Birthdays, Big Girls and Ballerinas

Birthdays
So, today is a big day in birthday world, and for once I'm not talking about Juniper... Sept. 21st is both Clark and my sister Andrea's birthday. Happy birthday(s)! Also, this was the big 3-0 for Clark - he's now officially an old-timer :) We had a very small little party last night with our friends Alana and Ian, complete with two different kinds of birthday cupcakes... if you'll notice from the photo, I artistically arranged them in a "3" and a "0". This was lost on Clark. He was trying to figure some fancy mathematical arrangement (5 times 6 is thirty? no... that's not it...) Ah well.

Also in honour of Clark's birthday, we took a day trip down to Wolfville on Saturday. We went to the farmer's market, wandered down main street, and went for a hike along the trails behind the botanical gardens. Besides being very cold, it was truly a lovely day, and we got to see how Juniper took to a semi-long car trip, in preparation for our jaunt down to Fredericton later this week. If Wolfville was any indication, Juniper was a dream!


Big Girls and Ballerinas
Somehow, Juniper is still growing like crazy... last week, she weighed in at 12lbs 2oz, which is officially 4 lbs past her birth weight. She's pretty much 50% bigger than she was when she was born! She's also 7 cm longer. This has meant that Clark and I had to sit down one day last week while Juniper was sleeping, and do a complete clothes overhaul, packing away all the newborn stuff that obviously will never fit her again, and pulling out a lot of the 3-6 month stuff. It was a little bit heartbreaking, but also fun to re-infuse her wardrobe with some new cute stuff. Here she is, modeling a couple of her new looks: "tomboy chic", and "pretty in pink/retro 80s legwarmer" (I ordered a bunch of baby leg warmers for her, which just came today. I love them.) Side note: yes, these were both taken today, one right after the other - I had to change her because she had a poo so big that it shot out the top of her diaper.



More than just growing physically, however, we're also really noticing her getting older. For instance, she smiles and coos and giggles all the time now. Sometimes she does this for me and Clark, but she reserves her biggest smiles for her really good friends, the light fixtures. Her best friend is the light fixture in the living room. I'm not even joking. She'll be all cranky pants, and then we'll turn her around and she'll crane her head back, look directly at the light fixture, and break into a huge smile, followed by a discussion. I'm very curious to know what they chat about.

Juniper is also now officially a thumb sucker. She's been working on this for weeks... a few weeks ago she would often try and shove her whole fist into her mouth, which would sometimes result in her finding her thumb and keeping it in there. Now she's mastered the technique. When she wants her thumb, in it goes, and it stays there for extended periods of time, often accompanied by vigorous sucking. She'll suck her thumb when she's upset and wants to soothe herself, when she's trying to fall asleep, or even just when she's happy and taking the world in. We'll have to one day break her of this habit, but for now it's really and truly adorable. And it means that she keeps herself happy and occupied for much longer than she was ever able to before. Apparently I was also an avid thumb sucker, and the only way my mother was able to break me of it was to tell me that ballerinas don't have buck teeth. That did it. I wasn't about to ruin my ballerina future for my thumb. Perhaps we'll have to break the same news to Juniper one day. Because of this whole thumb sucking/self-soothing thing, we decided to stop swaddling her the last couple of nights to see if she'd sleep for longer stretches. This would maybe actually work except that she sucks her thumb so noisily and vigorously (and accompanies it with so much grunting and snuffling), that she wakes me up in the process. So then I'm awake, waiting to feed her, and she's happily still asleep, sucking away at ther thumb. Perhaps we'll have to rethink this strategy...


Oh, and the last big girl accomplishment - she's learning to drive. Hopefully she'll be up to sharing some of the driving on our way to Fredericton...



More new visitors!
And finally, what would a blog post be without some new friends that Juniper was able to meet? Our friend Amber came over for a visit:


She met our friends Alana and Ian:


And she got to meet her great aunt Evelyn!



OK, that's all for now, but check back next week, as we'll undoubtedly have lots of Fredericton stories and pictures to share.

ahhhh.... fall.

Well, well. It seems that after a month straight of visitors, I have suddenly become a little too lax with respect to blog updates. But just because there aren't multiple pictures of various people holding Juniper to post, it doesn't mean that there hasn't been loads going on!

Let's itemize, shall we? (makes me feel like I'm being especially organized and productive).

1. BOB
And no, I don't mean my dad. I mean the expensive stroller from Mountain Equipment Co-op that we finally just went ahead and bought. We had been agonizing over this decision for a VERY long time. Like, long before Juniper was born. As you can see from the picture, it is a rugged stroller, meant to be able to handle trails etc. And it is also meant to be a good jogging stroller. AND, it has an attachment, that allows you to attach a car seat, making it infant-friendly.


This all sounds lovely, but then we were given the gorgeous Bebe car (a fancy-dancy stroller) as a hand-me-down from Agi and Josh. Problem solved! We got a wonderful stroller and didn't have to spend all that money. We had Juniper out in it very early on (as you can see from one of our very first blog posts), and she seemed to like lying in the bassinet as we strolled along.
We quickly discovered, however, that while it is a lovely, fancy stroller, it is also somewhat big and heavy. This isn't a big problem if you are strolling around the block, but it came to mean that that's ALL we felt we could use it for. We could only barely fit it in our little car, and there was no way I could handle it by myself. So once Clark started going back to school, I started to feel a little trapped - I couldn't take Juniper anywhere that necessitated strolling.

So... we just bit the bullet, went ahead, and got the Bob. Yes, we're gear heads, and no, we didn't really have the money to spend, but I'm happy to report that we have had it out every single day since we got it, and we all love it. We've explored the trails around Point Pleasant and Hemlock Ravine, we've strolled down to the Hydrostone and around Fort Needham, and I've taken Juniper on adventures by ourselves (like... to the grocery store). It has helped that it has been absolutely freaking gorgeous around here the last couple of weeks - this is my favourite time of year!!


In any event, I think that the Bob will be well worth the money. I'm very excited to take her orienteering with it, and Clark is already envisioning lots of daddy-daughter jogging when she gets old enough.

2. It's official!
This week saw lots of official Juniper-related things happen. For instance, we got her birth certificates in the mail (side note: we ordered two - one "large copy" one, and one "smaller" one so that we could have one to go in a wallet. Turns out they have done away with the different sizes - the only difference is that the "long" one has information about Clark and I as well. Good thing we freaking ordered 2! What a rip-off! Very sneaky and mis-leading). She also now has a SIN card, and I just put both her and Clark on my MUN health coverage (she's booked a massage already :) Just joking.) Maybe all those things aren't especially interesting to anyone else, but I thought there were at least somewhat note-worthy. Sadly, I have no picture to accompany them, so here's just a cute one of Juniper.


3. Six weeks
Today, Juniper is six weeks old. Six weeks!!! This means that we just had our last midwife appointment, which I'm sad about. It also means that she has been going through another growth spurt - ie, she has been hungry way more often (ouch!), and crankier than usual, although I think she's maybe coming out of it now. Her baby acne isn't nearly as bad, although the cradle's cap between her eyebrows has been very angry and scaly as of late. But I've seen an improvement in that in the last couple of days as well. As of yesterday, she is now 11 lbs, 10 ounces! As you can imagine, she's a lovely little chub-ball. She has even outgrown some of her newborn outfits.

4. Visitors
Although the steady stream of first-time away-visitors has come to an end, that doesn't mean we haven't had some more new people for little Juniper to meet. Our friends Cristina and Dag came over with their little six-month old daughter, Ida. They only just moved back to Halifax, and so it was the first time we had met Ida as well. It will be wonderful to have another baby close by! They also dropped off some lovely toys and playthings that Ida has outgrown, and Juniper seems to be thoroughly enjoying so far (especially this little vibrating chair).


Our friend Ramzi, who was in Halifax for the week, also managed to stop by yesterday. Juniper was a perfect little lady, and refrained from spitting up on, or otherwise soiling his dapper work clothes (never a given).


Also noteworthy is that my parents decided to make a quick trip up for the weekend - mom especially needed a Juniper fix before they head off for Vancouver this coming week. The timing was good - we got to celebrate my dad's birthday when they were down.

And... that's all for now, folks! Keep checking back!

New Album!

As promised, here is a new Picasa album, with an assortment of photos taken since we posted the last album. Nothing much new to report today, except that Juniper was a lovely little girl, as per usual! Tomorrow we have an appointment with our midwife, so I'll have to update the blog soon with her new weight and other such details.

To find the Album look in the "Photos Albums of Juniper" link to the right, and the new album is called "Juniper_Sept_2". Happy browsing! As always, we love comments...