Here we grow again

At each of Maison's wellness checks they do a height and weight measurement and provide the percentile of how they compare to other children the same age.  When Maison was born she weighed 7 lbs 9 oz and was 21 inches long.  At her 2 week appointment on Nov. 9 she was 8 lbs 11 oz and 21 3/4 inches long.  Dec. 22 was Maison's 2 month check-up so Adam and I wagered on how big she was going to be and we were both way off.  Maison weighed 11 lb 14 oz and was 24 inches long.  24 inches long?  Are you kidding me?  Our 2 month old is 2 feet tall and grew 3 inches in two months?  I didn't ever grow 3 inches in 2 years much less in 2 months!  24 inches is 95% for height meaning she is taller than 95% of babies her age.  At this rate Maison will probably be taller than my 5' 3" by the fifth grade.  She goes in for her 4 mo check up on Feb. 22...any guesses on how tall she'll be by then?

Christmas in the Park or Cluster F in the Park?

On Dec. 19th we went to the "Christmas in the Park" event at Fair Park.  Shari was a host this year so we were a lot more involved than we were last year.  We went Friday night to help decorate which was a complete 'cluster F'.  The person in charge didn't know what to tell each person to do and there was no 'game plan' as to where the decorations were going.  There were at least 20 people there to help and about 15 of us were standing around doing nothing.  We were there a good 30 min before anyone found anything for us to do which was to wrap lighted holly around posts and tie red bows to the top.  We stayed about one more hour before calling it quits.  There is only so much time you can stand around until you start thinking of the 100s of things you could be doing instead...like being at home with your 7 week old child or in Shari's case getting a few more billable hours in before your year ends on Dec. 20th.  Anything seemed like a better use of time than standing in a empty pavilion in the one of the most crime ridden areas of Dallas.

Saturday night Shari was supposed to be there early but she opted not to go help after the lack of organization the night before.  Adam and I went to her condo to get ready for the party.  We had some wardrobe issues that delayed us from getting there on time.  I never tried on my dress before heading to Shari's.  Apparently, my fab (yes, that is sarcasm) post-prego bod doesn't exactly fit into the formal I wore on New Year's Eve last year.  So instead of putting Shari's hair up, which was the whole point of going to her house before the party, I spent an hour trying on every formal in Shari's closet.  After trying on a dozen dresses and several attempts to convince Shari I just wouldn't go she forced me to wear a black dress of hers, her underwear (DON'T ASK!!!), her 5 inch Charles David heels, carry her hot pink clutch, and told me to shut my trap, have a glass of wine, and then go get in the car. 

Andrea and her husband Matt and Lori and her husband Arthur had been waiting on us forever.  We finally got to the party at 10:30pm and we were supposed to be there at 8:00pm.  NICE!  They couldn't find Shari's host name tag and she didn't hear them call for the hosts to come up to the stage so that they could introduce them to the guests and thank them for their charitable contribution.  What is it about this party that it is jinxed with issues (see last year's post "Can you bail on a charity event?") ?  You hate to not participate in charity events, but maybe next year we should find a new holiday charity to support...

Rub a dub dub, Maison's in the tub

Maison HATED having baths when we were still doing the sponge baths when she was a newborn.  Since we started giving her real baths she absolutely loves it until you take her out and start to dry her off.  We don't know if it's the shock of getting out of the warm water into the not so warm bathroom or if she's enjoying the bath so much she just throws a fit when it's over.  Here are some pics of Maison's bath on Dec. 17th...

    

Happy Hanukkah

It certainly seems like everyday is a holiday around here.  It was a complete blur of Halloween turning into Thanksgiving, turning into Hanukkah, turning into Christmas.   This year we barely got the Christmas decorations up in time for Christmas and since it was the baby's first Hanukkah and Christmas we wanted to make sure we did both of them up right...

Hanukkah started on Dec. 11.  We lighted the menorah and gave Maison a present each night.

  

Friday, Dec. 11, Night 1 - Maison getting her Baby Einstein blue dolphin

Saturday Dec. 12, Day 2 - Adam made potato latkes

Sunday, Dec 13, Night 3 - lighting the menorah

Thursday, Dec. 17, night 7 - Maison watching the menorah

Friday, Dec 18, night 8 - Maison watching the lights and getting her Curious George book

   

Adam opening his All Clad non-stick pan 

I would not be happy if I got a pan for a gift; in fact I would be furious, but Adam loves to cook and it's what he wanted.  Besides his love for cooking prevents us from having to suffer through mine!

My Hanukkah gift is not pictured because I was running around screaming my fool head off in full dramatic flare.  Adam gave me new diamond earrings as a combo 'mommy gift' (for those who don't have children it's customary to get a spendy gift for having to suffer through 9 mos of pregnancy, labor, delivery, and then living with a fat out of shape body until you have time or energy to do something about it) and Hanukkah gift.  I had been hinting through my entire pregnancy that I wanted new earrings but Adam said I couldn't get new earrings until he got a new motorcycle.  We have a deal that he gets to put money in his motorcycle fund every time I buy a new handbag.  I will unfortunately be out of handbag collecting as soon as we get with in reach of the price of the motorcycle he wants ;o)  Needless to say I'm thrilled he gave me the earrings and I didn't have to wait for the motorcycle purchase (which will hopefully never happen...)

Big 12 Champs...if you can call it that

On Dec. 5 we went to the Big 12 championship game at Cowboys stadium to see Texas play Nebraska.  We really had no business going to a football game when Maison was only a few weeks old but since it was in Dallas and at the new Cowboys stadium we thought it would be a nice opportunity to get out and to get to see the stadium without having to suffer through a Cowboys game (not a fan!).  

Unfortunately the SEC Championship was the same day in the afternoon and Florida was playing Alabama.  These two games would determine who would play for the BCS National Championship and we were hoping it would turn out to be Florida and Texas since we were almost positive we would get tickets to that game.  Of course Adam wanted to be somewhere when the SEC game came on and I wanted to be with Maison as long as possible before dropping her off at my mom's.  So Adam rode to Arlington with Kari, Lee, and Dan and I waited to go with Shari and my dad.

I have such a hard time judging how long it will take me to get out of the house with Maison when she is staying anywhere for over an hour.  It takes forever to determine everything she will need while I'm away...so needless to say I was super late getting to my parents house to pick up Shari and my dad.  My dad offered to drive which was great since I couldn't imagine dealing with game traffic after the chaos of taking Maison and somehow he got us there in record time.  We were in Cowboys parking 45 min after we left Parker.  We were supposed to swing by and pick up Adam and Dan at Chili's where they were watching the SEC game, but we somehow got in line for Cowboys parking and didn't want to circle the stadium to try to pick them up.

It was so completely freezing cold when we got there we just decided to go into the first gate we came to.  BIG MISTAKE!!!  Shari and I breezed through the women's security line but then had to wait on Dad to clear the men's line for like 20 min.  Once we got inside the stadium no one knew how to tell us to get to our seats and everyone we asked told us something different.  You couldn't walk in a complete circle on the level we were on so we kept having to go up and down stairs like 10 times.  It was completely annoying!  By the time we got to our seats the teams were running out and we weren't exactly impressed with the $4 billion "Jerry World".  Adam walked from Chili's, changed from his Florida shirt to his Texas shirt, walked in the CORRECT gate and made it in time for kickoff.  Are you kidding me?  It's that hard to maneuver inside the stadium if you don't go in the gate listed on your ticket?

The game completely sucked.  UT played like stir fried ass and we had absolutely no business winning the game.  For those that didn't watch...when the clock showed 0:00 UT was LOSING but apparently when McCoy threw the ball out of bounds there were a few seconds left on the clock.  Nebraska had thought they had won the game and ran out on the field celebrating only to be told there was a few seconds left.  The poor UT kicker had to make a field goal for Texas to win...uh no presure.  If I was a Nebraska fan I would be livid.  There were bad calls throughout the entire game on both sides but it was so close for them to almost pull off a major upset.  UT ended up winning 13-12 and were named Big 12 Champions and Florida ended up losing to Alabama...so will be arriving in Pasadena as two Longhorn fans and since UF lost we won't be contemplating divorce over a football game!

2 families, 1 Thanksgiving...and a baby

This Thanksgiving Adam's entire family came to spend the holiday with us and to meet Maison.  We just moved back to our house on Wednesday, as in the day before Thanksgiving, so there was no way we could do Thanksgiving for 7 people.  We hadn't even stayed at our house in 5 weeks, our dinning room table chairs hadn't arrived yet, and my dad and I were distressing our kitchen table and it was sitting in the garage half finished.  So we literally had NO place to eat.  My wonderful mother graciously agreed to host everyone at her house.  We had 12 people for dinner plus Maison.  After dinner we watched the UT vs A&M game before heading back to our house. 

Adam's family stayed until Monday.  Through the weekend we did a tour of local Dallas restaurants.  We even took Maison to the original Sonny Bryan's on Saturday for lunch and to Bread Winners for brunch on Sunday.  Both were learning experiences for dining with a newborn...

Sonny Bryan's only has old fashioned school desks inside and a couple of picnic tables outside.  Maison's carrier wouldn't fit in an old fashioned school desk so we didn't have much choice but to sit outside.  Luckily, the weather was warm enough for her but the table next to us had several smokers.  Not exactly the best environment for a 6 week old and this wasn't exactly the part of Dallas where you could politely ask them to stop.

At Bread Winners on Sunday it was packed we had called ahead so luckily got a table in the corner with a booth on one side.  But the hostess had counted Maison as a 'child' so she brought us a booster seat...uh she is 6 weeks old...what on earth would I do with that?  We told her we didn't need it since we were trying to make it work so her carrier could sit in the booth with me.  Then she brought us a high chair which too was useless.  Third try she just bought a normal chair after I had told her twice I would just put her carrier in the booth with me.  The restaurant was super busy and the table was rather cramped with the carrier taking up more than a seat, but what are you going to do?   That's not really 'news worthy' but the fact that they discontinued their impressive coffee drink menu was rather disappointing.

So lessons learned:  Don't take a baby to a restaurant that doesn't even have adequate sitting even for an adult and don't take a baby to a crowded brunch place and expect the hostess to appreciate your situation of trying to eat with a newborn in a carrier...much less expect them to know the difference between a child and a baby.  But most importantly, call ahead to make sure they still have fab coffee drinks especially when you could use a little something to take the edge off ;o)

Adam's family returned home on Monday and it was back to work for everyone except me as I'm still on maternity leave until 1/25.

Newborn Photo Poop?

On November 17th we took Maison for her newborn photo shoot so that we would have some pictures to use for her birth announcement.  I had already come up with the idea to do the "party animal" birth announcement so we knew we wanted some pics with her in her white tiger Halloween costume.  The photographer suggested that Adam and I wear black and that we have Maison naked in the other pictures.  I was a little leery of having Maison naked when she was only 3 weeks old but we decided to go with it.  

This obviously wasn't the photographers first newborn shoot as she had 'puppy pads' laid down in case Maison were to pee while she was shooting.   Surprisingly, we didn't need the puppy pads because Maison didn't pee at all...she just decided to poop on me and on Adam.  There is a reason we call her the 'poo poo princess'.  I felt like an embarrassed dog owner when your dog pees on a display at Pet Smart.  They obviously expect animals to have accidents you just don't want it to be YOUR pet.  The photographer could have cared less.  She wasn't the one pooped on and she said she could edit out anything on us if it were to show up in the pictures.  Poor Adam had to go back to our house before he could go into work because he didn't have another shirt with him.

Despite the shit storm (literally!) we were very please with how the pictures and the birth announcement turned out.  We went ahead and had them design our Christmas cards with the 'best' family shot.  

         

Birth Announcement (front and back):