The many faces of...

Okay, the expressions are starting to ramp up, as is my willingness to pick the camera back up... here's a sample!

Pooperama

3 diapers in the space of 1.5 minutes just now... We believe this to be a new record. Thankfully Mom is adept at dodging face shots now...

Relentless

Well, the little girl continues to eat us out of house and home. Every two hours, BANG. Almost literally like clockwork - I sweat it's every two hours, plus or minus two minutes. Well, this post was really just an excuse to post a recent photo of Abby I took today that I'm kind of fond of. Hope you like it too!

Fecal Facial

Yesterday Abigail struck back, in spades, for any injustice she might have perceived to have been imposed on her by us. While her Mom was changing her in a restaurant restroom, she unleashed two fecal volleys in short succession that covered her Mom's face and chest, and permeated her hair as well. When they returned to the table our orders had just arrived. We validated our rank of "experienced parents" by finishing our food before leaving. I'll attach a recent photo of the culprit.

Owee

Gee, it's great to be home from work for several weeks, but I have to say - I've never picked up and put down another human being so many times in my life as I  have recently.  In to the car seat. Out of the car seat. Into the high chair. Out of the high chair.  On to the bed.  Off of the bed.  Now, multiply that by two and throw in the car seat for good measure.

So today, at the mall food court, my back drew it's line in the sand.  In that awkward posture one is forced to assume when depositing a child in a high chair, a tiny cry was heard from the base of my back.  It became progressively worse over the course of the afternoon, and by the time we wanted to leave Barnes & Noble, my wife and I were both lumbering paper lions trying in vain to heard the two year old out of the store.  I, because of my back, and she, because she was so still incredibly sore from the explosive natural childbirth.

Ever try to reason  a two year old out of a place where they want to stay?  Without the threat of overpowering them in a public, humiliating way through brute physical force, attempts at verbal persuasion amount to nothing more  than silly white noise.  The best I could do was to pursue her the best I could and make pendulous, totally benign arm motions in her direction.  Bending over and scooping her up would have landed me in the ER.

Eventually we limped home, we with our hat in our hand and our daughter's pockets bulging with bribe booty.  I'm considering abandoning everyone for the movies tonight if I don't go under entirely via self pity beforehand.

Pictured is Abigail's older sister Ava - the diabolic little tyke that so mercilessly manipulated me today.

Eating, sleeping, crying, pooping...

Not necessarily in that order.  Actually Abby's doing very well - doing her best to extract herself from her teeny tiny status.  We fantasized about actually being able to enjoy the doctor recommended feeding schedule of every 3 hours with one 4 hour vacation... but you can almost see Abby laughing as she drags me out of bed at 2:31 am after eating nearly her body weight at about 1:15 am.  

She's got miniscule, but normal nostrils - so we found it necessary to tilt her bassinet a little to free up  her breathing a bit.  She seems to enjoy evacuating her bladder and bowels spontaneously upon diaper removal - and let me tell you brother, she's packing some velocity.

That's it for now - I'll throw in a recent photo for good measure.

Here's Abby...

My wife took a somewhat dim view of the umbilical cord knot being the first thing people saw when they came to this site... so here's a quick photo designed to push that umbilical photo a little bit further down the page :-).

Model Baby

Abigail is going to be a 'model' baby for a sibling class here in the hospital. If I can graph a photo, I'll post it eventually. Breast feeding has been a brutal challenge, more or less forcing us to go with the bottle in the early stages... but she's gobbling up the bottles, which is a very good thing. Tomorrow morning we'll see how she's doing with weight.