There were three in the bed and the little one said...

Roll over! Roll over!

Ok, so we weren't actually in the bed, and there weren't three of us there, and Daphne didn't actually say anything... but she did roll over! She was just hanging out on her tummy looking at the books on her shelf, with her head lifted high and her elbows helping her get even higher. And then suddenly she was on her back. It seems to have surprised and confused her quite a bit. But she hasn't done it again yet. She's getting a little closer to being able to roll the other direction (she can pretty easily get onto her side from her back), but she doesn't yet have the momentum or coordination to roll all the way onto her tummy.

Also, speaking of beds, Daphne is currently fast asleep in her crib in her bedroom, where she slept for the first night last night. She's been taking naps in there for about a week, and we finally decided to see how she does for the night. She was up three times, although she's generally been up at least twice lately, and three isn't unheard of. And she's really sleeping in, thanks to her late bedtime and the room-darkening curtain in there that keeps her from being aware that it's morning.

Ben and I both felt like it was really strange to not have her in the little bassinet in our room last night. A bit lonely, but also nice because we could have lights on and talk instead of whisper as we were getting ready for bed. Assuming Daphne keeps doing well in her room, we're going to rearrange the last bit of the furniture this weekend to get her really moved all the way over there.

Sweet smiles

Daphne's little smile is pretty much my favorite thing these days. When she wakes up in the morning, she'll usually babble a bit before I manage to drag myself out of bed or get back into the room from wherever else I was. I really like to quietly move to where I can see her face and then wait for her to notice me. Without fail, the moment she sees me there, her eyes light up and she breaks into a HUGE grin. 

This happens in many ways throughout the day. Like if I'm cooking and she's hanging out in her little rocker in the kitchen, and I look over, she'll grin. She really enjoys watching me cook. Which is a big help because it means I can actually make food that takes more than a few minutes to put together. I'm really looking forward to when she's big enough to be involved in cooking, too. It's going to be so much fun!

For now, I'll leave you with one of her bright-eyed little smiles from last week. Love that girl!

Outside adventures in the fall

Today, our family spent most of the day outside, which is a statement I really enjoy making. I love fresh air, and so far, Daphne does too, which I really appreciate.

This morning was our neighborhood cleanup, so Daphne hung out in her stroller while we worked in two of the green spaces in the neighborhood. We planted four trees on a grassy vacant corner lot just a block away, and it'll be a lot of fun to see those grow in the coming years. And then we went to another green space and got to work cutting away some invasive ivy that was trying to take over some of the trees there. She was great the whole time -- just watching and being cute and getting admired by all the neighbors who came out to help.

Hanging out in her stroller and watching all the action during the cleanup

Huge tree with tons of ivy climbing up

In the afternoon, we went with some people from our church to a farm outside the city with tons of fun activities for kids. Daphne was too small to appreciate most of them, but we let her check out the horses (which made her cry) and the ducks (which she didn't seem to mind). There were also goats and alpacas, but she didn't notice them.

Trying to decide what we think of the ducks

The farm also has a huge corn maze (7 acres I think), so our group wandered through and managed to not get lost, although I think the people who were doing most of the navigation had maps. It was a lot of fun, though, and Daphne was all bundled up napping in her stroller most of the time.

When we finished that, we headed out to the pumpkin patch for a little family photo shoot. She wore her hand-me-down "cutest pumpkin in the patch" shirt for the first and perhaps last time ever, and she obligingly smiled and made cute faces for us.

Look! That's us!

Big grin with her daddy

Family photo at dusk

When we got in the car, I suddenly realized that it had been over 4 hours since she last ate. Oops. She's been getting fussy around the 3-hour mark these days, but apparently she was having too much fun to notice. Thankfully, some of our friends live just a few minutes away and had everyone over for chili, so Daphne didn't have to wait long for her supper, either.

Musings about my 4-month-old

So it’s been more than a month since I last posted on here. Oops. Lots of people have been gently prodding me lately to get back into the habit of writing, so here I am. We’ll see if it sticks.

Life has been busy lately, but mostly in a good way. Daphne has gone from being mostly content to sit and watch the world go by to an active little girl who is always wanting to sit or stand up, to grab the things around her, and to babble at anyone who is around. This has all been keeping me busy, but it’s been a lot of fun, too. I love her little voice.

Daphne has been blowing spit bubbles for a while now – just moving her tongue and lips in a way that she eventually creates dozens of tiny bubbles around her lips, and eventually down her chin. Just this week, she discovered that she can also actively blow out to make a delightful noise and a big, wet mess. It still surprises her sometimes when she does it, like she doesn’t know it’s coming from her, but we all laugh, so she laughs too. She spit onto Ben’s leg one night when he was holding her, which was hilarious. She has such a great laugh. She loves being tickled on her tummy or kissed on her cheeks and neck or having people make funny noises at her.

This morning she woke up with what I suspect is the beginnings of her first cold. She was coughing a little bit last night, and this morning she sneezed out more snot than a baby should have in her nose. She’s been mostly her happy self, still, which hopefully means she’s not feeling too crummy. But she has been napping a little more than usual today, hence the blogging.

Speaking of naps, my hope for the next month or two is that she becomes a more consistent napper. These days, she probably has four 30-minute cat naps during the day, which leave me with enough time to grab a snack and get started on some little task before she wakes up. Ideally, I’d love for her to be taking a couple of 1-hour naps, with maybe a cat nap in the late afternoon if she needs it. Ben and I have yet to discuss our philosophy on sleep training, so for now I’m just hoping she’ll settle into a better routine on her own. Stay tuned for further reports.

3 months and growing

No appointment with the pediatrician at three months, but we wanted to do an at home estimate of her growth out of curiosity. She's 23.5 inches long, her head is 40 cm around, and the (mommy+daphne)-mommy weight on the bathroom scale estimate is 13 lbs! This is double what she weighed when she was born. She's solidly at or above the 50th percentile in all three measurements now, and it shows. She has super chunky thighs and I'm currently washing all of her 3-6 month clothes because all of her 0-3 month stuff is getting too small. Crazy how fast a little one will grow!

The many faces of a tiny girl

I have tons of pictures that are cute and don't really go with any stories and have been gathering for the last month or so. Therefore, I decided it's time to just post them all. Some are happy, some are sad, and some are just downright adorable. Enjoy!

She loves sticking out that little tongue. She may be a sassy one someday.

Curious all the time!

We're loving her grins these days!

Still poses with her hands on her face, just like when she was a tiny newborn.

I bet you didn't know our daughter is a mad scientist.

I see this contortion of her face far more often than I'd like to.

Trying on grandma's glasses!

A patient patient

I'm pretty proud of how good Daphne has been at the doctor lately. She didn't even cry when she was getting measured and weighed and having her temperature taken at the pediatrician last month. And today she did wonderfully at the cardiologist (aside from a few times when she decided she was done, which are to be expected from a little one).

Today's cardiology visit was to follow up on some newborn stuff from her first few hours of life. She had an EKG just an hour after she was born to confirm that she just had premature atrial contractions (when some beats come a little earlier than they should), which we knew from her fetal ultrasound. They should eventually go away on their own, but we went today to follow up.

Daphne's first EKG on her birth day

She still has some premature atrial contractions -- it seems like there's one abnormal beat every five to ten regular ones (down from one every three before she was born). This shouldn't be a problem, and it will likely continue to improve. We'll go back in six months to follow up again.

EKG at almost 12 weeks old

She also had an echocardiogram today to check the structure of her heart. It's completely normal, so we're happy about that. We're super thankful to have such a happy, healthy little girl!

There's a real person in there!

It amazes me how much Daphne's little personality has been coming out in these last couple of weeks. She's still super laid-back, which I appreciate, but she's quick to give smiles and is definitely a social little girl. We'll just be hanging out somewhere, whether in her little rocker in the kitchen or in her stroller on an outing, and it thrills her to have me or Ben come close and start talking to her. It's so much fun to see the recognition in her eyes and know that she loves hanging out with us.

We went out for ice cream on Sunday evening (vegan ice cream made with coconut milk for me because dairy isn't agreeing with Daphne's tummy) with some friends from church, and Daphne was the star of the show as we sat around eating our treats. She was just hanging out, grinning at everyone and giving a coo or two when she felt like it. She's also a champ at letting people, including kids, hold her. 

We've also been playing games where we try to get her to mimic us, which she's getting a lot better at. She'll often stick out her tongue, and she's been trying really hard to click her tongue when I do and is getting close to having it down. Ben loves throwing his arms up in the air with some celebratory exclamation and watching her try to do the same. The gears are definitely turning in her little mind!

First zucchini

Daphne helped me by holding the first zucchini from the garden while Ben and I decided what to do with it. We settled on cooking it up with some onions, mushrooms, and garlic, plus a bell pepper and some tomatoes from the farmers market. Absolutely delicious!

Sadly, it looks like our zucchini and squash harvest won't be quite as abundant as I originally thought. The plants seem to have been overtaken by some sort of mold, and then I forgot to water them for a few days, so quite a few of the plants are looking really sad. But we should still have enough to make it worthwhile to grow them.

There's lots of green tomatoes of various shapes and sizes out front, and I'm really looking forward to when they ripen. Hopefully we'll have a relatively warm fall here so I get a good crop, despite my late start. I'm looking forward to next summer, when Daphne will be a lot more excited about what's going on out in the garden!

Playing independently

Daphne's little friend Addy has outgrown her play gym, so she (well, her mom really) brought it over for Daphne to use. This thing is pretty fun, with all sorts of rainforest animals dangling from above, and a fun and colorful scene underneath. Daphne is still not really lifting her head enough to see things under her when she's lying on her tummy, so she's mostly using this on her back these days.

The fun part is that she loves her little rainforest friends, and she gets really excited when she sees them. She'll grin and coo and then start batting at them because they have rattles inside. Her favorite one is the toucan, which is colorful and striped and soft. When I put her down here and she's in a good mood, she'll happily entertain herself for about 10 to 15 minutes, which is pretty impressive for someone that little. Plus, she's developing hand-eye coordination and all sorts of other useful skills.

Gazing lovingly at her toucan

Getting ready to swat at something

Bonus photo from church!

Happy birthday to daddy!

Daphne has pretty good timing. Not only did she show up right before Father's Day this year, but she also got to be in on the big 3-0 for her daddy. This has been a busy weekend of celebration with our good friends, and Daphne has been right in the thick of it.

It turns out, though, that it's a lot harder to prepare for a party while taking care of a newborn than I thought it would be. It definitely took all day to bake the desserts, thanks to all of the tiny interruptions at unexpected times during the process. Turns out she wants to eat, too. About four feedings later, though, we had a delicious lemon cake with zesty lemon cream cheese icing and blackberries (and two dozen cupcakes of the same), and then an apple pie to go with the steak dinner the following night.

You may notice in the cake picture that Daphne is chilling in the background with one of her new friends. She's been really good about getting passed around to everybody who's interested in holding her, and we appreciate her flexibility and friendliness!

Two-month checkup

Daphne went in for her two month (really two months and five days) checkup at the pediatrician, and she's growing like a champ. She measured in at 22.5 inches long and 10 lbs, 14 oz. Her head is 39 cm around. Even adjusting for the five days beyond two months, she's moving up in the growth charts. Her length and weight are between the 25th and 50th percentile, and her head is just above the 50th percentile. She'll be all caught up in no time.

She also got her first (abbreviated) round of shots, and she wasn't happy about them. She had a sleepy and fussy afternoon, but she seems to be doing better now. Ben and I had a hard time deciding which shots to give her, but we're comfortable with the ones we chose.

Her next appointment will be with a cardiologist to follow up on the minor heart issues that were noted when she was born. She still occasionally has an irregular pattern of beats, and they'll also look into whether the chambers of her heart are sealed from each other as they should be. Even if they aren't, it'll just mean another appointment down the road to see if things are progressing. But we're hoping everything checks out now so we can be done with the extra appointments!

Everything grows!

Another title inspired by Raffi. Seriously, I don't know if we'll ever listen to any other music during play time. And that's fine by me.

I don't seem to ever get gardening done unless my family is in town, so it's a good thing my wonderful mother in law decided to come down for a visit this week. Last time she was here, we planted the tomato seedlings and made little moats to make sure the zucchini and yellow squash were getting enough water. They really are, because they've gone from having a couple of little one-inch leaves to being insanely huge. We're going to be swimming in zucchini and squash in a few weeks, so there will be lots of zucchini bread and sauteed squash happening.

The tomato plants are also doing really well -- they're all caged now for support and I've seen my first few little green tomatoes on most of the plants. If I remember correctly, I have five cherry tomato plants (although I think one of them is dying or dead), a "mortgage lifter" tomato plant from a neighbor who gardens, and a couple of other plants that make medium-sized tomatoes. Looking forward to reaping the harvest!

Also, for now, the tomato plants are growing faster than Daphne. I'm trying to bet on whether we'll harvest more tomatoes than she weighs. We have a little kitchen scale so I could try to keep track, but with cherry tomatoes, I'm sure a lot of them won't even make it into the house before they get eaten.

Daphne's dresses

Although I love having a girl, I've been trying to not dress her in pink from head to toe every day. She usually has some pink in her pants or in her shirt, but typically not both. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the pink side of having a girl, I must admit that I absolutely love putting her in dresses.

Yes, it's a little bit impractical and silly for a girl this small to be wearing a dress. It gets in the way sometimes, and I have to keep straightening it out so it doesn't bunch up around her face.

But that said, tiny dresses are approximately the cutest things ever. And here's the proof:

Love her little smile! Also, the stockings have fake shoes.

Daphne in motion. She loves kicking and waving her arms around!

Love this dress! Hanging out on daddy's lap at church.

Not quite a dress, but ridiculous and cute leggings with a built-in tutu.

Catching up with life

It's hard to believe that Daphne is nearing her two month birthday, but a lot has been happening for us that has kept us quite busy. We've had friends and family in town, lots of summer activities in the neighborhood, and our housemates moved out a couple weekends ago. This left our house half empty (or half full?), and I've been slowly working to extend our stuff and routines into the spaces they occupied. Daphne's future nursery is vacant, and that'll be a weekend project soon to put it together for when we're ready to move her out of our room.

Daphne has been growing like crazy (I'm pretty sure she had a growth spurt last week, given how much she was eating) and her little personality is showing itself more every day. She's quicker to give smiles now (grins, really), and she is interacting more with objects around her.

I'm going to be back-dating some posts from the last several weeks, complete with lots of fun pictures.

For now, here's a gem from last night:

First daddy feeding!

Up until this moment, I had been fully responsible for feeding Daphne. And I'm still almost fully responsible for it, but I let Ben give Daphne her first ever bottle feeding. She didn't really blink an eye at it, and I'm happy to know that we now have some options. It gives me a bit more freedom to be away from her for more than a couple hours if I need to, and to be able to feed her in super public places if needed. In particular, we'll be going to a wedding later this month and I imagine a bottle feeding or two will happen there to make things easier for me. Hooray!

Newborn + Neighborhood involvement = Awesome

One of our major goals post-baby was to get back into the swing of life quickly, rather than letting Daphne hold our family back from being involved in the stuff that a full life is made of. To that end, Daphne has been to quite a few activities in our neighborhood already. Here's just a few:

Went on a "walk" with neighborhood folks when she was about 10 days old. Turns out it was really hot that evening, so we just chatted in front of the elementary school instead and ended up meeting a mom of a soon-to-be-kindergartner.

Attended a training session for being a block liaison, and talked about ways to engage neighbors in building community.

Headed out to a BBQ hosted by a neighborhood friend, where we randomly ended up meeting someone who lives a half mile away and went to the same college as us.

Took her to the board meeting for the neighborhood association I'm on. She slept through most of it, which is fair enough because I know this stuff wouldn't have interested me as a kid.

Helped paint at the elementary school by our house.

Went to an arts festival put on by our neighborhood and the one right next to it. Hung out in the sun, listened to live music, and ate delicious food from a local caterer.

Exercising after having a baby: The first of many long walks

We're coming up on Daphne's 6-week birthday, which is incredibly difficult for me to believe. And it also means that it's really time to get back into the swing of things with exercising. I went to a water aerobics class three times a week while I was pregnant, but I'm not feeling ready to leave Daphne to exercise yet.

This means that heading out for a walk is going to be my exercise of choice for a while. We got an awesome stroller that's really easy to push, and there's lots of walkable areas nearby. We can go one way and stop at a Starbucks after a mile, or go the other way and get to a big lake after a mile, or go another way and walk through a neighborhood of million-dollar homes.

Today, when I woke up and discovered it was less than 70 degrees outside (the first time I can remember that happening since the morning Daphne was born, which was gorgeous and crisp), I decided it was the day to start our walking. We headed out in the stroller and walked to the lake. I wasn't exactly feeling up for walking around it (a little over a mile), so we hung out there for a few minutes and came back home.

And Daphne slept through the whole thing. I'm hoping someday she'll be more alert so she can see all there is to see when we're out and about.

Willoughby wallaby waphne... an elephant sat on Daphne!

One of the things I've had the hardest time with so far is figuring out what exactly to do with Daphne when she's not sleeping or eating. During the first couple of weeks, those two activities took up almost all of her time, but she's had more alert time lately and I'm needing to figure out what to do to fill it.

I really don't have much experience spending lots of time with tiny babies, although I have a lot more with little ones who are at least a few months old and are interacting more with toys and are mobile. But tiny babies, not so much.

So I've been trying to pick something new to do with Daphne every day. She sleeps much of the morning, but usually around mid-afternoon, she'll have a really alert hour when we can do something fun.

Today's activity was partially inspired by my childhood. I decided that Daphne needs some Raffi in her life, so we listened to his album Singable Songs for the Very Young while having some floor time. About half on her back and half on her tummy, to help her get stronger muscles without getting too frustrated. She loved watching me sing along to the ones I remember, like "Five Little Frogs," and I enjoyed being silly. There will surely be more of this activity in the coming weeks!

One-month checkup

I took Daphne to the pediatrician yesterday for her one-month checkup, and I am happy to report that she's awesome. After dropping from 6 lbs 8 oz at birth to 5 lbs 13 oz just 36 hours later, she's all the way back up to 8 lbs 8 oz! Given, this is the size of a lot of people's babies when they're born, but for my girl, it's a big deal.

Because she's doing so well, I got official permission to let her sleep as long as she wants overnight, rather than waking her up for feedings. After rolling into bed at 10:30 last night, I was pleasantly surprised for my next conscious moment to be when I heard her making cute noises at 5:18 this morning. That's almost 7 hours of sleep in a row! Crazy. I felt so alert after feeding her that I got up and made breakfast for Ben before sending him off to work, which is something I've done maybe once since Daphne was born. It's definitely fun to not have the mental haze of sleeplessness, and even if this isn't the norm going forward, I'm going to enjoy it today.

Daphne also grew an inch and a half, to 20.5 inches, and her head is 36 cm around, which is a gain of 3 cm. She's tracking with the 25th percentile on all of the growth charts, for those of you who are curious.

Photos with gifts

We haven't done this for everyone (so please don't be offended if you aren't included), but one of the things we've enjoyed is taking photos of Daphne with some of the gifts she's gotten. It's a fun way to show people who haven't gotten to meet her what she's like, and to let them better picture her using their awesome gifts. Here's some of our favorite photos:

June 19 with her Uglydoll from Angie

July 8 with her hand-knit monkey blanket from Charlotte

July 14 with her dress and stuffed animals from Gloria

Lots of things are growing this summer

It's amazing how much Daphne has grown in the last few weeks. She still seems tiny to other people meeting her for the first time, but for me, she's huge compared to the size she was when we brought her home. Her hands are getting chubby, she's getting close to being too long to fit in the newborn sleepers, and she just feels a lot bigger. I know I'm going to be saying this for the next two decades, but she's just growing so fast!

She's not the only thing that's growing though, because we finally got around to getting the summer garden established. I always tell people I'm an aspirational gardener, because I always seem to have big plans that I can't actually execute. This year, I got the spring garden in a little bit late, but reaped a pretty big harvest of lettuce. In fact, it was a little too big because we couldn't manage to eat it all before the weather got hot and the plants got super tall.

When Daphne was born, the front yard (where I do my veggie gardening) was overgrown with lettuce, kale, and lots of weeds. My mom and sister helped out by making salads for dinner pretty much every night, and then my sister spent an hour the day she left picking all the rest of the lettuce so I could start using the space for veggies that actually would tolerate the summer heat.

Gardening with a newborn isn't exactly the easiest job, but Ben and I found a couple of times in the last two weeks to get out and do a little bit more work. We weeded the front third of the yard, turned the soil, and set out some big stones to create paths between my garden beds. I planted zucchini and yellow summer squash, and hopefully Daphne will enjoy their flavor because we're going to be eating a lot of them in a couple of months.

The next task was to plant tomatoes, and I gave myself a little bit of motivation by buying tomato seedlings at the farmers market last Saturday. With them sitting in their tiny planting containers, completely root bound, I knew I had to get them planted in the yard soon. My wonderful mother in law helped me weed the middle third of the yard, to give the kale a bit more space and prepare the bed for the tomatoes. Then they went in today, and hopefully they'll grow quickly so we get a harvest before the fall arrives. We took a photo with Daphne and a tomato plant to see which one is bigger by the end of the summer. Keep an eye out for updates!

Faroe family visit!

This week was full of excitement as Daphne had visitors from the Faroe side of her family. She cried the first time she met her Uncle Chris, but other than that, she loved all of the attention and getting held and stared at by so many people. She was definitely the center of attention!

4th of July and some thoughts on babywearing

A month ago, we were wondering what our 4th of July would look like -- mostly whether we'd be in the hospital, just getting home with a brand new baby, or if I'd be hugely pregnant and miserable. Turns out it was none of those, so we got to celebrate with friends from small group.

After a week of thunderstormy afternoons, we got a gorgeous (although hot) day to enjoy at a friend's house right on the water. No swimming for us, although I did dip my feet in and Ben enjoyed some cannonballs off the end of the dock. We mostly hung out on the porch, enjoying friends and food. Daphne got passed around and was a superstar, not to mention incredibly cute in her denim jumper. Forgot to take a picture -- oops.

Today, she ate a lot and we both dozed until noon, when I realized that my little breakfast from five hours ago wasn't holding up, so I ventured downstairs for lunch. At that point, Daphne decided she really wanted to be held, or maybe fed, despite having eaten less than an hour before. There's no way I could cook and eat with my little one screaming, so out came the Moby wrap.

I'm really proud of this garage sale find -- just $5 for a super long strip of fabric that I magically wrap around myself and can securely tuck my baby into. So far, we've just been using the "hug hold," which puts Daphne upright with her ear right where she can hear my heartbeat. Within minutes of getting put in today, she was fast asleep. I got to enjoy my lunch, water my herbs, kale, and summer squash seedlings, toss some diapers into the wash, and type a blog post. Brilliant! I have a feeling this thing will be getting a lot more use in the coming months.

New mommy street cred: Taking a shower

Ok, so I'm really proud of myself right now. I somehow managed to take a shower, despite the fact that Daphne and I are the only ones at home right now, and she's been a light daytime sleeper, to say the least, for the last few days. But with stuff scheduled for tonight and the smell of curry oozing out of my pores, it had to be done.

The process looked something like this:

1. Feed Daphne. A lot.
2. Change Daphne's diaper.
3. Feed her again to make sure she wasn't going to suddenly decide she was still hungry.
4. Rock her to sleep and put her in the baby bouncer she loves.
5. Wait a bit to make sure she's really asleep, not just pretending.
6. Turn on the shower.
7. Carefully move Daphne in the baby bouncer into the bathroom. Wait a bit more to make sure she's still soundly asleep.
8. Take shower. Quickly! Before she wakes up!

All in all, it was about a 90-minute process, only 10 of which involved me being in the shower. But hey, I'm clean now, and that was the goal here!

Our favorite pajamas

I don't think Daphne could care less what she wears, but Ben and I definitely have our favorite little outfit to dress her in for bedtime. And because I finally did my first load of laundry (clothes laundry that is, because I've done about five loads of diapers so far), she's gotten to wear this one twice. And photos got taken both times, of course.

June 21st - She really likes to pose her hands, I promise we didn't do that.

Tonight, hanging out on her changing table before bed

Turns out my daughter is a dolphin, too

I've always loved being in the water, so I've been wondering what Daphne would think about it when she got the chance. She ended up just getting a sponge bath in the hospital, and her cord stump took a couple of weeks to fall off, so it wasn't until now that we got to find out.

This evening's activity (yes, we plan just one activity per evening, if at all, and it can be as simple as "bathe daughter") was getting a real bath. Daddy got the baby bath set up and filled and put in the little newborn sling so she'd be fully supported. And he picked out the adorable duck hooded towel for her to wear when she got done.

And then the moment of truth... I slowly lowered her into the water, and she gave a little cry of surprise, but after that, she was happy as can be. In fact, in the video of her first bath, you can hear a child screaming, but it was one of the other three hanging out downstairs after our community dinner.

Hopefully this trend will continue and my little girl will always love the water as much as I do!

First Sunday at church!

Because we were still at the hospital on Daphne's first Sunday, this week was her first time to be able to go to church. She was a superstar, sleeping through pretty much the whole thing, while being oohed and aahed over by adults and poked and prodded by all the excited kids.

Ben and I decided that it was as good of a time as any (or perhaps better, because my family was in town) for a baby dedication, so our wonderful pastor fit it into the service for us.

This little girl is not just ours, and we're committed to raising her in the ways of God, with the help of the church. We trust that God will guide her life, and we pray that she'll come to know him as she grows up!

It was really meaningful for us to make this declaration in front of our church family and to have their blessing and support.

Farmers market excursion

I really care about being a family who actually gets out of the house and does stuff together, even during the first few weeks. That's why we headed out today for an excursion to the farmers market! This was our first time out of the house for anything besides doctors appointments and a quick trip to Target for some essentials, and Daphne was awesome.

I wrapped her up in my Moby wrap and we walked 1/3 mile to the farmers market, where we browsed the produce and bought some yummy green beans, cherries, broccoli, and summer squash. And then we dropped by the Book Thing, which she wasn't as fond of because it was super duper hot in there. Overall, though, it was a successful excursion, and we look forward to many more Saturday mornings out and about in the neighborhood this summer!

Daphne comes home

I was ready to leave as soon as lunch time rolled around (which was about 11:15 on the hospital schedule), but it turns out that discharge isn't quite as easy as walking out of the hospital. I needed to meet with Daphne's nurse and my midwife to get the discharge instructions, plus we had to wait for all the paperwork to go through.

To pass the time, we dressed Daphne in her going home outfit and took lots of pictures. Our hospital room had a gorgeous view of the city, so we had a photo shoot with daddy showing Daphne her city. It's kind of weird to think that our daughter was born in Baltimore, and will likely be raised here.

We also decided to take some photos to compare Daphne at 38 weeks to Daphne at 32 weeks (when we got a 3D ultrasound picture). Looks like the same little girl!

When it was finally time to go, I had to get in a wheelchair, have Daphne in my lap, and get picked up next to the elevators on the 4th floor of the parking garage. They sure have their system down. After all the activity of the day, it's safe to say that we were all exhausted by the time we actually made it home!

Daphne meets her namesakes

We chose the name Daphne for our little girl for several reasons. Perhaps the most significant is that it's tied to the laurel tree in Greek mythology, and the laurel tree is a symbol of victory. Daphne is a crown of victory for us and for Jesus. We also both really like the way the name sounds, and we appreciate that it's not terribly popular so she's likely to not be in a kindergarten class with other Daphnes.

One of the cool side features of Daphne's name is that it ties her to her aunt Lauren, whose name also means laurel. We also chose Daphne's middle name, Ruth, after her grandma Ruth, who was named after her grandma Ruth.

All this to say, my mom and sister are two of the people I was most excited for Daphne to meet. They managed to wrap up their lives and hop on a plane to arrive in Baltimore just 32 hours after Daphne was born. And stay here for 10 days. Pretty impressive, and such a treat for our family!