viola

Viola on Oompa

I'm proud to say that I have sold Viola's image for a few Oompa bucks.

On wearing sports-team clothing

We are all hoping to imprint part of ourselves on Viola, and this is my brother Adam's contribution:

This outfit is for cheering games at Wrigley Field. He also gave her an "away" onesie, for supporting the Cubbies on the road, in addition to a complete Green Bay Packers outfit.

Month four is upon us!

It simultaneously feels like 20 years ago and yesterday that Viola came to join us. This goes without saying, I suppose. And if it seems like a long time ago that I was gigantically pregnant, I have only to glance at my midsection, which looks like bread dough that has just been punched down for the second rise, to remember that it was only a short three months ago that I pushed out a little person I grew in there. Here's hoping that by month six I will be reporting a belly that is, if not taut, then at least non-mushy. I'm not going to lay off the non-dairy Newman-O's to get there, however.

Today I sit in our sunny living room with my daughter sleeping on my lap, feeling victorious

Cooking post-baby

While there have been a fair number of take out meals and quite a few (treasured) dinners prepared for us by friends and family, we have actually managed to maintain a certain amount of cooking in the post-baby era. We are still working our way through the half-o-lamb that we purchased from a local farm last year (unfortunately we are now without its piece de resistance, the rack, thanks to a certain robber; however, our insurance company reimbursed us generously for it).

Viola's animals

Some baby cuteness is called for after the break-in post.

Mobile:baby::catnip:cat

We just finished making a mobile from the kit given to us by Matt and Carmen before Viola was born. As instructed, we drew pictures on little circles of paper and then hung them from a wire frame. We had no idea what a hit it would be. It's like baby crack.

I drew Obama on one of the circles. Joe drew

More pictures are here

I promise not to do this every time I post photos, but, since people are still getting used to the new site...check out the new album under photos in the top navigation bar (or click here) for some Viola cuteness!

My world of spit up

Since my day and my clothes are both full of spit up, I offer these thoughts on the subject:

• It smells really bad. Angie warned me, and I did not believe her, but it stinks, even when dry. I thought we had a lot of burp rags, but there are somehow never enough clean ones.
• There is a lot of it. Turns out Viola has a touch of the old acid reflux, confirmed by her pediatrician yesterday. One or both of the sphincter muscles in her esophagus is immature, so lots of her meals come back up to greet us. Joe gets the gold medal for receiving a load inside his sweatshirt and in his slipper, which he subsequently stepped into, both in one night.

Walking around with Viola

Viola is obsessed with walking around especially around midnight in order to maintain calm and stability.

I’m too tired to be writing this

According to Viola, the world is about to end every night around 9:00. Then, around 2 am, she changes her mind and decides everything’s ok. At least, that’s how I interpret the look of utter desperation on her face as she screams and cries inconsolably during these hours.