Victory! 

Great Leap Forward

Dora slept in her big-girl bed (as we call it) for the first time last night. She has been considering it for some time now, but up to this point she always had us put her back in her crib. She also took her nap there today, so we are looking forward to bidding the crib goodbye.

Daddy ventures once again into the realm of baby-feeding

The books say that one should introduce the bottle to the breastfed baby some time between four and six weeks, in order to reduce the likelihood of "nipple confusion." To this end, I gave Julia her first bottle this morning.

I'm actually an old hand at this since I took care of Dora two days a week after Margrethe went back to work. Still, it takes a bit of convincing to get the baby to believe that milk is going to come out of this silicone thingy, so I had my work cut out for me.

Margrethe and Dora we're off trying to go to a gymnastics class at the time, so I was on my own. By the time I got the milk thawed, Julia was quite cross with me. When I tried to put the nipple in her mouth, she made a face like I was feeding her vinegar and started rooting around trying to find the REAL nipple. After a few tries, though, she caught on and started sucking like a champ. She made it clear, though, that she was not fooled into thinking that this was as good as Mommy.

Look at the size of that noggin!

Julia had her four week checkup today, and her head is off the charts! She is 75th percentile in weight, 50th in height, but above 95th in head circumference. She looks like she has a regular baby head to me, but Dora has a huge melon too so my standards may be off.

The last few nights Julia's gone 4-5 hour stretches between feedings, and we're hoping in another couple weeks she can go 6-7. That would be very nice for her Mommy. Daddy pretty much sleeps through the whole thing as it is.

Sunday in the park with Dora

We went to visit Millennium Park with the grandparents today, and had a very nice time. The park itself is a very impressive collection of public art and well worth visiting if you're in Chicago.

Dora loved the big silver bean (called the Cloud Bridge if you're interested) and wanted to spend all her time looking at herself in it. She also had a great time splashing in the fountains.

We had a very nice lunch at the Park Grill and after initially throwing a tantrum Dora was very well-behaved. Julia was her usual charming, sleepy self. In a few months it will be much harder to take her to a restaurant, so we're enjoying it while we can.

Dora playing in the fountains 

Dora, Mommy, and Mormor at Millennium Park 

One meeeelyun dollars!! 

Julia looking contemplative. 

Dora at the Farmer's Market. In the sunlight her hair looks almost blonde. 

Dora has friends!

For the first time ever (that I can recall) Dora said she wanted to go to daycare instead of stay home with Mommy. She said that she would miss her friends. This is an amazing change given that even a few weeks ago she said that only Adam was her friend, and the other kids weren't. We've gone from only one friend to wanting to play with all of them more than Mommy!

Julia napping (pretty much all she does) 

Dora with pigtails! 

Reports from the nap front

Dora took a 90 minute nap today, which is good news. She is taking a while to fall asleep again tonight (you can probably guess when I usually write these.)

Julia is being very good to us at night, for which we are quite thankful. I still feel like she is easier than Dora was, although it's hard to say for certain. It's possible we are just more accustomed to being awoken at night.

The Nap Wars

Dora did take an hour nap today--shorter than her usual 90 minute standard though--so we haven't quite gone beyond the point of no return. She's fussing again before falling asleep and is still waking up at least a couple times a night.

Before you have children, you hear various "horror stories" about out-dated child rearing practices like slipping some brandy in the baby's bottle to get them to sleep, and you think to yourself, "How awful and generally unelightened they were back then." Or something to that effect.

Once you're on the other side of that Great Divide, though, you start to think, "Brandy, hmmm... Don't have any brandy. I wonder if vodka would work just as well..."

The quest for the perfect browser

There's a significant advantage to having one kind of browser in the world; web page designers only have to support one standard. Unfortunately, the de facto standard is Internet Explorer, which although a competent browser, is hardly ideal. Microsoft has just released a new version along with SP2 that still doesn't incorporate tabbed browsing. I consider this a must have. Once you try tabs, it's hard to do without. At least it finally has a pop-up blocker.

Right now I'm running Avant through its paces. It starts with a significant advantage since it's built on top of IE. Although it doesn't render pages as fast as Firefox, it renders more of them more accurately. As is true of so much in life, it all boils down to tradeoffs.

The jury is still out

I was all set to report that Dora's new "no naps" campaign was resulting in better sleep at night when tonight she decided that she wanted to sleep in her new big-girl bed. So far she's spent nearly forty minutes fiddling with the blinds and generally not sleeping.

On the one hand, we really want her to give up the crib and sleep in her new bed. On the other hand, giving up her nap means that she really needs to fall asleep quickly in order to get a reasonable amount of sleep.

If she falls asleep before too long and sleeps all night in the new bed, that will be some sort of breakthrough; but if she's going to stay up in bed (as she's done routinely for months) then I don't know what we'll do.

Can we survive without a nap?

Dora has decided that she isn't going to take a nap anymore. She hasn't napped for the last three days, and it's possible she may give it up for good. We're making her lay in her crib quietly for 90 minutes, and putting her to bed early, but we can't really make her sleep.

According to our book on sleep, 91% of 3-year olds take one or more naps a day. Yet another way Dora is special!

Keep your fingers crossed for tomorrow at daycare.

And baby makes three

Margrethe is going to stay home with the Two Girls by herself for the first time tomorrow. Last week I worked from home, but this week I have too much going on to manage it for the whole day.

It should be quite an experience for everyone. A trip to the library is planned. I actually think it should go fine, but you never know.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Never wake a sleeping baby. 

Big Yawn! 

Two week checkup

Julia had her two week checkup today and is A-OK. She has gained 16 oz in the last 10 days, whereas the normal gain is one oz per day. She's really packing it on, which is good for us, since the bigger they are the longer they can go between feedings.

Julia is 50th percentile in weight, 75th (ish) in height, and 90th in head circumference! A true Montgomery! We thought she might be a little light in the cranium department since she was only 75th when she was born, but she's caught up in admirable fashion.

Free to Be You and Me

We've been listening to "Free to Be You and Me" lately. Margrethe and I both listened to it as kids and thought Dora would enjoy it. In retrospect, I'm kind of surprised we had it in my house, although I seem to remember that we got it from the library. Margrethe's parents were lawyers for Legal Aid when she was a kid, so it's logical that they would have it. Mine both volunteered for the Navy.

Listening to songs written in 1972 as an adult in 2004 is an interesting experience. Ninty percent of it is about gender roles and identity, which wouldn't seem to be such a rich subject for a kid's record. I was also mildly amazed to hear Alan Alda's voice on some of the numbers. At the time I had no idea who he was; turns out he has a very nice Broadway voice.

On the one hand, there's been so much progress in internalizing some of the ideas of the songs--women being able to have any kind of job they want, for example--that the whole thing seems hopelessly dated. And yet "William's Doll" seems as far-fetched now as it did when I was a kid. The whole premise of the song is that five-year-old William wants to play with a doll because one day he'll be a father, and fathers need to know how to care for babies. Fathers taking care of babies is definitely established in American society (or at least in my house) but I bet you there aren't two boys in this whole country who are asking their parents for a doll so they can practice being a daddy. It just ain't done.

Right on schedule

Julia is two weeks old now, and right on schedule is getting gassy and starting to fuss more before settling down to nap. If someone could develop some kind of vent that you plug into newborns to help them toot, that person would be richer than Bill Gates.

I've often speculated that the proof that there is no Devil (or at least, that he doesn't buy souls) is that he doesn't show up at the house of every couple with a newborn. Like shooting fish in a barrel! "Where do I sign? In blood? Sure, just hand me that knife."

It's a Gas

Julia kept us up a fair bit last night, and I suspect the reason was gas. At one point around 3:00 AM after much fussing and rocking and swaddling, she gave out a huge toot and then conked out for three hours.

We went through the same thing with Dora and never could figure out what was causing it. The books say it can be something in the mother's diet, but we couldn't find any link. They even have baby Mylanta (actually Mylicon, I think), but it didn't help.

Dora is still behaving pretty well, but threw a total fit this morning when Margrethe fed the baby. Some clear signs of jealousy are showing.

Things are going relatively well with the Two Girls

Dora is now somewhat proud of her scratches (or Monster Spots, as she sometimes calls them -- a Sesame Street thing) and Julia is only waking up twice a night to eat.

Julia is really packing on the weight; she's already well above her birth weight and will probably be eight pounds next week. I am keeping my fingers crossed that she will continue to be an easy baby.

Dora seems to be adjusting to having a baby sister pretty well. I'm sure things will get more interesting when Julia is big enough to take her toys, but I'm hoping that Dora will be out of the Terrible Twos by then and a little more understanding.

The excitement never ends

Although we've been much more concerned about Julia lately, Dora has had her own bit of drama this weekend. While playing in her grandparents' backyard, she managed to run into then fall on top of a rosebush. I quickly picked her up off it and plucked the thorns from her skin, but it was quite a scene.

The speedy application of Neosporin and jelly beans seemed to calm the patient down and provide some measure of relief. We told her the medicine would make the scratches get better faster, so this morning with some amazement Dora said, "My scratches are still here!"

Mini-Dora

I'm a bit amazed at how much Julia looks like Dora did at the same age. Slightly thinner, not quite as big a head, but overall very much the same. Her temperament is quite different; she's more alert, a better eater, and generally easier to take care of than Dora was.

I can't wait to see how she looks in a month. Maybe all of them start out the same and then diverge.

Ready to go!