Maxine!!

Huraahh! Annie and Ben had a little girl last week... her name is Maxine. We all went over there to meet her last Saturday. What an amazing little tot. It blows me away that just a few months ago Evie was smaller than she is right now! Maxine also graciously let Evie play on her awesome rocking horse.

Baby Babble!!

Have you ever seen a badly dubbed Japanese film? Well Evie does a great impression of one these days… her mouth moves and the sounds that come from it don’t quite seem to match. It is hilarious to watch! (Or at least I think so… maybe those of you with hobbies other than baby may think otherwise ☺) Well lucky for us this week I don’t have to try to explain it… I can just show it! Mom bought us a video camera to take videos of Evie for her Prep work and so we of course set about putting it to use. I am still working on my skills as a videographer and catcher of the perfect baby moment....What fun!

Baby Prison

There are crafty doings a foot in the Mott Lacroix household. A little over a week ago I removed the bumpers on Evie’s crib, which now reminds me of a baby prison. It’s the “this is where you go when we want to be able to take our eyes off you” place. Now generally she only goes to the clinker when she is sleeping but increasingly she will wake up and not make any fuss so I’ll come into her room in the morning or at nap time and she’ll just be hanging out in cell happy as a clam. Well more or less happy, based on recent evidence I firmly believe she is trying to find a way to make a jail break.

Exhibit A: One week ago at around 5 am I hear a pounding that sounds like bad drum set playing coming from what I thought was our next door neighbors (We once had a neighbor there that, I kid you not, played like Animal on the Muppets so I just figured he had decided to pick up the hobby again). Finally at around 5:30 am the unrythmical rat-a-tat-tat drove me from bed and on my way to the kitchen to make coffee I realized that in fact the “drummer” was Evie. She had scooted herself all the way to the end of her crib and was having a jolly old time kicking at the end of her crib. It may seem like innocent fun but I know she was just testing the strength of those boards.

Exhibit B: Last weekend I walked by the nursery when I thought she was napping only to find Genevieve chewing, to the best of her toothless ability, at the bars of her baby prison. She was clearly trying to beaver her way out.

Exhibit C: Last Tuesday I woke up at 3 am to feed Evie, went into her dark bedroom and proceeded, as is per usual, to blindly feel around the crib for her little body. What I found was a baby on her tummy with two legs dangling out of the crib between the slats. Obviously she was trying to discreetly lower her self to the floor for a fast getaway.

Can these three incidents possibly just be coincidence, just the innocuous crib explorations of a five month old? Perhaps, but when I post a note about an escapee baby in the weeks to come you’ll find that I was indeed in the know about this one…

Clever stuff...

There is a very ripe market out there for clever baby “stuff”. Most of this stuff is decidedly just crafty marketing aimed at the desperate, naïve or otherwise susceptible new parent. I am, for the most part, pretty anti baby stuff for myriad reasons not the least of which being we have a small house and a finite amount of money to spend. I must admit however that Evie and I have encountered a pretty darn cool item that some ingenious parent out there invented. It definitely falls into the useless baby stuff category but heck sometimes you just have to indulge your inner consumerist... I am not even sure what exactly it is called but it is essentially a pacifier with a net at the end of it that you can put stuff in.

This amazing device came to my attention by way of our nanny, Nicole, who commented that it might be a cool thing for Evie because she likes so much to suck on ice cubes wrapped in washcloths. An ice cube in a washcloth is really quite nice and low tech but requires constant supervision, as I am sure some smart parent out there realized, and voila the net-pacifier-thingy was born and millions (or at least thousands) of dollars were made.

Anyway last Friday I had a flex day and my mom graciously came down to Tucson with a really cool highchair for Genevieve (it is in the background of the pictures). I had mentioned this invention to her earlier in the week and she picked one up for Evie in Phoenix and brought it along with the highchair. We started out with an ice cube, which was nice and all, but I think a large part of having a baby is a great excuse to make a terrible mess, so we nudged it up a notch and gave her frozen mango. Of course she thought this was the best thing since sliced bread (or would have if she knew what sliced bread was) and for the first time ever protested when we took it away from her to put in more mango. Since my mom was here I have taken it up another level and yesterday after a stressful day, (Nicole’s poor daughter is sick so I had to spend ½ my work day with Evie with me at work…. which actually worked surprisingly well… in that I was able to get something done) I decided to give her some frozen blueberries to try in an effort to amuse both of us. Ohhh the beautiful mess!!

Up at Blue

This past weekend in an effort to escape the oppressive heat of Tucson we ran away to the cabin. It was a great relaxing weekend with the grandparents! On the way up Evie had a total meltdown outside of Safford, so bad we looked into staying in Safford for the night (desperate I know). We couldn’t believe it, one place wanted $120 and the other $160!! Of all the craziness… well anyway we didn’t end up staying in Safford and we were able to keep her calmed down only by the power of me riding in the back seat with her holding an ice cube to her mouth. If only that darn tooth would make its appearance.

The Mighty Maw

I have always been a fan of the great philosophers They Might Be Giants. The past few weeks one of their sage musings has seemed particularly applicable to Genevieve: “There's only one thing that I know how to do well, And I've often been told that you only can do what you know how to do well; And that's be you, Be what you're like, Be like yourself; And so I'm having a wonderful time; But I'd rather be whistling in the dark.” Except of course in Genevieve’s case it is not whistling in the dark but rather open-jawed “mouthing” everything, under any light conditions.

Assuming her obsession with placing anything she can get in her hot little hands into her mouth is normal, it really makes me think about how we as humans, evolutionarily speaking, have made it so far. I mean isn’t this nubile tendency to place any object in one’s mouth just a tad bit dangerous? In the past few weeks Evie, who is under pretty tight supervision mind you, has managed to get a cat’s tail, her dad’s forehead, the edge of the table, grass, countless toys and goodness knows what else into her maw. All of this and she isn’t even really mobile yet! I cringe to think of the items she will try to ingest once she can make her way through the world more efficiently.

A coworker of mine told me a great story about another colleague whose toddler ingested (unbeknownst to him) at least half of a San Diego beach worth of sand. The sand consumption was only noted later in the day (and in the days to follow) in the abnormally large amount of sand-encrusted-poo. How did early humans possibly survive this early oral stage? Sand is fairly benign, just think of all the potentially lethal items there are in this world that a young tot could ingest! (Well I guess in some ways early-man’s world was a safer place, no Chinese lead painted toys to chew on).

Well anyway thankfully for Evie she has a cadre of willing and able watchers to ensure that she (for the most part) only places pre-screened items in her mouth. Speaking of Evie watchers, the other eventful occurrence of the past week is our nanny Nicole started! We are very excited to have her and her daughter Riley taking care of our little Evie. Stay tuned for more on this exciting new development.....

The whole family loves to swim...

Evie is having a rough yucky-here-comes-a-tooth-I-just-know-it day so she needs constant mommy attention so I don’t have time to write a full blog… too busy wrapping the next ice filled washcloth and dancing to take her mind off her mouth. These are a few pictures from this weekend up in Phoenix at my folks’ house. We sure do have fun when we go swimming!!!

Super Dad!

Patrick in his second and first honest to goodness full week as stay-at-home dad has been a hoot! On Monday he proclaimed that staying at home with Evie is great and all but honestly he was pretty bored. So in order to spice it up a little he started looking for exciting activities during the day. The first was to go out to lunch with a colleague, OK pretty normal, mundane. Then he decided it would be fun to take Evie down to visit with his soon to be employer. Sounds reasonable to me. Home depot was on the list too. But by far the best boredom-beater of the week was signing Evie up for scientific experiments at the U of A. I kid you not; he took her in to a “language lab” that where they flashed all sorts of images at her a la Clockwork Orange (sans the scary eye contraptions thank goodness) to see how she would respond. I must admit if it took such lengths this week to keep our super dad occupied I fear for the rest of the month!!

Patrick the super dad spends his days (when not facilitating and furthering science through our progeny) encouraging Genevieve’s development. I call every now and again to make sure all is well at home and as such get a good window into the days activities. As I understand it the schedule goes something like this

8 am – snack
8:15 am – tripod training
8:30 am – nap
9:30 am – snack
9:45 am – change diaper
9:50 am - laugh inducement (i.e., Patrick tries to be a silly as possible in order to get Evie to laugh)
10:00 am – explore the latest Cooking Light for good pictures
10:15 am – tripod training
10:30 am – zurburt lesson (a zurburt for those of you who don’t know is a belly raspberry)
10:45 am – puts Evie in her chair for a break
10:50 am – decides Evie doesn’t want to be in her chair
11:00 am – lunch
11:15 am – change diaper
11:20 am – nap
Noon – hand-eye coordination training with colorful objects

Well you get the idea. Lots of activity, very structured all for the benefit of little miss Evie ☺

The highlight of my week, however, was on Wednesday when Patrick called me at lunchtime. I was away from my desk and when I got back I had a very excited message from Patrick that involved zurburts but was otherwise totally intelligible (I think most of what he said was not in English but baby-speak) Well I called him back and he said that he had just called to let me know that Evie, intentionally or accidentally, while on his tummy and gave him a zurburt. What a brilliant child we have!

Baby Party II

What fun! Our centering (pregnancy) class got together again this weekend for a pool party baby style. It is so much fun to see so many other little ones that are almost exactly (some of them within days of) Evie’s age. They are all so similar in so many ways…. The best was the nearly across the board obsession with sticking all or most of both fists in their mouth. Every time I looked around another tot was going full gusto at their hand… sooo cute! Of course they all share the same tribulations as well as triumphs, namely the whole back to belly but no belly to back as of yet…. I guess it is good to know that misery loves company eh?

Evie's big adventure!

Last Monday night Patrick, Evie, Kita and I left Tucson for what was to be Evie’s greatest adventure yet! Unfortunately the adventure was not so adventurous for Kita who made it only as far as my parent’s house that night… no dogs allowed where we were going....

Months ago Patrick and I decided to take a trip to Havasupai as a post-bar/ anniversary excursion. The idea was to relax and have fun… well for poor Patrick even the best laid plans run awry… this whole parenting thing is a learning process is it not and learning is not always fun? Anyway a few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to combine my vacation with a work trip through the Arizona Strip and because it was OK to bring babe and husband I jumped at the opportunity!! So for the first few days of the great adventure Patrick and Evie tagged along as I helped my boss and co-workers do some fieldwork in this very remote area of Arizona.

We almost handed in the towel on the second night, when I met up with Patrick and Evie after a day of work and the poor pumpkin had given her dad a terrible afternoon of inconsolable crying. Fortunately (or so I think, maybe Patrick feels differently ☺ ) we pushed ahead!

Ohh the sights we saw… agricultural fields, MIA wells, plateaus, flooding rivers, huge (is there any other kind) gorges, polygamist housing, dairy farms, sand and gravel pits, dams…. Yes all in a days work for the adventure-water nerd.



On Friday my “work week” (god I love my work!) was over and Patrick, Evie and I headed for Grand Canyon Caverns for the night. Evie had her first cave tour and I am sorry to say that she is not an aficionado of caves like her mom. We think the dry air (it was a dead cave) down there and/or the elevation change was just too much for her. OK so I admit defeat on this one… no more caves for my baby until she is at least 2 years old.


At 4 am on Saturday we set out for Hualapai Hilltop, the beginning of our 8-mile trek into the canyon that is home to Havasu Creek and the town of Supai. We got a super early start so that all (but especially the babe) would be cool for the hike. That part of the plan seemed to work quite well. The whole baby big enough for the pack part… umm not so much. Patrick felt like little one was bouncing too much in the pack (I couldn’t see because my role was as mommy mule) so poor guy was all stressed out the whole hike down that we were going to end up with a shaken baby. Fortunately she made it unscathed but Patrick did not and was so worried about her both in terms of heat and bobbley head that he really seemed to be bummed.

Ahh but all was not lost in the vacation department. On Sunday morning I found out that Evie and I could take the helicopter out of the canyon thus saving 8 miles of heat and bobbing! Hooray! So with a much-improved familial mood we set out to see these wonderful waterfalls we had come to see. We spent the day at Havasupai Falls…. There was even a little baby pool/travertine deposit just for Evie. She took a couple of good naps on the red sand and seemed to be pleased as pie.

The next morning Patrick set out hiking for the top in the wee morning hours (although not too wee for fear of mountain lions) and I got up a 6 am to wait for the first-come-first served helicopter ride. Well things don’t always work so smoothly and it ended up taking until noon for Evie and I to take that copter ride… I think the tot would have preferred to wait forever for that life first. She decidedly did not like that horrible old helicopter… quite frankly it made me pretty queasy too! Good thing we stopped in Seligman, AZ at the Road Kill Café on the way home…..

But I am happy to say we all made it back safe and sound from our “relaxing” vacation and are all hoping that sometime in the next week or so we can get some rest ☺

A million thanks!

Patrick is finished with the bar!! Yeah Evie and I have our Patrick back... we are both very excited. It also means that our life-savers for the past few months Monique and Gerard have headed home to Texas. We are soooo thankful for the invaluable help they have provided us we can't even say. The long and the short of it is that the last two months would have been a nightmare with out them!! So this week's blog is dedicated to them :)

Roly-Poly

A complaint was lodged in the sibling department about the lack of pictures of Evie with Uncle Brendy... this is a pretty good one from this weekend :)

Pretty convenient for the blogging mommy, Evie seems to be picking up new skills each week…. This week it is the roll from back to tummy tum tum. A good skill I guess but really maddening for poor Genevieve seeing how she doesn’t particularly relish tummy time. In fact I would go so far as to say it frustrates the heck out of her.

You see she has learned quite well the back to front maneuver but just cannot seem to manage the front to back and thus she keeps getting herself “stuck” on her belly. Very annoying indeed. This problem first manifested itself last Tuesday night when Patrick and I took her on a long walk that cut into her normal bedtime routine, i.e. she was not on her way to the land of nod by 8 pm. This wrinkle in her evening plan caused her to get quite fussy, and therefore more in motion in her crib than usual, and much to everyone’s surprise transformed her into a rolling genius. The problem of course was that she had no desire to actually be on her tummy, yet she kept ending up there. I kept getting her pretty calmed down then I’d lay her in bed letting her squirm around a bit like usual and then… bam… she’d roll over and get really po’ed. We eventually got her asleep that night but ever since then she has been a back to tummy rolling fool.

All of the big people in the world who just can’t bear to see her suffer have pitched in to educate our wee one on the proper tummy to back technique in an effort to end her suffering as soon as possible. Days with Monique and Gerry have become a defacto belly-to-back-boot-camp where Monique has gone so far as to get down on the ground face-to-face with Miss Evie in an effort to explain the proper technique. Monique favors the put your knees under to gain leverage approach. My father this weekend also got face down on the ground for a bit and I think he is a proponent of the tuck the arm under method but I’ll have to double check on that one. Of course everyone involved is very diligent about cheering her on when it looks like success is neigh, yet belly to back success still eludes our little one. Here’s to hoping that this week is good for a little belly to backing so that Genevieve can once again be content and completely in control of her little, yet ever-expanding, world.

Grab it!

When you’re a baby and you learn a new skill man do you become manic about it…. Or maybe we just have an OCD baby because she really gets into her new skills! The skill of the past week is grabbing things. For the most part this is a really funny, not to mention fun, new skill but it does have its dangerous moments (all the experienced parents out there are thinking, I’m sure, ohhh you’ve seen nothing yet!) One of the funny (and dangerous) moments this week was when she decided that she really needed to partake in her mommy’s morning coffee. I, as is per usual, was yakking away and looked down at her in my lap just in time to see her close her little fist around my precariously perched coffee cup. Once I realized what was going on it, of course, became a cute, fun game to watch (and take pictures of) the baby trying to “drink my coffee.”

The other fun grabbing game is the look-ma-I-can-stick-my-feet-in-my-mouth game. This game can, however, only be played when she is sans diaper because the diaper is big so it is a little bit risky. You never know when the urge to pee can overcome her and although she is not as dangerous as boy she can still spray with the best of them. Nevertheless it is definitely my favorite of the grabbing games. I’ve decided she has a little yogi in her because in the process of open mouth insert foot she does a mean happy baby pose ☺

At the pool

Evie is becoming quite the swimming tot. Both last weekend and this past Friday we went to the pool with my friend Annie and Evie's soon to be friend who for the moment resides in Annie's belly.

Baby Tricks!

This past week my mom came down to Tucson to watch Evie during the day so we could give Monique a much-needed break. Being that she is a pediatrician she is always “testing” Genevieve and giving us the low down on each new developmental milestone. We are very fortunate to have her around to give use the “scoop” on these things!

Developmental milestones are pretty cool, they give you a way to track how your baby is, well, developing. But lets be honest here folks really all they are is a set of baby tricks. Now most of us of hip late 20 early 30 ish baby-having set started out with what many like to refer to as “starter children” i.e., dogs. Most of us doted on these pets and, of course, spent inordinate amounts of time teaching them to do tricks in order to impress (or so we thought) our neighbors, family and friends. Although it may seem off-color to say so, having a baby is no different, except eventually the “tricks” are much, much cooler than anything your residential fur person could accomplish. I mean think about it. What are our current favorite baby tricks to demonstrate to people…. Look at her, she can almost roll over, wait, wait there she goes she can sit! Of course one of the most popular dog tricks that no parent in their right mind would want to demonstrate their child doing is play dead so I guess the analogy ends there ☺

Anyway here are our favorite baby tricks over the past few weeks. I have even included pictures where I could get them. So in order of “coolness” Evie now: brings hands to the midline, brings hands together, coos and ahhs at you, bears weight on her legs, can pull herself up to a stand from a sit (with a little help of course), sucks her thumb and most importantly and best of all SMILES! (There have also been only quasi-confirmed sightings of the elusive baby laugh and roll over)

Ben and Annie's Baby Shower!

Well no pictures of the mom and dad to be (I was taking pictures with Annie's camera for most of the party) But here are a few of Evie with my friends Kristen, Tania and Evren....

Living in fear...

I imagine it is typical for a new parent to feel fear for or about their child. This past week we have been feeling a whole different sort of fear, fear of our child. Now don’t worry she has not started spinning her head around 360 degrees (although she does occasionally spit-up like the exorcist kid) or breathing fire or anything like that. No this fear is likely a normal fear that parents have of their two-something-month old… it is a fear of the almighty, sure to be overwhelming, poo. This fear sets in round about day two of what I like to think of as the do-do-diaper drought. Maybe it is not so much a fear but an expectation, like the expectation you would feel if you were the sad fool sitting on the seat in a dunk tank. You know eventually some sharp shot is going to nail that little target and then you will be drenched. Well in this case the drenching substance is not water but baby poo.

As the days passed we got evermore fearful of what exactly this massive poo would entail. I stopped wearing my nicest clothes while holding little Evie on my lap, knowing that Murphy’s law must have something to say about the inevitability of a baby pooping on you when you have your dry-clean only skirt on. Every day when I came home from work my first question to Monique was… “So has she pooed?” Day after day the sad response was no, not yet. Every little fart was met with anticipation, would the goods follow? Unfortunately through all of this stress Genevieve was a victim too. She did not want to unload the mother load on anyone… she just wanted to be free of her burden as well. Finally after a more or less five day drought the wait was over and I am happy to say no one got hurt (well no one except for the bouncy chair she sits in).

Now apparently it is totally normal for little babies to go days sans poo. So we reset the clock and now are on the watch again… you just never know when you’ll get “hit” Ahh the joys of being a parent ☺

Rasberries

The most prominent new skill of Miss Evie these past few days has been the all mighty and ever shoulder-wetting raspberry. Laugh if you will but this new skill is a big deal to her and she is ever so excited to practice it day and night. The only problem with raspberry fun is that the byproduct is an excessive amount of drool and Genevieve has absolutely no consideration for anyone when it comes to drool. She will happily place it on your shoulder, nose, arm or any other part that should enter into the drool green zone, i.e., within two feet of her head. The most impressive part of the raspberry drool phenomenon are the bubbles…. I had no idea one could make such large bubbles using spit alone! I must admit that part of the reason for my delay in posting was my quest for a “bubble photo” Fortunately Patrick was happy to provide me with a raspberry demo but then in the end I am happy to report I actually got one ☺

In other news I took Evie swimming for the first time last weekend. She really wasn’t a fan at first but warmed up to it OK by the end. The whole floating thing was just a little too creepy for her at first. It was pretty funny, I would let her stand on the bottom of the kiddy pool and then gradually bring her legs out from underneath her and the more she floated the farther out her lower lip went, not to the point of cry but it was definitely displeasure. Well regardless we will have to go again because darn if she didn’t look cute in her swimsuit. (We also will have to go again because being the dodo I am brought my camera but not the data card… hey man I am a new mom I can’t expect to remember it all!)

Working mom

Like any new job or specialty motherhood has its terms of art, intelligible and even counterintuitive, to the uninitiated. The phrase of the week is “sleeps through the night”. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Hey so here I am proud to announce that Evie now “sleeps through the night” hooray! Right? Well not quite. Sleeping through the night in mommyhood speak equals six hours or more. Six hours? What normal human considers that sleeping through the night? OK so the problem here is interpreting sleeps through the night to mean a good night’s sleep. Ahh the trickiness of language ☺ Well so now Genevieve is sleeping six hours at a time and it is definitely at night. Actually I consider myself lucky. She chooses to do her six hours from 9:30ish to 4 am ish. I met with some friends from my pregnancy class this weekend and some of their babies choose to do their sleeping through the night starting at 7pm. (Which at this time of the year it isn’t even dark then so it is a super misnomer then now isn’t it?)

So it is a good thing that Miss Evie is giving me 6 hours at a stretch these days because working two jobs (mommyhood and at ADWR) would be next to impossible otherwise. I had a bit of a rough week because a pending deadline dictated that I needed to work pretty close to 40 hours this week which was much harder (mentally not physically) than I thought it would be. I think really it was the stress combined with the hours that did me in… well that and the first embarrassing, mildly degrading pump on the go experience.

I was at a conference helping out with the AV side things so it was impossible to just slip out and in as needed. It was at this fancy hotel but I didn’t have time (and honestly was just a little bit too embarrassed) to ask for a special room to pump in. So I escaped to a bathroom that fortunately had very few people in it and whipped out my contraption. I squatted on the floor (wearing a suit I wasn’t about to sit) and proceeded to take care of business. I felt like that darn pump was as loud as a jet engine and everyone coming and going must have been curious as to what that bizarre noise from the last stall was. Well that was OK, but then 3 hours later when we had another break everyone, of course, made a b-line to the bathroom. At this point there was no way I was going to hold up a line at the bathroom so I could squat and pump for 10 minutes so I decided (foolishly) that I would just wait until I went home. Ouch what a mistake that was! Ahh the adventures of the working mom….

Cover girl...

What an eventful week! Saturday June 2 in the morning Evie got to meet her Great Aunt Lisa and Great Uncle Bob and second cousins Jessie, Becky and Missy as well as their goats…. Then that afternoon she met her Grandma Monique and Grandpa Gerard. They drove out from Texas to drop off Monique who will play the role of super sitter for the next 6 weeks while I go back to work and Patrick studies for the bar. We spent the weekend hanging out and playing with the baby…

Then on Monday the big day for me came, I went (or in the end tried to) go back to work. I got everything all prepared the night before… being the goober that I am I even made a list so I would not forget anything because really there is sooo much to consider, clothes, wallet, snack, breast pump, towel, because disaster would strike if I forgot anything god knows ☺ and woke up bright and early fed the baby, fed myself and got out the door by 7:40 am I was so proud of myself ☺ I get to work a ready to be as I was pre-baby only to find my computer is totally messed up, all sorts of problems such that I can barely work on it. I do my darndest for a few hours and then take it as a sign that I should just go and work from home as a way to ease the transition for both Evie and I. It turned out to be a stroke of good luck because Evie was having a bit of a rough day on account of the fact she wasn’t 100% used to the rapid eats that she can get from the bottle (baby tummie bubbles are no good I tell ya).

After a bit of a bumpy road on Monday the rest of the week went pretty well. Wednesday Monique and I took her in for her 2 month appointment (which included some shots… not the best way to achieve baby happiness). My mom was looking for some good baby at the doctor’s office pictures to put on the cover of the journal she edits so of course I jumped at the opportunity to potentially have a cover girl for a daughter ☺ Man taking good pictures of babies is harder that I ever imagined!! Well hopefully one or two will be good enough for us to call our babe a model, I’ll keep ya posted on that one.

So here are her current stats: she weighs 11 lbs on the nose and is 22.5 inches long. I can’t believe she has gained over 3 pounds in just two months…. I guess they really do grow up fast ;)