't you try to feed me (aka colic) meltdown.  Oh and the pumpkin didn't end up lighted because we didn't have a candle in the house...

 Anyway Evie had a great time trick or treating with her friends, including her best friend, who went out trick or treating for the first time this year and definitely got a kick out of the festivities.  Most of the adult crew held down the fort with beer on the front porch and I took Izzy around in the pack with me.  I made the mistake of wearing high heeled boots, good thing Genevieve only wanted to go around the block.  I think this "family" picture (Evie insisted her friend be in the picture) pretty much sums it all up... 

Halloween Take 1

Halloween, much like Christmas, seems to be a multiphased event when you have a child.  In Evie's world first comes the Halloween at school (usually a week or so before the real deal because of their fall break), then comes the neighborhood Halloween in the park and then the real night o' sugary spooky fun.  (With generally a trip (or two) to Valley of the Moon peppered in between.)  Well the Halloween season has officially begun with yesterday's Halloween parade, trunk or treat and party at IST.  Evie is reusing the princess costume my mom made last year and repurposing it as a witch.  It was perfect because I already had the hat and so all we had to do was go buy tights (one size fits most... aka fits no one) and a broom.  I decorated the Subaru and was a trunk for treating... it was a little bit of a strange thing to stand at the back of my car and hand out candy but the kids got a kick out of it for sure!  I brought a costume for Izzy but it was just too darn hot for it, they just don't make costumes for kids who live in the desert, so she just hung out either in the ergo or in her car seat for the trunk or treating.  Hopefully it will be a bit chillier for the actual event so she can go as a tiger.  What a great start to the 2 weeks of Halloween :)

Mommy and Daddy

Genevieve decided to brave our closet and dress as Daddy:

 

And as Mommy:

Theories (or rather hypotheses) of Elevation

The girls are asleep and Patrick is out of town so really I should be working/studying, but instead of such productive activities I find myself contemplating a new theory (well really a hypothesis).  This hypothesis is not a great unifier of the world nor a fabulous contributor to science as we know it, but make no mistake, it is critical to me.  About a month ago elevation became very important to Izzy.  Now I am not talking about the sort of elevation she achieved in a trip to the cabin or a jaunt to Brazil.  This elevation comes from the simple fact of a parental figure standing up.  Patrick and I have found that Isadora greatly prefers her lot in life (when she is upset) when it occurs at oh at least five feet above the ground.  In other words, when she is fussy we must be standing up.  When I discuss this with others they offer me all sorts of opinions to the origins of said phenomenon: "you must rock her more when your standing" "you hold her more securely when your upright" or the converse "you must be giving her more freedom when you're standing."  All of these alternative (and somewhat contradictory) theories have caused me, as has happened in the past, to borrow from my other job (in this case that of the student who is taking a methods in research class) to try to ascertain an answer.  So... like any good scientist... over the past few days I have conducted a series of experiments.  The first involved holding Izzy more tightly to my chest, like I might when standing, when she was fussy.  That having no noticeable effect, I tried holding her more loosely, and in both cases she howled until I stood up.  The problems with small (albeit random) samples aside, there seemed to be no correlation between the tenacity of my hold on her, because by god did she continue to scream. I then tried rocking her (in a rocking chair nonetheless) like I would standing and .... nope still screaming.  I will continue to search for alternative hypotheses because, as of this evening, Izzy has decided that not only does she prefer I stand when she is fussy (aka tired) she also would like a vertical mom when she is breastfeeding, and while I might be able to accommodate this request now, I most certainly will not be able to do so when she is 20 some odd pounds!

The 3 Month Old Izzy

The 3 month old Izzy is a bundle of happiness.  She is constantly smiling and cooing at just about everyone she meets.  She doesn't seem to be perturbed by much, except for when she is extra tired and cannot fall asleep.  Then the only thing that makes her happy is for you to be standing up and carrying her with her head on your shoulder.  You must be standing up, sitting just will not do.  (This was a bit problematic on our nearly 60 hour journey to and from Brazil... as you might imagine.)  She is all about her newly discovered hands and loves to bring them up to her little mouth and try to suck on them.  The result is a large and loud slurping sound that can be heard across the house.  It is one of the best ways to figure out that she has woken up because otherwise she will frequently just hang out in her bassinet for a bit staring at the ceiling.   She is a one in a million baby for many reasons but perhaps the biggest outlier is her sleep.  She goes to bed at about 8 pm most nights and wakes up at 6:30 am... and trust me this has nothing to do with me.  She is not, however, a good napper and will only nap for more than 45 minutes if she is in a carrier or being held and sometimes even then she is not too keen to sleep for more than a short stretch.  She clearly loves her big sister because she has more than once stopped fussing and started smiling and cooing when Genevieve comes over to talk to her and play with her. 

6 things

6 things (3 each) about our girls that give me joy right now:

Isadora: the happy, intoxicated way she looks at me when she is breastfeeding; her big toothless smile and cute little giggle; and her warm head that is so nice to nuzzle.

Genevieve: the cute and creative songs she sings; her genuine kindness for others; the way she is learning so much about the world and how she loves to share that love with Patrick and I.

OK and two bonus things that I love mostly because they make my life that much easier :)  Evie gets herself dressed every morning for school (sometimes without us asking!) and Isadora sleeps for between 8 to 10 hours a night... one is a welcome permanent addition to the way our house operates the other I have no hope for maintaining in the long term....but that is OK too.

Dora the explora

It has been awhile since we've updated on the Lacroix happenings... and for good reason because the happenings have been many.  I've been away from home for more or less two weeks now and little Izzy has been along for the ride.  Her first adventure was up to Flagstaff because I went to the AZ Hydrological Society meeting to present a paper and accept an award.  My Mom came along with me that time to help watch Izzy while I was at the conference.  (I brought up my camera but didn't manage to take even a single photo...)  Then we were home for two days and off again... this time on the big adventure that has been almost a year in the making.... Potro de Galinhas, Brazil for the World Water Congress!  I did bring the camera for this adventure but really didn't take too many photos because I was at the Congress for a good part of it and then also just spent too much time enjoying the scenery :)

Isadora was an awesome traveler!  It took us almost 30 hours door to door to get there and about the same to get home and she really just rolled with it.  Most importantly she continued to sleep about 8 hours a night the whole time.  This was a miracle for Patrick and I because man were we exhausted when we got there and poor Patrick had a cold for the first few days of the Brazilian babysitting adventure.

Of course all of this adventuring has put me way behind on my work so I'll leave it with just the photos of the trip for now... perhaps to elaborate later because as you can imagine there are some stories behind these photos!

Isadora at 2 months

I cannot believe it has been two months since Izzy was born!  The past month has been less eventful in terms of travel but much more exciting in the personality development department.  Isadora is showing herself to be a mellow, quiet observer of the world.  Very little disturbs her, although she has started to cry some when she gets tired just before she passes out and falls asleep.  More often than not, when she is awake, she is just sitting there staring out with her big still undecipherable color eyes.  She doesn't sleep very well during the day but will sleep anywhere from 6 to 8 hours in one stretch at night.  She loves to smile at people, or at seemingly nothing at all and is totally utterly fascinated by lights and ceiling fans.  She has a pretty good repertoire of noises that she uses to get her point across, my favorite being the coo that almost sounds like a laugh.  Her hair is getting lighter, especially in the front where her hair whorl is.  We took her into her two month appointment a week early so she is probably a bit bigger than this now but at almost 2 months Izzy weighed 11 lbs 2 oz and was 23.5 inches long.  Finally and perhaps most importantly Izzy and Evie are a great pair.  Evie likes to cuddle and entertain Izzy and Isadora is just utterly fascinated by her big sister and smiles her biggest toothless grin whenever Evie "plays" with her.

Labor Day Weekend

I am afraid that my time to post is severely diminished of late.  Every time I have a "free" moment I feel the overwhelming urge to try to get ahead on a reading or two for school or to sit and watch 30 Rock... one productive, one highly entertaining, but neither good for furthering the online story of the family.  Well regardless here I am now at almost 9 pm on a Friday night, both girls are asleep (or mostly asleep... I hear Izzy making little noises in the other room) and Patrick is still at a conference (so no potential distraction via 30 Rock) and I have finally found the time to put up some pictures from last weekend.

Our long labor day weekend was pretty chill.  Isadora went to her first football game last Saturday night and she was a champ.  Evie did a great job of staying up late (it was a 7 pm game) and not straying too far from our assigned seats in the bleachers.  We now have season tickets in the stands, and although I think we all missed the half time cookies from the skybox, overall it was a lot more fun to be out and amongst the crowd watching the game. 

Izzy also made her first, albeit very brief, visit to the zoo.  We pretty much went there, let Evie run around in the little splash park part of the zoo and then came home again because it was just too darn hot.

At some point in the weekend we went shopping for clothes and Patrick just "had" to buy a video game that he could "play" with Genevieve.  (Really it was a matter of him wanting to play a video game and us not owning any that would be OK for a 4 year old to sit and watch)  He chose a fancy new (?) Mario Brothers game and he and Evie had a lot of fun playing it "together" on Sunday night.  At one point I was running around doing something (some chore I am sure) and set Izzy down in the baby chair thing near where they were playing.  As I walked back into the room I realized how ridiculous that looked and just had to take a picture....

Isadora's Party

 

A few weeks ago we decided that Isadora's arrival was a great excuse reason to have a big party with our friends... particularly those friends who don't generally get invited to four year old's birthday parties because they don't have a four (or any other year) old.  The party was concieved as a humble little gathering with margaritas and slip and slides in our back yard.  We invited just about everyone we know and when the yes guest list topped 60 we became concerned that we wouldn't have enough space for everyone in our house/backyard so of course early Saturday morning Patrick thought he'd look into a rentable, more substantial slip and slide...  I left it up to him and we ended up with this:

 

I can't even show you a picture of the whole thing because it was just that big and my yard that small by comparison.   Needless to say the 30 foot long, 15 feet wide and 15 feet tall slide was a big hit with all the party goers.  I am happy to report that there were no injuries and a good time was had by all.... including my brother and I.

Of course the honoree of the party did not get to experience the slide or the margaritas.  She did however get the chance to be held by at least a dozen eager visitors and cooed at by at least 3 dozen more.  I think we may just have found our "annual" party!

Rain rides, dresses! and more

I can"t believe it has been more than a week since I last post.  In one way it seems like an eon ago and in another it feels like just yesterday... ahh life with a baby in the house.  The lack of posting is not because of a deficit in goings on though.  We've played in the rain, reorganized almost every room in the house, listened to great stories and played dress up with some great new duds.  On top of all that I started classes this week and Izzy went to her nanny share for the first time.

One of the best of those have been the couple of decent rains these past few weeks.  Well decent by Evie's standards, not nearly enough to help the drought.  Actually Evie even commented on the fact that it wasn't raining enough to make good puddles... until it did and overflowed our rain swales and made the most tempting, muddy puddles to date.  Evie really wanted to jump in them so I told her what the heck, go ahead.  She proceeded to "get dressed" to jump, which involved her putting on a pink dress and pink snow boots.   The call of squishy mud between toes was great and so she managed to convince me to do a little jumping too.  During another rain she got out her favorite new umbrella and took it for a tricycle spin around the driveway.  For yet another, yesterday, it was sunny while it rained, which is my personal favorite.  Evie called it a sun rain, simple yet descriptive.

The other fun happening was receiving fancy new dresses, which just happen to match, for the girls from Nicole, aka Mimi.  I got both of the girls dressed up and we did a very brief little photo shoot because they were too cute.  I can see that one of the great joys of being a parent to two girls is going to be matching dresses...

Isadora at One Month

One month of Isadora. From right to left and top to bottom a photo for almost every day of her life so far (I missed one day...)

As first months go I think Isadora has had a pretty darn good one.  She has traveled to the cabin at Blue, up to Mt. Lemmon, over to the pool, across town to live at my parent's house for a week and even had a chicken coop pool party to celebrate her arrival. 

Overall she seems to be a mellow baby.  She doesn't like sleeping much during the day and will rarely sleep for more than 2 hours at a time, but (thankfully), she is a pretty darn good night sleeper and always does at least 3 hours at a time and as much as 7 hours at a stretch at night.  Her eyes are still light gray/blue and do not yet show signs of turning to brown (Genevieve's were already brown at this point).  She likes to make funny little noises, including a coo here and there, and makes them a lot.  This may be a bit too much information but bear with me here, she is only a month old and there isn't much to use to characterize her....  Isadora is the most explosive and powerful pooper I have ever encountered.  You can hear her across the house!  The other night I had the misfortune of of changing her diaper just as she went poo and, I kid you not, there was BM not just all over me but also a full 6 feet away from where she was lying on the couch (and this would happen to me when I am half awake at 3 am). Here is to hoping that she eventually has a bit more to put on her resume than that.

Advanced Parenting

So you have one child.  You know the ropes (more or less) when it comes to tackling number 2.   When the pediatrician tells you that your baby has lost a pound and if she can't get going on the whole eating thing you'll have to supplement, you don't freak out, hey you've been there before and it all worked out OK.  Getting the kiddo into the car seat isn't a nerve wracking 20 minute ordeal, its a 2 minute exercise.  The experience of successfully getting one child from baby to toddler qualifies you for the next level... Advanced Parenting.

In Beginning Parenting you learn the basics.  Feed, Diaper, Transport and Sleep (or attempt to sleep).  In Advanced Parenting you gain the skills to take your game up a notch. I have just begun my education in Advanced Parenting, but here is what I have learned so far:

Beginning Feeding Skills

• Get the baby to latch on and eat
• Figure out how to position the baby just right on the boppy pillow for maximum comfort
• Learn how to have just enough entertainment and sustenance for the 20-30 minutes you are stuck in one place feeding

Advanced Feeding Skills

• Swallow your pride and accept the fact that even though you thought you knew how to feed a baby that you must relearn how to get the baby to latch on and eat.  This is a bit like taking a class that uses calculus after a four year hiatus from calculus.  You thought you remembered what an integral was, but then you realize all you remember is that it is a cool little symbol, and not what the heck it really does.  Once you figure out how exactly it functions though the rest comes back to you pretty quickly.
• Forget the boppy, it is never where you are when the baby is hungry, learn to use other props instead.  This can include but is not limited to: regular old pillows, dirty laundry piled near you, piles of stuffed animals and the cat.
• Learn the fine art of walking while breastfeeding and holding the baby with one arm while doing so, because there is no way you would actually be allowed to sit in one place for a whole 30 minutes.

Beginning Transport Skills

• Master getting baby in and out of car in less than 20 minutes.  
• Determine how to install a car seat
• Garner the fortitude to not worry incessantly about the baby you cannot see in the backseat

Advanced Transport Skills

• Determine proper sequencing. Learn that it is better to secure the bigger child before the little one.  Reverse order when unloading.  This prevents runaways and frustration. Ideally older child buckles herself in, but, this is not a common occurrence and cannot be depended upon.
• Determine how to install a car seat
• Communication is key. Harness the power of the verbal child to check on status of non-verbal one.  "Is the baby asleep?"  "Does she look distressed?"  "Are you cold back there (to determine if that could be why little one is crying)?"  etc.  This enables one to more efficiently assuage any concerns and minimizes unnecessary car-pull-overs.

Beginning Sleep Skills

• Lower your expectations for mental function.  
• Read all sorts of advice on why your baby isn't sleeping they way she "should"
• Feel a tremendous inadequacy as a parent because your child is a "bad" sleeper.

Advanced Sleep Skills

• Realize that less sleep is no longer a problem because you never regained mental function after the first child.
• Celebrate when your new baby sleeps for two three hour stretches a night (and even one 5 hour stretch)
• Feel a sense of relief knowing that the previous child's "bad" sleep and the current child's "good" sleep have NOTHING to do with how you parent.
• Burn all sleep training books in your home... my that felt cathartic.

Mountain Escape

All last week I took care of both the girls during the day.  It is too hot outside to do anything fun here so I decided last Tuesday to pack both of them into the car and drive up Mt. Lemmon so we could have some fun outside for the day.  It was a great trip.  Evie had tons of fun playing in the stream both where we did a little hike and at a picnic area.  Izzy just hung out in the sling for the whole day, occasionally protesting when she wanted to eat.  I had a chance to just sit around outside and enjoy the day.  I am also proud to report that I remembered almost everything we needed for the day.  The only lapse was the bag full of snacks for Evie and I, which wasn't too big of a deal because we could stop in Summerhaven and get a pizza for lunch.  All in all we all thoroughly enjoyed the time... Evie asked me if we could go back the next day...  I was tempted to I'll admit but really a 3 hour drive (there and back) is only tolerable once a week.

Stats

Those of you who are familiar with my other day job (the one that doesn't involve diapers and pretending to be a unicorn or a princess or a cat) will know that I have a bit of an obsession with the graphical display of data.  In fact I would go so far as to say that it is one of my passions... how better to convey complicated information!  Well imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered an ipad app that allowed me to bring my passion for graphs into my world of mommy.  Oh yes great excitement ensued, and because I know you just must be equally thrilled at this development I hereby present to you Izzy's stats for the first almost two weeks.  Fascinating isn't it?

Now of course the rub in any great data display is that some poor soul must undertake to the tedious data collection in order to have the meat behind the pretty graph.  I will admit for about 14 days there I was happy to be that sucker (so to speak) because I wanted to make sure little Isadora was eating and eliminating enough.   By four days old she had lost a full pound (down two 6 lbs 12 oz) and so I was very determined to have stats to show the pediatrician for "analysis", should she not be gaining enough weight at her 2 week appointment.  Data gathering involved a commitment to record the time and duration of each feeding (including which breast was currently in use) and the contents of each diaper (you could even get so descriptive as to the type and quantity of BM, but really, at some point we have just gone too far).  This proved to be a bit time consuming, not to mention difficult to remember given my new found sleep patterns. So it should come as no real surprise that when last Friday rolled around and Izzy was back to birth weight even before two weeks I decided to break the chains of ipad bondage and stopped recording her stats.  I felt so very liberated... but hmm I wonder what her sleep patterns are now and how they will change in the coming weeks...

Doppelganger

One of the things I pondered a lot when I was pregnant was if Lacroix number two would look like Genevieve.  Many of my friends have sibblings that bear an uncanny resemblance to each other and I thought it would be cool if my two kids did too.  Well I am here to tell you that at least so far the two Lacroix girls are virtually dead ringers for each other.  They have the same lips, eyes, ears, eyebrows, nose and toes...  Izzy though has my fingers where Evie has Patrick's.  I don't have two pictures with the same expression, but you get the idea:

Their personalities, however, are already seemingly night and day.  Evie was a bit of a rough newborn, not sleeping in longer than 1.5 hour segments, awake all night and sleeping all day, pretty easily perturbed... etc.  Isadora is already a pretty good night sleeper and super easy going when she is awake. It will be interesting to see just how much their looks converge and their personalities diverge.

Adventures in Identification

Here we are two weeks into the two kid challenge and the first of many obstacles has been placed in our path.  Now, to be fair, this bump in the road really has nothing to do with having two kids, but accomplishing the feat was made a bit more complicated by the presence of two next generation Lacroixs.  The mission: apply for a passport for Isadora. 

Before you go thinking I am just a masochist, there is a reason for this early quest for official documentation for our little one.  In September I am going to Brazil to present a paper at a conference and Izzy and Patrick and going to tag along (Izzy because I am her food source and Patrick because someone has to feed the baby while I am working... OK and I'll admit, I also really like his company and wouldn't want to travel without him).  September seems far enough away, except for the tiny wrinkle that not only does my little fluffernutter need a passport but a visa too.... and to apply for that visa one needs to apply in person or pay an exorbant fee to an agency to apply in person for you.  Oh, and did I mention the closest consulate is LA?

So the race is on to acquire a passport.  On the surface it seems simple enough... birth certificate, application, fee, photo and a quick trip to a passport facility to drop it all off.  No problem.  There was an order of operations to this quest, which began with 1) acquire birth certificate.  I set Patrick on this errand last Thursday.  He dutifully arrived just as vital records opened and inquired about the birth certificate, only to be summarily excused empty handed because they didn't have it yet... and "you should call the birth center and tell them to send it over"  I obeyed and called, only to find out it was sent over a week ago and unless the mail truly was transported via snail, it should be there already.    So Patrick went back again on Friday and lo and behold they did have the birth certificate on file, an in fact the lady admitted that she found it later in the day on Thursday after Patrick left.  So birth certificate in hand Patrick came home.  I looked at it and said "umm my name is not spelled Kelley"  Sooo back to vital records Patrick went and retrieved another birth certificate without spelling errors. 

While Patrick fetched the birth certificate I set myself to the task of taking passport photos of Isadora.  I set up a white sheet on a bouncy chair and proceeded to take at least 4 dozen photos of the babe... trying to simultaneously keep her head straight, hands out of the photo, expression neutral and eyes open.  Once I had what I thought was a keeper I used an online tool from the state department to crop the photo and test if it indeed met their standards.  Here is a sampler of my attempts.  Can you pick out the chosen one?

Step one and two accomplished, I filled out the application and looked up the hours and location of the nearest passport facility.  Open from 8:30 to 4 pm (no lunch break) the page said and so with about 45 minutes to spare before a doctor's appointment, we set out to print the picture and drop off the passport.  I learned that Walgreens can't print from a memory stick and then went to Kinkos where they easily printed the photos but with a warning... the "man" may not like my photography because there was a shadow behind Isadora's head.  Well, I was going to take my chances at this point I decided.  Photo in hand and 30 minutes to spare we headed to the passport place... only to find the door locked and a sign that said closed from noon to 1 pm for lunch.  It was 12:58 so we hung out (in the heat) for 10 minutes and when no one arrived we gave up and headed to the doctor.  I thought it strange because this was indeed the place I went to for Evie's passport and Patrick confirmed that he picked up his passport there too.

Not to be discouraged by a long lunch, we went back at 3 pm and found the door still locked and no one home.  OK, no problem we'll go to the post office... the page said that we could drop them off there too...  We waited in line for 15 minutes only to be told that we needed an appointment to use the post office as a drop off point.  Well by this point we were all pretty tired of this identification seeking adventure and decided to call it quits for the weekend.

On Monday, more determined than ever, and after a weekend to perfect my passport photo-taking skills, I sent Patrick out with a form to notarize so that I could get the passport without him.  By 10 am he had aquired the proper signatures and I coaxed a rather unwilling Genevieve into the car to set out on what would hopefully be the end of this saga.  I first called the passport place just to make sure they were open... and indeed they were.  Evie and I stopped to print a new passport photo and then went to the passport place again only to find the door inexplicably locked.  Then, in a moment of clarity, I remembered that the address listed on the webpage said Tyndall Ave and, wait a minute, I was on Helen... had the place moved?  So the girls and I got back in the car to look for Tyndall Ave.  We cruised Tyndall because of course I didn't remember the number portion of the address.  Having no luck I called 411, who by the way won't give you addresses, and called the center, found out the the actual address and went two more blocks down the road to the correct location.  Once there a really nice passport guy told me that I would need a copy of Patrick's license in addition to his passport because it was his license that he used for the notary.  Ahhhhh!

Home again to feed both Evie and the baby and then back out again to catch Patrick at work, get a copy of his license.  Fortunately that was relativity painless (once I found a parking space downtown... it only took 10 minutes... which for Tucson is an eon)  It was then back to the passport office to drop it off.  Whew, only a sum total of 8 plus hours later Isadora's passport application was on its way.  Yet another not entirely recommended postpartum activity courtesy of yours truly.

Woodland adventure

At the tender age of four days Izzy made her first foray into the wild Blue yonder up to my parent's cabin.  We were anxious to go for many reasons, not the least of which was that we had not seen the place since the massive Wallow fire burned through the area.  I hadn't mentioned on the blog up to now because while the fire burned it was just too hard to talk about, and since it had been contained I really didn't have much to say, not having been up to the area yet.  We knew that the fire had burned literally up to our mailbox and that it wasn't severe there... Another reason we were itching to go was the heat of Tucson which, among other things, had caused a terribly over-TVed four year old.  All said we got it all together and headed up to the woods by 3 pm last Thursday.

When we first went up to the cabin with Evie it was an eye-openingly epic trip up there... constant feeding stops, screaming babe because of the change in elevation and just general new-parent traveling with infant anxieties.  Given previous experience both Patrick and I prepared for it to be a long and arduous trip.  We were pleasantly surprised when it was a lovely trip up (mind you not a short one) with only one not so pleasant stop to feed Izzy off the I-10 near a pile of asphalt.  The best was our sunset stop to feed the babe at the Aldo Leopold lookout in New Mexico.  We watched the sun set, enjoyed the cool and I was treated to Patrick playing his guitar and Evie making up lyrics to songs while I fed Izzy.  By the time we made it to the area that had burned in the fire it was too dark to see anything but we could still smell the fire, which was really interesting.  The driveway to the cabin was a mess because of sheet-flow flooding that had come through the area sometime in the past week. 

We spent our cabin days playing at the river, sitting in the hammock or hot tub and just generally relaxing.  Pretty ideal post-partum recovery place if you ask me.  (Made particuarly luxurious by the presence of my parents who made meals for us and helped out with both kids)  Evie spent most of her time playing with Patrick but I tried to steal away at least once a day to spend time with her.  One day we took her horse down to the river (it is actually my horse, a toy of mine from my grandfather when I was her age...) for a hike.  She found it a bit difficult to get him to cross the stream and "practiced" with him at least a half a dozen times before he "got it".

One morning we decided to head up the road because I was curious to see what Alpine looked like and my folks property up there, where the fire had burned straight through and actually destroyed houses adjacent to theirs.  We stopped to feed the baby at Luna Lake, which was really low, most likely because of all the water taken for the fire fighting efforts, but still just as beautiful as before.  The view to Alpine though was really sad, most of the mountains surrounding the town are varying degrees of charred trees... Later in the morning Patrick and my Dad took a hike up the hill from the property in Alpine to see what it looked like and it was a lot of charred crispy trees.  Kita went with them and came back with what looked like a black eye from just walking around in the mess.

At one point during the week Patrick was bitten by the I-must-build-treacherous-balancing-structures bug and proceeded to first make a balance beam for a "circuit" around the front yard and then later a "bridge across the river.  The balance beam did not cause any serious injury, the bridge was another story...  I was up at the cabin when I heard the distinct cry of a harmed four year old and then Evie came up the road with Patrick with a (minorly) cut up knee and a (majorly) bruised little ego.  Later in the day Evie bravely decided to get back on the bridge and go for it again despite her injury and convinced me to come along and give the death-trap bridge a try too.  (I left the little Lacroix back at the cabin for this one).  I went across a couple of times without incident, all the while Patrick was trying to "improve" the bridge by putting rocks under the middle of it to "stabilize" it.  As I crossed he put another rock underneath that had a decidedly un-stabilizing effect on the thing and ended with me bum first in the river landing smack dab on a large rather un-soft rock.  (Hmm I just bet rickety bridge walking and river splatting are probably not among the list of approved activities for postpartum stitches...) 

Another activity was playing on the zip line, which turned out to be a great way for Patrick and I to get some exercise because we must have pulled Evie up the route about 50 times in a hour or so.  Inspired by an e-mail and website sent to me from my friend Sonja I tried to do some artistic outdoor baby photos of Izzy.  Well I am certainly no profession but did manage to get one cool photo of Izzy in the mint.  (She woke up pretty soon after so I abandoned the effort and just FYI babies don't particuarlly like to lay on pine needles...)  We had to head home on Wednesday, sad to leave our woodland adventure but so very, very thankful to have been able to spend the time up there given everything that had happened!

Zingers - fun and bunnies

Evie is enjoying her time with Patrick, Izzy and I... she told me this morning
"I am having the funnest day I've had since yesterday!"

Yesterday on the ride home from the cabin (more on that to come) she asked me:
"Mommy, why don't you like soap made of bunnies?" 
Although this sounds like the most bizarre question ever, it is actually her astute observation that the soap and shampoo etc that we have at home all has a little symbol of a bunny on it with a slash through it.  After I busted a gut and then discovered what she was actually asking about we had a good little conversation about animal testing that I imagine would have made PETA proud.