Leaps and Bounds

Here she is, a mere 18 weeks old, and Miss Tempest is more entertaining than any other baby I've ever laid eyes on.  (And I've seen me some babies between middle school and adulthood in my illustrious babysitting career.)

Of course I'm biased.  Most mothers would probably say the same of their own little goober.
The kid is a serious charmer.  Between her newly discovered love of belly laughs and high-pitched joy screams, to ripping ass at the most inopportune moments, she is a delight.  I am so in love with this little girl.

This shoulda been the new face of Gerber...

Among the new tricks she's picked up:

• Singing (see Elf: "I'm SINGing!  I'm SINGing!")
• Furious rattle shaking impersonations of Animal from the Muppets (this typically results in tears when she bonks herself in the face)
• "Tiger Lily" ugg-a-wug speak (hard to explain...just watch the Mary Martin Peter Pan and you'll get the idea)
• Attempts at signing "mommy" and "milk" in ASL
• An appreciation of high culture: namely Bizet's overture to Carmen (thanks to the Baby Einstein classical turtle, I've now downloaded the entire opera but the rousing opener is her main jam)
• Pout-pout face.  Hysterical.  Also sad because she looks very, very upset for no reason except it's usually around 8:00 PM and she's tired as hell because she sleeps maybe 45 min to an hour between 7:00 AM and 6:30 PM.  Seriously.
• Yelling, "Heyyyy you guuuuuuuys!" (Close your eyes and you'll hear Sloth from The Goonies.)
• Incredible She-Hulk chain breaking on her activity gym.  She whips that thing around like a jump rope and pulls with all her might.
• Inchworming.  Rhett loves when you put her down in her crib at one end and she winds up with her head against the total opposite end by sticking her butt up in the air and dragging her belly across the mattress.  Sometimes she manages to get her legs caught in the slats and that's what wakes her up.  Mesh crib bumper to the rescue!
• Stealth rolling.  We've covered this but she did it at 2:15 AM on Tuesday and neither of us saw it happen...foiled again!
• Holding her head up!  Most of the time!  She wants to sit on our laps facing outward now.  No more snuggly baby unless she's nursing.  
• Obsession with the "talking box, AKA the television.  She has noticed it and there's no going back.  Also, the "writing box" because now she's very intrigued by my online course shells.
• Teething: stuffing everything in her mouth, screaming in pain when it hurts and self-soothing with her fist, which she inevitably bite,s and then more screaming until we get the frozen ring or a milkpop.  Boy, does she make a mess with milkpops.
• Staring at Oscar and breaking into a wide grin.  Love that dog.

This week, we have our demo Music Together class to test out the East Brunswick location.  I suspect she will love wall the singing, shaking and banging.  We won't start weekly until March and by then, she will be sitting up if not scooting around.  Then, we have our intro to swimming private trial class to see if it's worth signing up for the group 6 week course.  Gotta start this little mermaid early so she can snorkel by the time we take our next bareboating trip...ha!

As we approach the depths of winter, my days are mostly merry and bright.  The sedentary newborn stretch is behind us and though I sometimes feel a pang remembering that completely dependent peanut who demanded to be worn around the house, I welcome this exciting new phase and all the challenges and discovery it will bring.

Making space

Spring cleaning has come early to L'ambiance Court. 

I find that at 17 weeks, Miss Tempest has outgrown all of her clothes from newborn through 6 months.  The child is just so dang long and lean!  Now I'm washing and drying, purposefully trying to shrink, her 6-9 month onesies just to give her something warm to wear in layers through the winter.

Pruning her closet was eye-opening.  People sure do love buying baby clothes but the wardrobe mostly stops at 9 months.  Some outfits she wore approximately once but hey, at least she wore them.  I know plenty of people (cough: certain family members: cough) who don't even know what their children own, let alone have the space to store all of the outfits they've accumulated over the years.  I have vowed to never let this happen.  Unless you stay on top of it, the closet becomes a rabbit hole and there's no getting out again.  Don't even get me started on the bins and bins of toys accumulated since Christmas.  All this for one child!  Who is 4 months old tomorrow! 

It was with a pang of wistful sadness mixed with a slight hint of accomplishment that I sifted through the baby clothes, now too small for Tess' growing frame.  Has it really gone by so quickly?  I lovingly washed and dried them all before packing them away in vacuum sealed space bags for...someday.  True, my baby girl is no longer the 6 lb 8 oz peanut we brought home from the hospital.  She actually got to wear newborn outfits for her first three weeks when most children start off life in size 0-3 months.  I held up the outfit we brought her home in: so delicate, doll-sized.  A new emotion washed over me: these must be worn again!  They're too cute to pack away for good.  I want another one.  Desperately.  I need to try for another baby - and pronto! 

I have always wanted to be done having children by 30.  Medical circumstances have made that self-imposed deadline an advisable goal.  I am now approaching 28.5 so you do the math. 

Pre-baby me used to scoff at women who warned me, "Believe me, you'll reach a point where you want another one, like, immediately.  This urge will overtake you and then one day you find yourself with 2.5 children."  Hahahahaha.  Smile and nod.  Sure...That's never going to happen.  

FALSE.

It did.  It did happen, like, immediately.  True story: Tess was about 5 days old and I actually said out loud to Rhett: "You know, that was way easier than I thought it would be.  I mean, my pregnancy sucked but it went so quickly!  Didn't it?  It felt fast and now she's here and she's perfect and I really want to do it again soon.  Don't you think we should have another one?"

...And a loud record scratch could be heard throughout the land.

Hormones?

Yeah, sure.  The blissful new mom thing is real enough but I was saying this after an emergency C-section, excruciating referred pain, disgusting full-body swelling, AND dragging our newborn to the hospital twice for blood work during her first week of life.  I really meant it. 

Motherhood agrees with me and I'm loving every messy moment of it.  It's a full-time commitment and I am fortunate enough to be able to make it, 24/7/365.

Here we are, 4 months into the parenting gig, and it really hasn't been that difficult.  Sure, there are good days and challenging days when mother and daughter barely get bathed/dressed and then change three times from all the fluids spilled/spewed/leaked over various body parts.  For someone who is lactose intolerant, I've never smelled like a one-woman dairy before.  There are days when poor Oscar gets all of ten minutes total outdoors.  But hey, that's life with an infant and it goes by shockingly quickly. I don't want it to end.  I don't want her to keep growing at this incredible rate because soon, she won't want to be held constantly and even sooner, she'll be tasting new foods like cereal and purees and she won't need only my milk to thrive. 

I look ahead to the next two months when we will begin to introduce solid foods and I get a little misty-eyed.  Just one year ago, we were waiting for our transfer date and here we are with a beautiful daughter who is determined to roll over, sit up on her own, and stuff everything she can grab in her mouth.  (She's teething, btw, and oh, is that an adventure.)  I'm not saying that a second child is a second chance to do it all again, though many people probably view it that way -- you know, righting rookie mistakes and that sort of thing.  A second child, for me, would be the ultimate gift to our first: someone close in age to grow up and grow old with, someone who would be a human sibling (sorry, Oscar) to share in the journey.  I don't want her to be alone unless that is how she's fated to be.  Not trying would not sit well with me.  And really, I'd go on having sweet, sweet babies forever if it were that simple but it's not so I two is plenty.  

There are no guarantees in any of this: I don't know if I can get pregnant again.  I hope I can, but we have many moving parts to monitor.  I'm not about to pretend that pregnancy was easy.  It wasn't.  It was pretty terrible from about 7 months onward.  I have not forgotten that.  I do not have willful amnesia.  The pain and frequent scares are still fresh.  Will I have some of the same complications?  Maybe.  Is that fair to a toddler?  Probably not, but there's no "good" time to do this.  My endo is fairly prohibitive for conception and I know that the time is now rather than later.  Biology is beckoning me to give it a go. 

We have our daughter and she is my everything.  If it doesn't work out, I know we'll be okay.  If it does, I will be elated.  Either way, it's a win.  We overcame the odds and our super frosty is asleep in her crib as I write this.  Maybe we'll be the lucky ones and get to do it again.  Just in case, I am making space in our home and in my heart for the possibility of loving someone else as much as I love my firstborn.  It's a tall order but I'm confident that if it's meant to be, it will happen. 

In Dreams

What could a 16-week-old possibly dream about? 

This question fascinates me. 

On my second dedicated day of school work/post holiday organizing, I've bundled Tempest and set her snugly on the couch next to me to sleep.  Every 5-10 minutes, she'll cycle cry without actually shedding tears.  She makes these soft, on the verge of crying coos (meh meh meh) and pouts her lips as if something is truly unpleasant.  She may grunt and let out a single, high-pitched "HEY!"  I hold her hands, caress her cheek, but she does not wake. 

So what could she be dreaming of that upsets her so? 

Some theorists think it could be reliving the trauma of birth.  Well, sure, that's a possibility, though we never remember the event in our conscious lives.  Could it be an infant's way of making peace with early distressing events so they can grow up and forget?  Maybe.  I would think for c-section babies like Tess, birth would be particularly traumatic as there are no contractions to move them down the birth canal to prepare them for the glaring spotlight of this world.  It's just warm comfort inside of mom and then...not.  Bright lights, big operating room!  From a psychological/developmental standpoint, birth is the single most stressful event in a young baby's life so I definitely buy the fact that she may possess memories she cannot process.
 
Perhaps she's dreaming of pain.  I hope not, but it's possible.  She endured multiple heel pricks in her first five days, her poor little feet being milked for all they were worth in order to fill multiple vials of blood.  I don't want her to remember that particular sensation but she very well may.  We can sense pain in utero, after all.  She's never been particularly upset by the vaccines at the doctor's office, though she does cry for a moment or two after the injections are given.  Or perhaps she's reliving the near-miss moment when Oscar accidentally kicked her shoulder when she was all of three days old?  Doubtful.

My theory: she has been refusing bottles since early December and every time we attempt to give her one, she screams bloody murder and chokes herself, milk pooling in her mouth and running down her chin.  I think she's dreaming that she'll never get to eat at the breastaurant again and therefore giant nightmarish bottles are chasing her in her sleep, forcing her to open wide or else.

We will never know for sure.  Her bad dreams are, sadly, hers alone to grapple with and because she wakes up happy and smiling, I am confident they aren't doing any lasting psychological damage.  When she does aim one of her megawatt smiles at me, I return it , glad to see my baby's eyes again, and open up the breastaurant for a little comfort food.     

Thankful

Happy New Year!  It's 2015 and we've transitioned from horses to sheep in the blink of an eye (even if Chinese New Year isn't officially until February.)

I have much too much catch up blogging to do so I won't call it that.  I'll hit the highlight reel of things I meant to write and move on.  No sense dwelling, right?

Thankful

Rhett and I had plenty of opportunity to reflect on the past year leading up to Tempest's first Thanksgiving.  Had things worked out differently - and thankfully they didn't - we were slated for a Day 6 transfer on Thanksgiving morning, 2013.  Our blastocysts simply weren't finished dividing their cells in time which is how we wound up with 7 frosties for a January 2014 transfer…and a hot mess of plummeting hormones on Thanksgiving day after stopping all injections.  That was a rough holiday and an anxious December spent waiting and waiting for January to just hurry up already.

This Thanksgiving was quiet and relaxing, despite an 11th hour oven malfunction that left us with two crockpots, the stove top, and the microwave to cook our feast.  It was staggering to think how far we'd come in just 365 days, staring at our amazing daughter who had learned to grasp a mini spatula just in time to "help out in the kitchen."

I will always cherish the time spent with my parents, just the six of us (including Oscar, of course), with nowhere to be but together.  We took Tess out on Black Friday just to get some fresh air and walk around Peddler's Village but that was it.  It was intimate and lovely.


Yuletide Progress

We'll begin with the mercifully shot-free 3 month well visit on December 19.  Tess measured in at 24 inches, 12 lbs 10 oz.  She is well on her way and making amazing leaps, including sporadic rolling over (about four times total now.)  I was not prepared for it happening this early but that's our daughter: she surprises us every day by displaying new skills she's kept secret from us.  She's only done it in front of an audience once but I'll leave the room for a moment and there she is, on her belly when I've put her down on her back.  Go figure.  She's a stealth tumbler. 

The very next morning, we loaded up the sleigh and pulled out at 5:30 AM to make it to Pittsburgh by lunch time.  The big family party was festive and overrun with exuberant children, and this year three new babies made their introductions.  Tess has two boy cousins, each three weeks apart, along with 7 older cousins whom she was finally introduced to amidst the merriment.

 Rowan (8/3), Emmett (8/29), Tempest (9/16)

I can imagine it must have been overwhelming for her to be held by so many people, big and small, but she coped fairly well.  It had been a long drive, after all, and I can't believe that she slept for more than 4 of the 6 hours, waking only to nurse (when we weren't parked at a rest stop, naturally.)

We spent an extra day at Gram's with most of the family coming back over for a Christmas open house.  I haven't seen my grandmother's home that full-to-the-brim since I was the youngest cousin running around, sneaking cookies.  It was a red letter day and I'm glad that we have those memories for Tess to cherish when she's older.

After braving the return trip on the turnpike, I started to feel that rundown oh, no...I'm getting sick feeling and sure enough, welcome Christmas cold.  This time, Tess and I got it together.  She was such a trooper to go to-ing and fro-ing with us for the next week-and-a-half, never once complaining, though the lack of sleep did catch up with her (and me) in the end.  The moment we got home, she fell asleep in her carrier and never woke up for her late-night meal.  She slept nearly 6 hours in her own crib that night.  Let the angels sing!

We spent a wonderfully foggy Christmas Eve in New Hope, followed by a Christmas morning that has set the bar so high, I shudder to think how we'll ever top it in the years to come.  After a delicious brunch, we headed to Haverford and spent Christmas night and Boxing Day among friends and family.  Oscar and Lily were shipped off to camp together and had the time of their lives, I'm sure, if their fatigue on the other side was any indicator.  I do wish Tess and I had been feeling our physical best but we made the most of our visits and the progress continued back to New Hope so we could all pile in the car at 3:15 AM to make our 4:03 Amtrak to Williamsburg, VA.

Well, that was an experience.  Nearly minus a Grandpap, who learned the hard way that the parking garage was closed at that hour, we just made the train.  It was no-frills regional rail but Business Class is the way to go for a 7 hour trip.  Leg room, proximity to restrooms and cafe car: so worth it. 

Tess became a professional traveler seemingly overnight.  She slept in her carrier until D.C. and then was as happy as could be with the rocking of the train and her freedom to nurse on demand.  Colonial Williamsburg is much as I remember it from 15 years ago.  It actually seemed bigger instead of smaller, as things do when you grow and they stay the same.  Perhaps it was because I am now a grown woman instead of a reluctant, be-costumed child, but I enjoyed the trip thoroughly.  Toting T around in her Ergobaby was a breeze and the taverns with their scrumptious seafood and fortified libations were appropriately festive.  It was wonderful to spend our third anniversary (and third year running) out of town seeing new sights.  Like my parents, we are fortunate to have a wedding date that straddles the holidays so we're never at a loss for activities.

Three days down Virginia way was perfect.  Though it would have been fun to stay through New Year's, I got my Fife and Drum fix, plus the weather had turned as frigid as it is now up north.  No, we most certainly did not stay up till Midnight on New Year's Eve, as we just arrived back at Haverford a little before 7 pm.  I barely made it through dinner but at an appropriate hour, I said my goodnights and Oscar, Tess and I passed out by 10:45.  Rhett joined us at 12:05, equally exhausted from our travels.

After a relaxing New Year's Day visit with the immediate family unit, we said our farewells to the California contingent, sad to see them go until the summer, and drove back to New Hope to meet Ken and Karen for lunch so they could meet the baby.  By 6:00 PM on January 2, home was calling.  Loudly.  Packing the sleigh to capacity, we drove off into the darkness, pleasantly surfeited on wassailing here and there for two weeks solid and so incredibly thankful to be heading home to sleep in our beds, safe and sound.

It was a blessed yuletide and one we will treasure forever -- even if we never attempt the same amount of travel in that brief time span again. 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and goodnight!

Remember, Remember

...to blog in November.

It has been an entire month since my last entry.  For shame!  I sincerely hope this is not the new norm so I'm going to blame the holidays with their onslaught of festive gatherings and ability to suck us into a mental vacuum of what to cook/bake/buy for friends and relations.  In short, there's a lot going on.  Too many dates to keep straight and visits to plan means this writing project got pushed to the side so here's a brief recap:

November 14: Tempest's 2 month well visit.  

• 11 lbs, 1 oz
• 23.5 inches 
• three vaccines she took like a pro

Milestones

• Thumb/finger sucking (though she prefers the entire fist)
• Chuckling - I can't quite call it a giggle, as it's deep and hearty
• No more gas drops/gripe water!  Huzzah! 
• Sleeping 3-4 hours at a go with only one nighttime feeding
• Um, sleeping in her crib.  That's a biggie.  Sure, she may co-sleep after 3:00 AM but at least she starts the night out in her own room.  

On November 16, her 2 month birthday, we attended the Austell family welcome party hosted by Aunt Liz.  Tess was the belle of her ball and much to our pleasure, we learned that she shines in social situations where she is passed from person to person.  Not a peep of displeasure out of her the entire time, except when she was hungry and let the entire room know it was time to feed.  How proud we were at her debut.  So looking forward to introducing her to my family at Christmas.

Whereby we venture out...

After her vaccinations, I felt much more comfortable taking her in public in limited doses.  Our very first mother/daughter sojourn was to Barnes and Noble to do a little Christmas shopping.  She was excellent the whole time.  Lucky me, thought I.  I have one of those babies you can cart anywhere!

Wrong.

Just last week I had the brilliant idea to take a quick trip to PetsMart because Oscar was out of food.  I also had to buy 6 month size sleepers for Tess so I thought, hey, why not make it a two-fer and hit up Babies R Us, as well?

Good thing I had the presence of mind to bring the sling because this child was having NONE of that car seat.  We walk through the doors of the PetsMart and she starts yelling and then crying.  I look around, not wanting to be that mom, and pick her up.  I try to soothe her in the aisle.  Nope.  She wants more breast (which she had just had not 30 minutes ago) so I grab a bunch of dog things in my own version of Supermarket Sweep, race that empty stroller, now serving as a cart, to the checkout and apologize to the clerk for my wailing daughter who is probably upsetting the cats up for adoption, as well as the small dogs being groomed.  Now I have to somehow stuff her back in the car seat, arms flailing and red faced, and shuttle her to the car where I can nurse her in private.

So that was fun.

I wised up and popped her in the sling and she was fine.  This is not the first time I've learned that she isn't always in the mood for her stroller.  I've learned the hard way in Johnson Park, over a mile from home, with nothing but benches in the wide open to nurse on.  I have also nursed her in KOP mall, in a Mexican restaurant, at the Porterhouse in Lahaska, PA, and yes, in the car twice.  I'm not shy, thank goodness, but I don't think I was prepared for such a demanding, pint-sized public exhibitionist.  Doesn't matter to her where we are!  She's hungry N-O-W.

So that's been an education.  I'm way more oh hey, do you mind if I whip out my boob now than I ever thought I'd be.  Good times.

Meeting Santa 

We went back and forth about taking our first trip to the North Pole.  Is she too young?  Does it matter if she remembers?  It's really for us, right? In the end, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision after Thanksgiving to visit the crème de la crème of Santas at King of Prussia Mall.  We did it up Mainline style and like total nubes, we waited 90 minutes in a line of Disney proportions, only to have her fall back asleep for the duration after nursing 60 minutes in...rookie mistake.  Oh well.  The result is adorable, I must say: a sleepy little elf nestled comfortably in the crook of St. Nick's arm.

Ah, memories.  Next year, she'll probably be one of the screaming toddlers who totally loses their sh*t when they approach the big man's throne.  There was plenty of that to entertain us during the wait.

Now it's two weeks into December and I can hardly believe her 3 month birthday is next Tuesday.  Three months?!  This child is growing faster than I can blog about it.  I am looking forward to her upcoming milestones such as rolling over and sleeping through the night (maybe?).  We got extremely close last night with a full 6 hours of her sleeping in her crib.  I'm pretty sure that counts as through the night but I won't hold my breath for a repeat just yet.  I woke each time she had a nightmare or started grunting, thinking ok, this time she's really up but each time I checked on her, her eyes were firmly closed, even if her little head was wedged up against the slats of her crib.  She moves around a ton at night so I'm thinking rolling isn't too far behind...

Oscar is loving how alert little sister has become.  She now tries to look at him when he stands over her during tummy time and it's sweet to think how much mischief they are going to get into once she's on the move. 

First Cold

Well, we made it to Week 8 before our Sweet Potato caught her first cold.  It's inevitable, I know, but you can't help feeling super guilty that you couldn't keep her in a bubble with temperature controlled sterile air.  :(  Luckily she hasn't had a fever and the coughing/sneezing has been minimal.  Aside from glassy, weepy eyes and a bit more congestion than usual, her appetite is much the same and she's smiling and cooing when she's not sleeping (which is admittedly more frequent as she fights the infection.)  Oscar the owl, the baby humidifier, has come through for us and with a dash of peppermint oil, he's created a soothing sick room.  A little extra cuddling and unlimited kisses also seems to help.  I read that most babies catch 7 colds in their first year so let's hope this is as bad as it gets...

In other news, we're all looking forward to the myriad of festive occasions as we introduce Tempest to family and friends.  This means we needed some new seasonal wardrobe items for all three humans in the family. 

Men have it easy.  Babies, too.  Nursing mothers?  HA!  Hahahaha clothes in my closet are useless right now.  Useless!  Unless it's jeans/leggings or a giant tunic, it doesn't pull/zip over my boobs.  I got remeasured because I couldn't understand why I kept popping out of two of my larger nursing bras and let's just say I've crossed over into Playboy territory.  I didn't even know they made bras in this size and I certainly didn't know that I'd be wearing something that resembles an early Victorian medical harness to keep me decent.  I was always the girl with the unremarkable, appropriately sized, small-to-medium bust.  Where did these grand tetons come from?!  I'm now on the hunt for anything that comes in stretchy fabric with the perfect modest v-neckline.  Can't do turtle necks, crew necks, or boat necks without looking like I might just topple over.  Falalalala.

So there you have it: in between snot sucking with the NoseFrida and wiping the boogers out of Sweet T's eyes, I'm doing lots and lots of online browsing because nothing would suck more than subjecting myself to an actual fitting room.  :shudder:  The next hunt is for a winter cape unless I want to be walking around with unbuttoned coast all winter.

6 Week Check-Up

Somehow, inexplicably, it is November 1.  When did that happen?  I feel like we just brought our Sweet Potato home from the hospital last week.  It has been 6 full weeks today that we've been living as a family of four.  I'd say we're pretty well adjusted at this point but every day brings some new discovery or new tweak to the "routine" - a term I use loosely - that it is futile trying to be rigid in our schedule.  I'd say we have a general outline of behavior and activity and as long as everyone is sleeping a bit and eating enough, we're good to go.  Bring on the holidays!

Wednesday was my postpartum appointment so I drove the 45 minutes in rush hour to get my clean bill of health.  It was nice to see Tempest's announcement up on the (very crowded) wall of babies.

 

Can you spot it?  Hint: upper left hand side.

Seeing Dr. Garfinkel again was a nice full-circle medical experience, even if I miss Dr. Convery after seeing her pretty much weekly up to the end of pregnancy.  I showed him a picture of Tess in her skeleton costume and he laughed.  Then we talked through my options for keeping the endometriosis at bay and he decided that for me, the lowest dose combination pill will be most effective.  Usually, women in my situation who aren't actively trying to get pregnant in the next 6 months will take a progesterone only pill if they are breastfeeding but he gave me Lo Loestrin instead which is a relatively new BC pill with only 10 mg of estrogen.  The addition of the low level of estrogen will not affect my milk supply but it will be more effective, in his opinion, for preventing the regrowth of cysts or adhesions.  I asked Dr. Garfinkel what my innards looked like since he saw inside my pelvis most recently and he didn't seem terribly concerned that there had been any significant regrowth from my IVF cycle.  Yes, my ovaries are pinned behind my uterus and attached to my bowel but we knew that.  I have two sample packs of the pill that I will try for the next two months and see how things go.  Did I mention I won't get a period until I "want to have one?"  That's kind of amazing.  Fingers crossed! 

I don't go back to see the gyno (weird to say "gyno" and not "OB" now) for 3-4 months and then after that, just for my yearly pap.  It will be strange not driving up to Morristown all the time.  What will I do with myself?  This shift is as profound as they say: once the mother is declared fit and life for her resumes as normal, it's all about the baby.  You, the vessel, have healed and the primary concern becomes the little life you brought into the world.  I honestly count my blessings that I was more or less back to myself a week after giving birth.  Thank you, universe, for that bit of good fortune.  In the words of the good doctor, "You're back!  You can now do whatever you want to do."  (That's code for green lighting marital relations among other recreational activities.)  Good stuff.

In other events this week, Tess wore all four of her Halloween outfits beautifully.  She was a rock star during the seemingly endless photoshoots I subjected her and Oscar to - he was pretty amazing, as well - and now we can annoy the hell out of friends and family by posting one million photos of our gorgeous children on facebook.  

 Happy First Halloween!

Yes, the very thing I swore I'd never do, I'm doing.  I've converted to mombook, minus the incessant status updates that no one wants to read anyway, and I can't really say I'm sorry.  Like it or not, facebook is the chief mode of photo sharing in my social circle and it's certainly how my extended family stays in touch, as no one seems to pick up the phone anymore other than to text photos to each other.  A sign of the times or laziness?  Doesn't much matter but I've had to swallow my lofty ideals about not having a digital footprint for my infant daughter if I want anyone to feel like they are a part of her life and get to know her across the great chasm that is the state of Pennsylvania.  (Don't get me started on that.)

With her first major holiday behind us, we have two biggies coming up and as well as two group family introductions that will serve as debut parties for Miss Tempest.  In short, after a month-and-a-half of hibernation, we get to dress her up and show her off.  The child has no shortage of clothes or smiles, that's for sure.  Once she physically meets people, I think the online stuff will start to feel less bizarre and disconnected for me.  The bottom line is, Tess is a real live member of two families now, even if we don't see each other all that often.  I want her to form relationships that will grow into a tangible network of love and support to last a lifetime.  She'll be melting adult hearts and cooing to her older cousins in no time.