Hairstyle Adventures

Oh no, Annie has cradle cap! (A common baby condition, involving flakey skin on the scalp). I just discovered it on Thursday, and that night did an olive oil treatment, which is supposed to help. It did help with the flakes, but it also let to a surprising side effect - permanent mohawk! Annie seems to be sticking with mohawk as her new style, it has stayed like this for two days now. Too bad we didn't know this when we planned her Halloween costume, she might have planned to be a punk rocker instead of a ladybug. Here is a before and after photo, so you can appreciate her new do.

My little bobble head

There was a Groupon recently for a make your own bobble head. For just 30 dollars, you send in a picture of yourself (or your best friend, or brother), and they send you a bobble head of that person. Awesome, right? I was very tempted, but ended up not getting it. No worries, though - turns out I have my very own bobble head, already in my house! This would be better demonstrated if I'd taken a video of her attempt at boppy sitting, but she has a cold, and thus, limited patience for photos. You'll have to take my word for it that the wobbling of the head was pretty entertaining. I guess it's still too early for the Boppy.  We'll try again next month.

Santa Cruz Hike

Annie and I drove to Santa Cruz last week with my friend Mary, and her baby Lilly.  Here are some pictures of the great hike we took at Wilder Ranch State Park.  Lilly and Annie are super hikers!  Both babies took naps in their packs while we walked, and only cried when they got hungry, or when they thought we were walking too slow.  They enjoyed looking up at the leaves on the trees whenever we stopped for a rest or snack break. Hooray for getting out of Mountain View for a day!





Here was our lunch spot under a nice shady tree.


Lilly is more of a rock climbing baby, but she seemed happy to consider tree climbing as an additional hobby.



Annie likes to travel in her Bjorn, which makes for some sore shoulders and back the next day.  I'm hoping she'll be big enough for her Ergo soon.

A few more cute shots

More tummy time

I get emails every week from Kaiser and from the "baby center" website that tell me what my baby should be doing, developmentally, each week. This morning I felt guilty, because it said Annie should be lifting her head up when we do tummy time. Truth is, I forget about tummy time almost every day (or "forget", because usually she cries when I bother to do it). So we maybe do it once a week. But no worries...as soon as I put her on her tummy today, Annie lifted her head right up! Do you think she read the email?

Just for Uncle Mike...(my baby safety consultant)

What do you do when baby falls asleep on her boppy?
...you let her take a nice nap on the couch, of course!

Tummy Time!

It's nice to have a buddy to look at during tummy time. Thanks, Bert! Poor Bert feels like he is a little neglected since Annie came to town, but he is nice to her all the same. He always sits with me while I feed her, and he comes and gets me if he hears her crying during the night. Let's hope he still likes her as much when she learns to chase him, and pull his tail!

Bouncer time

Annie is looking at the monkey on her Fisher Price Rainforest bouncer chair. She loves this chair, and will sit in it happily while I shower every morning. In these shots, I have the base of the chair covered with a blanket. If the blanket weren't there, you would see that the chair is decorated with lots of jungle animals, like frogs, and parrots, and...giraffes. Giraffes?! Is anyone else bothered by this? I'm pretty sure giraffes don't live in the rainforest. (That's not why the base is covered, though - most likely someone had recently spit up on it, and I hadn't had time to do laundry yet.)

New (borrowed) camera

I've borrowed Uncle Dan's camera the past week, so I have a bunch of great shots to share. Annie moves much too fast for my point and shoot. Here she is, getting some kisses from snoopy and from mommy.

Who's the cleanest baby?

Annabelle is!

Good Morning, Caterpillar!

I love that no matter how rough a night it has been, Annie wakes up all smiles and cheerfulness and with cute stretches.  She has some smiles for me, but mostly gets excited to look at the stuffed caterpillar that hangs over her changing table (not pictured here).  She loves that thing!  It's been there for a month now, but she just noticed it this week.  This video is a little long, but I thought you'd want to see how cute she is waking up.

Edit: it seems the video isn't working reliably, so here is a youtube link to the same video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2irKJp_udA

Let me know if that one gives anyone trouble, too.

2 months old!

Despite good intentions at the start, it's been a long time since I've posted here.  Turns out, taking care of a baby by yourself is HARD!  I got spoiled while Nana was here, but since she left, I've been using any free seconds to shower, brush teeth, and eat, and it hasn't left any time for blogging.  Annie went through a fussy period from about 5-7 weeks where she would demand to be held and bounced ALL day long.  She's reliably happy if I put her in the Baby Bjorn and walk around town, but usually would cry if I tried to sit down to use the computer.  So I've been off pacing the streets of Mountain View, and only catching up on emails on my phone while feeding her.  Luckily, I live in a very walkable town, and also only one block from an exercise trail, so it's been easy to keep on the move.

This past week Annabelle has started spending more time awake without fussing, and also starting sleeping better at night, so hopefully I will have an easier time of it, and can post more cute pictures of her here.  I also borrowed Uncle Dan's SLR camera, so hopefully in future posts will be able to share even better pictures.  Annie moves too fast for my phone or point and shoot cameras!  I keep getting blurry shots, and have a hard time capturing her smiles.  But here are a few pics to tide you over until I can upload the ones from Dan's phone...

 Our first family portrait!  (Taken by Nana, before she left).

Often in the morning, I try to convince Annie and Bert to snuggle in bed for a few minutes instead of getting up.  Bert is usually agreeable.  Annabelle usually refuses to sleep anymore, but uses the time to practice her wiggling.  She's getting really good.  In fact, she's doing a lot of wiggling on my lap right now, which means it's time to eat, and I'd better go...