Pictures!

Here they are, in multiple albums.


Vi's Birthday, End of July: Click HERE

August, Eustis, Pool, Summer: Click HERE

September: Click HERE

The first week of October: Click HERE

As promised...

Pictures taken by Dan...

http://picasaweb.google.com/linzwalsh/March162009?feat=directlink

Pictures taken by Noelle....

http://picasaweb.google.com/linzwalsh/BostonMarch2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCJjV57jT_azSXg&feat=directlink

Enjoy!

Cabin Fever!

I think we've overcome our technical problems with the new camera! Here are some of the best pictures of Vi so far this year:


http://picasaweb.google.com/linzwalsh/CabinFever?feat=directlink

And some silly time for you:

Ready to Spring Forward

Maybe it's been colder and snowier than usual, but I am so looking forward to Spring. Every night when I place scraps of food in our compost bin, I get excited in my head about it. My reason? I can't wait to put in our garden. True, this year it will have more meaning for us to plant, grow, and harvest our own food, for pennies on the dollar we would spend buying produce at a grocery store. That is a very big piece of my anticipation. I really look forward to getting my hands dirty, smelling the earth, and the satisfaction of eating a cherry tomato right off the plant. One of my favorite memories of last summer is of Vi picking yellow beans and cherry tomatoes; she would wander around the backyard with her new-walker waddle, munching on something fresh.

The other reason I am excited? This will be the first summer in 10 years that Dan will get to spend with me. TRULY spend with me. Two years ago he managed to take two weeks off, straddling Vi's birth. I'm still not sure how that was made possible! Managing a boating supply store in the summer required, usually, 60-plus hours a week on his part. There were days he wouldn't see Vi awake at all - isn't that heart-breaking? I simply cannot wait for beach days and picnics - with my husband and daughter (and maybe Riley.)

Happy New Year!

Here are some photos from my sister - just a select few; I'll post a picasa album later this week.

A moment with Dada.

With Grammy and cousins, saying "Make a silly face? If Addie's not, I'm not."

Don't worry, Addie's vital signs were being monitored by Grammy.

Being a Big Help to Grammy.

More baby sweetnesss.


My new favorite photo...ever.

Vi's first sledding adventure!

Mmmm...snow.

Christmas and December 2008 in review...

It's hard to believe the year is almost over. I do believe 2008 has been one of the most challenging and rewarding years of my life (so far.) I'm sure I'll have to take some "time to reflect" before New Year's Eve. For now, though, here's what we did in the past couple of weeks.



Many of you know that Maine was hit hard with an ice storm recently. We were without electricity for just over 24 hours at our house, but family members were without power for 3 and 4 days. Others in the state suffered for almost a week!



We heat our home with oil...our, I should say heatED. This summer Dan refurbished the boat and sold it, making enough money to install a chimney, hearth and wood-burning stove, plus buy enough wood for this winter and possibly next. The installation has been a struggle to say the least. We had a contractor lined up to do the whole project - he had great references, a good price, and Dan really liked him. He showed up with rusty, used parts that were not even the right size to meet code. There was no negotiating to happen with this guy, so he left and wouldn't return our calls. Thank goodness we hadn't given him any money. It was another month before we had someone else lined up, and he was a total administrative nightmare...he wrote down our information as Stan Welch, and kept getting our street name and family names mixed up...I actually told him that I was Stan's wife at one point...ha! When it was all said and done, he did a great job in little time for a great price.



Dan decided to build the hearth himself, which was a big leap of faith for me. Half-way through that piece of the project, our neighbor offered some advice, training, and help. In the end, he built the entire hearth in exchange for driveway snow-blowing for the winter! What a deal. The hearth was useable but not beautiful JUST in time for our power outtage, so we were toasty warm. We cooked on the stove, heated up water for baths, and dried hand-washed clothes on racks in the living room. We felt like frontier-folk. We were *almost* sad when the power returned.

Popps decided to do his physical rehab here in Maine, so he arrived shortly after Thanksgiving to a nursing home about 20 minutes North of us. We've been visiting him a lot, and he's been making great progress. He's using a walker and a wheelchair, doing his exercises, and seems to have made peace with his PT after a rocky start. He's hoping to return to NY soon.

Vi has had an action-packed month. Between OMT for last month's ear infection, eczema, and a tummy bug, she's been in and out of the doctors' offices too many times to count. Her ears are all cleared up, and she started a growth spurt just after a four-day BRAT diet. The eczema still hasn't cleared up, so we visited the homeopathic doctor last week. She thinks that it's not an allergy, but a wrecked gut...from the antibiotics last month for her ear infection and the tummy bug. She is helping us cure this from the inside out with Cod Liver Oil, ProBiotics, and a homepathic remedy for her general constitution to help her immune system get balanced. Plus, she's having us eliminate dairy and soy for a bit, just to help along the process. (Goat and Buffalo are fine...we're sticking with Goat's milk, since Buffalo milk sounds revolting and wrong.)

New words that she's trying out: help, hot, down, cup, sit, ball, eyeball and all gone. All gone is a good one - it comes out sounding like the Law & Order chime - Ga-gong!

Her "receptive" language is still thriving - she seems to understand more than we realize. She is also using her signs as much as ever. New signs include train and rabbit. She can point to her body parts, too, so we're singing a lot of "head, shoulders, knees and toes" lately. We've been asking her lots of questions and trying to improve her ability to constructively use all of these tools. So, lots of fun stories are to come, including:

My brother's family was in town for the holiday, and poor baby Addie has started teething. There was a lot of crying in the past couple of days. (Which made Dan and me realize that a baby's cry is loudest to the baby's parents. Funny what perspective does.) Recently, Addie gave up the pacifier/Nuk/binky/bubba. I asked Vi if Addie had told her what she needed. (I sort of think the little ones actually understand each other...any research to prove that? I'd love to read it.) Vi nodded her head and said, "Yeh." I asked her, "What does baby Addie need?" Vi responded, enthusiastically and unprompted, "Bubba!"

This is one of those stories that's hard to tell without sounding judgemental, so I want to be clear that Addie's doing great without the bubba, does not need one, and I'm not suggesting they try to give her one! The Bub is one of those areas each parent has to make their own choices about, and I know how much I dislike uninvited advice. JD and I were comiserating about strangers giving us advice in public...so strange. That's the easy advice to shirk. Intra-family advice is harder because the advisors are witnesses to your choices. It can be hard to not take it personally, when parenting methods are not the same. I know we have different rules about bubbas and TV than my sister's family, and that sleep and slings are big differences between me and my brother's family...but you know what? It doesn't matter. I mean, of course it matters that one parents mindfully and makes these decisions with the overall health of all the family members being a priority, but it doesn't matter that we do it differently. These kids are all growing up loved and taken care of, with a great big family that loves them. That's all that matters.

Another word that Vi definitely understands is "scream." If you say the word, she willingly demonstrates. How can such little lungs make so much noise?

Christmas was great. We did our usual multi-family run-around - three families in one day. Vi got lots of new books, a table & chairs set, an emperor penguin, clothes, shoes, and money for college. I got clothes, a Kitchenaid mixer, slippers, and lots of sleep. Dan got a leather jacket, books, iTunes gift cards, and gift certificates for shoes and a wood-carrier. We got money for our oil bill, too, which is great...we'll have hardly spent any of our own money on oil this year! With a bunch of gift certificates combined, we also got a new camera. (RIP our Sony.)

My sister was here with her kids, and we got to go sledding, watch Prince Caspian, play with the electric train, draw and decorate cookies. The kids all did some disco-diva dancing at my dad's house that evening. I am hoping we have some video to post, because it was pretty hilarious. There will definitely be lots of great pictures coming from Noelle.

And, today, it's back to work. Just a 3-day work week for me, so I should really be plowing through my to-dos rather than writing in my diary...

Happy New Year to all of you!

P.S. 8 days until Birthday.

Post 101

Today was a perfect, wonderful day.


Preceded, of course, by a delightully long night of sleep, gifted to me by my precious daughter who went 7 (SEVEN!!) hours without needing us.

It's getting cold here, in Maine. Dan and I have been using a blanket and two comforters at night to stay warm - which has been, I admit, overkill to the point that we kick the top comforter off in a sweaty fit around 2 am. Still, it's cold enough that we THINK we need two comforters. Vi, like most babies, I'm told, kicks her blankets off. Dan's theory is that she's waking up cold. So, we purchased a "sleep sack" last night. Here is a picture of someone else's baby sleeping soundly in the sack.

You already know that Vi's first night in a sleep sack went very well.

This morning, Dan went to the kitchen to make cofee around 7:30, and took Vi with him. They snuggled and read books while the coffee brewed and I snoozed. We had warm beverages in bed together, snuggled, giggled, and loved the pets. When we were ready to get up (read: Vi started climbing down from the bed on her own), we all padded around in PJs and Dan made buckwheat pancakes.

**IS THAT NOT THE PERFECT START TO A DAY? Coffee/Bottle in bed, DaddyCakes in PJs. PERFECT.**

We then went about our typical morning routine of books and percussion instruments, intermingled with dog-kissing and shrieking. We ran a few errands, then headed up to Wolfe's Neck Farm for a pumpkin hay ride. We saw chickens, turkeys, sheep, and cows. We even saw what one woman described as a "bunny mixed with a bison," but in reality was just an extremely ugly and fuzzy rabbit. The hay ride was on a big wagon pulled by a tractor (I was hoping for horses), and we went by the cow's pastures and past a wonderful view of Casco Bay. Today was a crystal-clear, warm yet crisp, blue-sky Autumn day. We ate apples and picked pumpkins and ended up watching brand-new baby cow learning to walk by its mother.

We went to Brunswick to have lunch with my dad and help him move some heavy stuff around the house, then came home for work/naptime. Vi slept for a good two hours while Dan and I took care of housework/work-work. I made the best pizza ever, talked to my grandmother on the phone, then sent Vi off to bed happily.

Now, once I'm done posting these photos, Dan and I are going to watch Miami Vice. Ooh. Not a great date movie, but hopefully it will be fun in some way. Here are some photos from the last few weeks.

(Oh, you may notice that Vi now has bangs. I got tired of the losing battle with barrettes.)

http://picasaweb.google.com/linzwalsh/October2008#

Ah-choo!

I don't understand some kinds of perfume or cologne, or at least the level of application thereof.

Why would one want to smell like a bed of roses that just did ten tequila shots? Smell-able FROM ACROSS THE ROOM?!?


(This crazy venting inspired by the UPS delivery man who just left me in a sneezing fit over his apparent love for what seems to be women's perfume.)

Fun on the Slide (or the Slalsh)

A limerick for Vi, composed by my good friend, Kristin, of dishwasher loading fame:


VIG-o-la HIG-o-la BAD-en-hop WALSH
Went to the playground and slid down a SLALSH.
A "SLALSH" is a slide
That's funnest to ride
With VIG-o-la HIG-o-la BAD-en-hop WALSH.



Kristin visited us this summer, and accompanied us on one of Vi's first trips to the playground. She also fed me and did my dishes. Kristin is my oldest friend, and never fails to impress me with her compassion, empathy, common sense, kindness, silliness, and intelligence. She also is a great shutterbug:

Sitting on the floor, laughing

This is what we do.

Dan and I sit on the floor, and watch Vi wander around the house. We hear her silly soliloquy of thoroughly-enunciated nonsense words, and repeat the noises back to her as if they were real words and we're seeking clarification or remarking on her insight. It often sounds like "Philadelphia Gilda Radner Lovenox?" or "Botox Zimbabwe, uh-huh, I know..." She stumbles around, tries to run, chases the dog, casts us a knowing glance with nose wrinkled, kisses the cat, pauses for a snack, then keeps moving. She's VERY BUSY. She seems to be saying, "Are you getting this? I'm hilarious."

Vi has three official words, in order of frequency:
1) Woof
2) Meow
3) Down (which comes out as "goooowwwww," always slightly growled.)

"Meow" started out as "now," with a long, drawn -out but not stuttered "n," said in the sweetest tone of voice. "Woof" comes out whenever she hears a dog barking - which, in our neighborhood, is very often.

Vi has picked up on some sign language, too. Some of our friends are doing the baby sign language thing, some are doing ASL...we're not REALLY doing either. It looked really interesting, so I decided to try a couple of signs that I looked up online at http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi. Obviously, we started with dog, cat, and down. She picked up dog within three or four days, and started using it for everything furry. She would point at a cat and sign dog while saying "nnnnnow." So, we started showing her the sign for cat pretty diligently. She resisted for a long time, then suddenly, this weekend, she got it. Down is pretty easy - pointing down. We also looked up food, more, water, airplane, mother and father. She will sometimes do the food sign, will usually repeat the sign for more when we ask if she wants more while signing, and makes her own special hand-in-the-air gesture whenever she sees a plane.

It really amazes me, how much she is learning, how much she can learn, how much she is innately capable of doing. Some times we are too tired to chase her, so we literally just sit on the floor and allow ourselves to be entertained. She was so silly tonight - crashing into things then giggling, walking around holding a book in front of her face, chasing the dog, screaming out the back door, climbing over and around me...at one point she fell down on her bum and just started laughing. I couldn't help but join in, and we went back and forth giggling at each other for several minutes.

Suddenly I don't have a baby - I have a child. And she cracks me right up.

Hurray! Pictures from my sister!

Once again, I have an amazing collection of photos to share with you, thanks to my sister.



In July we put on a baby shower for my sister-in-law (who is now proud mommy to Addie!!). Vi was all dressed up and extra-silly for the party:

Vi and Mama all gussied up.

Super silly.

Aunt Noelle not only took pretty pictures, she also brought Vi her first birthday gift. Vi was more than a bit tickled over her new Purple Bear.

She loooooooves Purple Bear. She snuggles Purple Bear. She kisses and hugs Purple Bear.

(Seriously - all the time. She freakin' loves this fuzzy guy!)

Vi in her party dress, standing over the air vent.

Here are the rest of the pictures for slideshow viewing:

http://picasaweb.google.com/linzwalsh/NewViPictures#

Thanks, Wellie!!!!! XOXO

Birthday Season!

We have been very fortunate to remain friends with several couples from our prenatal education classes with Birth Roots and Portland Yoga Studio. Two of the babies have recently celebrated their first birthday, so we have gotten lots of baby-pile fun-time. I walked into one party, and there was a baby I hadn't seen in six months, standing in the middle of the room with her mom's purse over her shoulder. I was already doing a double-take of how grown-up she looked when she started WALKING towards me.

The past year has gone by so fast, and here we are, throwing parties with cupcakes and Cheerios, and hoping our little ones get covered in frosting. (Yes, I said hoping they DO get covered. We're just that kind of people.)



Here's a picture of Vi, stunned with glee at the TOYS! BABIES! FUN! at this weekend's party:

Weekend on the Cape

Dan, Vi and I travelled to Cape Cod for a family wedding this weekend. The wedding was sweet and short, and the reception was hoppin'. For the meat lovers, the filet mignon was apparently TO DIE FOR. We stayed in a cool condo in a little wooded area in Mashpee - Cape Cod Holiday Estates. I would highly recommend this place if you're travelling to that area! We had a two-bedroom unit. It had a master bedroom with a huge bathroom - jacuzzi, shower, high ceilings - and a second bedroom with two twin beds and a 3/4 bath. Full kitchen - FULL = table to seat 8, full-size fridge, oven, toaster, coffee pot, microwave, DISHWASHER. Living room with sofas, coffee table, desk with internet access. Sitting room with TV and a pull-out queen-size sofa bed. I don't know how this is possible, but it was only $120. Clean, nice, and, oh! I forgot - a deck with a grill.

My friend Bonnie came up from RI to watch Vi during the wedding. Had it not been for the other 250 guests, Dan and I would have had a real date. :-) After the event, Bonnie and I stayed up and watched Footloose! and whined about silly boys. Some Hagen Daaz would have completed the effect.


Other than that, same-old, same-old. We're both working hard. We have 3 more weddings this summer, and too many birthdays to count. Dan's prepping the boat for sale. That's right - not for S-A-I-L, but for S-A-L-E. (Know anyone who wants to buy a cool 16-foot outboard runaround?) We're selling it so that we can install a wood-burning stove, since oil prices will force us to choose between starvation and frostbite this winter.

Vi is growing fast. She really wants to be walking, but isn't quite there yet. She will do animal noises - when she wants to. Her piggy impression is quite good. She's trying hard for a good elephant sound, often succeeds at a very clear Woof or Quack, really enjoys trying a Cock-a-Doodle-Doo, and can definitely do the fishy noise. When I say, "What does the rabbit say?" She immediately turns her head to look at me twitching my nose and making a toothy face. Apparently the rabbit says - Don't worry, Momma will do it.

Here's a video of her latest specialty:

(Disclaimer: I was behind the camera, so many of you know what that implies about the quality of the film. For those of you who don't know...my apologies. Yes, I know it's sideways. yes, I know it's dark. Sorry, sorry.)

A few more pictures from this Spring.

Crazy hair
Playing with the fur pelt at Dan's parents' house:

Uncle Jasper, also playing with the fur pelt. Sorry ladies, he's not really that furry.

Vi playing with her Cheerios. Trouble ahead.

Trouble DIRECTLY ahead.

Long time, no write!

It's been a very long time since I had a spare moment, and chose to use it writing here. So much has happened!

Vi is crawling and cruising (for you laypeople - that means pulling herself up into standing, and sort of walking around while holding onto furniture). She is babbling, still. As you can see below, she is pointing. At everything. All the time. Sometimes, she points up with both hands, then cocks her head to the side and shrugs. Talk about cute!! When she's crawling away from me, I say, "Excuse me, Miss?" and she stops, turns, giggles, then continues along her way. As if to say, "Yeah? You talkin' to me? Talk to my taillights, 'cuz I'm outta here." She still emits a loud, crystal-shattering shriek whenever Mitten saunters into eyesight. (She also made this noise at an airline stewardess mid-flight. Almost made her spill my tomato juice.)

We drove to Westwood, MA for a bridal shower two weeks ago. Vi slept the entire way there and back, and was great at the party. She oohed and aahed as Haley opened her gifts. She flipped through her ABC board book. One of the games at the shower was for the bride to answer 'trivia' questions about the groom. One question was "what book is Jared currently reading?" The correct answer was, "He's not reading anything right now." Someone piped up and said, "That baby's reading more than your fiance'!" Okay...you had to be there. Funnier in the moment.

She really IS reading a lot...if you put a pile of toys and a pile of books in front of her, she will paw through the books first.

One thing she's not doing is sleeping well. Not napping for me during the day (she napped for a brand-new babysitter the other day, but for me? No.) and certainly not sleeping through the night. Not "sleeping like a baby" at all. Whoever came up with that phrase is an idiot. We've tried the go-to-sleep routine. We've tried the let-her-cry for just-a-minute routine. We've tried keeping her in bed. She just won't give us a real pattern to follow, or try to adapt! When one starts to emerge, so do four new teeth, so she's up in pain. Or she'll get a cold. Or a vaccination. I know how tired I am - I haven't had more than a dozen full nights of sleep in 18 months! She must be pretty tired, too. Not sure where she gets all of her giggling and crawling energy from.

She's eating a lot, too. Avocado, carrots, potatoes. Pears, apples, blueberries. Oatmeal, barley, rice. Bread, Pirate's Booty, Cheerios. She has days when she insists on self-feeding, and others when the spoon can't get from mouth to bowl to mouth fast enough. She has six teeth - four on top, two on the bottom. Her toothy grin keeps getting cuter. She was "kissing" Dan last night (this involves a lot of drool and a slimy baby tongue on your cheek) and decided to chomp down on his cheek. He has a big red mark from it! And yes, I'm still breastfeeding. No injuries to report.

Grammy (my mom) is back to feeling herself, and has been coming to watch Vi twice a week for the past couple of weeks. She'll continue doing one day a week, and may stick to two if she wants to. Vi crawls towards her, screeching and smiling, every time she arrives.

Other family news:

Dad had a 1.6 cm kidney stone lithotripsied-out two weeks ago. Suddenly his back doesn't hurt anymore. :-)

Steph is showing and glowing, as she should be! I forget how beautiful a pregnant woman can be!
They'll be moving back to NYC after the baby comes - JD first, for work, then Steph to follow.

Ben has started T-Ball, and Noelle is the coach. (Co-coaching with Mr. McHotty.)

Noelle broke/sprained her foot the other day.

I broke a toe the next day in sympathy.

Dan is super-busy with work again. It's that time of year - he works in retail, for a marine supplier. His weeks have gone from a standard 45 hours to about 60+ hours. He doesn't get paid overtime, and there are days when he leaves so early and gets home so late that he doesn't see Vi at all. I know it's a good job, but it seems like other people would do this "paying your dues" thing for a couple of years to get ahead...and we just keep paying and paying and paying, and getting further behind. And we miss him. It's hard being a single mom for a few hours each day - I can't imagine doing it full-time.

After a long search full of FRUIT LOOPS, LUNATICS, and FLAKES...we finally found a mother's helper/babysitter to come watch Vi on my work-at-home days. She's got a great attitude, is super-helpful, has great instincts with Vi, and Vi loves her. Feet-kicking, screeching and pointing when she arrives. :-)
Work has finally levelled off for me...funny how childcare has helped me get caught up, eh?

Spring is finally here - the lilacs are in bloom, my tulips are all up (well, the ones that remain after the squirrel pillaging), the sun is shining..! Springtime in Maine is the best. We got our inaugural ice cream cone a couple of weeks ago. It's so nice to get out, too. Even a quick stroll around the block, or just sitting on a blanket in the grass, is such a much-needed change of pace. Summer will be here soon, and it's a busy one. We have four weddings (well, 3 weddings and one Civil Union) to attend, seven family birthdays, one anniversary, several friends' and babies' birthdays, lots of fish to catch, squash to grill, weeds to pull, and grass-stains to get. I'm dying to get Vi into a pool somewhere, too. She has a couple of swim suits already...yes, I'll post some pictures. :-)

She's still asleep, so I should really be getting some work done, some laundry folded, some dishes washed...something.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. Looking forward to seeing some of you as you come to Maine this summer!!!

Authorship of photos

Just to be clear, any photos of me and Vi were not taken by me, and credit should be given where credit is due.

So, thank you, anonymous and humble photographers in my life. Thank you.

Vi in her many moods

So Thirsty.
So Happy. (So cute. So monkey-like. So sweet.)
So Serious. (So overwhelmed with Christmas festivities)
So Sleepy.

So cool.
So relaxed.
So silly.
So intellectual.
So...I don't know. Everything goes in the mouth nowadays.

You can also see pictures here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/linzwalsh/5MonthsOld

31 Weeks (2 months left)

We had the Most Delightful Holiday Weekend Ever. You know how all long weekends end with the sentiment "I don't want to go back to work tomorrow," no matter how much you love your job? It usually feels like "I need a vacation from this vacation, I'm so tired, I just can't bear the thought of working tomorrow!" Well, this time, as we fell asleep on Monday night, we both felt the "I don't want to go back" part, but it was more of a "I just want more of this" feeling instead.

We ate a lot of ice cream.
We played with our dog.
We boated and fished.
We played with our family.

Best of all, we lay in the grass on our front lawn, under the maple tree, just taking in the most perfect weather of all time, with Riley at our feet grinning and wagging and resting along with us. It was, to be entirely accurate, delightful.

One of my other favorite activities this weekend was our brunch at Joe's Boathouse in South Portland. (If you've never been, you MUST try them for brunch. Not dinner - dinner's fine, but their brunch is wonderful. If you're a benedict person - definitely ask for a crabmeat benedict, and tell them exactly how you want your egg poached.) My brother and his girlfriend were visiting from Boston, so most of the local family members met there on Sunday morning. I accidentally told one of my brothers the wrong time, so he got there early and got us the best table out on the deck. Not only was the food delicious, the conversation hilarious, and the setting gorgeous, but I was on a "I'm so proud of me" sort of high....

Dan and I rode our bikes there.

That's right. I rode my $5 Goodwill-purchased classic beach cruiser (that means it's old, heavy, and has only one gear) the entire 3.1 miles. I'm going to go ahead and toot my own horn, because I just think it's so cool that I (a non-athletic person) rode the aforementioned bicycle (pretty, but rickety) 6.2 miles round-trip.

Now, I would be proud of this feat normally. I would be bragging about it to people who are more fit than I. I would be grinning ear to ear.

Add to the equation that I'm 7 months pregnant, and my thighs bumped into my belly with every pump on the pedals, that I'm about 25 pounds heavier than usual, that I've got twice as much blood pumping through my body...et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How proud am I of myself?!? (So proud. My ears hurt from my big grin.)

Mom and George spent the day on Saturday helping me paint the nursery. They did most of the work. (Wow - can my mother ever cut in! Like a pro.) The room is now the perfect lilacy-colored purple, and is almost ready for furniture. The changing table is on order, and we've picked out a crib. I will probably need a chest of drawers, too...we'll see! I'll put pictures up when it's furnished.

Here's the news on baby Vi:
Your baby measures about 16 inches long. She weighs a little over 3 pounds and is headed for another growth spurt. She can turn his head from side to side. Of course, she doesn't yet understand that this movement means "no," but you'll be surprised how quickly she picks up on that and other gestures after she's born. The fat layer she's been accumulating for the last few weeks has caused her arms and legs to fill out nicely.

We have an ultrasound scheduled for June 4th - I'll get those pictures up ASAP.

Favorite moments...

This morning, Dan came back to bed with a small cup of coffee for me. Riley hopped up and stretched out in between us for a happy-dog snuggle. Mitten climbed up and sat on the headboard, inspecting the situation. Vi started her morning laps, and we just stared and stared at the way my belly goes bump-bump-bump every time she moves.

There's nothing, NOTHING, quite like starting the day with the whole family piled into the bed, all warm, cozy, sweet...and fully present in the moment.

Here is the meat from this week's email from BabyCenter.com:

Your baby weighs about 5 ounces now, and he's around 5 inches long — about the size of a large onion. The umbilical cord, his lifeline to the placenta, is growing stronger and thicker. Your baby can move his joints, and his skeleton — until now, rubbery cartilage — is starting to harden into bone. Some of it will remain cartilage for years after he's born. A newborn's skeleton has 300 parts (a combination of bone and cartilage). As your child grows, some of these parts harden and fuse together. By the time your baby reaches adulthood, he'll have just 206 bones.

This weekend Dan and I drove to New Jersey to visit my sister and her family - husband Drew, son Ben (5 1/2) and daughter Lolly (2 1/2). The drive took a bit longer than usual, what with the extra pit stops and all... Plus, we had to try out Dan's new Garmin Streetpilot 330, which will establish the best route for your trip, and recalculate a new route if you miss a turn. We discovered how handy it is, but the one thing it's missing is the reassurance of a familiar route! The unit needs to say, "Don't worry! Even if you have no idea where we are, I DO."

We crammed in as much play-time with the munchkins as possible...bowling, Twister, Crazy Eights, and Ice Age: The Meltdown. We had dinner Saturday night at a Hibachi grill Japanese steakhouse; Ben's eyes just got bigger and bigger as the chef tossed around pieces of chicken and build onion volcanoes. (Dan had to close his eyes and go to his happy place, as he realized the chef was re-sheathing his raw-chicken tainted knife over and over again...)

Sunday evening Dan ad I watched the kids so Noelle and Drew could have a date. Throughout the evening we experienced moments of pure fun, sweetness, and exhaustion. Bribery with ice cream was used. Tag-team diaper duty was a true contact sport. The most fun was when Uncle Dan and the kids had an improvised game of Twister involving hiding under a blanket, running around, shrieking, yelling, laughing and a variation of bear wrestling. Even Riley got in on the action!

Monday Drew and Noelle pulled out all of the potential hand-me-down baby gear. (Score!) We loaded up the car with as much as we could take without completely blocking the rear window view. Looking at the baby clothes was the best, though...I know it will be nothing like playing dress-up, but, man! are those little outfits sweet.

The weekend was really good and fun and restful overall. For me, I had a lot of "Am I ready for this?" anxiety. I realize baby-sitting and being the visiting Aunt is different than the 24-7 job of being a mom. On the one hand, you get to hand them back at the end of the day. But on the other, there hasn't been the day-to-day strength training to build up stamina! I just know that as much as I love, love, love being an aunt (it takes compulsive shopping to a new level), being a mom is going to be one of the most challenging and rewarding and tender blessings in my life.

Thanks, Noelle, for always giving me a taste of the sweetness to come. (And all the baby booty!)