When going on a trip, be sure to pack all the important items.

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but our daughter can't stand for the door to be open. Its been really nice out until just recently, but Celerity doesn't want us to keep the front door open to let the nice air in.

Enjoy:

Our daughter had learned how to hold a bottle all on her own.  Caution:  So cute it may make your teeth hurt.

We came in Celerity's room this morning to discover that it was probably time to lower the crib.  She had managed to climb out onto her dresser and was happily sitting there.

On Easter we got to dress Celerity up in a pretty pretty dress.

She also discovered my parent's fountain:

So, I'm sitting on the couch, watching TV, when I hear this sound . . .ZzZZzzzzt . . .Prrrrrrrrr.  I look over, and there is Celerity, pulling the string on her "purring blocks".  Not with her hand, though:

So very very talented, my daughter is.

Also, Happy Spring everyone!

Celerity has been taking one and two steps here and there for a while now. She'll step from the chair to the couch, or the couch to the coffee table. Today, however, she's really started walking for real. Our daycare gal told us she had taken quite a few steps across the room. When we got her home, we tried to get her on video.

I'd say this is walking:

Be sure to see our Christmas Update below.

Here is Celerity eating now, in 4 parts.

Here is what feeding her is really like:

This year brought us through many many changes.  It's pretty amazing to me, when I look back -
At the beginning of the year Dodi was still pregnant (and pretty big, too).  She had a Cesarean (which neither of us were expecting), giving birth to an awesome daughter. Since the pregnancy Dodi ended up going "out of town" three times, leaving me to single parent for a few weeks each time.  Now, as we approach Christmas, I've got a healthy 8 month old daughter and a healthy wife.

OMG, Busy
I don't really understand it.  We never seem to do anything anymore, but we always seem to be busy.  It must be some sort of optical illusion due to the baby.  We spend so much time caring for her that everything else just fades into the background.  Even a trip to the store is like planning for a moon shot or an arctic expedition. If only we had mission control or maybe some sherpas.  Babies do make the best excuse, though.  Reason we didn't do a Christmas card?  Baby.  Reason we didn't attend that wedding? Baby.  Reason we forgot to shower . . Baby.  Everyone understands.

Best. Baby. Ever.
Ok, I know, I know - everyone thinks their kid is the best.  But, seriously, mine totally is.  She is the mellowest child that I have ever seen.  She is not a crier (Hear ye, hear ye!).  While she sometimes wants mommy or daddy around, she mostly amuses herself in her playpen (our living room).  She may make some noise when she's hungry, but will always quiet down once she's fed.  Nothing seem to really upset her.  She is usually pretty good about going down for bed, too.  We put her down, turn off the lights and, after a squall or two, she's out.  Of course, I'm sure I'll go home tonight and she won't stop crying . . .

Right now she's fascinated by everything (except us).  We had a hard time taking Christmas pictures because the cat kept walking by and distracting her.  Whenever we pick her up, she's constantly looking around - she wants to know what is going on.  Mommy and daddy aren't interesting, though, except as a jungle gym.  Many nights Dodi or I will lay in Celerity's playpen and be mount-parent.  Kiddo can just about make it over daddy's stomach, but not quite.

Babies cost money
Fortunately, we have a bunch of friends who had had children before we did and we've been getting tons of hand-me-downs and toys.  We've really hardly had to buy anything, except to fill in when we don't have the right size/weather combination.  Unfortunately, we have other expenses that we never planned for.  Due do Dodi's condition we've pretty much had to have Celerity in Daycare since she was 2 months old.  For a while we had her home one day a week, but that didn't work out.  For the foreseeable future we will probably have her in daycare. 

For the first time in our lives we're actually running on a budget so we don't run out of dough by the end of the month.  Between our budget and the daycare we're just barely in the black each month.  It's actually been a good exercise for us, getting a grip on our spending and really focusing on paying down our debt.  We hope that by the end of next year we will be out of debt and starting to save.

We also started up a College fund for Celerity.  It's a "529" account which will allow us to write off our contributions and she won't have to pay taxes on the money so long as it's used for education.  Considering how things are now, I think it will be really hard to find a job in the future without a college education.  We hope that having this money will enable her to follow her muse, rather than having to worry about working her way through, or being saddled with debt once she graduates.

More to Follow
I hope to be posting more, including Pictures and Videos over the next few days, so be sure to check back!

Now that we've starting feeding her rice cereal, we've been paying a bit more attention to her mouth.  Dodi just noticed that she had her first tooth!  She hasn't even been especially fussy or anything, either!


Also, let me tell you, it was hard to get this picture.  She kept sticking out her tongue, the little stinker!

One day before she turned 6 months old Celerity Wowed us with her amazing crawling ability. This is just minutes after we witnessed her first crawl.

I do as I am told.


I'm not listening to the headphones . . I'm just prepared to listen to them.

As I had previously reported, my daughter can roll herself over from her back to her front.  She now does this on a regular basis and has stopped complaining about being on her stomach.  Or at least, she waits a bit longer to complain about it.

Now, I'm pretty certain that she can actually roll from her front onto her back on her own, but I have yet to actually see her do it.  She just never seems to roll over when I am in the room and looking.  It can't take her very long, because I step out of the room for less than a minute and, when I come back, she's moved two feet across the floor and is now on her back again.  So, either she's rolling over on her own or crawling, which I seriously doubt.  She is doing it well enough that she's getting into trouble, rolling up against the coffee table (and then screaming).  I will be purchasing baby fencing shortly.

It's like some sort of uncertainty principle - I can always tell her position, but never her momentum, from one moment to the next.  My theory is that when I am not observing her, she actually takes all possible positions in the room at once and only when I check on her does she settle into a discrete position.

Oh, yeah, I have a blog. Here is a quick summary of what's been going on with Dodi and I over the last couple months.

Back to Work for Daddy
I went back to work the second week in May, when Celerity was 3 weeks old.  We set up a cot in Celerity's room so Dodi could take care of late night feedings with CJ without waking me up.  We worked out a plan where Dodi would head to bed somewhat earlier than normal, I would take the evening shift, and Dodi would take the the late night feeding.  This ultimately didn't work out that well, since Dodi tended to not be able to get back to sleep after Celerity's feeding.  It didn't help that Celerity was still in her "Late night party" stage.  We were so busy that the image to the right is the last one was have in May.

A lack of sleep and the overall stress of going from part time care of CJ to all day care of CJ was turning out to be too much for Dodi.  She managed well for a couple weeks, but eventually started to break down.  I started to work from home to help take some of the pressure off her.  Unfortunately, it was too little, too late.  At the end of May Dodi had to go out of town*.

Effectively a Single Parent
I was largely unprepared for single parenting.  We had not considered what might happen if Dodi had to go out of town.  We did not have a Daycare provider, had not even considered looking for a Daycare provider.  I was kinda in a daze.  I knew Dodi was going to be ok, but I had to work, if only to retain my sanity.  I started calling friends and family and managed to get a patchwork fo folks to watch kiddo for the next week.  Our friend Julie gave a recommendation for a local gal who does Daycare. She turned out to be just a couple blocks away, very affordable, and had a slot open for an infant.  I was super lucky to get Celerity in and thus was set for daycare. 

The next couple weeks were largely uneventful.  Celerity began to sleep through the night . . or at least most of it.  There were off and on 3am feedings, but by and large I was putting her down at Midnight and she was waking me up at 6 or 7 the next morning.  This meant that I was largely conscious while at work.  We settled into a (somewhat bleary eyed) regular schedule.  I fed and entertained Celerity at night while watching TV or trying to type (babies don't go well with typing).  Every morning I'd drop her off with Daycare, then pick her up after work.  Rinse. Repeat.

* If you don't know what I mean, feel free to contact me privately.

This weekend I went over to visit my friends who have a 6 month old boy, Jak.  He, of course, is quite cute, but a good deal more mobile than Celerity.  I mentioned to his mother that Celerity could almost, but not quite, turn herself over.  She proceeded to grab her son by the feet and ROLL him back and forth across the floor (giggling the whole way).  She says she did that and within the day he was rolling over on his own within the day.

Armed with this new technique, I set up a blanket on the floor, grabbed Celerity by the feet, and proceeded to roll her back and forth across the floor.  She doesn't go quite as smoothly and, frankly, looks a little bit confused by the whole ordeal.  I try and get her to roll over on her own, but no dice.  Later that day I go out of the room for a snack and when I get back, lo and behold, she has rolled herself over!  I rejoice in my manly parenting skills and call my friend to thank her.

My celebration is short lived as I quickly realize a few things:
1)  My Daughter can roll herself over from her back to her stomach, but not the other way around
2)  My daughter loves to roll herself over
3)  My daughter HATES being on her stomach

Before, I had a child who I could put down on her back and expect to keep herself amused for an hour or two. Now have a daughter who, as soon as I put her down on her back, rolls over to her stomach, gets angry, and starts to cry.

I am sure that this is just the begining of things I will teach her that I'll regret.

Edit: Changed both instances of 'feed" to "feet" - I'm not sure what would happen if I grabbed Celerity by her "feed".

Nights are still hard, not that that is a huge surprise. Even early mornings can be rough, as you can see to the right. Kid had stopped feeding but was still fussing, so Dodi ended up "relaxing" on the couch with her. Amazingly, though, Celerity actually slept through most of the night last night. She had a marathon feed from midnight until 2 a.m., but didn't wake up until we got her up at about 8 a.m. We're not holding our breath or anything, though.

On Wednesday we went to the Pediatrician and weighed Celerity again.  She was at around 9 lbs, 13oz, just under her birth weight, so we're still doing the "every 2-3 hours" feeding, which is a drag.  We'll have to bring her back next week as well to make sure she is over her birth weight.  The good news is, she is gaining weight well - she was up 6oz over last week, which is right in line for a breastfeeding baby.  They're expected to gain 5-7oz a week.

Lactation Consultant
Because of the trouble we'd been having getting Celerity to feed off Dodi's left breast, we decided to call in a lactation consultant.  We had been considering it for a week, but the fact that Celerity was till a tad underweight did it for us. 

The LC's name is Jaye Simpson and she is totally awesome.  She showed Dodi how to hold Celerity properly (sort of a modified Vulcan Nerve Pinch), and we finally straightened out (literally) some ergonomics issues we'd been having.  This morning, using what we'd learned from Jaye, Celerity popped right on the left breast with no fuss.

You can see her to the left evaluating Celerity's suck.  As we suspected, our daughter is full of suck.  We had always noticed a little wheezing noise when she fed, and Jaye told us that Celerity is sometimes sucking wrong.  Rather than "Suck, Swallow, Breath", she's sometimes doing "Suck, Breath, Swallow".  Luckily, aspirating a bit of breast milk is unlikey to hurt her.  It may also explain the little piglet noises that Celerity sometimes makes.

A More Active Child
Celerity is growing a lot more active.  Well, relatively speaking, anyway.  Now when she finishes feeding she doesn't always crash out right away.  We are getting a chance to hold her and play with her a bit more.  Sometimes she just wants to be held.  I've been learning how to read my book with her propped up on my arm.  Of course, sometimes it's in the middle of the night, and that can be a drag.

Prior Parts (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)

Recovering from Recovery - April 18th, 10AM to 3PM
After Tara left, we crashed out hard. An indeterminate time later, though, we were awoken by some visitors. My Aunt Barb, Uncle Char, and cousin Stacey had heard (or read) that the child was born and came by to visit. My recollection of their visit is hazy at best. I think Celerity was out of the room at the nursery. We said hi, everything is fine, can we please sleep now? It was nice to see family, and they brought an excellent crocheted baby blanket and some hand made burp cloths.

At some point Celerity was wheeled back in and, around 2pm we decided to give feeding her another shot. It took some coaxing, but we were finally able to get Celerity to open her mouth wide enough to accept a breast. We had no issues getting her to feed off the left breast, but the right breast continues to give us some trouble to this day.

Finally get some sleep for crying out loud - April 18th, Evening
I toddled off to get something to eat at the cafeteria, but Dodi was still stuck on a liquid diet. She had to drink her meals until she was able to . . . uh . . break wind. When you have a baby, your entire digestive track pretty much shuts down, so you have to wait for it to get fired back up before you can take solid foods. One of the indicators that it is functioning again is the production of waste gases. It wasn't until the following evening, Saturday, that she . . . produced waste gases. Never have has a woman been so happy to toot. Broth is just not that filling.

That night I slept on the dreaded pull out couch of doom. Imagine, if you will, a booth bench for a restaurant with a decent amount of padding. Imagine it being about five feet, ten inches long. That was pretty much it. It pulled out a bit, so it was fairly wide, but it was between two walls, limiting its length to about 2 inches too short for me to stretch out. Three nights on this little torture bed gave me cyatica so bad that on the night I got back from the hospital, I couldn't get out of bed.

The rest of the time - April 19th to April 21st
On Saturday morning, Dodi was able to get up for the first time. With the assistance of the nurse she was able to stand and shuffle around with some pain. By the end of the day she was fairly mobile and, by the end of our stay, was fully, if slowly, mobile.

On both Saturday and Sunday I made trips home to upload pictures and post updates, as well as grab needed items. We had not planned on a C-section, only having packed enough stuff for two days. I picked up some extra clothes for myself and some stuff Dodi wanted.

There is not much else to tell. Or, if there was, I've forgotten it. In general we had a very restful few days in the hospital. We had no complications, no real problems - we just chilled out while Dodi was recovering. I read a sizable Sci-fi Novel over the entire weekend that I finished Sunday.

On Monday we were ready to be discharged. Dodi got the staples taken out from around her stitches, we filled out some paper work, and they wheeled us to the door.

Here is us unloading Celerity from the car:

More Videos
I took a couple of more videos that I have finally gotten around to uploading to YouTube.

Cutting the Cord

Weigh In

Another late night last night with Celerity.  I ended up going to bed in my lounge around the house clothes, in anticipation of having to get up and feed/comfort her again.  This morning I was getting ready to take a shower, pulled off my socks, and threw them into my sock bin.

My sock bin mewed.  I didn't think this was normal behavior for sock bins, so I took a look and saw this:

Mystery Solved.

The exhaustion is starting to set in.  Being on the night shift is a drag.  Even with our feeding plans working, we're still not getting the sleep we need.  Last night Dodi was doing the midnight feeding before heading off to bed.  I was sitting up reading, waiting for her to come in off the couch.  I look up at the clock and see that it's almost 1:30 and I think that there is no way that she's still feeding.  It turns out I was right:

I'm starting to feel the same way.

Last night was rough for me too.  Two AM (half an hour after I get us all off to bed), Celerity is fussing.  I get up and give her 3 oz of breast milk that Dodi has pumped for this purpose.  Celerity seems happy, but wide awake, which I had planned for.  I plop down in front of the computer with her in my arms and wait for her to quiet down so I can put her to bed.  No such luck.  One hour and a dirty diaper later, I'm back in the kitchen making her up some Formula.  She sucks that down real fast and once again I'm waiting for her to quiet.  Another hour, another diaper, and she's still rooting and fussing.  Back to the kitchen for another bottle.  She doesn't finish this one off, but was still bright eyed and bushy-tailed.  I figure she's never going to go to sleep the way things are going, so I drop her in her bassinet and put her pacifier back in every time she fusses.  Finally at five AM I turn out the light and she stays down.  Eight AM - alarm goes off for mommy to feed her . . . and the cycles begins again.

Everyone told me about the lat nights, but there is simply no way to prepare yourself for the lack of sleep.  *sigh*  Yet, everyone I show the kid to says, "Treasure this time, it will pass too quickly".  I'm at a loss to see how that would be a bad thing at this point, but I'm sure I'll understand when she's 16 and wants to borrow the car.

Good fences . . .
A few months ago we had a big windstorm which took down a lot of fences in the neighborhood, including two sides of my buddy Roger's fence.  At the time I helped him to put up the replacement on his yard.  All those years of helping my father with building projects finally paid off as I was able to use my mad building skillz to speed up the construction.  Roger's neighbor's fence had also been blown down and so they paid him to put theirs up.  Last Saturday I went over to help out.

While I was there, he had to watch his four year old son, Evan, who we co-opted to "help" by holding nails for Roger.  I would hold position and hold the fence slats, then Roger would call "Nail" and his son would hand him a nail.  Well, hand him a nail or run away or drop the nails and pick them up.  He also became the level holder, which was quite helpful, believe it or not.

For some reason when we were standing around, I started doing my robot shtick - moving my arms jerky, making the servo noise, and sounding like Robby from Lost in Space.  Evan gets this real incredulous look on his face and say "Whatever".  Roger and I just about die laughing.  Roger swears he doesn't know where Evan got it from.  I don't get no respect.