Happy Halloween!

Well, we had Mia's first Halloween over here in sunny Las Vegas. Last night, it was a balmy 75 degrees (I think it was actually around 82 during the day), so Mia's fleece ladybug costume was a little too warm to keep on during the day. Of course, I had picked it out with a mind that it would be cold by the end of November! Luckily, Jackie sent us this pack of Holiday 1st onesides, we had had something festive for Mia to wear during the day.

We went down to our new friends Joel and Dara's house to trick or treat. Now we have 2 sets of friends! Go us! We met them through our other Las Vegas friends and met up with them and their son Tybalt for trick or treating. They live in a nice niehgborhood in the South West side of town, where there are lots of houses pretty close together. We had a nice time, but it was hard to spot the houses that were open for business amidst the many (many) foreclosures (sad).

The people handing out candy started getting suspicious that a 5 month old was goig to be able to eat candy... so we did not stay out very long. Trick or Treating with babies is mostly for the photo ops anyway!

4 Months!

Although technically, Mia turned 4 months on Sunday the 25th, I decided to delay this post until we had her 4 month pediatrician visit, so that I could post her stats:

Weight: 13 lbs, 4 oz, 50th percentile

Length: 25", 75th percentile

Head: I forgot the measurement, but 25th percentile.

Shots: 2 - she didn't feel the first one, but screamed bloody murder on the second.

Post-shot nap.

We are clear to stick with soy formula (thank you Mia!), since she seems totally back to normal and no longer has any bloody #2s. She continues to have some trouble with constipation, so we need to continue with prune juice. In a more exciting transition, we are cleared to start solid foods. Mia's head control is good enough for her to start on all fruits and vegetables. We're supposed to get started on the high-fiber foods at once, so that we can cut down on the prune juice, which is a lot of sugar for a little baby to be ingesting every day. I'm excited to get the baby food processor out and get started! She's already started eating some cereal in the past few days, and we have good and bad feedings. Sometimes, she acts as though this baby rice cereal is the most delicious food in the world, and sometimes, she reaches for the bottle that is sitting on the table. Hopefully, she takes a better liking to apples, which we'll start on first.

Mia's makeshift work high chair, Mia says "Gimme mah cereal!"

Mia has hit all the milestones she's supposed to. She's holding her head up 90* when on her stomach and looking around. She's rolled over (although only twice at this point, but I guess it still counts!), and she is really starting to increase the baby talk. Lots of consonants and vowels, though mostly "Ha! Ha! Hoooooo."

We picked up an "exersaucer" at a local secondhand kid's store. I went to the store 3 times before I found one that looked clean and basically new. We picked up the exact one I was planning on buying on amazon and paid $32 instead of $70!

In more Baptism news, Las Vegas's Catholic community continues to astound us with the number of hurdles to get your kid to become Catholic. Once we 1) became registered parishioners, and 2) completed our baptism course, we thought that we were golden to schedule the baptism. It turns out, we need to have both our Godparents complete Baptism classes, and send over their confirmation certificates before we can even pick our mass! Crazytown. We have both Godparents scheduled and hopefully after October 7th, we'll have more definite plans.



Parish and Baptism Update

After checking out two different churches, we've 100% settled on Christ the King Catholic Community, which is about 15 minutes away from our apartment. We became registered parishioners on Tuesday night, and got to talk at length with the Pastor. We're all set to go to this month's baptism class, which is on September 19th. Once we've completed the class, we'll be able to schedule the baptism. We're aiming for November 13th or November 20th. We'll let everyone know as soon as we know for sure, too.

This Parish is unlike any I've ever seen. Everything about it is completely progressive, something that suits Brian and I very well. Both of us have had issues with Catholicism's rigidity in the past (not to get into too much detail, but in my opinion, the Vatican's stance on many things needs to adapt to the modern world), and this Parish gives such a welcoming and community feel that all is forgiven, at least on my end. 

The Church itself is set up completely differently than your traditional Church. There is not traditional "altar", but the mass is conducted with the priest in the center of the room. His seat is not separated from those of the parishoners. There are no pews, but instead, there are chairs that can be moved according to the seasons. The priest explained to us that the chairs are rearranged into a straight line during Lent, and are in a circle during Advent, etc. The songs are modern and catchy, I swear the Cantor must be from one of the Strip's shows, she had an amazing voice.

This past Sunday's mass had a Baptism, and it was truly moving. The Pastor says that he makes a point of only doing Baptisms during regular Sunday masses, because he wants the babies to be truly welcomed into the Community. Everyone was so excited to see those babies. I don't want to give too much away, but it's a pretty spectacular event. You'll have to make the trip to Las Vegas in November to see what it's all about!

Transitions

This week, we learned that Kate will no longer be able to take Mia while Brian and I are at work. When I first went back to the office, Mia was a mere 7 weeks old. Now, she's a strong and active 3 month old, and she's starting to need more attention and activity. She doesn't like to just sit in her chair or lay in her crib between her naps. She likes to be held, walked around, airplaned and played with.

Now that she's growing out of the infant stage, I am much more comfortable putting her in a more traditional daycare setting, but we're not quite ready for the pre-school like environment (and pricetag) of a big daycare. So, we're looking into a licensed, in-home daycare. Tonight, we are visiting one that is just north of our apartment, so just slightly out of the way for me to get to work. Tomorrow, we'll visit another more conveniently located in-home daycare. The pricing is about the same as we were paying Kate, but they are requiring us to be consistent with our schedules. Since we can't commit to the same 3 days every week, we are only comfortable committing to 2. We'll do something like Mondays and Thursdays, or Mondays and Fridays, since those are the days that Brian gets off the least often. Brian will keep her on his day off, and that leaves 2 take your daughter to work days for me.

I want us to take our time making a decision, but we would like to have something set up by September 12th. I have to be in court on September 16th, and would rather not take her to work to be watched by my co-workers, who have their own work to do (although I am sure they would be happy to pass the baby between them.).

In ancitipation of Mia's new 2-days a week work schedule, I spent a good chunk of my morning setting up her "new room". I brought the pack-n-play into my office, set up the mobile, and the changing station. Having it here has already made a huge difference. She naps much more easily when she's not in her bouncy chair, and I don't have to clear off my desk every time she needs to be changed. We were even able to do tummy time, since the crib surface is hard and stable enough. I'm really glad with the set up, and since I don't see any clients in my office, this shouldn't cause too many problems. I even put on the lullaby pandora station on my laptop!

Mia's first sniffles

This weekend, Mia put on her party dress (or party ruffled jumper) and attended her first birthday party. Tybalt, our babysitter and friend Kate's son turned one and had a jungled-themed birthday. Although not fitting with the theme, Mia brought a nice turtle for her best (and only) friend:

Patchwork turtle, probably the most complicated thing I've made so far.

Mia was minimally fussy at the birthday, despite the larger crowd than she's used to. There were a couple of other babies there, one 4 month old and one 5 month old. She definitely looked smaller than those two, but was infinitely more alert than either one of those, which leads Brian and I to think that our daughter is probably a genius.

Unfortunately, Mia now has what appears to be her first cold. She's got a bit of sniffles going on, and fusses every 3-4 hours, which makes me think that she's got a sore throat similar to the one I have. We're lucky to have avoided any sicknesses to date by shying away from traditional daycare, but I guess we couldn't keep her locked up forever. I brought her to the office yesterday, and she wouldn't let me put her down, or sit down while holding her, so I had to stand up at my computer and type like this:

Moby wrapping it up!

Funnily enough, it felt oddly similar to when I was walking around the office like this:



I recently decided to embrace being a Las Vegan and a Mom, so I joined a Meetup group. On saturday morning, I went to a farmer's market a Tivoli Village, which is a mall that was constructed right before the economic downturn, so it's basically a really nice looking outdoor mall with only a scaterring of shops. The farmer's market had about half of the vendors of the one we attended in L.A., but it is certainly better than nothing. I had some freshly made mini donuts (mini means less calories, right? even if I ate 6 mini donuts? hmm...). We also got a very nice and delicious loaf of multigrain bread for Brian's lunch sandwiches, and some wax beans and fingerling potatoes from a farm in California. I met up with another Vegas Mom and her friend, who were very nice and I'm happy I met them. This mommy group has quite a few outines per week, and I'm looking forward to attending more of them, even though it is dominated by stay-at-home-moms and half of their activities are during work hours. This saturday, there's a storytime that we are going to at a nearby Barnes and Noble. I'll just keep telling myself that Mia will totally be into what's going on at B&N, just like I tell myself that she's paying attention to the stories that we read before her beditme.

Lastly, here's the most adorable Mia pic of the week:

I'll be 3 months old tomorrow!

Baptisms

Mia is almost 3 months old and is still not baptized. I think my grace period is starting to come to an end, so I am going to seriously start planning this thing now.

In making a few preliminary phone calls, we've realized that getting baptized in Las Vegas is infinitely more complicated than getting married here. The first step is become a registered parishoner. I've never been a registered parishoner anywhere, so I never realized that this would be a requirement. If I have to commit to one parish, I want to make sure I like it. Without making it all sound too trite, I will make my decisions based on:

1) Content and length of Homilies
2) Boringness/Animation of the priest
3) Number of attendees/Size of the church
4) Quality of the musicians at various masses

I am going to try to convince Brian to go to Christ the King parish, which is just West of us on Tropicana this sunday. Next sunday, we'll try St. Joseph husband of Mary parish. We've only been to one church here in Vegas, and that was in Henderson. Henderson is pretty far away from us, plus, we don't think we're going to end up living in Henderson once we buy a house anyway. Plus, I definitely did not like it. It was the size of a Sam's Club, and we were ushered to a reject room to the side, where we had to watch the mass from a flat screen. So, that'll be a big consideration.

From most parish websites, it seems that if I make a decision on which parish to go with by the end of this month, we should be able to aim for a November baptism! Pencil in your calendars.

And now, your obligatory photo:

Here's Mia showing off her skills and holding herself up on the nursing pillow!

Honeymoon is Over

The take your daughter to work honeymoon, that is.

Mia came to work on Wednesday instead of Friday this week, because Kate had some scheduling conflicts. Mia was a total delight in the morning, smiling at all my coworkers and generally being adorable.

She sat in her little bouncer chair patiently and took a nap full of sleep smiles for about 45 minutes:

This picture is actually from a different day, but you get the idea.

Then, around 12:30, she decided she was going to stop being the perfect angel, because that would be more interesting for her. She cried if she wasn't being held, leading to this:

Mom, you should be grateful that you are getting to practice your one-handed typing skills!

If you'll notice, she's wearing a different outfit in the desk picture as she is in her adorable full of smiles picture. Yeah, that's because we had 3 poopy diaper blowouts. 3!!!! We've never even had 3 blowouts in one week, and she decides that Wednesday is the day to take 3 giant poopies in a row, at my office of all places. We went through every single spare outfit that I keep in the diaper bag, every single spare diaper, and all but one baby whipe. Around 4 o'clock, she started fussing again, acting like she was going to poopy again... and I decided it was time to take her home. Since we had no more supplies, and is not acceptable to put a naked baby in your work kitchen sink to wash off her poop, it was time to end that take your daughter to work day. Hopefully next thursday goes a bit better!

Lastly, Mia and I are sleep twins.

Random Updates

Tomorrow will mark Mia's 10th week. As if to show everyone that she is inching closer and closer to college, Mia started sitting in the Bumbo chair without needing a pillow to support her neck. This is excellent for my morning routine, since I did not have to hold her and juggle my blowdryer in order to keep her upright for the few minutes following her feeding. She just hung out in her chair watching me do my hair. Behold, our non-newborn baby:

She's still just a little squirt, but we officially switched from 0-3 month Gerber onesies to 3-6 month size. Everything else still fits quite well, so we're not freaking out about needing to buy more clothes just yet.

In other news, Brian had Saturday off, so we spent the weekend in L.A., visiting our friends Katie and Christo who also just recently made the move West from Chicago. They are getting married next spring, so I spent the majority of Saturday at Bridal salons, while Brian was at Santa Monica. We did good work, and it was so much fun doing wedding things again. We went to Nicole Miller and Jenny Yoo, and if anyone out there is getting married, I definitely recommend checking out Nicole Miller. It is somekind of hidden Bridal gem, because all of the dresses were gorgeous and reasonably priced. All the dresses being gorgeous may have something to do with Katie being tall and perfectly proportioned, but still.  Mia came along to two salons and was a perfect angel, and Brian took his turn and took Mia for the second half of the afternoon and visited the Sunset Strip. Surprisingly, Mia did not get stopped by any casting agents, but maybe next time. :)

Mia, looking French at the French Creperie

Brian and I really enjoyed L.A.. It was nice to be a in real "city" again, with nice restaurants and shops all around, and being able to walk places. We definitely miss the neighborhood feeling that you get from living in a big city, and especially the excellent FOOD! We had lunch at a neighborhood Mexican restaurant on Saturdaty, complete with a lunchtime pitcher of Margaritas. On Sunday, we went to a farmer's market in the morning and had breakfast at a creperie on Santa Monica Blvd. We really have to make more of an effort to take advantage of the non-touristy things Vegas has to offer.

Mia slept the whole ride to L.A., but cried for about 2 hours of our ride back. Nothing was wrong with her, she had a clean diaper and had a full belly, but she was tired of being strapped down in her carseat. She would scream for about 10 minutes, then calm down, and after about 10 minutes of calm, she would remember how mad she was and start screaming again. She did this from Barstow to Primm, and of course calmed down once we could see Las Vegas' casinos.

I did a terrible job of taking pictures of things other than wedding dresses while we were in L.A., so you'll have to settle for other pictures.

All in all, it was a great weekend, but Mia's fussiness of the car ride extended into the evening and next day, getting me a bit worried that she might be sick, but she turned out to be just fine after getting hours and hours (and hours) of sleep and a nice warm bath.

2 Month Check Up

Weight: 10lbs, 7oz. (25%-50%)

Height: 22 1/4 inches (50%)

Head: 37 1/2 cm (25%)

Rash: basically gone, with occasional flare ups.

All dressed up for her Doctor's appointment, and afternoon at the office. Forget casual Fridays!

I guess she's relatively skinny for her age, but of average height. Her bump is still there, but the Doctor still says not to worry about it, and that the only way it goes away is for the body to resolve itself. So, I will stop worrying. Mia is now allowed to use lotion. She got 3 vaccines today though, and she showed off her powerful lungs and cried for a good 10 minutes once the nurse left. She even refused to eat until half an hour later. But, as is well, and she is now peacefully napping in my office.

See? I sleep.

Mia's stays at Kate's house have been going well so far. She's was there on Wednesday and Thursday, once on her own and the second day she got to hang out with Baby Ty. Apparently Mia cried everytime Ty cried, but I am sure she will start getting used to having another baby around soon. Mia has basically kept her routine of morning cat naps, followed by a long afternoon nap with Kate, too. So far, the only person she likes to keep up for more percentages of the day is her Papa.

Mia's smile

As I touched on yesterday, Mia's smile is currently my favorite thing in the world. She cracks an unmistakable smile so rarely, that to catch one directed at me makes me feel like a million bucks. Her first awake smile was at 5 weeks, and was directed at my dresser, and a few days later I got the BIG ONE which I was able to take those 3 precious pictures of. Since then, I've probably gotten about 3 real smiles, and half a dozen "we'll-call-it-a-smile" smile.

Yesterday was my first full day away from my precious girl, and it went better for me than I expected. She was asleep when I left in the morning, which probably made it a bit easier, since I decided to forgo the goodbye snuggle so that she'd stay asleep for Brian's morning. Even when Brian sent me a picture of Mia with her pink bow on, I smiled and continued with my work. On went the day, as I finalized some Immigration forms that had been waiting my return, until 4:45, when I was able to close up my office and head home.

When I walked in the door, she looked bigger to me. I have never been away from her for more than 4 continuous hours. She was fine, contendedly sitting on Brian's lap, with the back of her head snuggled into his armpit (this severely tampers with the precious baby head smell, contaminating the deliciousness with Old Spice). She didn't flinch when she saw me, which both made me glad, since she obviously wasn't feeling abandoned, and sad, thinking that she may not even have noticed my extended absence.

An hour or two later, she was hungry, and I fed her. She was wide awake during our feeding, and about halfway through, she stopped, looked right up at me with her wide open eyes, and gave me a series of enthusiastic smiles that completely revitalized me. I even got a second series of smiles at her 3am feeding, when I was startingto worry that if she didn't go to sleep soon, I'd have to face a full day of work on 5 hours.

The optimistic side of me says that she didn't notice that I was gone, but she did notice that I was home.

Now, Mia, please do the same for your Papa, because he would like the reassurance that you like him too.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

This week marks my official return to work. Luckily, Brian's day off coincides with my first day back, so Mia is still at home with her Papa while I play catch up. It turns out, I didn't to as bad a job as I thought working from home, because it's 3:30 and I am already able to take a bit of a breather (long enough to write this post and update everyone with some pics!)

Mia has changed so much in the past few weeks. She had her first plane ride, which she behaved superbly on. She cried for about 5-10 minutes on the ride to Chicago, waking up only briefly to eat. Her routine was very disrupted in Chicago, where she was shuttled from one end of the Chicagoland-area to the other, napping almost exclusively in the car and sleeping 5-6 hour stretches at night. Although I am pretty sure Brian and I were more tired at the end of our vacation than when we started, it was well worth it for the Caccamos to meet their newest family member.

Mia with her Big Granpa



Mia and Brian at the Zoo!

 Luckily, we planned our trip so that we would still have 2 days at home as a family to recover from our vacation. We took advantage by sitting on the couch, snuggling with our sleepy baby, and not doing the laundry but watching movies instead.



Mia with some of her presents!



Mia's daytime naps are starting to become less and less frequent, and she spends a lot more of her awake time thoughtfully looking at everything around her. She has started paying attention to both the mobile over her crib and the one above her swing. She tracks objects like a champ, and seems to be starting to become aware of her hands. It looks to us as though she might be a thumb sucker, but she sucks her fist more often than just her thumb. She still has tons of hair, and it's starting to be long enough for hair clips! Yay!

She is super strong and about 90% will support her own head when you're holding her. That other 10% means she is only a few minutes away from totally falling asleep. She still eats like a champ and my prediction for her 2 month pediatrician appointment on friday is at least 11 lbs. She's in size 1 diapers, but still hasn't outgrown any of her clothing, except for one dress that barely fit over her head when she was born.

 She still doesn't give smiles out to anyone, and so far has only given a full smile to me, Brian and my boss (of all people!). Since it's still pretty rare, it is still easily the most exciting part of my day, and nothing makes me happier. Here's what I was able to capture of her first smile, in progression:

These photos were taken a couple of weeks ago, and she's already changed since then!!

That's all for now, I will try to be more consistent with weekly updates now that I am back at work. 

Mia's 3rd week

I have to remind myself that eventually, Mia will no longer be at an age that can be counted in weeks, but not this week! We don't have a doctor's visit scheduled until her 4th week, so I have no new stats to report, but I am fairly certain she will be breaking the 8lb mark when we do get there. We did have a few highlights this week.

She had the second part of her newborn screening on Monday. We left for Quest once she was soundly asleep from her morning feeding, and she tolerated the waiting room well enough, including the toddler who constantly came by to peer at her in the car seat. He made a few attempts at touching her, but I drew the line. I doubt it would have been acceptable for me to accost him with antibacterial gel, as I do with anyone else that approaches her. Mia got pricked in the heel by a very mean lady, who made her scream bloody murder. The worst part was that she had to make enough blood to make a few blots on a sheet of paper, so it wasn't over after the heel prick. She calmed down relatively quickly afterward, but that toddler might have started wondering what was going to happen to him once they got called in.

Last week, Mia started smiling in her sleep. It's normal for the baby's first smiles to happen during one of their naps, according to the baby book that I keep next to my bed like a bible. It is also usually a sign that her first real awake smile is on its way, normally before the baby turns a month old. As soon as Mia turned 3 weeks, I started telling her that she's only got one week to give us that smile, and it had better be directed at the person who wakes up with her a million times every night and produces her nourishment. But nooooo, it wasn't a question of WHO did she direct her first smile at, but WHAT. She smiled at... my dresser. TWICE. (She smiled at it again on thursday morning)

One of her nap-smiles!

Mia also made her first visit to my office. I have started working again since the beginning of this week, and although it has been really difficult to find the time to do much, I've at least managed to get a couple of hours in almost every morning. She only consistently sleeps in the late morning, and that is usually when I try to sleep too. I have made two quick pit stops into the office, but this was the first time that she accompanied me. My co-workers were very happy to see her.

Tonight's milestone: first evening away from the parents.  Brian and I are going out for sushi with friends and Mia is going to a party with her Lola (aka my mom). I am excited for it, but am thinking it will probably be an early night!

Mia's 2nd week

Yesterday was Mia's 2 week check up at the pediatrician. I am happy to report that things are going swimmingly with her growth. Here are her two week stats:

Weight: 7 lbs, 12 oz (up 8 oz from her visit last week)

Height: 19 1/2 inches

Head Circumference: 35 1/2 cm

Mia at 15 days old

She is sort of all over the place in terms of percentile of her weight, height and head circumference, but nothing alarmingly low, nor high. She has lost her belly button stump, so her midriff is much more attractive than it previously was. She's got a very nice looking innie, and can start wearing dresses, bloomers and getting water baths rather than sponge baths. We've already been using her tub, but she'll actually be submerged starting tomorrow.

Mia's most fussy times are during our dinner, when she gets to lay nearby in her bassinet. She hears the dinner time animation and gets frustrated not to be a part of it, so here she is sitting on the table during our dessert on the night of my birthday. She has started making some smile-like faces, but we are pretty sure they have nothing to do with whether she is happy, but it's awfully cute anyway!

Mia's eyes are still a shade of blue/gray, and we are really hoping it stays that way, but we'll see. She still has the bump on her head from her extended time in the birth canal, but we are pretty sure it's starting to shrink. Hopefully it'll be gone by the time she takes her first plane trip to Chicago for the 4th of July.

My recovery is slow, but seems to be finally progressing. I only occasionally need my strong pain killers,  usually doing just fine with just my very strong dose of ibuprofen. Our night feedings are now about 4-5 hours apart, so my level of rest has been gradually increasing. Brian has been back to work since Monday, and thankfully, my parents are both still here helping out for a couple more weeks.

Tummy time! I can lift my head (briefly)!

Mia's First Days

Mia and I have been home from the hospital for nearly a week now. I am healing up fairly nicely, as far as I can tell, although I am still on my fairly strong pain killers. At this point, I really can't complain too much about my recovery speed, and my only frustration is that I still need the narcotics, which are preventing me from indulging in a glass of champagne.

Mia's second day.

Mia is doing very well. We are very lucky to at least be able to sleep for 3 hours at a time overnight. She fusses when we first put her down in her bassinet, but eventually she calms down and lets her parents get some rest. Brian is off work until Monday, so for now, we both get up every 3 hours. Brian first changes her diaper, and then I take care of the feeding.

Mia in her designer cardigan from Paris.

When we left the hospital, Mia had a slight case of jaundice, which is apparently very common in babies. She had also lost some weight, and was 6 lbs 9 oz when we came home. Of course, we were worried when her slightly yellowed skin didn't disappear quickly. Her first appointment with the pediatrician was a couple of days after we left the hospital, and we are happy to report that she no longer has jaundice, although her skin is still slightly yellow. We just have to put her periodically in some indirect sunlight and she pinks right up. She also put on a few ounces, and weighed 7 lbs 4 ounces. The pediatrician was very pleased that she recovered her birthweight and then some! I was pretty proud of myself for creating all that food! She goes back for another visit when she is 2 weeks old.

She makes faces.

Brian and I are also very lucky to have my entire family here with us. I was slightly apprehensive that it would be overwhelming to have so many people around while trying to get the hang of taking care of a newborn, but it's actually been very nice. We have yet to cook a meal or go to the grocery store since we've gotten home. Plus, Faby takes care of all the dirty diapers... just kidding.

Awkward Tito

Our little Swarley has had a bit of a difficult adjustment to no longer being the object of our cuddles, but he has come a long way since we first got home. He seems to be starting to get used to the idea that she is a permanent part of this household, and has taken to running to her whenever she cries. I think it's the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Trying to get a glamour shot for her birth announcement. Check your mailboxes for the finished product soon!