18 weeks - New visitor!

Olivia hit 18 weeks this week, and 4 months old (10 weeks past her EDD) on February 22! She is such a great big girl, and such a sack of sugar - we're having the time of our lives with our loveable bundle of joy.
Olivia is continuing with great big smiles for all. She loves to talk, she'll hold little animated conversations with you. She has also begun to deliberately reach out to touch things you hold in front of her - especially if they have a face.
She had her last 'jabs', or inoculations for her first year this week too. sigh. It was another difficult evening for her. Even with a dose of paracetamol, she was very uncomfortable, and therefore cryey, for most of the evening. It ended up being the best night of sleep Suzanne had had for a long time, though. Probably because both she and Olivia were completely wiped out from the stressful evening! and the stressful visit to the well-baby clinic for the jabs. Suzanne always starts feeling warm and queasy if she's there for too long - we think it's all the crying babies. Also, Olivia has started responding to crying babies. She pokes out her lower lip which starts to quiver and scrunches uo her eyes, and lifts her little face and starts to whimper, which can turn into crying pretty quickly if the situation doesn't change. This is a new thing for Olivia - crying for an emotional rather than a purely physical reason.

Our good friend Lori from Seattle (we hope the rest of the family will be able to come next time too!) was able to pay us a very welcome visit this weekend due to (you guessed it!) a business trip to London. She and Olivia got on very well together - we all had a good time. Here they are using the tried and true exercise ball.
Cambridge showed off with a bright, sunny (if chill and breezy!) day, so we took a long walk at Fowlmere reserve a short drive away - Olivia sleeping snugly in her sling the whole way.

Olivia gets put DOWN! wow.

The BIG news for the day is Olivia's weight (hang on, she's actually so heavy sleeping in my arm, that I'm going to try to put her down while I write! --- whew! That's better!).
Olivia weighed in at 13 lbs 10 oz today, basically maintaining the half pound per week gain. They suggested today that as she gets more and more active and so starts using up more of her energy, she'll be likely to begin to fluctuate between the 75th and 91st percentiles, instead of hanging out at the 91st like she is now.

These pictures were actually taken a couple of weeks ago when Suzanne's mom was still visiting.

Taken February 5, this was just a fun photo - one of our first, trying to catch Olivia's smile on camera.







Here is Grandma Steffens bouncing Olivia on an exercise/birth ball. Sitting on the ball to get a nice bouncing motion that soothes baby without totally tiring yourself out was a great tip that we got from our friend Jeremy.

Broadband Outage but Big Smiles!- Week 17

Just look at this happy little girl. Maybe she's happy because we've had a broadband outage at home for the past week or so and haven't been spending time emailing people or writing blog entries- more time to play with the little girl!

She's doing very well, and giving us great smiles all the time now. Sometimes it's hard to predict; we've just given her some yucky-tasting vitamins and she still smiles! Maybe because she's figuring out how better to spit them out...


Here's the Week 17 picture with the Duck. Having a suit without feet on it allows us to actually use some of the _very_ cute little booties that we've been given, although her chubby little legs make it difficult for them to stay on; her legs taper all the way down to the foot and the toe, with not much for a sock or bootie to grab!

She has Hands!!

Well, we've known this for a long time now, but Olivia's just figuring it out, which is fascinating to watch. Here she's staring at that right hand of hers, a little bit cross-eyed since it's pretty close. What you can't see is what she does next- she starts looking up along her arm to find out what that funny hand thing is attatched to!

Besides noticing that they exist, she's also started to see what they're good for; this morning, I watched, transfixed, as she looked at a dangling toy, and then swiped and hit it with her left hand. Sure, she's swiped aimlessly around and randomly hit toys before, but this was clearly deliberate. And then she did it again. And again. And her right hand stayed motionless, she was clearly concentrating on that left hand. I tried hanging the toy to her right side to see if she wanted to try hitting it with her right hand, and she wasn't having any of it. Maybe she's left-handed- something she'd share with both Grandmothers...

16 Weeks- 12 pounds 10 ounces!

Here's Olivia at 16 weeks (taken Saturday as usual) with the Duck. As you can see, she can't read, and she's ok with that! Her hair is definitely growing, although slowly, and she's getting even more interactive. We can now put her in the sling facing forward, and she'll watch things go by; the other day Suzanne had her facing forward in the sling in the grocery store, and she seemed to love it! There's lots to look at, all different shapes and colors...


Here's the 'Well baby clinic', held on thursday afternoons at our local General Practitioner's. Parents and babies come in to talk with the health visitor, discuss any concerns they have, and in our case, get weighed! Olivia weighed in at a whopping 12 pounds 10 ounces, continuing to climb up the 91st percentile weight curve. She's getting high-test milk, I tell you!

A Package from the South Pole!

I arrived at my office today to find that Olivia had received a mysterious package at my office at Scott Polar. Closer inspection revealed that it had arrived from the South Pole- Really! A friend from Greenland, Katie Hess, is the radio operator there, and had sent some truly polar presents for the little girl. Among them, a book of official South Pole stamps canceled on _her birthday_ (check it out!) at South Pole! Also, a postcard signed by Borge Ousland, Polar Adventurer, who was no doubt there on his way to yet another heroic feat.


And for Olivia's first adventure into cold climes, a lovely warm hat- thanks Katie! We have to assume that such cold places are rather far from her thoughts right now though, as she sleeps (really zonked out) peacefully in the sling on my chest.

The smiley girl in the stripey suit! (@15 weeks!)

Grandma left this thursday, so now we're busy figuring out how to do everything again without all the help she so generously gave us- thanks Barb! Here's a picture of Olivia smiling at daddy! She spends a lot more time like this these days- the biggest change over the last week or two is that the difference between her sleeping and waking times is becoming more pronounced; when she's awake, she's interested in the world around, and interacting with us and various things around the house that are interesting to look at. Her favorites lately: The Whoozit (see the December 12 post- it's hanging off dad's left ear...), Jester the Giraffe, a photo of Suzanne and Olivia the day after whe was born, and the Calendar Man- a sort of puppet given to Suzanne several Christmasses ago that hangs by the calendar.


Here's the 15 week picture with the Duck. We don't konw how much she weighs this week because we never made it in to the "well baby clinic" to get her weighed. Stay tuned though, we'll get a weight next week...