Wake Up Routine

Another round of pictures from GAL (Great Aunt Lois; she visited on Aubrey's 2 week birthday). This time, Aubrey is waking up from a nap:

Sleepy Time Take 2

More pictures from GAL's visit. This time, Aubrey is sleeping.

Road Trip Fun

We celebrated Aubrey's 1 month b-day with a road trip to see T's side of the family. It was Aubrey's first time in her car seat for more than 45 minutes. The ride out was difficult. Aubrey slept for a total of 40 minutes of the 6 hour trip. The rest of the time she spent screaming. SCREAMING. Like this:
Actually, GAL snapped this 2 weeks ago, but you get the idea. Aubrey was so mad at T by hour 4 that she stopped looking at her, even while feeding, for the rest of the day. Of course, she was an angel the whole time we were there. She didn't even fuss when we got stuck in construction on the way to Great-grandma B's house on the lake. Here is Aubrey with Great-grandma B:
Aubrey slept for all but 40 minutes of the ride home. After a small fit for the last 10 minutes of the ride she actually smiled, yes, smiled, when we got home. Her first genuine, including the eyes, smile. It was beautiful.

Bouncy Chair Fun

Vibration off/on:

On the Square

Last Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market with Grandma Trouble and Grandpa Jeff. Aubrey slept for a good part of the walk around the square. When she woke up we sat on the capital lawn for a bit. I thought this photo was particularly appropriate to mark Aubrey's first market experience. I call it "Strawberry Patch":

We also got a photo of Aubrey in front of the capital. Just before the picture was taken Aubrey had her right arm point forward, like the statue on top of the capital. She pulled it back and I couldn't get her to extend it again. Maybe politics aren't her thing?

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Okay. Take a deep breath. Maybe take one more. Are you sitting down? Ready? They're here! The pictures from GAL are here! They're here! Thanks GAL! There's gonna be a lot of pictures posted over the next few days. Here's a fun little sequence I'll call "Birthday Girl":

Me: Hey Aubrey!

Aubrey: What?

Me: You're 2 weeks old today!

Aubrey: Really?

Me: Yep. But you can't have cake. Not until you're 1 month old.

Aubrey: What?!? Why not? Aw, come on!

Me: Aubrey, if you fuss you won't get any cake.

Aubrey: Fuss? Not me!

Milestones: Follow-up

Aubrey celebrated her 3 week birthday in a big way. She helped T with her experiment in the morning, went out to lunch with our friends Sara and Kendall, and went shopping with Grandma Trouble in the evening. Aubrey maintained good spirits throughout. Maybe we've broken the string of Wednesday meltdowns?

I don't have any new pictures. As soon as the ones from GAL come I'll put some up. Stay tuned!

Bedtime Monster?

Aubrey doesn't really like being put down for bed. For the first week or so we tried swaddling her to give her the feeling that she was still cuddling in our arms. She would struggle against the blanket until she could work an arm out and put her hand up to her face. We are trying a swaddle/sleepsack combo that leaves her legs free to kick. That didn't really work either. Now, instead of swaddling her arms we leave those free too. The result:

Last night we gave her a pacifier. She didn't want it at first and it took some patience while she worked on it. After a few minutes she kept it in and sucked herself to sleep. Yippee!

Out for Lunch

Aunt Kim and Uncle Scott stopped by to see Aubrey on Sunday on their way home from a volleyball tournament. We celebrated by going out for lunch at Tex Tubb's Taco Palace. Aubrey slept through the whole thing which was great for us given it was our first time eating in a restaurant with her. In fact, the day went so well that we went for a walk later that afternoon for ice cream. Aubrey slept through that too.

Stre-e-e-tch

Aubrey has a new wake-up routine where she stretches, makes cute faces, sighs, and stretches some more:

Milestones

Aubrey celebrated her 2 week birthday by losing her umbilical cord stump. She also entertained her Great Aunt Lois (GAL), a professional photographer, for the better part of the day. Check back for pictures (of Aubrey, not her stump). I'll post them soon.

Bath Time

Aubrey had her first bath a week ago. We didn't get any pictures from that one because her first reaction to the warm water wasn't exactly a pleasant one. The short story is that we had to change the bath water and start over. By that time she was pretty upset and we sped through the bath. We were more prepared for her second bath and managed to get some pictures. This experience was far more pleasant for all parties involved.

Daddy's Little Girl

T and I conducted our own photo shoot of Aubrey yesterday. We're amazed at how much she is changing already. I think she is starting to look more like I did as a baby every day. Only time will tell if that will be a good thing.

Meet the Family Part 4

And now C's dad's side of the family:

Grandpa Daryl

.

Grandma Kris


Great-grandma R


Uncle Dan


Uncle Matt

Meet the Family Part 3

The third of at least 4 installments in the Meet the Family Series: C's step-dad's side of the family. First Grandpa Jeff, who cooked some awesome ribs for Aubrey's first Independence Day party:

Grandpa Jeff (with Grandma Trouble)

And now the great-grandparents (note the "J" theme):

Great-grandma Jean

Great-grandpa Jack

Meet the Family Part 2

Introducing C's mom's side of the family...First, a 4 generation photo of Great-grandma D, Grandma Trouble, and us. Although you can't see it, we're sitting on Great-grandpa D's favorite bench.
Aubrey's Uncle Patrick and Aunt Katie visited this past weekend. They came from St. Louis and so far have the prize for farthest distance traveled to see Aubrey. Thanks and congrats to them! T and C and Aubrey hope to see them again soon.

Uncle Patrick

Aunt Katie

Meet the Family Part 1

This is the first of several posts to introduce Aubrey's extended family. Here's T's side who visited from Minneapolis this past week:

Grandma Sandy

Grandpa Max

Uncle Scott and Aunt Kim

Field Trip!

Aubrey celebrated her 1 week birthday with a field trip to mommy's field site. Here she is supervising tadpole collection from the safety of her mosquito-netted car seat:

And the results of her hard work - cups of tadpoles absorbing their tails to complete metamorphosis to frogs:

T and I were impressed with Aubrey's field sense and attention to detail despite the hordes of mosquitos. We think she'll make a fine ecologist someday. But, all the hard work made her pretty tired and it was early to bed:

Photo shoot!

I would like to extend a special thanks to Aunt Kim and Uncle Scott for helping us get set up at home, running errands, and starting Aubrey's scrapbook while they were visiting this past weekend. Most importantly, Aubrey really enjoyed their company and hopes they visit again soon. While Kim and Scott were here they conducted several photo shoots of Aubrey. They left us with literally a hundred photos to choose from. These are some of my favorites:

Welcome to the club

As a first-time dad and blogger, I'm likely to post about things that maybe aren't really of interest to others or may reveal a bit more information than someone wants to know about a topic. Please write it off as me being a newb. With apologies, this post is likely to cross some boundaries...

Last Friday we had some concerns that Aubrey was a bit jaundiced. The whites of her eyes yellowed, she got lethargic, and she stopped pooping. By Saturday afternoon when we checked out of the hospital she hadn't pooped in 20 hours. At the 24 hour mark we called the doctor and were told that everything was likely okay as long as she was still eating and peeing. She was, so we relaxed. Well, T did anyways. My anxiety grew with each passing hour. Thankfully our concerns were alleviated shortly thereafter. The poop-splosion blew up the front, back, and out the legs of her diaper. It was truly amazing. Here's a video of my dad and I about 1/2 way through the diaper change, after the poop-splosion was cleaned up. Aunt Kim is running the video and providing the narrative. I'm cleaning Aubrey's umbilical cord which took the brunt of the front-side trajectory:

Aubrey is no longer showing signs of jaundice which is great. I, on the other hand, my be permanently marked by the experience. Apparently my quality-assurance, quality control protocol failed when putting on the clean diaper. In the time it took to get Aubrey from the dresser to T for a feeding the clean diaper was around Aubrey's knees. With dad as the witness it will be a long time before I live this story down.

Introducing Aubrey

We've got a back-log of pictures, videos, and stories to share. As I work on getting those out today please enjoy the total awesomeness that is Aubrey Jae: