Eloise Helen

being blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful:

sticking out her tongue:

eating sweet potatoes (what a relief the bib labels her, in case you were wondering whether or not she was a baby or what):

looking at her family portraits on the fridge:

looking at herself covered in sweet potatoes while also looking at her family portraits on the fridge:

She’s perfect. She’s been a dream baby the past week or so. Her napping is pretty regular and as a result she is happy as a cute little clam, which means I am happy too. We are also happy because Emma arrives tomorrow (Thursday).

Last Friday we babysat Dylan, our nextdoor neighbor, while Travis and Julianne went on a date to celebrate their anniversary. They said they would watch Eloise so we can go out for our anniversary too. We’re a little nervous that she’ll scream, but I think we’ll take them up on it anyway. Here is me with Dylan, who is so cute, and Julianne with both babies. These are a little old, but you get the idea.

On Friday Eloise was babysat by Katie and her friend Julia. Katie coaxed Eloise into a nap, but not without some protesting on Eloise’s part. When I got home, Katie said, “Well, she does have a pair of lungs on her, doesn’t she?” But Eloise looked happy as a clam and Katie is returning on Monday, so it couldn’t have been too, too awful for either party, right?

My cousin Jenny and her husband Jeremy welcomed their baby Owen on Friday afternoon (yay, baby Owen!!!), so now Eloise is not the youngest member of either family. She is such a grow-up lady: she’s even sitting on her own (I spot her anyway so she doesn’t bonk her head when she tips over).

Daniel (of reading-a-poem-in-our-wedding fame) is marrying his fiance Jennifer (of being-half-of-the-cutest-new-couple-at-our-wedding fame) at the end of August on Martha’s Vineyard. Eloise and I just booked our ticket to go to the wedding and we are PSYCHED!! I just booked us direct flights both ways: I hope it was a wise maneuver. Five and a half hours one way and six and a half hours the other way. Could be really, really ulgy, but at least it reduces the amount of schlepping I have to do. And we also avoid the possibility of getting stranded in Minneapolis, which is nice.

I experimented with the macro setting on my camera while Eloise sucked on her gigantic IKEA hippo’s tail. Isn’t she cute?

Soon Eloise will be seven months old (on our second wedding anniversary, to be exact). Here are some fun before and after shots. First with Chris in the Beco (yes, there really was a teeny tiny baby in there) and then with our dear neighbor Julianne (Dylan’s mom).

These days Eloise is enjoying eating (i.e., getting smeared with) solid foods: rice cereal and pears are her favorites. She also continues to roll only to her right, but she is great at turning and scooting backwards (and occasionally forwards). Here she is doing her best burrito impression.

Any advice from anyone (anyone, anyone?) about getting a baby to nap without nursing her into a stupor?? I failed to get Eloise to sleep today before leaving her with Deanna and Keira and she screamed her tired little head off (and did not fall asleep). I tried putting her down without nursing for the afternoon nap: lots of screaming, no sleeping (until I caved and nursed her). I don’t particularly care whether or not she nurses to sleep, except for one big glitch, which is that I cannot seem to leave her because no one else can nurse her to sleep. You see the predicament, right? Well, she has her first four-hour babysitting session on Friday. I hope I can get our babysitter to come back for the second session. I think Eloise is a lovely baby, but she doesn’t put her best face forward when she’s tired and refusing to sleep. Katie, the babysitter (well, actually she has a master’s degree and is only babysitting until she gets a permanent, full-time job, which will no doubt be very soon) is really nice and has a good head on her shoulders, though. I hope she finds Eloise pleasant to be around. Come on, Eloise! While Eloise and Katie chill together, I will go to the library and work. Woo hoo!

Whatever the opposite of fun is, we had a lot of it today. I wanted to get out of the house, because although it’s very nice here, I do get sick of being housebound all the time. So Chris planned us a really nice outing to do a hill walk in St. Johns. It really would have been a lovely walk … if we hadn’t had a baby with us, or if our stroller were better equipped for unpaved roads, or if said baby had had an afternoon nap. But our stroller is better for the mall or sidewalks, and we did have a baby with us, and she was tired and therefore hell-bent on ruining our afternoon, which she did with flying colors. She cried the whole time. Oof. So I ended up just carrying her around the back roads of St. Johns while Chris and I both got overheated and grumpy. Nursing and viewing the lovely St. Johns Bridge did not really help.

The climax of the afternoon was arriving at a Superfund site, where we did not have access to the river or a park after all.

Chris said he did have fun when we took a break on some benches outside of the Blockbuster Video next to Safeway. Eloise said she liked that part too, although she’s so darned tired in these pictures I don’t think she knew what was going on. She was delirious. I told her if someone were pushing me around in a stroller, I would have been thrilled and probably been lulled to sleep. She did not feel me on that one.

Chris and Eloise had a lovefest outside of Blockbuster too. I think Eloise won.

Poor girl is battling a very persistent diaper rash. Weeks upon weeks of naked butt time have not cured it, although she has enjoyed all her time without clothes on. Who wouldn’t? (Yes, this diaper rash update is just an excuse to post a picture of our naked baby.)

Chris and I, on our drive to St. Johns, discussed my need to develop some hobbies. He has gotten very into homebrewing and biking. I have gotten very into nursing and not showering. That needs to be remedied. I’ll keep you posted.

While we eagerly await news of baby Roop’s arrival back East, we are busy with our own new developments. Eloise has recently begun to appreciate the concept of “mine,” or perhaps it’s just her need for personal space she’s starting to assert. But when our dear friend and neighbor Dylan tried to get a piece of the Exersaucer action last week, Eloise was pretty darned perturbed. Poor Dylan. He is so good-natured and full of enthusiasm, but every time he shouts at Eloise or tries to grab her legs or share her toys, she freaks out. Case in point:

The most darling new thing Eloise does is kiss us. She grabs our heads, pulls in and opens her mouth a little and presses it to our faces. Swoon! It kills me! The result is a little more slobber-slime-fest than dainty kiss, but we don’t care at all.

It’s been beautiful and mild here lately, but Eloise is prepared for the next heat wave. Grandma Chris and Papa Dan gave her an air conditioner window unit. Lucky baby! Between them and Nanny, she is going to be one spoiled baby (I think Pop Pop can be in charge of teasing and goofing around). I said to Papa Dan, “Oh no, you’re going to give her junk food and toys and stuff, aren’t you?” and he said, “I’ll give her anything she wants. Anything.” Uh oh. They are buds now. And look, she’s gaining on him in size!

Happy birthday to you, Nanny! Eloise is not as mature as Nanny, but she’s getting there. Check her out: sitting and using a sippy cup and everything.

She also has developed a snarly face that comes from Chris. I can just see this turning into the most disdainful look when she’s 14. Thank goodness that’s so far down the road.

I was up late last night assembling the must-have item for babies of the twenty-first century: the exersaucer. This was the smallest, most modest model. It’s still a hideous plastic behemoth, but Eloise likes it. That’s what counts. And I can put her in it and do the dishes or eat something. Bonus.

Eloise and I have been spending a lot of time alone together this week. Chris and the other IT guys have been moving all their company’s systems over to the new building (right across from Powell’s downtown - yes!) this past week and this weekend. They have to do it all when no one else is working, so as not to disrupt work flow, which means he’s been getting home late and working weird days, like today, which is Saturday. I am sick of it! I hope we get to keep him home tomorrow, Sunday. Here is Eloise earlier this week waking up with Chris, who was headed out to work. We try to wake her by 7-something if she’s still in bed. That seems to be her best wake-up time.

Today we went to cousin Keira’s second birthday party at Gymstars. The toddlers seemed to have fun, but Eloise was a grump because although she took a 2-plus-hour morning nap, she was about due for her afternoon nap just as the party started. She managed to hurt Papa Dan’s feelings again and I’m sure tainted a lot of the home videos with whining and grumping. I also had to break the news to the family that Chris got a mohawk. He says it was to celebrate the move and all the work they’ve done, but I have to disclose the full truth, which is that he has had a bee in his bonnet for a long time about getting a mohawk. I thought it would look dumb, but I was wrong. He actually looks really cute, dare I say, hot even! But not nearly as cute as his daughter. Oh look, this picture is terrible, but you can see Keira and her friends playing with a parachute. Remember doing that when you were little in gym class? You’d wave the parachute around and then throw it in the air and sit on it as it came down to make a huge tent? God, that was so fun. I hope Eloise gets to do that some day.

I am struggling with feeling really bored as a stay at home mom some days. Well, for parts of most days. It’s not that Eloise is boring. Things just move really slowly with a baby. Nanny reminds me that I am very goal-oriented, very oriented toward projects and to-do lists, which is true. But none of that works with a baby, at least not with the way we’re doing the baby thing right now (which is me staying home with her). I feel like I can’t do anything some days! But then I talk to other moms, and I realize that when I look back, this is all going to seem so fleeting. It’s so easy to forget that sometimes (especially in the moments when I cannot see beyond the clutter in my house or figure out how to eat something). So in addition to thinking about and planning for getting some help with child care in the near and more distant futures, I am also going to try to relish the current slowness. Given my proclivities, I am not likely to live life in slow motion ever again, so I will try to make the most of it.

Toward that end, Eloise and I have been lounging in the grass a lot. We throw down one of the blankets Pia made for us and lie around. Eloise likes to grab at the grass, hold onto her feet, and watch the trees and the ferns. Sometimes I read a book, and sometimes I look at the grass and the trees too. It’s been a long, long time since I spent any time whatsoever looking at grass and trees and bees. Turns out they’re very beautiful and interesting.

I am not ashamed to admit that I read People.com almost every single day (okay, I use the term “read” very loosely here). Today I read that the first pictures of the Jolie-Pitt twins are worth $13 million. By my estimation, then, these shots of Eloise lounging outside with me today will surely fetch a cool $13 billion. But you all get ‘em for free. Aren’t you lucky?!

What a long blog post. I thought Chris would be home by now; it’s quarter to 10 at nigt. I’ve eaten a sickening amount of fancy French cheese and bread, and now I’m eating lentils, rice, and carmelized onion, which is about a thousand times more delicious than it sounds. If anyone has made it to the end of this post, please send recommendations for more good nonfiction (in paperback). I just finished Omnivore’s Dilema and loved it. I am reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat right now. But then my docket’s empty. Given that I read in fits and starts (while nursing Eloise), I can’t really handle fiction right now.

16 pounds, 12 ounces. Okay, the guess-her-weight contest wasn’t fair, because she was 14.5 lbs when she was four months old, not 15.5. Sorry. So she gained a little more than 2 lbs, and she also grew more than 2 inches in length in these past two months! So she’s evening out in terms of height/weight: she’s in about the 75th percentile for each. Dr. Collins said she seems wonderful, and I am inclined to agree. A guy in the waiting room said to us, “Wow, that’s a big baby!” She is on the big side, but I think she just looks big compared to me. She also looks beautiful. Look at her!

This is baby Kaylee, Tyler and Kaitlin’s daughter who’s just five weeks old. (That makes her our great niece.) She is a sweetie.

After we met Kaylee, we came home and looked at Eloise’s teeny tiny baby pictures. I can’t believe how much she’s grown! We have her six-month appointment with Dr. Collins today. She was six months on Saturday. Anyone willing to guess how much she weighs? I’ll post an update when we get home. Here she is with me yesterday for some perspective. She weighed 15.5 lbs. at her fourth-month appointment.