baba loves the milks

we've done this enough times to discern a post-prandial behavior pattern in eve, at least during the daytime feedings when we're all a little more alert. after glutting herself on milk, eve goes through a limp-body phase in which she is milk-drunk, her lips stained white, her cheeks covered in drying drink. see the above photo for evidence of this.

after she (quickly) sleeps off her milk drunkenness, she moves into the hiccup/gas/vomit phase. this afternoon, this involved throwing up on ted while he was changing a disgusting diaper and then battling a bout of hiccups (punctuated by another little throw-up on ted). sadly, no vomit made it into this video of hiccups. you may wonder why we're posting another hiccuping video so shortly after the first one. in this one, evesie's eyes are open the whole time! apologies for the darkness of the video; we'll get better at lighting these moments.

that's my daughter in the water

little babski eve is approaching her two-week birthday, and upon reflection, i realize it's been one heck of a second week of life outside the womb for this kid. a visit to the doctor on monday confirmed our suspicions that she's a good eater. she gained a whopping twelve ounces in five days.

ted's parents visited her on tuesday and wednesday and quickly fell in love with her. they came bearing adorable girly clothing gifts, which seems to have set off a chain reaction, as pink and purple outfits that threaten me with cuteness overload have recently arrived in the mail from nan and pop and christine, as well as the very appropriate 'elf in training' bodysuit, with matching red pants from mom. if we ever stop dressing this little girl in green gowns, she's going to be quite the fashion plate.

before she can start dressing for success, we realized that she needed to smell better. her cord dropped off (i found it under the couch--no idea how it got there, but i imagine fledge had something to do with it, and i don't want to contemplate that) and her adorable belly button got dry enough that we finally gave this kid a full-on bath last night. predictably, she hated most of it but didn't seem to mind the strangle-hold rinse-off session or getting wrapped in a warm towel that looked like a bear. we have the photo evidence, above, to prove it.

among our big plans to celebrate her two-week oldness is watching the duke game on saturday afternoon. for those of you who have tried watching duke men's bb with ted, you know that you must develop a deaf ear as he waxes into more and more ridiculous 'sports talk' as the game progresses. eve seems to be born with an innate ability to do this. she just sleeps on him. when he tries to rouse her with his attempts to outdo dick vitale in blue devil enthusiasm, she sleepily says, 'boring, papa, boring.' that's my girl!

be my baby

here are a few more fotos. we've had lots of folks over to see this babski so this site has been slightly neglected, but that shall be remedied soon. in the meantime, please enjoy these shots of eve.

her majesty's a pretty nice girl, but she doesn't have a lot to say

i'm back! eve and i have started to figure out eating and sleeping cycles, which helps me feel like i can do a few things in addition to feeding her, sleeping with her, and staring at her while she sleeps. currently, she's in her new favorite position, sleeping on her stomach on me. at just the right reclining angle, this felicitously frees up both of my hands/arms for typing. typing with all ten fingers is ten times easier than typing with one.

eve has had visitors since she was about six hours old, and she receives them with great calm. she is sneakily addictive. once you hold her, you'll never go back. i've attached two photos of eve casting her spell on her 'em' (erin's mom) and her memommy (ted's grandmother). the other photo was taken yesterday, in her favorite sleeping position then. we don't really know what she's doing with her legs or arms, but she looks mighty comfortable.

awww

i think this might be my new favorite foto. also, e-$ is now active and will be posting some shots later today (so she has promised me).

the hiccup wars

this little babski can sustain quite the bout of hiccups when she's up for it. check out this video that we made of her last night--a fine performance indeed.

obviously 5 believers

happy black friday to everyone. i've already made my trip to best buy to stock up on my necessities. this little pups is now 6 days old and i thought i'd pull the camera back just a little bit and let you all see her tired, drawn, blissed out new parents. but first...our leading photo shows 3 generations of beautiful girl hands, so we know where these beautiful digits come from. eve loves to sleep with her hands like that. the second photo shows one hot mama lounging on the couch with eve in her favorite position -- on erin. the third shows this guy scoping out his new fave-y, unaware that he is quite the fashion icon with the rock n roll stubble and jimi hendrix t-shirt. i know you're all looking at her, so i thought i'd at least describe myself to you.

the right profile

it's becoming clearer every day that this is our child, a fascinating meld of our selves. she's changing and growing and we just keep staring at her, trying to spot each other's features in her beautiful countenance. these 2 show her precious little face and full head of blonde wavy hair, putting all paternity questions to rest forever.

lay across my big brass bed

so, our bed is magical. in fact, this magical bed contributed to the mess we're in today. evesy-pups has made clear her preference for said magical bed. she loves to sleep in the middle, and loves curling on her side and facing erin. they're sleep buddies, slumber pals. it's pretty adorable and makes this guy just melt.

long, long, long

here are a few more fotos of babski eve. you might notice that she has erin's beautiful long fingers, and i already imagine myself buying her a beautiful gibson acoustic...

the second foto shows her freakishly long toes -- they have been occupied for the last few months. occupied with kicking erin in the side. having scoped these digits, i now understand erin's uncomfortable squirm and wince when this baby decided to stretch.

i'll hopefully be popping some narrative moments in between the fotos if anyone is interested. i'm not sure i'd be. 2 nights ago, we started to watch tim gunn and then just turned it off b/c we kept staring at eve. but i have some seemingly surreal hospital encounters to share, and of course the labor story.

love to you all.

you can leave your hat on.

evesy-pups cuts quite the sartorial figure when she discards her hospital garb.

goin' home

yessir, that's my baby!

i'm AWAKE!

eve opened her eyes long enough this afternoon for mom to get a few photos of them while i was holding her!

DAY TWO

the first photo is the first one taken this AM -- the 2nd and 3rd were taken last night.

we'd like to take you home with us

WE'D LOVE TO TAKE YOU HOME!

our beautiful baby daughter is here.

all are well. all are resting. it's a quiet november morning for famblies and babskis.

photos, etc., coming soon.

BLOG UPDATE IN PROGRESS

check back soon!

everybody knows that baby's got new clothes

well, we totally sold out today. i got a coupon in the mail for a babski clothing store, and we actually used it. you probably have no idea how amazing this is. not only did we make an effort to patronize a store based on the only-just-barely tempting promise to save $10 off of our $30 purchase (ted knows that this is my baseline for considering an item really on sale--roughly 30%), but we remembered to bring the coupon into the store with us. and then we used it.

oh, friends. how we used it.

we bought a completely ridiculous outfit for jordan to come home from the hospital in. it consists of a bodysuit with snowmen on it, plus fleecy pants and a little coat with a hood. both of these are ivory (perfect for creatures that regularly crap and vomit on themselves, like argos) on one side and full of little snowmen on the other. these items are reversible, so really it's like we got two pairs of pants and two coats. alternatively, their reversible nature is like ted's personality/ies.

so anyway, i was creating a little model of the clothes, and ted realized that it was not complete without some sort of collage/shrine of pop culture as accoutrements. suddenly, baby clothes weren't so boring.

i'll let him explain the allegorical and anagogical significance of the items:

first of all, dual-posting is stupid and gay (happy) (:-) or insert your own appropriate emoticon here). ;)

we have achieved perfection. you see before you these own babski clothes, which are impossibly small. also, the store situation was strange and infirm. like 'nam, or what i imagine the viking hall of gods to be. lots of little critters scampering, and major mothers elbowing sideways and snatching at racks with no thought or pattern. i guess more like 'nam, but with loki on ecstasy also. in 'nam.

so there is this suit, described by e-$. on your left is a photograph of senior elvis presley, taken in greensboro by my cousin's grandmother. in case you are unaware, elvis is the model of sexual perfection and also a very good singer. i can write about elvis later.

above the babski's head is none other than Mr. President William Jefferson Clinton with his very own pups, Buddy. Tragically, Buddy was run over by a car in New York. I vow only to use Capital Letters in this Paragraph.

finally, we have none other than (of course) the inestimable, mono-surviving, heart-breaking, buffalo-wrangling, SALLY FEHSKENS. holy canoli, is my sister hot or what?

you will notice that jordan has a face from oxford, which is scary, and is playing a mini gibson gittar. only the best for my babski.

i guess that's it. bye.

oh, i'm not pregnant

i don't know if it's my entrance into the monstrously pregnant phase or the fact that i'm tired of solicitous strangers who comment on my pregnancy with no invitation whatsoever, but i've been dying to tell someone who asks me how much longer i've got or when i'm due that i'm not pregnant at all. i just want to see that inital wide-eyed look of panic before they console themselves with the fact that i have a terrible sense of humor or am really completely delusional.

that moment arrived last night.

there we were, cozy in the known, but unposted express lane at whole foods, and the cashier looked first at jordan and then at my face and said, with great enthusiasm, 'wow, you look like you're about ready to pop.' feeling no productive ill-will at the moment, i was getting ready to admit that i still had an eternity to go when ted stepped in and saved the day.

ted: oh, she's not pregnant.

whole foods girl: wow, really?

erin: yeah, i'm just really bloated. weird, isn't it?

wfg: um yeah. (scans ted's beer) can i see your id's, guys?

(ted produces his) erin: mine's in the car, but i'm not drinking anyway (which ended up being a lie that night, thanks to hillary and greg's delicious wine)

wfg: yeah, you can't drink beer because you're already so fat.

ted: it's the twinkies. she's existed solely on twinkies for the past eight months.

erin: they're amazingly absorbative. you never have to go to the bathroom, and you're always got lots of energy as long as you keep stuffing your face, but they do sort of stick around (shakes her belly up and down for emphasis. jordan stretches a leg and swears)

ted: yeah, she's been so productive at work because she never has to move, except to open a new box of twinkies.

wfg: i love you guys. why haven't i seen you before?

ted: i was here earlier today. where were you?

wfg: well, today's my first day.

i know it's not a kroger story, but i finally got to work through my wish. and the cheeses that we bought that night were really terrific, so it would have been worth it even if the wfg didn't turn out to be such a good sport.

the butt dance

we should talk about the butt dance.

i think it really started percolating in j's mind as a potential change-up from the volleys of kicks and punches delivered to my now pretty sore right side when i gave up on my own clothes and started wearing ted's t-shirts around the house. on the day that i announced my sartorial defeat (silently, to myself and jordan), i chose ted's classy shirt that features a 'donkey,' with the words, 'don't be an' above it. i'll let you figure out how the picture finishes the sentence.

those of you who know ted know that this is a t-shirt worn with nearly as much frequency as the beloved pandas-in-glitter, but perhaps it's not as memorable, given the lack of glitter, chinese ideograms, and pandas.

so around the time i started wearing this shirt (ted's response: can't you pick one of the shirts that i don't wear all the time?), i was also getting ready to teach _jurassic park_. to prepare, ted, j, and i watched that fine film together, and that night, amidst the animal t-shirts and the roaring dinos, the butt dance was born.

it's initial version consisted of butt waggling from my left side to the exact middle of jordan's house, combined with some horrible drilling action performed by j's little fists into my pelvis. it was visually pretty cool and physically pretty uncomfortable.

now that jordan's space is even more limited, the butt dance mostly consists of butt sliding with the occasional bit leg stretch so that my stomach visibly gets much, much wider. this remains physically uncomfortable.

in spite of all this discomfort and my whining about it, i love the butt dance. this kid has a really hard butt. and s/he's a really dedicated dancer, always practicing.