4 months 3 days ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
I love the differences between Ava and Emme. It's what makes having two of these little buggers so special. What's become clear in the last six months is that Emme is a morning person. She wakes up and is cheery, peaceful and outgoing. Ava, on the other hand, wakes up groggy, anti-social and a little difficult (she gets into the swing of things quickly though... 15 or 20 minutes.) This creates a great opportunity for me to get some Emme time in the morning. She'll walk over to my room, crack the door, peer in and smile. It's cute and I always rush over to her, scoop her up and then get some work done with her in my lap. We record little videos and do Google searches for whatever she's interested in at the time (often spiders lately.) Ava and I spend time more in the evening, after bath. We'll curl up and watch a Nova or something. She asks me questions about the planets. Love my daughters!
Beep & Ball have absconded with Ava. They're down in Florida this weekend leaving Terp and I home with a cute little bundle of energy named Emme. It's amazing to see her away from Ava. We're having a lot of fun. Tonight we went out for pizza at Johnny's. Emme was great. Sat on her little booster seat and ate "bites"... that's what she calls food.
1 year 4 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
Her vocabulary is build on the solid pillars of "nana" (used for mommy and grandmama), "dada", "fish", "dog", "woof woof", "eyes", "ears" and what we believe is one of her first words... "me!" She uses "me" in a lot of situations, usually imparting much urgency. It could mean "I'm unhappy, look at me!" or "I wanted to use that!" or "I'm sleepy tired!" Little Old (as we call her) is getting very interactive!
1 year 4 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
Emme's been "surfing" for a while... standing up while holding onto something low and moving laterally. About a month ago I created a situation to provoke her first steps. Terp and I were both there and to my eye she took three little steps to cross a small chasm. But Terp vetoed the notion that these were the official "First Steps." Fast forward to today. I wasn't there but Terp says Emme made four steps going away from the ottoman. "Yay, First Steps," I proclaimed. But again Terp vetoed claiming that we can't call it until she's more stable and really up and around. Well, she's certainly getting close so I'll call a Preliminary First Steps at this point. Good work Emme!
1 year 6 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
It's just amazing that she's already one year old! Her personality is strong and shining through more and more each day. Love the little bug! My Mom was in town and a bunch of folks made it out for a rather impromptu birthday bash.
1 year 8 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
Time is certainly flying. It's hard to believe that the little bundle of attitude that we call Emme is already ten months old.
Physically she's somewhat small. In fact, for a few months she was in the very low percentile in height. Weight was ok. That confused us because I'm a veritable giant at a massive 6'2 1/2". And my father's side is even taller. And Heather's side isn't short either. But once we did some digging we did find some data points on both sides of the family that make it seem much more likely. Throughout, the one doc that Heather trusts has told her that there's nothing to worry about. But when it's your kid you just tend to worry. Not to obsess. Just to worry. In the last couple months she's grown a bunch and seems poised to climb back up the height bell curve.
Because she's climbing over everything else. Crawling here and there. Up stairs. Down stairs. Over obstacles. Towards things she wants.
What she lacks in height she more than makes up for in volume. When Emme wants something, well, she wants something. Now. Not in a couple minutes. Now. She's intense.
And she's already learning manipulation (yay.) Last night we were by the fireplace. Emme was reaching for the glass door. It wasn't hot but Heather thought she might get her hand caught in the hinge. Two or three times Emme reached for it only to be pushed away. We expected a barking command. Instead Emme touched the stone fireplace for a couple seconds. As soon as mommy looked down her hand shot up like lightning to the glass door. Success! She's quick.
With three teeth she's eating rice cake patty things. And all sorts of smashed fruits. She's in the process of being weened, something I know little about so I'll stop while I'm ahead. We're a little concerned that she may have a food allergy to gluten so we're trying to reduce her intake. Once she's weened we'll be able to more closely monitor her reaction because Heather's intake will be out of the equation. Doc says not an issue. We're not convinced. Tests are inconclusive at this age. The symptoms include slow growth and some poopy/diaper things that we see, including flat pancake poops. The internet rocks for home physicianing!
Her personality is starting to shine through. She'll point and wave. Play hide and seek. She's starting to talk. It's obvious that she wants in on all the action around her. For months she sat back and absorbed it all. Now she jumps right in there.
Ava likes to hang out with her little sister. And by hang out I mean carry, drop, push, drag and otherwise maim her. Poor little Emme. She often sounds a screaming alarm when Ava gets within a meter of her! Although these days she's so mobile that she can usually escape with a little persistence.
She's pulling up onto everything around her. Climbing steps. It won't be long before she's walking. We're back to having gates all over the house. It's like a maze getting around.
The one thing Emme doesn't have is a lot of blog posts. That's my fault. We spend as much time or more with Emme as we did with Ava. It's just that we're able to spend more time enjoying the moment. It's hard to describe. It's not that we enjoy her less or more. It's just different. Some things, like the sense of surprise, aren't as strong watching Emme. But because we know what to expect, we're able to appreciate its role in the big picture more.
And that's one of the big takeaways of the last ten months with Emme: she's not Ava. She's her own person. Physically and emotionally. Emme is Emme. And Emme is pretty cool!
2 years 6 days ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
Emms just wouldn't go to sleep tonight so I took her and we watched some Apollo 13, did some computing and just walked around the room. She's a cute little bugger.
2 years 2 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
Spent a good hour with Emme this morning. She's make a sound. I'd parrot it back to her and she'd give me a big smile! She's also been grasping for a while now. Reaching out into the world to figure out what's up. Amazing to watch this process develop again!
2 years 3 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
Everybody headed down to the pool and beach. I hung with the little Yelley Monster. She was good for a couple minutes and then broke out into a yelling fit. I calmed her down and got her to sleep on the couch. Cute little Em Star. Ten minutes later she was back to Yelley Monster.
2 years 4 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
Emme's been smiling for a few weeks now. There's not really a first smile moment. She kind of morphs from her automatic reflexive smile to one that's based on mommy's voice or ceiling lights or something else interesting. Emme's seven weeks old already! And I haven't posted nearly enough photos!
2 years 5 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
Ava got sick about three days ago. Tonight Emme's got it. Runny, congested nose. Heather and I are still symptom-free. Seems to be a mild strain as Ava's almost over it. Don't say your sister never gave you anything, Emme!
2 years 5 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
You knew it wouldn't last long. Emme sleeping like a perfect little angel. She's more animated. More dependent on Heather's nursing. Dealing with it is harder this time around because there's a little less magic and surprise involved. There's some more "seriously, this?... I thought we were through this... oh that was Ava." I have the hardest time with it when I don't get my "me time." But Heather has, by far, the largest baby workload. She's with Emme all day and night. No less love for the little bundle... but a lot less "oy yeah, that poop out and crying fest that kept us up was so *real*... I need to blog that to remember the experience."
Ava loves to help out. Whenever Emme cries I hear a "me coming too." And Ava trucks it to wherever Emme is. She rubs Emme's back, pats her on the head. I enjoy giving her tasks because it shows Ava that she's part of Emme's life.
Tonight they gave Emme her first bath. No, we're not bad parents. You're supposed to wait for the cord to drop off and heal before you submerge them. It's a countertop bathing. I got some good video. But only one photo because the battery died. But I think it's a cute one.
Emme can get mad. She has a mad little face at times. She'll go from zero to raging quickly. On balance, Heather has a deeper tool chest (yeah, pun intended) to remedy things.
Emme's also got an incredibly angelic face. She's got these big round eyes with a perfect round face. She didn't get as beat up making her way from stage left into the play of life. Very little conehead for her. She's a cutie.
She eats a lot. And we're more than happy to oblige. After she eats she (generally) sleeps solidly for a couple hours. Except when we're busy and Ava needs a lot of attention. Then Emme's wide awake.
She's doing eye tracking and auditory response. Grasping and all the normal reflexes. She had her two week checkup earlier this week and passed with flying colors.
2 years 6 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
All I heard was a "son of a..." from the back room. Heather had just learned that J Lo named her daughter Emme. I'll leave it at that. (And thanks to Dani for the tip.)
2 years 6 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
The Crouches came over to meet little Emme. Aidan and Ava haven't had any romping time lately. They ripped it up. Shrieking and yelling galore! I loved watching it. Each of them had a mini-meltdown at some point. Ava's was when I told her to stop chucking large Lego blocks towards Aidan. Sharing is still not a top priority for a 2.5 year old but watching them play is truly enjoyable for a parent. Leslie cooked a huge batch of her famous lasagna which will keep us fed for multiple days. Can't wait to dig in. We ate some pizza tonight and watched some NASCAR between toddler chasing. Thanks for heading across town guys! Emme was glad to meet you and Ava had a blast!
2 years 6 months ago | Posted to: Emme, Our Daughter
I got a good chuckle out of Joel's post about registering for baby stuff. He and Francine are pregnant with their first. Here's an excerpt:
After 20 minutes, we left stressed, uncertain, overwhelmed and scared. Scared that we had no clue what we, future parents, were doing but also scared that since we could barely get though 4 aisles, how could we tackle Baby'sRUs, a whole store of baby stuff? We are young and naive; we stood no chance against the baby mega conglomerate.
Yep, been there. So I thought it'd be a good time to compare and contrast Ava's birth and first few days with Emme's.
1) Don't worry, be happy - There's little or no worrying the second time around. All the mechanical details of baby raising are more or less known.
2) More enjoyment - Because there's less worrying we're more able to focus on the amazing birth that's happening. We spend more time enjoying Emme than worrying about her.
3) We understand more - With Ava we had no idea what she was trying to tell us. Each cry had us urgently scratching our heads wondering what was wrong. Well, once we learned that cries mean something is wrong. With Emme we've got a good idea what she's trying to tell us.
4) We know how to fix stuff - Even though we eventually figured out that Ava was upset about something... say, an uncomfortable burp bubble... we didn't know how to fix it. With Emme we've already got our burping technique down. I knew during her first feeding to burp her a couple times to prevent crying later on.
5) More sleeping - Thus far Emme is sleeping a lot more than Ava did her first few nights. She slept most of yesterday and most of last night. Feed her big and watch her sleep. We expected a wild child but thus far have an even easier baby than Ava. Knock on digital wood.
6) Less gear - The first time around we did exactly what Joel and Francine are doing... we collected vast amounts of gear. This time around we didn't even buy diapers ahead of time. We got home and realized that we were missing a few key pieces. But we've got most of what we need stashed away in closets around the house. Finding it is a different story.
7) Two's company - Watching Ava interact with Emme is just incredible. She tries to help Emme by cleaning her hands or adjusting her hat. She talks about "baby Emme" whenever she's near. She'll shush you if Emme's sleeping. It's cute.
8) Life goes on - While it has been a disruption to our lives, it's not like we've put our lives on hold like we did for the first few weeks of Ava's life. Ava keeps us up and moving around. I'm getting work done. Emme just kind of hangs out. The first time around we hovered over Ava a lot.
9) Every breath you take - I check Emme's breathing constantly. SIDS is still terrifying. I had forgotten how little an infant's chest actually moves when they breathe.
10) Musical beds - For the last year or more Ava's slept in bed with Heather and I've slept in the office. With Emme hitting the scene we're trying to figure out how to shuffle things. Heather's worried that Ava will wake up when Emme needs to be fed. But so far she hasn't. The current plan has Ava and Heather going to sleep at 9pm, me watching Emme in the office until 1am-ish and then Heather sleep-feeding Emme in the nursery until morning at which point Ava will wake up and find us. We'll see how it goes.
11) Milk money - Last time we worried a lot about Heather's milk. When would it arrive? Are we doing things correctly? Is Ava being deprived right now? This time we're a lot more relaxed. Heather's milk isn't in yet but we know it took four or five days last time.
12) Latch on baby - Another mechanics thing. Last time it took a lot of fiddling to get Ava to latch on properly. This time Heather can get Emme to solidly latch on quickly.
Overall the experience the second time involves a lot less worrying and a lot more enjoyment. And neither of us really worried much the first time around. We just took things as they came. So we didn't expect this time to be much different. The fact that it is only serves to show us how much we actually learned when Ava was a baby.
Post-Ironman Melancholy
