bebe gets down

all these were taken within the span of a minute or two. she's a busy sleeper:

smiles

up until this week, beatrix's smiles (which, as you know if you follow either this blog or a little wave, have received extensive photographic documentation) have come at one of three times: at the onset of sleep, during or immediately after nursing, or after a poop. they were heartbreakingly adorable, but were not in any sense of the word social. they were expressions of her own, self-contained feelings of pleasure. just in the past few days, bebe has begun smiling at other people. this is a most welcome development as it does what we thought was impossible: makes her even cuter and more lovable. there is, however, one facet of this new social smiling with which her mother takes issue.

bebe has two parents. one of them spends every waking moment with her, attending to her every need: holding her, comforting her, changing her wet diapers, providing age-appropriate stimulation and entertainment (e.g., time on her play mat or simple repetitive songs), and producing for her the perfect food in the perfect amount from said parent's very own body. the other parent, without loving bebe any less, and due only to the fact that bebe needs a roof over her head, spends most of the day at work. while he does a phenomenal job of comforting her in the evenings, and of changing diapers (apart from that one time the other night when he forgot to put a waterproof cover on over the cloth diaper), the fact is that at this point in bebe's life -- and this fact is inescapable for us, given the realities of co-parenting when one is the breastfeeder -- he does much less caretaking.

now, who do you think gets all the smiles? i'll give you one guess.






(to be totally honest, she did smile at me twice yesterday. and it was amazing and melted my heart. but still, daddy gets the lion's share of those bright-eyed, crinkly miracles. it's so unfair.)

i got a new camera

and unlike my old camera, it takes great pictures. see for yourself:

ok. i'm really excited about it. anyway, on to the daily update.

aunt marge was here for the last three days. she spent a lot of time holding bebe so that mommy could get stuff done around the house.

bebe sure loved it!

we were all sad when it was time to say goodbye.

thanks, aunt marge. we love you!

kate and jack came back for another visit on their way out of town. at one point, kate and i looked down to see jack, gently holding bebe's hand and shaking it up and down while teaching her how to cheer for the hometown team. "let's go red sox!"

and at the end of the day comes bebe's favorite time of all. daddy time.

playing!

so, i've posted pictures of bebe on her play mat before. but the truth is that before now she really hasn't done any "playing" to speak of. she'd lie under there just long enough for me to take a picture or two and then start to fuss. just in the past week, though, her vision seems to have developed dramatically. she'll now spend a good 15-20 minutes turning her head from side to side, looking at the animals and cooing. she does sometimes hit them with her hands, too, but i think that's just a coincidence.

the second-best part about this development, besides how fun it is to watch her grow and change, is that it usually gives me enough time to eat some breakfast before she needs to be held again.

weekend update

shoot. barely a month in, and i've already lagged on daily posts. i have a good excuse though: we took beatrix on her first road trip this weekend, to her grandparents' house in western mass., and the combination of the trip itself and being out of her routine and usual space sure threw poor bebe off her schedule. which led to a very fussy lady and a very tired and overwhelmed mommy and daddy. i barely took my camera out of my bag all weekend. i do have a few photos to share, though...

on friday, before we left, we had some visitors. i started babysitting for nolan and andrew when they were 4 and 2. they are now 14 and 12. that's some tough math -- you can try to figure out exactly how long i've known them if you want. all i can say for sure is that it's been a long time! these guys, along with their mom beth and their dad tim (who didn't make the trip out) have been some of my closest friends ever since. nolan and andrew made bebe some awesome onesies which will be featured prominently in future photos, once she grows into them.

beth held bebe for a long time. nolan and andrew were curious, but a bit put off by her tendency to spit up large quantities of partially digested breast milk.

on saturday, bebe got some good snuggle time in with her uncle ben.

bebe and daddy spend lots of time looking at each other. except for the glasses and the binky, it's kind of like looking in a mirror.

mommy and bebe recovering from the weekend.

it's good to be home!

baby straitjackets and cloth diapers

a friend recommended the swaddle-me to me. "this saved our sanity," she said, "not to mention our marriage."


it looks like a medieval baby-torture device, or a restraint system for psychotic infants. the first time i tried putting bebe in this, a few nights ago, i felt awful. but -- she slept for FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT. and the past two mornings, i've put her in the swaddle-me and put her down in her crib wide awake. she talks to herself for about twenty minutes, then falls asleep for a nice long nap.


i am a swaddle-me convert.

i've also been meaning to write a post about cloth diapers. i originally decided to use cloth because it's so much cheaper. the estimates i've seen are $2000-$3000 for disposables over a child's diaper-wearing life, versus $300-$800 for cloth. (not to mention that cloth diapers can be used for multiple children -- not that we are planning on another, don't you dare even ask.) we certainly don't have any extra money, so using cloth diapers (and cloth wipes too) was one way to make having a baby affordable for us. even better, i set up a registry and my mother bought the entire thing for us! so, the only money we have spent on diapers and wipes so far is the $3 per load it costs us to wash them.

the environmental factor was really just a side benefit for me. i mean yeah, sure, i recycle and i get on josh's case for wasting water (the man takes the longest showers of anyone on earth), and i buy environmentally friendly cleaners and organic food whenever possible/affordable, but i don't usually go out of my way to do what's greener if it means making my life harder. once i read that the disposable diapers you take off your baby and throw away will still be sitting in a landfill when your baby's great-grandchildren are born, though, i felt even better about our decision. (disposable diapers are the third largest source of solid waste in landfills.)

now that bebe is here and cloth diapering has become a daily -- almost hourly -- reality, as opposed to a cost-benefit analysis about some abstract future situation, it's neither the financial nor environmental factors that make me most glad we made this choice. every time i change her diaper and i feel the incredible softness and absolute and total lack of chemicals of our diapers, i am just so glad that they are what is up against her bottom all day and night. (disposable diapers contain, among other things, the carcinogen dioxin and sodium polyacrylate, the super-absorbent substance that was removed from tampons in 1985 due to its links to toxic shock syndrome.)

not to mention how fun and cute the brightly-colored covers are, and how adorable her big baby booty is. there's a reason we call her missus lady bubble-bottom, you know.

i don't mean to preach and i certainly don't mean to come off as though i judge folks who use disposables. i totally get the convenience factor and if we could afford it, i might well have gone that route myself. i've gotten a lot of "why on earth would you use cloth?" type questions though, and just wanted to explain that i don't think we're crazy for doing so.


in other news, bebe marie has officially discovered her hand.

and at her one-month checkup today we learned that she has gained exactly two pounds since birth. thanks to nothing but this:

my little nursling.

another visitor!!!

today mommy's friend dan came over to meet beatrix. he brought her her first red sox cap! despite her grumpy look in this first photo,

she was actually quite comfortable with him.

in other news, i am somewhat sorry to report that we have turned to the binky when all else fails to calm our bebe. i tell you, those things are like baby valium.

i just don't like how it covers up her cute face.

put up yer dukes!

grunty mcginity, featherweight champion of the world.

(i mean seriously, people. sometimes this kid is a little too much.)

monday's child is fair of face

four weeks old!