Gotcha!

Finally, finally I caught a smile on camera:
What a magical, perfect baby! I realize that I'm biased and all but... sigh...

Rattle and Hum

It's incredibly weird to see Ada start to acknowledge and interact with things around her. She's been playing with this silver rattle that used to be Thor's, back when he was much smaller. Last night she actually reached for it and picked it up. For someone who has spent a lot more time around cats than babies, it's just amazing to see her develop. I guess I sort of thought she'd just stay the same, like an incredibly cute and cuddly little pet. I think she's actually smarter than the cat now! Is that mean to say? I mean, our cat is pretty smart.

The Thousand Yard Stare

Ada is happy to be home but she's also been a little intense. She's smiled a few times but then cries again almost immediately. The photo below shows her sort of default state -- watchful, a little unsure, slightly annoyed. We're spending a lot of time cuddling, with the hope that she'll start to realize that the drama is over.

Home Again, Home Again

It's been a very long week, but now we're home with our very pink baby. Ada is doing great. She eats more. She sleeps less. She howls when she wants to do either. I'm not sure she really believes she's not going to get poked and prodded any more.

Here's a picture of us on our way home... happy family!

Greatest Hits

In order to give you something to do next week, I thought I'd post some pictures we took ages ago, since many of you might not have seen them.

This is one of my favorites -- Ada's first burp. I'm extremely clumsy with her but she was so tiny then that my palm was larger than her entire torso... I don't have the daintiest of hands but still! I love her expression here... and I also love her hat. Genius!


This is another of my favorites -- in her first week, just after a bath, in the sunshine and still very unsure about who we were and where all the nice ladies from the NICU went...


This is another fabulous one -- a bath in the sink in our bathroom, since the kitchen sink just seemed way too big. I like to think she's displaying early evidence of a serious sense of humor.

Bad Pictures, Good Baby

Ada is wearing the cutest red bloomers and little mary jane socks today, courtesy of some very fashionable friends. I tried to capture the cuteness but sadly, got nothing. I think I'm going to restort to using a real camera soon... This is just too frustrating!



Ada has a big week next week, starting on Monday with a bunch of poking and prodding. I'll try to update this blog as I can but may be somewhat distracted. Feel free to call any time for an update if you're wondering how things are going.

The Elusive Smile...

...if you can't photograph it, does it exist?

Ada has been incredibly giggly lately. Sometimes she looks like she's totally lost her mind with glee. I know it sounds trite and hallmark-ish to say this but watching her smile is completely amazing. There's a scene in I think a Robert Heinlein novel where an astronaut is stranded on a planet with these creatures that feed on sound. The astronaut's heartbeat is incredibly attractive to them, and he has a terrible time trying to prevent them from smothering him. One day he decides to play the creatures some Beethoven and it's so fantastic for them that they curl up and die from joy. That's kind of how I feel when she smiles at me...

Sometimes things are cheesy but true, all at the same time.

Anyway, I've been capturing this phenomenon for you all but have been spectacularly unsuccessful. Here are some of my recent attempts:

"No, I'm not going to smile at your stupid cow, even if it does go Mooooo!"

"Hey, I'm no dummy... I see you trying to take that picture. You think I'm just going to smile like you're not there? As if!"

(note: I apologize for the radical reduction in the quality of these photos... the computer camera is definitely limited)

Sleep, Eat, Sleep, Eat

When Ada sleeps, she really sleeps:

...but eventually she gently stirs...
...and then she's ready to EAT!!

(note: photos again by Thor)

Gesundheit

Aaah...

Aaah....

CHOO!
(note: sneeze-cam operated by Thor)

Papoose

When strolling through the neighborhood I usually take Ada in this little sling. She's sort of hidden -- people always do a double-take and then say, "oh my god, how incredibly cute" or sometimes from the slightly impaired, "is that a baby in there?"

When I first started using the sling I had to roll up a blanket to keep her from getting totally enveloped by the fabric. A few months later, she's almost too big to fit in it. Carrying her around in it is the most beautiful, cozy feeling in the world -- cuddlemania! Here's what she looks like from my perspective:
I'd also like to point out the chubbiness of her arm in this picture. She's still putting on weight pretty well -- almost 10 lbs!

Ada Everywhere

As most of you probably already know, Ada was named after Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron and one of the world's first programmers (read all about here here).

Other reasons we thought Ada was a good name:

1. It's a palindrome
2. It's easy to spell
3. There are lots of things that are "Ada-approved" (by the Americans with Disabilities Act and the American Dental Association)
4. It's simple and old fashioned and not too freakish...

It turns out that other people are fans of the name Ada too:
Check out this collection of things named Ada...

Little Fingers, Little Toes

For those of you who haven't been able to see Ada up close yet, I've decided to do a brief photo essay of some of her tiny extremities. There's really nothing cuter than baby fingers and toes, don't you agree?

Let's start with the top of her head:

And on to her tiny, shell-like ear (slightly out of focus):

Oh look, it's her right hand!

And here's her left:

And on down to her roly-poly little feet:

She's doing beautifully these days. She's still sweet and mellow all the time except from 11:00pm until about 2:00am, which is better proof of paternity than a DNA test as far as I'm concerned. Thor has clearly passed his night-owl genes on to Ada... let's hope she waits a while before demanding coffee in bed every morning.

Chop Chop, My Good Man

No matter how pretty, babies always have their "little old man" moments. Here Ada looks like Winston Churchill in his club, waiting for his gin and tonic, and quite unhappy to be waiting too. Sigh, the things we do to babies in pursuit of cute....

Lazy Saturday

We got the chronic - what? - cles of Narnia!

Actually, no.... we just have a lot of napping by the whole family. Ada has been very sleepy so we took the opportunity to catch up on some sleep ourselves. Even broken up into chunks it's so very nice to get to feel like we're sleeping in. Right, Ada?

Ch-ch-changes

It's been almost 3 months since Ada was born. I find it almost incredible how much she's changed. When we first brought her home she was this minuscule thing who slept all the time. She was missing eyebrows and eyelashes and looked a little like a treefrog or some alien creature.

Check her out the first day she was home:
This is her now, actually sporting brows and lashes and sometimes at least, a lot more attitude. That said, she does still sleep a lot.
She's actually interacting with the world around her, which is such an immense pleasure. She's also not the smallest baby people have ever seen anymore, although most people assume she's only a few weeks old anyway. As Thor says, she's highly concentrated.

The Progression

I keep talking about what a lovely, mellow, sweet baby Ada is. It's true -- she's very easy. However, she does cry and I happened to record her normal progression below. For those about to call Child Protective Services, Ada really does like to be bounced facing out as shown below. I promise I wasn't ignoring her cries in order to keep taking these photos!

Step One: Eden. Violin Music Soars as Baby Animals Gambol in the Field

Step Two: A Vague, Looming Sensation That All Is Not Right With the World
Step Three: The Horror! Man Is a Rapacious Beast Fixated Solely On Self-Interest
Step Four: It's Hobbesian War of All Against All. There Is No Escape. I've removed the rest of the progression to protect the innocent -- showing her wails of despair violates FCC regulations, I'm pretty sure. The long black night of the baby's soul is not a pretty picture.

Huggies, You Are Dead To Me

This was going to be a hilarious post, filled with '80s pop-culture references to Flashdance, with an extremely funny reference to Irene Cara and the song "She's a Maniac"... Ada was sporting a onesie that was a bit too big and kept slipping off her shoulder in a sort of mini-urchin-lady-welder kind of way. See below:
Ada's no longer wearing that garment. Why you ask? Well, just as I was shooting this picture: ...I felt a sticky gooey-ness on the front of my shirt. Yes, that's right. She pooped up the back of her diaper and on to everything. This never happened until we started using this clearly sub-par brand of diapers. I have since banished them.

It's possible that many (most) of Ada Today's loyal readers are disgusted or at least uninterested in her poop so I'm sorry to have to refer to it. It's just that it really does seem exciting to me. I used to wonder why parents spent so much time talking about their childrens' bodily functions and now I'm one of them. Babies are so incredibly helpless when they're born -- they have to learn how to do even the most basic things, and learning those basic things can be extremely painful. Watching Ada poop successfully is a relief -- she's no longer in pain and she stops crying. Phew. Let's sound the trumpets!

And for those of you who are still grossed out, I promise: it really doesn't stink.

Ada's Lunch

Ada was very clean today. She had a lovely bath and a little massage and everything was perfect... and then of course, she lost her lunch in a fairly dramatic fashion. So much for clean and moisturized! She thinks it's all very funny.

Hilarity

Sometimes it's hard to get a good photo with the laptop cam. If I don't shoot in full sunlight the photos look like they were taken on one of those disk cameras from the '80s. Despite the grainy-ness I wanted to post this picture since Ada looks like she's having such a good time. She's been generally fairly uncomfortable recently but this afternoon was an exception. Also I thought you'd all appreciate a picture of me in my pajamas. H-O-T!

Daddy's Green Robe

Thor has a huge green robe that he likes to wear more than any other garment. Today he tried to show Ada just how amazingly comfortable it really is -- and it seemed to work. She settled down and stopped crying right away. Amazing!