Birthday Girl!

I suppose I should keep this entry short, as I have yet to choose and post a backlog of photos in a new picasa album, which I'll never do if I gab on and on. But I had to at least update the blog after a very busy weekend for little Juniper.

First was a visit from her last set of grandparents - Bill and Barb - as well her great aunt Anne, who also made the trip up. A good time was had by all! Juniper was able to show off her new talent a bit - that is, giving big, genuine smiles to lucky onlookers in response to funny faces or noises or big smiles. Who could ask for more than that?



She also met her friend June (and June's parent's, Tetjana and Jeff) for the first time, which was loads of fun. June in particular (almost 3 years old) was quite tickled by the experience, squealing periodically "it's a baby!", and doing her best to hold Juniper.

Then, of course, there is also the *small* detail that Sunday was Juniper's one month birthday! It was actually quite a big day - after spending the morning visiting with all the aforementioned guests, our friends Martha and Kyla came over, bearing gifts and a homemade birthday cake! What a wonderful surprise! Then, Clark and Juniper and I went for a walk, and sang "Happy Birthday" en route, as the clock hit 5:52pm mid-stroll. We took a picture to commemorate, but it turned out rather underwhelming (especially because Juniper was fast asleep by this point).


Now here it is, Tuesday already - the three of us are off to a breastfeeding clinic that is held every week. We went a couple of weeks ago, but Juniper decided to sleep through the whole thing, so it wasn't quite as useful as it could have been. Of course, she's fast asleep now, but I'm hoping that she'll wake up hungry before 11:30, which is when the clinic is over. Stay tuned - a big photo album will be posted very soon!

From coast to coast...

Juniper just passed her 4 week milestone. That's almost a month... in fact, on Sunday, it WILL be a month. I have absolutely no idea how that happened. It seems that every time we go to change or bath her, she has gained an extra leg or arm roll, and her little cheeks go from chubby to chubbier. Add to that a perfect little curl that sticks up on the front of her head after her hair has gotten wet, and she is about the cutest little baby that ever existed. Not that I'm biased.

In the week since I last posted, Juniper has (as has become the norm) met a bunch of new important people in her life. (oh - I just heard some shocked sounds coming from upstairs - apparently, Juniper just managed to plop her entire foot in a fresh diaper of pooh. I bet she's pleased with herself).

Anyway, on Friday night, my sister Andrea flew all the way from Vancouver to meet her little niece, and was able to hang out here until she flew back again on Monday. A short visit for such a long distance, but she got some quality Juniper time, so it was definitely worth it! Also, this was all in the middle of hurricane Bill, so we were worried that Andrea wouldn't even be able to make it over here for hang-out time on Sunday (she was staying at Carroll and Stephen's), but luckily Bill's bark was worse than his bite, and we didn't even lose power. Juniper was like "this is a hurricane? Whatevs". (Although to be fair, much of Halifax did lose power, including almost every street around us. How did we escape? Who knows? We celebrated by doing laundry and watching a movie.)

Then, shortly after Clark dropped Andrea off at the airport on Monday, his brother Bradford arrived from Fredericton. Brad was the last of the Richards siblings to meet little Juniper. We all went downtown on Tuesday, and Juniper was the perfect angel, sleeping peacefully in her sling as we wandered around and poked into stores. I hate to get used to it (in case it changes as soon as I utter it aloud), but so far Juniper has, by in large, been a dream to take out and about - there is a definite sense of freedom to have such a well-behaved little lady when we have errands to run, or even just want to get out on a walk.


Brad left on Wednesday, and then that afternoon we had a lovely visit from my cousin Claire, and her husband Scott, and their little boy Evan, who is just over a year old. They have been vacationing in Lunenburg for the week, and made the trek in to Halifax to meet Juniper. It was wonderful to see them, and Evan is so grown up! I can't even imagine that Juniper will be that big some day in the not-to-distant future.


And what else is there to report? Well, my mom left on Sunday, but not before we were able to celebrate her 60th birthday with Carroll and Stephen and me and Clark and Andrea, and of course Juniper. Calling birthday dibs, no one else was allowed to hold Juniper for the evening, but it was her last chance to snuggle for awhile, after all.



On Wednesday morning, we took Juniper in for her hearing test (it is something, I think, that they routinely do before people leave the hospital after delivery, but of course we hightailed it out of there much faster than the norm, so they asked us to come in for the test). Her hearing, of course, is just fine. Then, because the test was so short, I figured we should take advantage of Juniper sleeping, so we went to my gym, and I got to hit the elliptical for a full 30 minutes! It felt wonderful to be moving again. Clark sat just outside the gym in the seating area of the Superstore, and I was on call in case she woke and was hungry, but she slept the whole time, and then even let us get some groceries before we went home. Amazing!

Also, Thursday and Friday of this week marked the first time since Juniper was born that it was just the three of us hanging out for the day. No visitors. It was a little surreal, but I'm happy to report that it was absolutely doable - we got on marvelously! This all changes tomorrow, however, when Juniper will meet her last set of grandparents (Clark's dad and stepmom, Bill and Barb), as well as her great aunt Anne. They are only here until Sunday (that is, if tropical cyclone Danny doesn't pack too hard a punch), and then I think that is actually the end of the scheduled visits from away. For now, that is. Juniper is obviously very popular.

Next week marks the first time we are going to try really integrating some reality back into our lives... that is, we will officially be on our own for the foreseeable future, and Clark is likely going to be going back into his office at school - at least part time. I'm nervous. We'll see how that goes!

Three weeks already??

Check out the new photo albums at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/clark.richards

Today at 5:52 pm will mark little Juniper's third week in the world. Unbelievable! It might be difficult to tell from the photos, but she has grown significantly over these three weeks... we had a midwife appointment yesterday, and she is now 9lb 8oz! That means that in a week and two days, she gained one whole pound (she was 8 lb 8 oz at last Monday's visit). Mom and Clark and I had been marveling over how much she had grown, and how much chubbier and older she looked, but when we took guesses as to how much she had gained, none of us guessed that much (for the record, mom came closest at 9lbs 5 oz). So much has happened since the last post, I don't even think I'll remember half of it, and certainly won't be able to comment on everything. But I'll do my best, and let the numerous photos that we'll post fill in the rest of the blanks. 1. Important visitors... As I mentioned in the last entry, Juniper had some important visitors over the weekend. She met her first set of great-grandparents (Ron and Elizabeth Wybou), her grandmother Deborah (Clark's mom), her aunt Liz (Clark's sister), and her aunt Faye (my youngest sister). What a wonderful visit! Juniper was dutifully passed from one willing set of arms to the next for lots and lots of snuggles. Clark and I were well taken care of, having our suppers made for us, laundry hung on the line, and lots of other nice perks. There are lots of photos from that trip (see the picasa album in the "links" section), but here are a couple. On Monday, Juniper also also met her honourary auntie Erin, and her new friend Zack (Erin's 7 month old cutie). Erin and Zack live in Ottawa, but have been visiting Fredericton for the last couple of weeks, and made a day trip up so that we could visit and meet each other's respective children. We also got to visit briefly with Erin's parents, which was great. Then, this afternoon, we had a wonderful surprise visit from her honourary cousins, Simon and Noni, and of course their lovely parents, Agi and Josh. We also had some nice visits from Haligonian friends (Martha, Lisa and Ben)... everyone wants to meet beautiful little Juniper! This morning she had her morning snuggle with her grandmother Mary (mom came back on Tuesday, and will be staying until Sunday morning). And tomorrow, my sister Andrea will be flying in all the way from Vancouver just to hang out with Juniper for the weekend. Juniper won't know what's going on when it is eventually just me and Clark hanging out with her during the day! 2. A breath of COLD air It has been HOT in Halifax. Really, really, really hot. On the one hand, it's hard to complain - we've finally had a stretch of what can legitimately be called summer. On the other hand, it can be impossible to escape the heat in this old house - especially as the heat accumulates day after day. Poor little Juniper has had heat rash on her little bottom - so much so that we decided to temporarily switch back to disposables to see if that makes a difference (at least until it cools down a little bit). I don't know if they are really any cooler or not, but there is certainly less fabric. She also has some baby acne on her face (breaks my heart!), which becomes incredibly hot and angry looking as the heat of the day progresses. We had just been trying to tough it out, turning on fans where and whenever we could, and finding coolish breezy spots in the backyard for some diaper-free time whenever possible. The worst, however, was always going to sleep at night - our bedroom is on the upper floor, where the heat is at it's worst. Then, our lovely next door neighbours (/landlords), Erika and Wesley, suggested that as a gift celebrating Juniper's arrival, perhaps they should get us an air conditioner. Oh. My. Goodness. You can't even imagine the difference it has made!!!! We installed it in the bedroom, and it has meant that we don't die of heat in the night, and also that we have a place to escape to if it gets too hot during the day. Such a thoughtful, wonderful gift! I already notice a difference in Juniper's little face. They also bought it on just the right day - when Clark and Wesley were installing it (at like, 9pm at night), it was over 30 degrees in the bedroom, and this would have just gotten worse as the days progressed. I think I'm tired now... we would have been absolute sleep-deprived zombies at this point if we hadn't had the respite when we did. 3. Food, food, food! We've been sooooo lucky... basically ever since Juniper was born, we've had people cooking us some amazing meals every day. I kind of forget what it's like to cook our own meals :) In the beginning, Zsofi cooked up a feast of various different culinary delights, and left it for us to eat in the days to come. Then, while my mom has been here, she has made us supper and put together lunches pretty much every single day. And on the weekend, Deborah and Liz and Faye all pitched in to cook for us. Now my mom is back, and the goodness has started all over again. The problem had always been that there just simply wasn't enough freezer space to actually store anything for when everyone has left, and it's just the three of us. Consequently, I've been researching small chest freezers, but not wanting to shell out the money, or to pay for something potentially old and sub-standard from Kijiji. Magically, it would seem, our problem was just solved... as it turns out, Deborah had an old freezer taht she was willing to part with, and it fit in mom's vehicle, so she brought it with her. And what's more, it (JUST) fit through the door and into the basement. So this afternoon, mom and Carroll have been slaving away, making a bunch of freezable food to leave with us (now that we have a place to put it). How wonderful is that? I hope I have the chance to be so wonderful to someone someday! 4. Some more firsts... a) Poop. Well, although it has been well established that Juniper immensely enjoys being able to pee and poop while her diaper is off (especially if she can manage to get it on someone in the process), the other night was the first time she was actually able to shoot poop across the room. I'm not even joking. Her timing was impeccable... it was in the split second between when Clark had one diaper off and the other about to go on, and *boom!* out it shot. It hit the wall a few feet away, managing to get the change table and everything else in it's path, and then dripped its way down the wall and onto the carpet. I really wish I'd gotten a picture, but at 3 am, I was mostly just doing damage control and trying to clean it up. Ah well. You'll just have to picture it for yourselves. b) Restaurant! So, last night marks the first time since Juniper is born that we went out to eat. Clark and mom and I headed down to Jane's on the Commons for a delicious meal, with Juniper in tow. It's a very small space at Jane's, so I wasn't entirely sure how I would deal with the whole breast feeding issue if it arose, but I was determined to give it a go none-the-less. Up until our food arrived, Juniper lay happily in her sling that Clark had carried her in on the way there. Then she started to get a bit fussy, and woke up just as the food was arriving. It looked as though I would have to make some snap decisions about how to feed everyone (Juniper included) all at the same time, but as it turns out, all she really wanted was to snuggle into her mom - she wasn't as starving as she had originally made us believe. So I held her against me with one arm, and ate with the other, an she snoozed happily until we were finished eating. What a doll! And even though she certainly was hungry by that point, she remained very good-natured until right before we got home. You couldn't ask for a more well-behaved little girl than that! (she then made up for it by not letting us sleep last night from 3am onwards, but you got to take what you can get, right?) Well, that's all I can think of for now - I'm sure I'm missing lots, but it's hard to remember everything. "Update the blog" seems to be on our to-do list every day, and obviously it's never as easy to find the time to do it as we think it will be. I'm always shocked to look at the clock and see how much of the day has gone by!

Melt downs and quiet days

Yesterday was a very quiet day. In fact, it has been the first day in a very long time that we have not left the house. It was warm and sunny and glorious outside, and so we took advantage in the morning before it got overwhelmingly hot, and took Juniper in the back yard for an extended amount of time. Our goal was not just to have her in the nice fresh air, but also to allow her little bum to go diaper free for as long as we could. She doesn't yet have a full fledged diaper rash, I don't think (as it doesn't appear to bother her), but there are enough little red spots that we thought it would be a good idea to let her air out. So we did just that. She seemed to enjoy herself immensely, especially because she was able to pee and poop multiple times without a diaper, and go through a ridiculous amount of blankets. Her crowning glory was some projectile poop all over her father (right after I had warned him that she was probably due for a poop, and had been ignored, in case anyone was wondering).

The quiet day was kind of a necessity, as she had had a couple of pretty over-stimulating days in a row, and was due for some respite. In particular, Wednesday was a little too intense for her... we spent the afternoon in Bedford and Sackville, at a couple of baby-type stores I had been wanting to go to. I desperately need some nice, staple pieces of nursing gear, and I also wanted to check out some stuff for Juniper - most importantly, a convertable car seat that we had been meaning to get for some time. She has been using an infant car seat up until this point (we bought it cheap from a collegue of Clark's, and therefore knew it was safe despite being second-hand), but we had known all along that we wanted to actually invest in a seat that would last her until she could be front facing (babies notoriously grow out of infant car seats before they are actually ready or supposed to move onto front-facing seats). So we bit the bullet and bought one... we may end up using it right away, or we may wait until she gets a little bit bigger. We'll see.

Then we drove back to Halifax, picked up an order of Thai food, and brought it back to Carroll and Stephen's. En route to get the Thai, Juniper had meltdown #1. She was hungry, trapped in a car seat, and as hard as I tried, I could not manage to safely get breast to mouth with her in her seat and the car moving. So there were some pretty heart-breaking wails that we all had to endure until she found her fist for awhile, then until we got to Carroll's. Then it was Juniper's very first dinner party, with a whole bunch of people who were very happy to see her and hang out with her, and Juniper was relatively happy there, but then on the way home again, she had meldown #2. It was amazing, however... when we got home, her piercing wails turned off immediately when we walked in the door, almost as though she sensed being home again, and could finally relax.

Anyway, we have a whole lot more to post at this point, because Juniper has now met a whole lot of very inportant people in the last two days - her paternal grandmother (Deborah), her aunt Liz and her aunt Faye, and her great grantparent's Ron and Elizabeth Wybou.

So many firsts!

Well, Juniper is now the ripe old age of 10 days. I know that still seems pretty young, but I'm actually a little bit flabbergasted that time has gone by so quickly. Of course, every day brings a whole host of new experiences for Juniper, but it also brings many firsts for me and Clark as well. I thought it might be fun to share some of these, before they simply become old hat, and we forget how new and exciting and sometimes bewildering they were to begin with.

1. Swaddling

Every night is a new adventure, and a new test of our ability to function in the wee hours of the morning with little to no sleep. We are slowly learning, by cues and by trial and error, what the best ways are to make sure that all three of us emerge at least semi-well rested for the day to come. Ha! (a touch of sleep-deprived sarcasm). But really, we are trying very hard!

One technique that I had been reading about while I was still pregnant was swaddling - a way of wrapping a baby up nice and tight so that they literally can't move around. Apparently, this is supposed to be incredibly soothing and calming, particularly in the first few months, as it mimics, in many ways, what it felt like to be in utero. Of course, despite diagrams and step-by-step instructions, it is a skill that must be learned and perfected before it's all that useful. And the trial and error can be very frustrating, especially at 3 am with a displeased newborn.

The first time we seemed to accomplish a semi-proficient swaddle at night and put Juniper in her basket, she was actually incredibly calm, despite being wide awake and alert. But somehow, neither Clark or I were comfortable having her all pinned down and unable to move around. All it took was one little gurgly choke/cough, and we quickly turned on the lights and promptly unwrapped her for the rest of the evening. We have since developed thicker skin, and have tried swaddling her at night multiple times since then. We have not yet perfected the technique, in part because I don't think we have quite the right blankets. Maybe tomorrow we'll buy a bunch of muslin at fabricville and see if that works any better. We basically don't swaddle her at all during the day, because there's always someone to hold her and snuggle her in their arms, and she has absolutely no problems sleeping when she's being snuggled.

2. Cloth Diapering
Heeding advice from numerous different cloth diapering friends, Clark and I decided that we would probably just plan to use disposables for the first month or so, despite the fact that we had already purchased, washed and stuffed our cloth pocket diapers before Juniper was even born (therefore making them all ready to go). Yesterday, however, we decided we were ready to try the cloth out, way earlier than we had even planned. We had feared that they were maybe still a little big for Juniper, but they seem to fit her marvelously. In fact, having now tested them out for 2 full days (and one full night), we have nothing but wonderful things to say about them.

We opted for a one-size pocket diaper variety called "Bum Genius". They are incredibly user-friendly, will fit Juniper from now until she's out of diapers, and come in a lovely range of fun colours :) Most of all, however, Juniper seems to be very comfortable in them, we have had no problems with leaking (despite some bogglingly massive poohs that would have no doubt shot out the front and back of a disposable diaper - I say this from experience), and they wick away wetness as well as, or better than the gel-filled disposables. Even the "pure and natural" and "chlorine free" disposables we had been using have this mosture-wicking gel, which is one of the reasons we were so keen to switch to cloth even earlier than we had planned. We (and by we, I mean my mom) have already washed a load of them, and then Clark hung them out to dry, which is really a very cute site to behold. Anyway, so far, the cloth diapering has been awesome.

3. Bath time!
We had not been feeling any particular need to bath Juniper for the first little while, as the one part of her that ever got really dirty was washed multiple times a day anyway. Then, however, we discovered the deep crevices of her neck folds, and realized that a thorough wash was in order. So Clark donned some swim trunks, drew a body-temperature bath in the bathtub, set up the ingenious little bath bed that we had been given as a hand-me-down, and the great bath experiment began! I was very trepidatious that Juniper was going to be displeased by the whole process, but she actually seemed to rather enjoy herself. She was very alert and content for the whole thing, and didn't even protest when we brought her out and towelled her dry. Success!

The one disconcerting thing was that her little feet and hands turned a bit blue, and in our attempts to warm her up suffciently, I think we managed to give her a bit of a heat rash. Ei yie yie. Live and learn, I suppose.


4. Out and About
From our last blog post, it was evident that we got out and about pretty early on, which actually felt incredibly liberating. We never ventured anywhere further than a 5-10 minute walk from our house, however... that is, until yesterday. Arming ourselves with diaper changes and whatever else we thought might come in handy, we plopped Juniper in her carseat, drove downtown, transferred her to a carrier, and then spent an hour or two wandering around, doing errands etc. This might not seem like a huge deal, but it felt monumental! Today we did the same thing, except that she woke up and got hungry part way through, this meant putting up with some Juniper-sized wails until we found a good place to sit, and I breast-fed for the first time outside of the house. This felt pretty huge for me. I actually found it pretty difficult without all my pillows and props and comfortable seating that I've gotten used to at home, but it at least worked well enough to quiet her down again and put her back to sleep. I'm sure this will only get easier as she gets bigger and develops head control, etc.


5. Other stuff?
I know there's more than this in terms of firsts, but I feel like I just wrote a novelette, so perhaps that is good for now. Honestly, I really didn't think that Juniper would stay sleeping for this long - she's been snuggled against my chest for the last 3 hours or so... if only she'd sleep like this in her bassinet at night! We got a surprise visit from Theresa yesterday, which meant that is the first time Juniper met her auntie - that deserves a picture! Keep checking back, as we are long overdue to post a swack of new pictures on picasa. We'll send a link when we've done that. If we (and by we I mean Clark) can figure it out, we may even post a video or two.

One week!

Juniper is now one week old! To celebrate, we decided to take her out for a walk around the Commons in the fancy hand-me-down stroller we got from Agi and Josh. She loved it! (at least I think she did ... she conked out as soon as we put her down in it and didn't start to stir until we got back).
Our midwife says that she's doing great. I suspect that she's now back to her birth weight (by day 3 she had lost 5 oz - which is totally normal), and she's eating voraciously all the time. And sleeping. Except at night. Actually, we can't really complain - on the whole she's been a little angel, even when she's fussing a bit at 4am.

Keep checking back, as we'll be posting more photos to the album soon, and feel free to comment if you like anything you read or see! Here she is hanging over her grandfather's shoulder. I think I can see a bit of resemblance ...

Pictures galore!

So, for those of you who have been dying for an album of pictures to see, here you go. I won't put them all in this blog post, but you can check out the album here:

Juniper, days 1 to 3

We're slowly figuring things out. Saturday night was a little rough - Juniper didn't want to feed much even though she had to have been hungry, and so the three of us were awake most of the night. When she did sleep, she didn't want to do it lying down, and would only sleep against one of our shoulders. Then she finally fed at about 5 am, fell asleep, and promptly projectile vomited everything up. Luckily we had a midwife appointment the next morning, and she explained that likely what was happening was that she had mucus in her tummy that was making it upset all night (therefore not wanting to feed), and then the vomiting brought it up. This was all very reassuring.
The other big hurdle to figure out, especially for Tara, is how to get enough sleep. Naps are key, but that hasn't been as easy as it sounds... not for lack of opportunity, but rather because Tara just can't seem to fall asleep in the day, despite extreme exhaustion. Perhaps that's just another one of those skills that will come out of necessity.

Juniper, days 1 and 2

Update! We made it home from the IWK (after our mandatory 6 hour discharge time) at about 1am friday morning - almost exactly 24 hours after Tara had begun contractions. Our first night was pretty good - the three of us all slept like babies. Friday saw lots of visitors, but little Juniper was just happy to be the centre of attention, and was just taking her first 24 hours in stride. The 4 beautiful ladies below nicely represent what our day was like:
Today has been just as nice actually. We got a little less sleep last night (and Juniper discovered that she has nice powerful lungs that she can use now!), but thanks to the efforts of everybody coming by to see us, we were able to grab some zzz's during the day. Mary has been a tremendous help with everything around the house, and I'm currently eating a delicous supper of Thai carrot soup and a lovely nutty roasted vegetable salad that Zsofi whipped up this afternoon after cleaning out our fridge and cleaning the entire kitchen.

Juniper LOVES to sleep. Apparently that's pretty normal, but she sure is cute when she's dosing. Tara managed to snap a few pictures of her napping in my arms out on the deck this evening.
We're just about to go to bed, and there are Natal Day fireworks out over the harbour that we can see from our window. It kind of feels like they're celebrating our new little Juniper.