I haven’t taken the time to look it up, but week 6 to 7 seemed like a big transition week for our girl. She really started interacting with us a lot more through smiles and playing. She throws her arms around and kicks her legs – she loves playing on her play mat. As previously discussed, she successfully made the move to her own room and her big(ger) girl crib. And finally, she really got to know (and love) her Grandma and Grandpa. All in all, a great week in the life of Maile!
Wait, what's going on here? You're going out without me? NOOOOO!
With Grandma Jill in town, Chris and I decided to take advantage and hit the town for our first date night. We got all dressed up, made sure Grandma had a bottle of Chris’ finest, kissed our baby girl and headed out for an early dinner. I surprised Chris and took her to Boulevard – one of San Francisco’s best. I hadn’t been since college graduation – 9 years ago – and I was excited to go back with Chris.
A great date night meal at Boulevard!
We had a fantastic meal – the food was just as good as I remembered. They even gave us a little treat on our dessert congratulating us on making it through our first meal away from our girl. Of course, we mostly talked about Maile – but she’s a fun topic.
A nice touch to our dessert from our waiter...
Speaking of Maile, she and Grandma Jill did just fine. A few tears were shed and apparently four diapers were changed, but our little girl was just as we left her when we returned home. Grandma Jill hit the sack early, so I think its fair to say Maile kept her on her toes!
We had a great weekend with Maile. She is really starting to interact with the world a bit more. She stares at her animal friends and her flails seem to have a bit more direction. This morning (Sunday) she was all smiles and “chatting” up a storm. We played on her jungle mat for awhile – I can tell its only going to get better and better!
The nipple seems to work the same (although I think its a little more rubbery.
But that’s definitely not my mommy!
Hey daddy, didn't realize you were capable of this. Cool beans!
(Dad note: Last week we started introducing Maile to a bottle. So far we are doing one bottle a day. She’s been great with it – which is good news all around. I get to help out with the feedings – which is pretty cool (although I imagine I will think slightly less cool, when I get tagged with the 3 AM feeding). Chris gets a bit of a break and we have a lot more freedom to travel around the city and visit people.)
A little blurry this week – ah well! Maile was fussier than normal this weekend so I guess the blurriness equates to us all being a bit tired. More pictures to come from Maile’s week 4 adventures in the coming days – for now we are hitting the sack early so we can prepare for the week ahead.
But I’ll leave you with what might be my favorite picture yet of Maile & Mommy…
I’ve written previously about techniques we’ve tried to quiet Maile down. I’ve been working on a new one lately, that I think holds some promise. We’re still in the early stages of perfecting it – but should it prove to consistently work, I may need to put out my own DVD and start making boo koo bucks!
File this in the “strange baby behavior” category. Maile is absolutely fascinated by these two maps we have framed of New York City and San Francisco hanging over our couch. She LOVES staring at them.
Since we were looking, we decided to teach her a bit about the big city – showed her our favorite neighborhoods and where we used to live…
Learning about New York City
I read somewhere that baby’s like the contrast between black and white, so we’re pretty sure she likes the black frames against the white walls. (As proof she also likes Chris’ hair against her face and was also fascinated by Marc L’s eye brows!)
But that explanation aside, who knows – maybe she’s a NYC girl at heart?
Sorry to everyone for the lack of posting the past few days. I went out of town for the weekend to help two good friends celebrate their wedding. I was actually asked to be the officiant (check out the shot below for a view of the setup – it was an amazing time – congratulations, Gwen and Ben!)
Not a bad setup for a wedding, eh? (Minus the guy in the tux getting in the way...)
It was really hard to leave the girls, but I left them in good hands as Auntie Elyssa came in to meet Maile and help out for the weekend. Maile had plenty of adventures while Dad was away – we’ll catch up on the posts over the next few days. In the meantime, here’s one shot from yesterday of Maile. I definitely thought she looked a bit bigger when I got home and it had only been 4 days!
Employing the Happiest Baby on the Block Technique
Over the course of the pregnancy we received lots of recommendations of good books and various other pregnancy/newborn-related gear to check out. (And also a fair amount of items to avoid.) One recommendation that came up time and again was The Happiest Baby on the Block DVD.
Basically the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD is by this guy Dr. Harvey Karp and it teaches his technique for calming fussy babies. When you watch the DVD, it almost looks fake – Harvey takes a crying baby, swaddles it, flips it on its side, shushes in its ear and rocks a bit … and the baby instantly calms down and falls into a stupor.
We first watched the DVD before Maile was born and Chris and I got a good chuckle out of it. If it wasn’t for some close friends that swore by it, we probably would have tossed it and moved on.
So does it work?
The answer, at least for us, is sometimes. I’d say 6 out of 10 times the techniques help us take Maile from nuclear meltdown/hyperventilating/how-in-the-world-does-this-little-thing-scream-so-loud to a general unhappiness. 2 of those 6 times, she calms down completely and it makes you feel like you’re the best parent in the world.
(We’ve added to the technique based on input from our friend, Jon B. – instead of jiggling her, we bounce on one of those big bouncy exercise ball things. Works great!)
Bottomline: the video makes it seem like it will work every time. It won’t, but its a good tool for the toolkit and we definitely use bits and pieces as we go along through the day.
(NOTE: There is both a book and DVD by Dr. Harvey Karp – you want the DVD – this is definitely a technique, you want to see vs. read about.)
