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.