A Sunday Out

Olivia had another Big Day Out today. Mom and dad and grandma wanted to go to Sunday roast, so we all drove to Grantchester for a good meal at the cozy Green Man pub. Since it was another beautiful day, Olivia got back into the sling and we walked along the Cam into Cambridge via Newnham. Olivia was very patient with our long walk and was able to stop just once for a little bite to eat while still in the sling - enough to tide her over until Mom and Grandma could find a place to sit and have some coffee while Olivia had second lunch! On our way up Mill Lane in Cambridge, we had a bit of a thrill - who passed by us but possibly the greatest mind of our century - and his very pretty wife gave Olivia in her sling a great big smile :) The gentleman was none other than Stephen Hawking - wow. It really was pretty exciting!

We ended up back at No.1 King's Parade for coffee and a piece of almond cake for a bit of a rest and a chance for Olivia to refresh herself too. The waitresses are very nice here - it's definitely a baby-friendly cafe! All-in-all a good Big Day Out for Olivia! Then back home for popcorn and a relaxing evening in.

Week 14 - Walk to Grantchester

Here is Olivia in her week 14 photo with a very pleasant look on her face (coaxed out between scrunchy faces at being set down!).

She is doing great and SMILING alot. She likes to look at our faces or one of her toys and will smile like crazy for a while. Suzanne got four responsive smiles in a row yesterday by sticking her tongue out - Olivia really likes that trick! Funny-looking parents are so entertaining! Her muscles are closing over her previously very outy herniated umbilicus belly button common among preemies, so we're very excited about that too. The last outward vestige of her early birth is disappearing.


Bob and Suzanne and Grandma all took advantage of a beautiful Saturday and made the lovely country walk from home to Grantchester, where we had an enjoyable lunch (great mushroom soup!) at the historical Orchard. The Orchard was a gathering place for poets and writers a hundred years ago. A group of them including Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster would meet here for tea and talk - it was a private residence then of the locally famous Rupert Brooke.


Here, Suzanne and Barb stand by the Mill Stream which feeds into the Cam, in Grantchester.

Olivia has a new visitor from the States!

In Cambridge, we seem to be well-placed to benefit from friends' and family's visits to London. Bob's long-time friend Jeremy Hornik had a business trip in London and has taken a couple days to come up to visit us and meet Olivia. We especially appreciate Jeremy tacking a couple days onto the end of his trip because he has his own adorable baby (Donna) and Sheila that he's eager to get back to in Chicago! Here is Jeremy and Olivia getting acquainted.



Olivia has been spending more and more time really studying things and faces. Here, she takes a good look at her Whoozit (from cousin Vicki :) This was the first thing she really was interested in focusing on, other than faces. It's still her favourite - she will crane her neck to keep watching it during a nappy change. A very helpful diversion!

Oh! and she weighed in at 11 pounds 9 ounces today! :)

Getting better!

Olivia and a very happy Grandma Steffens. We're pleased to report that she's feeling much better (as are we!). The cold is still not completely gone, but at least she seems to be able to breathe easier! Today I had a foreshadowing of things to come as I wiped her little nose after a rather productive sneeze...


In fact, Olivia felt well enough on Sunday that we took a little trip out to Wimpole, an old estate with a large manor house (we've never been inside) and expansive grounds to walk around on. This is the 'folly' at the back end of the grounds. We recently learned what a 'folly' actually is in this context. Our first trip out there, we looked over these "ruins" and wondered how old they were and who built the original building... heh heh. Little did we know that they were built like that!

13 weeks, and another milestone...

Olivia at 13 weeks, with the Duck. She really is growing; recently we've been noticing her length more than anything, for example she's starting to get long enough that it's not easy to lay her out on your lap to dress her anymore.

Well, this next milestone was one we weren't looking forward to. She has her first cold. This was accompanied by her first midnight trip to a medical center with her nervous parents... She was all snuffly and we were starting to get concerned about her breathing (since she, like all babies her age, can only breathe through her nose). A quick call to NHS direct and they put us in touch with CamDoc, the night-time service here in Cambridge for exactly this sort of thing. The doctor told us to bring her in and she was able to reassure us (we weren't sure that it was a cold...) that everything was fine (well, Olivia's still snuffly and somewhat unhappy, but not in any danger...).

But this is not the first time we have had so little sleep, although it's beginning to catch up with us right now. Sometimes I wish Olivia could just breathe through her mouth, but that would come with a whole host of problems of its own!

She's getting LARGER!

Two weeks after Olivia's last weigh-in, she weighed in at exactly one pound heavier today. She tipped the scales at 11 pounds 1.5 ounces this afternoon. A pretty decent weight gain keeping her up around the 90th percentile.

Bob and Olivia are catching up on a little sleep right now. Bob slept right through last night to this morning, so he must be preparing for tonight... Olivia is probably resting up from getting her second round of immunisations, though. She's such a brave little girl, but hey, if it hurts, it hurts - and those shots hurt! We gave her a little Calpol (baby painkiller) when we got home, so hopefully that will take the edge off of the soreness in her thighs around her shots. Last time, she was miserable for several hours in the evening, so we're keeping our fingers crossed for tonight being better!

Cousin Roger visits Olivia

Grandma Steffens here to visit, and seeing Olivia, gave Suzanne's 4th Cousin Roger two great reasons to visit us in Trumpington today. Roger kindly drove all the way up from Crowborough to spend the day with us.

It was the first time Barb and Olivia and Roger had gotten to meet one another, and we all spent an enjoyable afternoon talking over lunch and apple pie. As you can see in the photo, Olivia slept peacefully through almost the whole of this special occasion! Roger and Suzanne are related through their great-great-great (I think I got that right!) grandparents Oaksford, where Olivia's middle name comes from. Olivia is lucky to have a cousin and grandma so devoted to unraveling the genealogy of this common branch of her family - it's exciting to see it unfold!

Week 12- sleeping beauty

Sleeping beauty defined. Note her great _Big_ cheeks and chubby hands! hard to imagine that she once weighed under 4 pounds.




Here's the Week 12 pic with Duck for scale. She's really lengthened over the last few weeks- starting to get to the toes of another batch of sleep-suits!

Today the 4 of us went into town to show Grandma Steffens around Cambridge a bit and do a little shopping. Olivia nestled peacefully in the sling through King's college (even the chapel!) and all the way to the coffee shop where we stopped for High Tea (although as Americans we had coffee instead!) complete with scones. Altogether a nice day out. Tomorrow will be "Second Christmas" without the tree, but a late breakfast and some nice relaxing time with family. Then back to work Monday (ugh)!

Grandma's here!

After several non-posting days (sorry again!), we can now report- grandma Steffens is here! Here Olivia gazes up at her... We're excited to have her here. She had an uneventful flight (which is all one can ask!), and arrived here safe and sound yeaterday afternoon. Well jet-lagged, she slept well in spite of a somewhat gassy baby complaining nearby :)

Today's news is the biggest, most sustained and heartfelt smiles we've yet seen. She is so amazingly adorable. The first great smile happened today while I was at work, but surprisingly, she gave me a great smile as I prepared to give her more icky-tasting vitamins! Maybe she theorized that is she was cute enough dad would melt and not be able to give any more... But even the vitamins are getting easier as well. Things are good. Now if only I could find a way to get off work for the next 20 years...

11 weeks and blooming!

Here is Olivia at 11 weeks of age, complete with ducky.
She is such a delight and just keeps getting bigger and bigger! I'm afraid she is going to grow out of her 0-3 clothes soon! She is now 3-1/2 weeks past her due date, so developmentally she's only expected to be one month old.


We're pleased, though, that she seems to be well into her second month as far as developmental progress. She gives us some number of big and little smiles every day, she lifts her head up when on her stomach (after rolling from her side onto her stomach) and works hard with her arms and legs to continue rolling, though that frustrates her after a bit. When held, she really enjoys holding her upper body upright and supporting her own head to look around at the world. It's so much fun watching her progress! She has also added 'talking' to her verbal repertoire - a series of coos and VERY sweet soft baby noises.

Olivia's first friend and weight gain!

The big news for this post is that our friends Kate and Wim (met in an antenatal class) just gave birth to a beautiful, healthy little girl Lyra. Theirs is another success story. They knew beforehand that Lyra would need surgery upon arrival, and so were 'prepared' for a lengthy stay in the hospital. Lyra has been doing great, though, and they are already at home just over a week later! They were in NICU (where Olivia spent one day) for about a week, and went straight from there to Sara Ward skipping SCBU entirely (where Olivia spent about 2 weeks). We just got home from a really enjoyable visit with them at their home and they are settling in wonderfully. These strong little girls just rock!


Olivia's big news for this week is that as of Wednesday, she wieghed 10 pounds 1.6 ounces! continuing her fantastic gain rate of close to 2 ounces per day! She's doing great. We get up to several smiles each day and she has really good head control - she likes to control it hard into the knobblier bits of Suzanne's face in her livelier moments...
Here, Suzanne holds up a tiny sleeper that Olivia wore when she first came home at 3 weeks old, and one of our favorite sleepers she is wearing now, at 11 weeks - we're so impressed with how she's grown! She has sqeezable chunky thighs now... :)

Stay tuned, tomorrow we will post her 11 week photo!

Happy New Year!

Happy New year! Olivia turned 10 weeks old New Year's eve. This is the week 10 picture (took it on Saturday, but couldn't upload it until yesterday because we ran out of our upload bandwidth...) with the Duck. We can really see her getting bigger. In particular, her hands seem to have grown quite a lot, now she seems to have these big mitts.

We've been savoring the last few days of holiday time before I have to go to work, sipping coffee in the mornings and taking walks. New year's eve we spent with friends from pre-natal classes Sophie and Chi (Due in Febuary), with a very nice dinner and conversation that lasted right through the new year- then we walked home in the cool air. New year's day we had Tea with Toby and Olivia (see the December 13 entry), with lovely mince pies!