Lack of posts

Sorry about shortchanging ya'll on posts lately. Alice has recently returned to work and there's a lot of frantic organizing in the morning and evening involved with that and I'm trying not to lose my mind in the midst of exams, papers, presentations and such that come at the end of the semester.

Here's some pics and we'll be back to longer posts next week:

A few more

Here's a few more pictures from the Thanksgiving weekend:





We also had some exciting news from Grandma Kathy this morning- Viv actually drank a whole bottle of milk! I didn't hear any word on how this was accomplished or how difficult it was, but at least it sounds promising.

One last picture:

Comin' to get ya!

She's not crawling quite yet, but she has managed to turn herself from her stomach to her back once already and it's only a matter of time until she's mobile. As I look around the house I realize that childproofing this place won't be a simple task.

On another note, it's (or was) Thanksgiving and her grandpa Alan, great-grandma Jarand, step-grandma Marjie and auntie Emily have arrived.



"one live chicken":


Sometime last spring Alice and I saw "one live chicken" spray painted on a house in the lower 9th ward by pet rescue people- then we saw the rooster. This is the famed live chicken- picture taken on Thanksgiving day.

I'm not sure, but I think that this is simply this rooster's way of giving the finger to all those turkeys too stupid to see it coming on Thanksgiving. This guy survived Katrina and he's still here a year and a half later.

My dad has also been teaching Vivienne to play cards and she seems to be picking up on it pretty fast.



Here's a random image:

Ha Ha

Little Viv has another first under her belt. She laughed for the first time while Pod was tickling her.


Also, Alice has lots of teeth, lots and lots of teeth- see her teeth:

New Orleans Blues Fest

On Saturday Al, Grandpa Cliff (also know as Grandpod), Viv, Grandma Kathy, Nonna Linda and myself attended the first annual New Orleans Blues Festival. It was put on by the same people that do Jazz Fest (the title of today's post is linked to the Jazz Fest website). At any rate....... Jazz Fest is fantastic for those of you that don't know about it- well worth planning a trip here for.

Back to the story-

Viv seemed to have a pretty good time:


This makes festival #2 for Viv and she seems to be getting the hang of it. Anyway, the Blues Fest went off well and hopefully it will become an annual event.

As a sidenote- Alice starts back to work on Monday so send her letters of encouragement. She's pretty bummed out about having to leave Viv during the day.

side, sidenote- we're now having daily sightings of the wild goats of Arabi and there's currently 3 of them

pictures:

A rambling update

Viv is still sleeping in a swaddle. We tried one of her sleep sacks briefly a few nights before Pod (Cliff’s nickname) got here, but she fussed. We were too tired at the time to really determine whether it was b/c she wanted to be swaddled or for some other reason. We changed her, swaddled her, and held her until she got drowsy enough to sleep. We will try the sleep sack again sometime after Thanksgiving.

As far as giving Viv a bottle, we have now tried many of Playtex’s nipples (NaturaLatch latex & silicone, slow flow rate; Orthodontic latex, med. flow rate; Natural Action, fast flow rate), Medela’s bottle system with the silicone orthodontic shaped nipple, and the Adiri breast bottle. Evidently Viv is one of the few babies who isn’t calmed by a bottle that is shaped like a boob. We have tried (Curt, me, & my mom) holding her in different positions; feeding her in the bouncer; feeding her in her sleep; and feeding her with me in the room, with me out of the room, and with me out of the house altogether. The more we try, the less we can trick her into even drinking a little. She will pool the milk in her cheek and drool, but not swallow. She will exhaust herself protesting and fall asleep with the bottle in her mouth. I spoke at length with one of Touro’s lactation nurses yesterday who advised that we try an Avent bottle because it has a harder nipple. I have been leery of these for this exact reason (supposedly feels less like mommy) and because my friend Jean’s kids Zachary & Ava didn’t like them. However, we do have some of Jean’s Avent bottles here, so they will be the next thing we try. If it fails, we have several other things we can try: sippy cups, shot glasses (not a joke), spoon feeding, and something called a finger feeder.

I vacillate between complete denial and panic that I am returning to work on Monday and that my daughter may very well starve herself for the time that I will be gone (like 10 hours). The lactation nurse said that sometimes babies do this and they make up for it in the evening. She even suggested that Viv might nurse through the night in bed with us. All the co-sleeping debates aside, we are very opposed to this idea because she just started sleeping through the night again maybe four nights ago. It has been very nice, and if she is in bed with us we will never sleep well. Hell, we were just about to have her graduate from her bassinet in our room to her crib in her own room. So, we are hoping like crazy that all this foolishness has been simply because she wanted an Avent bottle the whole time. Somehow that seems unlikely.

grandpa cliff

more on this later...

pictures

Alice's dad is town through the weekend- we'll post more later tonight with any luck.

Brown Sugar

Sorry for the recent lack of updates. Alice and I have both been feeling more than a little sleep deprived and short of free time. Some recent happenings:

1) My cousin Steph and hubby Mike had a baby girl, Devin, today- 6 lb 13 oz, 20 in and they're doing great
2) Al and I are tired
3) Domino switched over to making buttloads of brown sugar and our entire neighborhood smells like gingerbread
4) Al and I are really, really tired
5) Al and I had other adults over to our house last night and did grownup things, like having a beer and playing cranium- we stayed up too late and that made us really, really, really tired
6) Lunar killed mouse #6


pictures:

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Viv is pleased.

Vote Early, Vote Often

Viv asked me what the U.S. Constitution is today and I had to think back 6 or so years to remember. Iraq, the response to Katrina, violations of the Geneva Convention, advocating intelligent design in schools, denying gay and lesbian couples basic civil rights, corruption and bribery, etc, etc- something has gone terribly off track in our country. The current Republican leadership pays lip service to patriotism and democratic ideals, but I suspect that our country's forefathers would be brought to tears by what has become of what they struggled, fought, and died for.

On Tuesday we have a chance to point it back in the right direction- so vote early, vote often, and vote Democrat.

Panda Rattle

Viv made a fairly major leap forward today- holding a toy herself. We've been trying to her interest her in toys/rattles for a little bit, but this is the first time she's taken one and held it.

I guess the next step is for us to teach her the panda raddle isn't (easily) edible.

Mirliton Fest

This weekend was the Mirliton fest in Bywater and we took Viv down there for her first music/fest/outdoorsy gig.


(By the way- a mirliton is also known as a chayote squash. Like most squashes, it's scraped out and used as a container to hold more interesting food.)
Anyway.... Viv spent the whole afternoon hanging out and watching the Soul Rebels and Kermit Ruffins play.





Alice also figured out an ingenious way to feed Viv in a crowd:

Bitter Bottle Battles

Twenty-two days ago we reported joyously that Vivienne had taken a bottle, no problem. That was the last we were so lighthearted about the prospect of giving Viv a bottle. With a lot of wailing and body-stiffness, she rejected the very next bottle she was offered. Since then Mom and Curt have been trying daily to offer at least one bottle to Viv. Curt’s latest success (two days ago) came when Vivienne was asleep and didn’t even wake up to eat. She was too tired not to take it, I guess. We have ordered a breast-shaped bottle that supposedly works in some cases. We are not overly optimistic, but we figure it’s worth a try.
This bottle rejection is a BIG problem, because I will be returning to work soon. I have no idea what we are going to do. She is already getting less milk during the day than she needs because she gets so tired pushing the bottle away during these hour-long bottle-rejection sessions that she falls asleep, skipping whatever meal we attempted the bottle. As a result, she has stopped sleeping through the night like she had been. This is going to become a gigantic problem once I return to work. I had been happy because I thought she’d be sleeping through the night by the time I went back to work. We were making such good progress in that department. As it turns out she’ll likely keep us awake all night long once I go back because she will be trying to nurse enough by night to make up for the hours she’ll have starved herself during the day. Advice anyone? We have tried the Medela bottle & silicone nipple, as seen below, along with the latex Playtex NaturaLatch and latex Platex orthodontic nipples. The one she hates the least so far is the NaturaLatch one.

I Spy

This past Monday I asked one of Vivienne’s pediatricians what all she’s seeing when she looks around. Dr. Oates said that Viv still sees things that are close to her and will perceive only blurriness from across a room. According to Dr. Oates, Vivienne still prefers black and white patterns to color. It’s clear that Vivi really loves both of her mobiles and she wants to thank Little T, Clay, & Lucy F. for the great hand-me-downs. She also really loves her swing, but in a different way. The mobiles get her all riled up to where she’s kicking her legs and waving her arms all around whereas the swing relaxes her. Here’s Viv demonstrating the relaxing effect of the swing:



She is also beginning to appreciate her bouncy chairs, but she requires more interaction with one of us when she uses them at this point. If we slip up and stop the bouncing motion, a bouncy seat can have the same effect as the swing.



Her favorite thing isn’t a toy though. What she really loves is hanging out on the changing table and practicing her speaking skills with whoever is changing her. She is often at her most adorable during these moments.