3 months old!

Hip chick chillin' at home

Yesterday our sweet little Annika turned 3 months old! We cannot believe how quickly the time has passed, nor how much not only she - but we- have changed during this brief (?) time. Funny, the last 3 months of pregnancy dragged on and on and on. And on. And the last 90 days are poof- where did they go?

We celebrated last night with some Thai/Japanese take-out (delivered). Long Beach sure has great food delivery. Annika sat in her new Bumbo and celebrated with us. I think she thinks she is now royalty with her new chair. She loves it.

Something that has suprised me is how flippin' insanely crazy in love I am with her. I mean, I thought I loved my siblings. I thought I knew what take a bullet or jump in front of a speeding car to save them kind of love was for my amazing nieces and nephews. That's how much I love them. But this. This love for Annika is off the map. Kind of makes me appreciate my own parents a lot more (and no need to rub it in, mom!). And on another thoughtful level, how much more does God love me? Makes me think...

Anyway -- back to more shallow waters. She continues to crack us up. She smiles and grins at us for any reason. She has just started laughing, and I can get the best giggles out of her when I'm changing her clothes and tickle her cheeks. She thinks that's hysterical, for some reason. When she wakes up in the morning she will pleasantly chatter at her feet, or the mobile, or her glow-worm, or the wall and is good for about 20 minutes doing this. After that, she gets a little yelpy, a sort of 'Hey! I'm awake in here!' and we go in to rescue her from her crib, again to be greeted with an ear to ear grin and a wiggly excited little girl. We are so blessed.

Right before Christmas she started sleeping through the night but seemingly forgot how starting last Friday. She graced us with 4 nights of 2:30 AM wake-up calls where she downed an entire 6 oz. bottle. Thankfully, the last two nights she slept though the night, with last night sleeping 10.5 hours. Wow! We have employed the Jack Bauer method of bottle feeding for her final feeding around 9 PM. We do everything to keep her from falling asleep while eating - tickle her legs, make noise, unbutton her jammies - all to keep her drinking. It seems to work.

I've also noticed she sleeps longer/better all night after we've spent a good portion of the day outside. Tuesday we went for a really long walk on the beach in Huntington Beach (and I got a bit of too much sun!), and yesterday we were at the park for several hours. Today we're going to Laguna Beach for some BBQ. We joined two different mom's groups down here and have really filled our social calendar! Finally!!!! :-) One group is made of new moms with babies born in 2008, and the other is a group of moms in Long Beach. I've made one new friend, Jenny, whose little guy Ryan is two days older than Annika. He is totally adorable. It's also nice to be able to talk to someone who is going through pretty much the same thing at the same time with a baby.

Ryan and Annika at the park yesterday. He has the longest eyelashes and as you can see is quite the little cutie.Annika chillin' with her groovy Wall-E sunglasses in her Bumbo. I've got the whole sun-screen kit for her - hats, sunglasses, and a new pop-up tent sun shade.

Tuckered out at the park and cozy with one of Aunt Traci's blankets.

Annika explains it all....

Annika is a very demanding, but pleasant baby. She has to be in the middle of what we're doing, and doesn't want to miss out on the action in our household. She has increasingly grown impatient with being laid or reclined in the boppy, or on the floor and has a unique, complainy-cry for 'get me out of here'.

As a result, we have to keep her in the infant rocker, or the new Bumbo (thanks to Stacy O for the hot tip on this one!).

We bought the Bumbo today and she immediately loved it. Here's some video of Annika telling us all about it! (Sorry, the lighting isn't so great). Stick to the end -- there are some good grins!



In other news, she's outgrown her baby bathtub and is graduating to the big tub tonight. I'm sure she'll enjoy that as well. Mommy and daddy and looking forward to spending time on their almost 40-year-old knees. It's not the time on the knees, actually - it's the getting up part...

Annika and I are planning a trip to Utah to visit cousins Mia and Lukas next week, and I had to go buy yet another set of warm winter clothes. We bought proper winter clothes for our Christmas trip to Seattle, and she's already outgrown them...grrr....she's growing so fast!

She had her 'two month' check up at 11 weeks old, and is doing fabulously! She's in the 95th percentile for both height and weight. This puts her solidly in the 6-9 month size for clothing. Fortunately, we live in SoCal where I can get away with buying spring and summery clothes in advance. I've already stashed an entire bin of clothes she's outgrown. I was quite emotional packing some of her first sleepers away - they looked so tiny, and it brought back many fresh memories of those crazy, sweet, hectic, joyful, sleepless first few weeks.

Annika and daddy at his desk.

Grin! - Well, kind of...

Stylin' in her hand-me-down Hilfiger (again, thanks Stacy and Sydney!)

Clean, unfolded laundry. It's not even warm as it was in the dryer all night. WHY????

George being, well, George.

I used to be cool.

I have a new favorite shirt. It says "I used to be cool". I saw it advertised on Facebook, and it cracked me up...so I bought it in anticipation of my 40th b-day next month.

Anyway, I was wearing it today and Annika graced me with yet another 'Mommy Merit Badge'. If you look closely on my left shoulder, you'll see it!

What a generous baby!!!!

As further evidence of my 'coolness', I now have a grocery wagon. Yes, a real wagon. Here's the dealio: when we moved to SoCal, we bought a modest and cozy (aka cheap and small) condo as housing prices are off the map down here. We were fortunate enough to get a condo with 2 garages, and although they are 'attached' to the building, there is no direct access from our unit. The garages are down the walk and around the corner from our door.

The grocery wagon. Notice the pink camo diaper bag in the lower right? Love it!

On grocery days, I don't want to make multiple trips back to the car to bring in the loads as that would mean leaving Annika alone in the house, even if just for a few minutes (Remember, I'm a neurotic new mama). Hence, the wagon! All the groceries + Annika's car seat fit into one trip down the walkway. Additionally, there are 2 cup holders on the thing so it can also hold my beloved Starbucks. What a good life!

You may wonder why I just don't do my grocery shopping in the evening after Victor gets home, and there is a good explanation. He works such long hours, and frequently on weekends that I really covet and protect our time together. We do shop together at Costco, but we see that as a date for some reason. It might be the free food samples on Saturday.

Here are some vids of Annika. My niece Mia is very demanding and wants to see vids on the blog every day. I willingly comply!

Annika hacking into daddy's laptop.

Annika falling asleep:

Annika when she wakes up:

Smooth move, mom!

It's a sunny, beautiful Sunday here in SoCal. It's supposed to be 80 today, and I'm breaking out the fans I put into storage last month. The only fly in the ointment is that daddy was once again called into work. :-( We decided to make the best of it! We packed up in the babytrekker for our daily walk to Starbucks. Today, I put Annika facing forward for the 1st time so she could better enjoy the view. I thought it would be cute to get a picture of us!
As you can see, not a good shot. The carrier is a bit too big for her.

Trying unsuccessfully to get both of us in the frame......and this is when I dropped the camera on poor Annika's head while fiddling with the dang thing. Bad mom! First time I've made her cry. Ouch.
Here's a cute picture from last night's bath time. She loves her baths, but is outgrowing the baby tub. Maybe time to move to the big tub! The ducky towel was a gift from G-Ma K!

And her is some video of her conversating while fighting falling asleep. She's been doing this the past week -- tired, needing a nap, and fighting it. Notice she tries to smile? She 'fusses' about 5 minutes like this, shakes her head back and forth, and then just nods off.

Annika's 1st earthquake

As I was posting the previous entry, we had an earthquake. Annika's first. Woo-hoo! Small one, 4.9, and I didn't even think it was an EQ at first (I thought it was the kids/dog upstairs messing around), but when the my windchimes were also shaking, I knew it was something bigger...

My 2nd since we've moved here, and both times I was blogging....ha ha.

But I'm sleeping in the same room as the baby tonight. Again, that new mom neurosis....

A day at the beach!

Today Annika and I met our friend Amber, who is visiting from Seattle, for lunch. We met up at the Ruby's Diner in Laguna Beach. Afterwards, we went to Starbucks (yes, I know you're SHOCKED!) and went for a walk on the lovely beach. So what if it was a cloudy day! It still beats all the rain/snow/flooding in Seattle! Laguna Beach is a nice little town on the coast about halfway between LA and San Diego. It has a beautiful, rugged coast and is quite the tourist trap.

This was also Annika's first trip to the beach, which is a bit embarrasing as we only live 4 miles from the water in Long Beach. I'm sure we'll get back to the beach soon.

Also -- she slept 10 hours last night!!!! I only slept 6 of those 10, as the last 4 I was waking up every 15 minutes to check and see if she was still breathing. First time mom neurosis, I guess. But there she was, happily sleeping away. She had a really busy and eventful day yesterday. We joined a group of other moms and babies at a really great park in Cerritos, and she spent about 2 hours outside in the chilly So Cal January 70 degree winter. It must have tuckered our poor girl out! She loved watching all the kids running around, and all the older toddlers were fascinated with all the 'babies'. I think this may have been what prompted her long sleep!

This is a really great mom's group, with about 2-3 activities a week ranging from coffee dates, nature walks, rollerblading, and library story times. Most of the moms are first timers, and of that 'advanced maternal age' like me, so we have lots in common.

Tomorrow we are going to the library for story time, and then out for coffee.

Here are some pictures from today:

Annika and me on the boardwalk

Cheeky girl!

Local fauna

This one's for Mia!

My three-year-old niece Mia loves to look at my blog and all the baby pictures. She especially loves the film clips and repeatedly asks her mom to make the regular photos talk too. Here is a little video just for Princess Mia!



Here you go Mia!