Katsuke

For those of you who do not have facebook, I thought I’d share this little something.
I think it’s pretty neat, although it does fit with what Nathan says in that she looks just like me and there isn’t much of him in that face.

Full view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26QcPcYSkIk

She’s been awake almost constantly since eight this morning, and wiggling the whole time.

Little thing by little thing, Alia keeps growing and learning.
Today she’s been experimenting with finding her voice. We just sat and listened to her coo and gurgle and whatever you might call babies non-word vocalizations. At first I honestly thought she was choking and ran over in a panic to see her very happy and very much in a breathing state of being. It was all so soft sounding and so low, it was weird to hear anything coming out of her that wasn’t a “AHHHHHHHHG” food call, or an “aahn” attention call.
We also had a false call on rolling over yesterday. I had rolled Alia from her back to her stomach and in a minute or two I see her ker-flop back to her back. She did move all by herself, but she hadn’t pulled her arm back out from being rolled over so she could easily kick off the couch to send herself onto her back. She can’t roll over on her own though because she can’t by herself pull her arm into the rolling position.

But the best news is that she’s learning that nighttime is sleeping time. Last night she had two four hour sleep bits, and the three previous nights she’s slept for bouts of 6 1/2, and 7 hours. I think she might have slept longer if I hadn’t woken up and become concerned that it had been so long… and might’ve made a little bit of noise in trying to get into the second bedroom and see if she was breathing.
I’ve been feeling a little bit better rested lately.

December has been very full so far. Alia has been awake a lot more, and has begun responding very positively to entertainment. The flip side of that is that if she’s awake and not being entertained, she is not a happy baby. That doesn’t mean always that she cries, but that she’s not a happy, smiling, baby.
Some things she really enjoys:
Floating in water (with assistance of course). I held her up in a tub filled with enough water that she could feel the buoyancy and Alia was trilled to pieces, after a short bit of confusion.
Slightly related is her love for being tossed, the half second of weightlessness is enough to put a huge smile on her face. Any higher and she doesn’t like it, but little tiny tosses are very welcome.
Pulling hair. This is new, as in she just learned it on Monday, but after she figured out how to get a hold of my hair it didn’t take long to realize it could be played with as well as held.
And lastly, motor noises. Not real motors, but the sounds we make to approximate the sound of motors. Anyone doing this amuses her, but if her daddy does it… then it’s the best thing in the world as far as we can tell from the amount of smiles it makes.

We also used some of her birthday money to buy a mobile bassinet. We had a few instances of spit up getting through the protective pad and dirtying the couch, so we picked up something that was a little easier to clean. One really nice thing I found about it is that even though there is only one mattress cover with it a pillowcase works just as well, tuck the corners and you’re good to go. Another good reason is that we no longer have to worry about the cats getting too caught up in their games of chase and running over her. A couple times they got close and saw her and, fortunately, stopped dead in their tracks, but one day it could have happened.

I started watching the new Doctor Who, it’s a little cheesy, but it’s fun. The acting is pretty good (fun British accents too), the effects aren’t painfully horrible, and the character interaction is hilarious.

The cats are getting along very well. They won’t touch “that noisy thing” voluntarily, but are perfectly fine being around her now. Samson even will sit on my lap while I’m holding Alia. She on the other hand finds them vastly beautiful and will watch them, and try to touch them if they get close enough. Samson doesn’t seem to think that it is a good idea and will walk away, but Geordi will let one touch/smack go - though any more and he also walks away. I have been very pleased with the cats, they have shown no real signs of jealousy or hostility, mostly alternating curiosity and apathy.

For all my Anne loving friends you might find this amusing.
http://www.girlamatic.com/comics/monkeys.php?view=single&ID=7329

And this was just after I HAD to re-read Anne for the first time in years. After the first reading I read at least Anne of Green Gables a couple more times, and the the other books as I deemed them needed. But I don’t think I’ve read them since I was 16.
I’m about halfway through collecting the whole series, but it comes slowly as there are libraries and other such things (ie friends books).

I also want to re-read Harry Potter, Tam Lin, and Dune.
And I have Count of Monte Christo, Tom Saywer, and a whole bunch of other books waiting for my eyes to read them for the first time.
On the other hand, I am getting through books now so there is the possibility that that list will diminish in good time.

My biggest dilemma now is reading vs pictures as they both take time, but with such a nice subject the pictures are taking temporary priority.

It’s positively amazing how much easier and less stressful it is to do laundry every day. Before the need to do at least one load (although sometimes a small load) every day or live with the odoriferous consequences, the laundry basket would pile up and pile over until the weekend when I would have the time to do it all at once. Then I wouldn’t fold anything until all the loads were out of the drier, and the pile on the bed was not fun to look at after a day chock full of cleaning (also a weekend job).
In other words, I saved all the dirty work up until it had to be done all in one day or drive me nuts… but it would be big enough to tire me out too much.
On the other hand I haven’t had to do laundry every day the last couple days as Alia has been neat enough to be on her third change of clothing that hasn’t been necessitated by accidents.

Regarding smoothies. If there are no soft fresh fruits to use, or even if there are and you feel like adding something extra, a bit of yogurt makes a very nice addition to the making of a delicious smoothie. Also, it adds good live culture bacteria to an otherwise already healthy snack.

And another little tidbit. World of Warcraft sent me a free trial (with my existing character, awesome!) to try and sucker me into buying it again. I thought, why not use it for free? I know I can’t buy it, so there really isn’t any temptation to start out with. The thing is, right now it’s nice to play for 30 mins… maybe an hour at a time, but there are things to be done while there is a sleeping baby. And when she’s awake, I’d much rather be talking/singing to her, walking her around, and satisfying her curiosity (and my love of watching babies).
WoW has nothing on babies!

I love baby watching!
Watching her find her thumb (or attempt to), watching her blink and blink and finally fall asleep, watching her kick in her sleep (so much more amusing now that it doesn’t involve my ribs), just whiling away my hours in looking.
This little girl loves sleeping on her right side and will try anything to be able to do so. Put her on her left side to sleep and she’ll roll to the right. Put her on her stomach and she’ll flail and wiggle and try to roll until she wears herself out and has no choice but to sleep. It’s the cutest thing, and I’m in no way bias or anything…
She smiled at us. A real smile! I didn’t think it would be easy to know because she kept smiling through facial exercises, but it was easy to tell. And when she was tummy down on the floor this morning I talked to the back of her head and she picked her head up enough to turn it to look at me.
And so happy me is going to go take a nap before making dinner.

As we had nearly run through the entirety of our size “N” diapers I decided it was time. Time for the cloth diapers that is.
I got everything ready. The diapers were by the changing station along with the pins and the rubber pants and the diaper pail. My only concern was the rubber pants, they were the smallest size and still looked a little big around the legs. I tried though. Alia has a hard enough time being naked and changed in the first place; she doesn’t like it and fights and kicks and then balls up tiny, which makes it hard to get paper diapers on. Trying to put pins in while getting kicked in the hand made me very nervous (it’s been about 12-13 years since I’ve done this), but I did it! The diaper was even decently snug.
The pants were a problem. Little Alia has little skinny legs that left the rubber pants with a good 1/2 inch open all the way around her legs. I still gave it a shot and put her to sleep on the couch with a changing pad and extra diaper under her so the couch was safe. It was good I did because those holes in the pants only kept the tush of her sleeper dry while the legs were soaking wet.
Cloth diapers are now on hold until her legs fatten up, and until then she’ll just wear the bigger paper diapers that look big but still keep the wetness contained.