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.