First Visit with BF

We had our first visit with Avery's birth family post-placement (hi guys!) In attendance:

• Birth parents: Nikki & Mike
• Brother: Garrett, who is 14 months
• Maternal Grandmother & Grandfather: Janet (Grandma J from here on out) & Paul
• Nikki's best friend: Ashley
  

The visit went very well and we were so happy to finally get our schedules coordinated to make this visit happen. It was also so great that Avery got to meet Grandma J and Grandpa Paul. We discovered that the little sweep that Avery's hairline does comes from Mike, whose hair does the same thing. It was fascinating to watch Avery watch Garrett. She definitely watched him way more than she does other babies/kids. We compared notes on differences and similarities between Avery and Garrett. It'll be both fascinating and wonderful to see the two of them interact on future visits. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but we did get this really cute one of Avery with Nikki & Mike.


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Today, we are celebrating Easter with the G's and a mini version of their fabulous Easter brunch. While RG was busy slaving away in the kitchen, JG captured a family portrait of the three of us. Avery is wearing one of the adorable sweaters knitted by Grandma Rosie.


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On the developmental front, Avery has discovered her inner squeaker. She can now squeak and squeal with the best of them! She uses the squeak when she is annoyed with being dressed too slowly (bad mommy!) and to express delight and sometimes for no reason whatsoever - at least that I can tell.

She has also discovered her feet in the past week or so. She can successfully grab both of them and seems quite content to lay on the floor rolling from side to side with feet firmly in hand.

No more giggles since those first few. I keep trying, but apparently I'm not funny enough.

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Later this week, we are off to Colorado to visit Nain, Uncle Collin, and Aunt Denise. Another post will come after that visit.

Birth Announcement

We finally got around to sending out a birth announcement for Avery. The inside of the card explained when we adopted and gave details on her weight, etc. I'd wanted to do a professional picture of Avery, but we just haven't been able to get those scheduled, so we went with an announcement designed on our computer with pictures we've taken. In the end, I think this style of announcement matches our family a bit better than a formal one, so I'm happy with it.

Avery has miraculously managed to avoid getting sick despite being a household of sickos, me included. She had a few sniffles, but no fever and virtually no fussiness. The doctor said she's probably in the clear since it's been over a week.

She's only giggled once more since that first time. I'm so looking forward to it being a regular occurrence. Giggles rock.

Her night sleeping is going fairly well. The good news is she's easy to get to sleep and put down. Most nights she still wakes up twice. Some nights she makes it from 6 PM to 3 AM, for a grand total of one wake up during the night, like last night. The problem is that when she makes it that long, when she does wake up she, as D puts it, "is full of beans." That must be the English way of saying she's a happy, kicky, wide awake baby who wants to play! After about a half hour of playing, she was willing to be re-swaddled and put back down to sleep until 6 AM. I have officially reached the stage of parenthood where 7 AM is considered sleeping in. Anyone who knows me, knows that it's laughable for me to consider 7 AM sleeping in, but I guess your perspective changes with a baby in the picture.

Her daytime naps are starting to consolidate, which is awesome. I have a more reliable chunk of time in the morning during which I can get some things accomplished around the house ... or to blog. :)

We had a St. Patrick's Day party at the house on Friday night for D's work. They requested to use our house since it's big enough to hold everyone (though with the office growing, I'm not sure how much longer that will be true), but I didn't have to do a thing. They brought in all the food and did all set up and clean up. It was a nice change of pace not to be cooking for 40 people. I actually got to mingle and enjoy myself. Avery was a hit, of course. She made an appearance when she just didn't want to go to sleep for her Big Sleep, as we've come to call it.

Sunday we went to brunch after D ran in the Shamrock Run. The good news is that she's doing much better in the car. The key is to have her in it when she is not at all tired because the car doesn't put her to sleep, so if she's tired, she just screams. But if I get her in there when she's just woken up and had something to eat, she's pretty content as long as we're moving. Stop and go traffic is not so good.

We're really looking forward to lunch with her birth family this weekend. Hopefully everyone can still make it!

She Giggled!

Yesterday afternoon, Avery giggled for the first time! She's kind of had the one noise she makes when she's happy, but this time she very clearly giggled. It was hands down the coolest part of being a mother so far. I'm hoping she's got lots more in store for today. It really came at the perfect time as we have a house full of sickos right now, including me. Hearing a baby giggle after a day of taking care of her while I'm sick was just what the doctor ordered. Thankfully, Avery seems to be avoiding the bug all together.

We're hosting Avery's birth mother, father and brother, as well as (hopefully) a few other family members, for a lunch next weekend. D and I are both really looking forward to seeing them again. We haven't been able to connect since Avery's placement. It's amazing how busy life has gotten!

I'll focus on getting some more pictures taken for the next post (no pun intended).

2.5 Months

Avery rolled over again the other day. We think what happens is that she sees something that interests her, gets quite excited, and then the momentum just flips her over. She really hates being stranded on her tummy after a rollover. Fortunately Mommy or Daddy is always there to right her.

We now play a game where we lay next to each other on the floor. I put my legs in the air and then roll to one side. Then, I face her and encourage her to do the same, essentially rolling from her back to her side in my direction. I'd say she's about 25% at doing the same motions and rolling to her side. It's pretty awesome to watch her figure things out.

She's also starting to grab things now and making contact with them. The first time the other day when I had her on my lap and was at my desk. She managed to grab the cord to the camera. Thankfully for the camera, I caught it before it went tumbling off the desk. Today she was grabbing onto toys, which is a first.

We're also making a bit of progress with the car riding. I don't think she gets car sick because it doesn't happen every time we're in the car. My theory now is that she has to be really tired to be able to fall asleep in the car and if she's overtired, then she simply cannot fall asleep in the car, so she cries. Today I ran over to the grocery store and did it right after she woke up from a nap and had a bottle. She was happy the whole way there and most of the way back. Yeah for progress.

Her room is coming along a bit. Very slowly. It's hard to do stuff in there when she's napping and then when she's not napping, we tend to be playing downstairs. We'll get there ... eventually.

San Diego

San Diego

We are back from our trip to San Diego. The weather down there is just lovely right now. We went for a business trip for D. I shouldn't need to tag along on the next trip, but this was easier than attempting several days/nights alone with Avery. Plus, it was another opportunity for Avery to see her grandpa.

Travel, again, went very smoothly. She did fuss a bit on the planes at various times, but is always easy to soothe and get back to an easy-baby state. The plane down there was one of those without a changing table. Thankfully we didn't need to change her on the flight. At this point, it's safe to say Avery is not a good car rider. Unless she is fast asleep (which does happen occasionally, but not often), she pretty much screams at the top of her lungs the entire ride. Since she is not unhappy in her car seat when we stroll around, I don't believe it is the car seat that is the issue. We're not sure what the issue is. I'll continue to try various things to minimize the crying when driving, but in the meantime, I've decided to be thankful that it is the car that brings out this ear piercing scream. It could be the plane or going out in public. Both of those would be considerably worse, so we can handle a little car screaming!

While down there, we took several strolls around the resort and enjoyed the weather. The second night, we joined D and his colleagues for dessert following the awards dinner he was attending. Avery got a lot of attention. She was fast asleep for most of it, but decided to wake up towards the end, thrilling several people who want to coo over an alert baby.

The third and final night, we joined the whole group at the dinner. I was a bit hesitant since it was in a large ballroom in which cries would undoubtedly echo loudly. We tried to pick an easy exit location, but were promptly blocked by the addition of another table. Fortunately, she slept most of the time, only waking up when they decided to give away an awesome not-yet-available-for-sale flat screen TV (it's only 1.5" thick!) The guys doing this were quite loud and Avery decided to listen in. She was quite content and didn't cause a stir at all. Again, she was quite a hit with lots of people coming over to meet her and congratulate us. Oh, we didn't win the TV. Bummer.

Also on the third day, Grandpa popped in for a visit. Unfortunately, Grandma Joy wasn't feeling well, so she wasn't able to make it. Avery did have a good time playing with Grandpa, though.

Avery's Changes

We also had a pretty big milestone as we were packing up on Monday. She rolled over for the first time! I put her in the middle of bedroom floor as D and I were running around frantically packing. She was flat on her back when I layed her down. I turned around and there she was on her tummy trying to get back onto her back! I'm quite sure this was just a fluke where she moved her body in the exact right way to roll over versus knowing how to roll over, but it was exciting nonetheless. And also a good reminder for D and I that these firsts happen unexpectedly, so we should be cautious about her surroundings.

In the past few weeks, she has discovered her hands and loves to munch away on them. Well, more like slobber away. It makes it a bit more difficult to swaddle since she loves to have them in her mouth. She is also so into sitting up. Putting her in the bouncy chair now involves more sit up attempts than kicking. She's also advanced to the activated setting on the bouncy chair. This means that when she kicks the chair, it changes/plays the music. When the music stops, she gets annoyed and kicks again. It's so amazingly cute!

Finally, I posted a few new pictures in the Daily Avery album. Until next time, enjoy!

2-Month Check Up

Avery and I are just back from her 2-month visit at the pediatrician's office. She is doing just wonderfully! She is the 75% percentile for weight, the 75-90% for height, and the 75% for head circumference, so all is well there.

All of my answers to the various questions yielded an enthusiastic, "Good!" response from the doctor. Avery also did really well while getting her immunization shots. She wasn't happy about them, clearly, but she calmed down after about five minutes and then promptly fell asleep when we got home. Such a little trooper!

I also wanted to post this little video that RG's dad put together for us using footage that RG shot while visiting. Maybe we can bribe him into doing more of these for us!



My next post probably won't be until the beginning of March.

Hawaii

We're back from Avery's first major trip to Maui, Hawaii. We scheduled this vacation a while ago, before we knew Avery would be joining our family. At first we thought about canceling it, but when we mentioned it to various people (pediatrician and hospital nurses included), we always got the same, emphatic response of, "Go!" Everyone kept reassuring us that this would be the easiest time to travel with her. I am happy to report that everyone was right!

The flight out there could not have gone any smoother. Getting through security was a breeze. There were very few people, and since we'd been warned this is the most difficult part of traveling with children, we had thought through exactly how we would manage all the various luggage we'd have with us. Avery was terrific on the flight. She slept for the first half, then woke up and fed and then just sat happily on our laps for the second half. Nain (Megan's mom) bought Avery a flight vest to use in flight and that worked great when Avery wasn't in the sling.

Upon arrival, we had to wait about an hour for luggage to arrive and for Damian to fetch the rental car. Avery was awake this whole time, but was content to sit on my lap and look adorable for passers by. No fewer than four parties from our flight came up to me during this time and commented on what a good baby she was on the flight. I proudly said, "Thank you!" (as if I had anything to do with it - it was all Avery!)

Vic and Mike joined us later that night after their flight landed. Their patience during this trip was amazing. They were so flexible and willing to go with the flow. Most of the vacation consisted of the same things of past vacations: eating, lounging by the pool, Scrabble. Since Avery was with us, we got less lounging and Scrabbling in, however, thanks to the sun tent, we were able to spend a fair amount of time at the pool and the beach.

Avery did so well during all the dinners out. Her fussiest dinner was at the restaurant at the hotel, which was convenient for us. She did amazing at the two fancier places we dined.

In sleeping news, she slept very well while on vacation. We had our first 8-hour-long sleep. It was only one night, but I'll take it! The other nights she only woke up once during the night and then woke up a tad on the early side for some feeding since her stomach was on Portland time.

Our return flight went almost as well as the flight out. Avery decided to set the expectation bar low for the passengers around us by screaming before we took off. Turns out Mommy and Daddy took too long preparing her bottle. However, after that, she was very easy throughout the flight. I did the traditional aisle walk you see all parents doing and walked her to sleep in about 3-5 minutes, after which she slept for the rest of the flight.

Now, what you all really want: pictures!

View from our hotel room - we were able to watch the whales from the balcony and saw several breaches and tail flaps.

Flower dress


Avery loves Hawaii!


Aloha dress


Mommy thinks she fits in my sun tent!


Avery napping in Daddy's arms

Uncle Mike keeps a watchful eye on Avery