Reading to baby

For Stephie's brief periods of alert time, we have started a family routine of reading to her. Her books are rather brief (one entire book says "Mommy loves you, Daddy loves you, I love you!" in enormous fabric-padded letters!) so Ed likes to elaborate quite a bit on the story line. You can tell from Ed's bleary-eyed expression in this photo that Stephie has been going through a fussy growth spurt over the past few days and hasn't been sleeping much! She's mastered "grumpy, sad, and hungry" from the Baby Faces book. We're hoping to work on "happy, peaceful, and content" next!

Baby in a harness

We went to our follow-up appointment with the orthopedic surgeon yesterday for a repeat hip ultrasound to follow Stephie's hip problem from being breech. The good news: it is an easily-fixable problem. The bad news: Stephie has to wear a ridiculous looking harness for the next 4-6 weeks. Here is a picture from the package of a very cute, happy looking baby in her harness:


In contrast, here is Stephie: Actually, the harness doesn't seem to bother Stephie at all; that picture was taken during a diaper change. After Stephie's mommy finished crying for two hours after seeing her baby in the harness for the first time, the whole family went out to dinner to relax and unwind from a rough day. The bottom line is that 75% of the time, this fixes the problem, and we are lucky that it is a correctable issue. Looks like Stephie will be stocking up on sleep sacks to wear for the next few weeks as they are the only things that fit over her harness!

Stephie loves TiVo

Stephie and Mommy have been catching up on lots of television lately during our night-time feedings. Thank goodness for TiVo or we might not have such an ample supply of Oprah and other top-quality shows to watch at 3am!

Happy Due Date!

Stephanie celebrated her official due date of April 3rd by sleeping for 5 consecutive hours last night from 12:30 until 5:30! Mommy woke up in shock and went to check on her in disbelief! We also gave Stephie her first official bath last night. She confirmed her status as a "never-nude" by screaming bloody murder the whole time. For those who did not watch Arrested Development...shame on you! Just kidding.
A "never-nude" is a reference to a character on the show, Tobias, who has a rare condition called "never-nude" syndrome and wears denim cut-off shorts at all times, even in the shower. The condition is based on the real condition called gymnophobia.

Stephie and Friends

Stephie had a visit today from Ian, Ruth, Sophie, and Jenny. No hair-bow pulling this time, but she still had fun hanging out with everyone.

Bring Your Daugher to Work Day

OK, the "official" Bring-Your-Daughter-to-Work Day isn't until next week, but Stephie and Mommy celebrated a week early by going to visit Daddy at work today. Stephie was very impressed with the office, and Daddy enjoyed showing her to his co-workers as well. Stephie slept through the the entire visit! We're slow learners, but we finally realized we need to feed her BEFORE we go out, or we're in for a trip filled with screaming instead. Today she behaved like an angel!

Bum Genius

After having Stephie's disposable diapers leak all over the place anyway, we decided to go ahead and start using our cloth supply instead. They supposedly only fit after the baby weighs 8 pounds, but as Mommy has gotten quite used to being covered in baby poop during night-time feedings anyway, what's the worst that could happen? Stephie looked quite content lounging on her changing pad in her new pants. I think she likes them!