Archive for the ‘Genevieve’ Category

February 3, 2012 0

Serious

By in Genevieve, Photography

Genna’s serious face.

January 31, 2012 2

Happy Girls

By in Family, Genevieve, Music, Video

I definitely wouldn’t call myself a “country music fan.”  That being said, there are a few songs in the genre of twang that I do admit I like.  Today, while feeding Genna applesauce at lunch and watching her smile and giggle at me from her high chair, the song “Happy Girl” by Martina McBride popped into my head.  This is a fantastic song.  It’s the type of song that makes me see the good in country: a positive message, wholesome lyrics, and belt-it-out-loud-in-your-car-with-the-windows-down-in-the-summertime worthiness.  It’s also a song that has a new meaning to me today.

I found the song online and turned up the volume.  I picked up my baby girl and held her on my right hip.  Then I picked up my sweet niece, Anna, and put her on my other hip.  Then, we sang and we danced, all three of us girls.  We were loud, we were silly, and we laughed a lot.  As we twirled and bounced around the living room, I realized the new meaning in the lyrics: all I want, the thing that matters most now, is that my girls are happy.  My own daughter, my niece, my soon-to-be-born second niece…I just want them to be happy in life.  The world can be confusing and cruel, especially to girls.  I hope that their souls break free, I hope they’re not bottled up inside, I hope they laugh when they feel like it, and cry when they feel like it.  Let the axis twirl.  Let the world try its best.  We’ll watch them go.

Today they’re happy girls, and we all know that the sweetest thing in the whole wide world that you’ll ever see, is a happy girl.

Post script – Here’s a video from today of my little happy girl:

January 16, 2012 0

Sunlit Nursery

By in Genevieve, Photography

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Genna enjoying some tummy time in her room.

January 8, 2012 1

Genna & Keys

By in Genevieve, Photography

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I told her that if she could crawl to the keys I’d let her drive the car but she didn’t seem that interested. Thus, no crawling… yet.

January 7, 2012 0

Genna Is Eight Months Old!

By in Genevieve

Today marks Genevieve’s “eighth month birthday” exactly, as she was born on a Saturday.  Therefore, we thought it appropriate to do a much-needed update on what our sweet girl is up to these days.

Genna is growing very quickly.  She is already wearing 12 month onesies (although they always seem to run small) and has been comfortably fitting into most 9 month-sized clothes for a few weeks.  Interestingly, we have not had to adjust her cloth diaper snaps (and thus, the size of the diaper) since she was first wearing them at around 9 weeks of age.  This means our baby is growing a bit longer than she is wide every month, and we can definitely tell by how she almost touches both ends of the changing table at the same time now!  Though she hasn’t been weighed for a while now, we’re guessing she’s somewhere close to 18 pounds, which is good, because she should hopefully be around 21 pounds by her first birthday, which would be triple her birth weight.

Happy girl at 8 months!

Happy girl at 8 months!

Along with this growth comes many new skills.  Genna has been sitting relatively well for about a month, though she still takes the occasional tumble.  Every day, though, she seems to gain more core control as she reaches for things nearby and can get upright again withoutfalling over.  She also decided to celebrate her eight months by showing us some major achievements today: she rolled from her back to her tummy numerous times (previously, she preferred to only go from her tummy to her back) today and was met with applause from her mom and dad, since this is something we have been hoping to see for a few months now.  Today she also attended our friend Kristen’s baby shower, and in her excitement about a new baby girl friend on the way, she began scooting and pushing herself all over the floor in pursuit of interesting things, like books, beads, water bottles, and the other 8 month old at the party.  She’s not yet lifting herself up on all fours, and seems to find it more difficult to go forward than backward, but we sense that those obstacles are not far from being defeated.   Hooray for a big day development-wise!

So big! But still getting used to wearing shoes.

So big! But still getting used to wearing shoes.

In the world of nutriment, Genevieve has now explored many foods beyond the basic carrots, squash, peas, sweet potatoes and pears: she also likes applesauce, bananas, avocado, green beans, apricots, prunes, oatmeal, corn, broccoli, chicken, turkey, peaches, and mangos.  She’s a great eater and is getting better and better with finger food.  Her pincer grasp is almost good enough to feed herself un-frozen peas and bits of rice crackers.  This is important, as she needs something to practice chewing with–she has her two bottom front teeth, and her two middle upper ones are just popping through now!

Working on the peas and blueberries...

Working on the peas and blueberries...

Genna continues to delight us every day with her huge grins, or pixie smiles, as Grandma Kay calls them.  She giggles and laughs a lot, and her laughs–like her burps–are quite hearty.  Just making her laugh is entertaining.  She entertains herself by chewing on her toes, but she loves being tickled and hugged even more.  We are so proud of our little girl, and can’t wait to see what the next four months bring as we journey through her first year together.

"Being 8 months old makes me happy! And so do baths!"

"Being 8 months old makes me happy! And so do baths!"

January 1, 2012 0

Toothbrushes

By in Genevieve, Home

Toothbrushes

From left to right: Hallie, Genna, Mike

December 17, 2011 1

Waving at the Christmas Tree

By in Genevieve, Photography

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Someone is excited for Christmas!

December 4, 2011 1

A Book With Many Meanings

By in Books, Genevieve

The Giving Tree

One of the books that I loved most as a very young boy was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  I still have the copy that I was given by my godmother, Sherri, in 1984 when I was four years old.  The book is very simple and the basic premise is that there is a little boy who loves playing up, in, and around a tree.  The tree loves the boy and the boy loves the tree.  The tree provides the boy with everything he asks for.  As the boy grows older, his needs change, but the tree is always happy to see the boy return and always gives him what he asks for.  As the boy continually takes from the tree, the tree loses it’s branches (which the boy uses to make a house) and eventually even it’s trunk (which the boy uses to make a boat).  In the final pages of the book, there is only a stump left and by this point the boy is an old man and he uses the stump as a place to rest.

When I came back to this story in my teens and twenties, I felt that the book, written in 1964 as the modern environmental movement was getting underway, was clearly telling us that nature is important and that we should be careful of taking advantage of it.  The book has a bit of sadness to it, which I think is intentional.  The simple drawing of the old man sitting on the stump on the last page is mournful, almost as if Silverstein is telling us that this is ultimately what all of the world’s trees will look like if we are not careful.

The Giving Tree was the first book I read to Genevieve a few weeks after she was born.  We laid together in bed on our backs.  I held the book above her so that she could see the pictures as I began to read.  Suddenly, as I turned the pages, the book’s meaning completely changed for me.  I wasn’t thinking about environmentalism or conservation as I read the story to Genna.  Instead, the tree became a parent.  Because in the book, the tree wants to give the boy everything he needs.  The tree loves the boy and is always there for him, no matter what – the very definition of unconditional love.  As I read the book to my beautiful little daughter, I completely understood how the tree feels about the boy, and why the tree acts as it does in the story.

It took a bit longer than usual to read the book aloud that day because my vision blurred a few times and my voice wavered.  The book’s “new” meaning caused me to think about fatherhood in a deeper way than I ever had before.  In fact, I think it was the first time that I truly realized the depth of my love for the little tiny girl at my side.

November 17, 2011 0

Genna’s First Halloween

By in Family, Friends, Genevieve

I realize this is quite late, but better late than never, eh?

For Genevieve’s first Halloween, she decided to throw a party for all her little friends.  She invited anybody she could think of who her parents knew and who had tiny tots in their households as well.  This turned out to be family members, a few old friends of Mike’s from high school, new friends from our ECFE New Parent Connection class, and some friends from college and the neighborhood.  Our home ended up having around 30 people at any point in time–with about 2/3 of those people being babies or small children.  It was a very lively party!  We had snugglers, tummy-timers, sitters, crawlers, standers, climbers, walkers, and runners.  The moms and dads were kept busy keeping up with their wee ones, especially since our home is not yet well baby-proofed.  (Side note: we can’t seem to fit any safety gates at the top or bottom of our stairs due to the woodwork.  Does anyone have any tips?)  We had a great feast of treats, thanks to everyone who brought items to share, and of course, there was a ton of candy.  The kiddos all showed up in costume to some degree or another, including a mouse, a pumpkin, a couple of superhero-type people, a ladybug, and a “very hungry caterpillar”.  Genna was a dinosaur, as she wanted her costume choice to be a nod to her former newborn self, at which time we called her “Dino Baby” due to the interesting sounds she made when she was very young.  For more on that, see this older post.

Genevieve really enjoyed herself, after she arose from her requisite nap (which she chose to begin right as the party was getting started, of course):

It seems that Halloween 2011 was a great one!

November 15, 2011 0

A Whole New World…

By in Genevieve, Video

As Genna is now six months old, she has entered a whole new world…that of solid foods.  No longer will she be only ingesting mama’s milk; now she gets to explore other options, too!  So far, she has sampled rice cereal, peas, and bananas.  You can probably guess in which of those three she was least enthused.  She’s also not a fan of the high chair so far, but seems to enjoy utensils.  Here is a little clip of Genna learning about spoons:

I have also been trying to get a start in making our own baby food.  It’s happily far easier than I thought it would be, and it’s going to save quite a nice little chunk of change.  I can buy all organic produce and make it at home for a fraction of the cost it would be to buy it from the store.  For example, a jar of organic squash baby food is usually at least 40 cents, whereas I bought a huge whole organic squash for $1 at the farmer’s market and it made about 16 jars worth.  Plus, homemade baby food fills your freezer with beautiful colors:

So far, she has been doing a great job of eating her “solids” and the clean-up has been quite minimal, too.  Now that she’s learning how to “razzle” her lips and make spittle, though, we may be in store for a bit more of a mess.  Good thing we have a bigger bib ready to go.