Week Six

Happy belated Thanksgiving! We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving dinner here at our house this year. Uncle Eric and Aunt Diana flew in from California and got to meet their niece.



As always, Tatum demanded he be carried, too, if the baby was being carried. Fortunately Grandpa is happy to oblige our incredibly spoiled cat.


(Sabine appears transfixed by the fuzzy caterpillar under Uncle Eric's nose.)

It was really nice to have the whole White family together for a holiday. This was the first time we were all able to get together for Thanksgiving in a long time, but hopefully it's just the beginning of some new traditions.



And hopefully in the future Sabine will be more agreeable with the whole family picture-thing.

She did get to wear her pretty Thanksgiving dress from one CCC, marking the transition into the 0-3 month-sized clothing. (She has been wearing newborn until now.)





Our good friends Andrew and Kristen were in town this weekend as well, so they stopped by to meet Sabine. It's time to move back to Colorado, y'all.



We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and we're looking forward to more friends and family getting to meet our little girl in the coming months. Happy December!

Week Five

Sabine was in a good mood this morning, so we played around on her fuzzy pink blanket again. She let me get a few good pictures before melting down completely.









A big thank you to the person who got us the kitty butt pants. They're not quite as easy to get on as the sleepers we usually dress Sabine in, but I do love the kitty tush.



Sabine's eyesight seems to be getting better daily. This is great for many reasons, not the least of which is, she is easily distracted these days. There is less fussing and more "oooh, what is that?"-type activity when she wakes up in her swing.


(We like to argue over which Kitson gets to claim her.)

Hang On Little Burrito

Sabine turned one month old yesterday! Time (kind of) flies when you're changing diapers.



This week we've rekindled our interest in swaddling, thanks to THIS book. I don't know if swaddling is really helping her sleep longer, but it does help calm her down more quickly. To any soon-to-be parents out there, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Sabine's eyesight is also slowly coming in to focus. She's made real eye contact with us a couple of times, and she's showing an interest in her black and white books. For whatever reason, diaper changing time is turning out to also be her favorite reading time.





We also ventured out one night to go visit a friend, and I couldn't resist dressing Sabine up in her very fuzzy pink winter suit, even though it's still a little big. (Thanks, Nannna Lin!)



One of my very dearest friends Katie was in town this week visiting her family, so she made time to come meet Sabine.



Otherwise, we're just taking things a day at a time, and napping when we can. Have a great weekend!

Snowbound

This weekend we're staying in (I say as though that is somehow vastly different than what we do every day) due to this:





While pretty, it is not ideal for traipsing around with a newborn in tow.

However, this has given us time to hang out as a family. Sabine got to try her first bottle this weekend. She was slightly suspicious; dad doesn't usually do the feeding:



But she's hungry enough she didn't spend too much time dwelling on the issue.



Tummy time continues to be a source of consternation:



As does bathtime:





Roar.



Sabine's friend Sonja came over on Friday, and the two of them hit it off, as much as babies can. We're hoping Sonja's good smiling influence will rub off on Miss Sabine.



Hope everyone had a good weekend!



*Editor's note: The editor in me is embarassed to admit that I made a grammatical mistake in my previous entry. (At least one.) Apparently one does not perform complex mathematical equations so much as one analyzes them. I did not know. And my English had to get corrected by a mathematician. I am going to go hide under a rock of shame now.

On the plus side, Sabine has a fabulous built-in math tutor, who's only a phone call away.

Developments

This week is going pretty well so far. Dustin had to go back to work, but he skipped the Broncos game on Monday night to be home with us. This little girl's already got him wrapped around her little finger.



My parents have come down to help out a little during the day, and we have all taken the opportunity to nap when Sabine naps.



She's also starting to hold her head up a lot. We had no doubt she would be very advanced. We're just wondering when she will start performing complex mathematical equations. We're closing in on the one-month mark....



I got a call yesterday from the pediatrician, Sabine's second set of screenings (the tests for the state that screen for serious illnesses and genetic disorders [the first set is done at the hospital]) came back all clear, so that was a nice call to receive.

I've also figured out the Moby Wrap (more or less) so we've managed to get out of the house a couple of times to take advantage of the nice weather that we've been having.

Heading Into Week Four

Sabine is still eating a ton, which means not much time for anything besides feeding and sleeping, but it also means that she's growing quickly. Living with her, Dustin and I can't see it as well, but she is starting to fit into the newborn-sized clothing, which she was swimming in when we first brought her home.



You can now see where all her extremities are.

There are even feet in the footies!



This weekend was Aunt Danielle's birthday, so she came over and the adults enjoyed some sushi while Sabine geared up for her next feeding.



Nanna Lin, we missed you! Hope you are feeling better soon.

Tatum is Home!

Sorry I don't have any pictures on this one. I just wanted to let everyone know that Tatum is home!

To be specific, he's apparently been home the whole time. He was in our basement, although we can't figure out where. We turned that place upside down any number of times looking for him. It's empty, so as large as it is, there weren't many places to hide. We even checked the sump pump and all the empty boxes from moving, just to make sure he hadn't gotten stuck somewhere. And I scanned the entire perimeter looking for a hole in the insulation where he might have crawled in, but I never saw anything. Normally Tatum calls when he gets stuck somewhere, but we haven't heard a peep until this morning.

I thought I heard him around 2:00AM, but I thought it was coming from outside. Dustin got up to look, but the noise stopped and we didn't see anything. Then the coyotes started howling, so I assumed that was the noise I had heard. But around 6:00 I distinctly heard Tatum, so we raced all over, and when we went downstairs there he was on the other side of the door with a look like, "What took you all so long?" and then he came trotting upstairs to snarf some food and demand a toy mouse. He seems to be less traumatized than we were.

In any case, it's been a great day for us so far. Sabine had a good night, she's eating regularly and has started having some awake moments where she is neither screaming nor eating, which is fun to see. (Not to mention a relief!)

Happy Sunday!

Tummy Time

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers for Tatum. He hasn't turned up, yet, but we're still hoping he might show up. It's been cold at night, but at least it hasn't snowed or anything like that. And it's been 70 degrees during the day, so that bodes well.

The most recent Sabine update is tummy time. We've tried it out once or twice, and she tolerates it for about twenty seconds before she expresses her displeasure. Here's a picture from the first twenty seconds:



I'll spare you the one I took nineteen seconds later.

Here's one from her swing, instead, which is one of her favorite spots:



Happy Friday!

Bath and Missing Cat

Yesterday was not a great day in our household. Sabine finally got her first bath and...

She was not a fan.

It was exhausting, though, and she did sleep well last night.


Of course it was the one night where I had other things on my mind, so I still didn't get any sleep. Our cat Tatum is missing. He disappeared yesterday around the time we had some cleaning ladies come over to help us clean our house. We don't know for sure that that is when he got out, but we haven't seen him since then. And anyone who knows Tautm knows that he doesn't remain quiet for that long. We've turned our house upside down, and we're pretty sure he's not inside. So we have put up flyers outside and called the local vets, but nothing yet. This blog is supposed to be about Sabine, but Tatum was our baby first, and this is kind of a desperate attempt to ask anyone who might be coming over in the next couple of days to please keep your eyes peeled for him as you come in. We'll let you know if there's an update.

My First Halloween

Happy Halloween a few days late!



The big news last week, that I forgot to share, was that Sabine lost her umbilical stump on Friday. Good riddance, it was disgusting. But we did take a few pictures the day before it fell off, and the cute factor more than makes up for the stump, in our humble opinion.









Over the weekend, she started throwing up a lot of what she was eating, so in good Brand Spanking New Parent fashion, we rushed off to the Children's Hospital emergency room on Sunday. She was promptly diagnosed with Little Piggy Syndrome* and is on the verge of overeating and not burping enough, so we have taken to plunking her on the back a lot more and regulating her feedings a little more. Verdict: she is fine. And has already surpassed her birth weight.


This is Dustin's last week of paternity leave, so we're settling in to some trashy T.V. and napping as much as possible. (Which still isn't much, but we're trying. It's nice having a tag team.)


Also, does anyone have any tips for cutting newborn fingernails? We're currently stuffing her hands in mittens and occasionally glancing fearfully at the itty-bitty nail clippers.



*Not quite the terminology used by the medical professionals we saw, but close enough