Dinner Club International Babe

Dinner Club France (3 mos): Dinner Club Malaysia (4 mos): Dinner Club Ireland (4 1/2 mos):

Dinner Club NY (5 mos)!

Thanx to all her Dinner Club aunties, this girl knows how to REPRESENT!

Funny

Back in the days I can hardly remember now, Todd and I took a class at the hospital: Intro to Childbirth 101. Pretty eye-opening to those who had never had kids (!) but did it really need to be four weeks long?

Anyway, one of the things I took away from that class was that I should make a birth CD. As in, a music CD to accompany the birth. The instructor gave us all kids of tips on what to bring to the hospital, but for some reason the one thing I really focused on was the birth CD!

I spent hours coming up with the perfect songs. Death Cab for Cutie: "Where Soul Meets Body"; Papas Fritas: "I Believe in Fate"; Radiohead: "Exit Music" (Today is the day we escape); The Beatles: "Blackbird" (All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive); etc......

I pictured us going through contractions, holding hands, in slow-motion like, while I explained the meaning of each song to Todd (it was a surprise) and he commented on my uber cool musical abilities.

Yep! That's how it was gonna happen!

:)

Needless to say, the birth CDs (I had so many great songs I had to make two!) were forgotten the minute we got to the hospital. I found them approximately three months later when I finally unpacked my hospital bag, along with the cute pjs and things I planned to wear around the hospital halls.

They are now the musical backdrop for me & Madison when we wake in the morning or are winding down at night, and for nursing and gazing into each others' eyes. Each song is a reminder to me of how I wanted to bring my baby into this world. And someday maybe I'll even tell Madison the meaning of each song!

The babes, they are a-growin'

Then (Maya- 3 mos, Madison - 1 1/2 mos):

And now! (Madison - 4 1/2 mos, Maya - 6 mos):

Gotta love MJ's chubby little legs!

first ponytail

Couldn't help it!

rice cereal

We finally broke down and decided to try rice cereal. It's weird- you kind of hear mixed things. Like, our pediatrician told us to hold off on introducing any solids until MJ is 6 months old, based on the idea that they can get food allergies earlier. Yet other people (and books) seem to assume rice cereal is like a standard thing for 4-month-old babies.
In any case, with the semi- OK from our pediatrician, and the hope(!) that it would help MJ sleep longer at night, we gave it the ol' college try.


These pics were taken on day 2, before we realized wearing a bib was key. :)
And after the first couple of tries, she seemed to really like it! And I don't know if it's just our imagination, but she is definitely sleeping in longer stretches now at night. She can pretty much go from 10pm - 8/9am with only one wake-up, usually around 2 or 3. Of course, this hasn't happened *every* night but we've started to notice a trend! Fingers crossed!

Cousins!

Madison & Alayna, red white & blue babies! ~ ~ ~

Cousins!

The girls were troopers. Alayna lasted almost the whole night, but then crashed out right before the fireworks...! MJ fell asleep early on but then woke up when the fireworks started, and I held her up on my shoulder to watch. She actually managed little tiny "ooh" sounds every once in a while after the big ones. Impressive for a four-month-old! I really didn't think she'd even notice! She probably thought it was like her Twinkle Turtle, on a grand scale!

~ ~ ~

And later that night:

Speaking of Summer...

...

Yes, it's true! And I finally got to ride it yesterday ~ the Maiden Voyage! only two weeks after we bought it, but hey! It will come in handy with these high gas prices, of course. Oh, and it is SoooOOOoooo fun to drive!