Words are picking up steam

The girl is picking up the pace with her vocabulary. Hardcore. This past week she started to readily repeat words - bigger words - and sentences. I named her alligator toy during bathtime the other day, and she quickly repeated "algutuh" - I laughed and called our for Cindy to come over to listen. Jackie started saying "Cindih". Jackie and Cindy called Aunt Lauren yesterday morning to wish her a happy birthday, and Jackie successfully said "Happy Birthday" - she still needs some work on annunciating 'Aunt Lauren'. Another phrase was "teeth hurt" - she tripped over her feet at daycare the other day and gave herself a bloody nose, no doubt also smacking her mouth. It's quite incredible to see the light go on in her head when she grasps a new word or concept - you can really see the connections forming.

Here's another tickling video:

Pool Time!

and in case you missed these, below are a few pics. you can always check out the flickr page for updated stuff.

this weekend was quite lovely. cindy had to work saturday, so the girl and I spent the morning cleaning, organizing, and rearranging her toys and the living room. we brought her plastic table and chair into the living room from outside (after removing melted crayon with a pot of boiling water) and set it up as her 'snack table'. now she has a place to eat snacks that she can easily get to instead of sitting on the floor or having us boost her up to the dining room table in her high chair. better yet, the bookshelf beneath the tv (which is adjacent to this table) is the perfect height for her, so we've put her dishes and silverware there. now it's much easier for her to set her spot at the table instead of us giving her each piece to set. she totally enjoys doing this - she spent 15 minutes completely captivated just rearranging her dishes. the girl also became a fan this weekend of 3 important things we find in every building. floor, wall, and ceiling. just ask her about it next time you see her.

pretty much the rest of the weekend was spent at the pool. she became a bit scared of the pool suddenly, and is only comfortable is she's touching us in some way. surely she'll grow past it. either way, we still had a great time - we spent a majority of pool time in the big pool, throwing the girl up in the air, dragging her for swims (like a monkey on our backs), supporting her while she floated on her back. in fact, the little mimic picked up a new phrase while we reassured her we wouldn't let her fall below the water - 'i got you'. we then added the 'babe' after we heard her repeat, so you may as well call her Cher next time you see her.

Tickle Tickle!

Jackie has gotten big into tickling lately. This was taken on our camera, not the new HD video cam. Doesn't stop it from being 'Koot', as Jackie would say (we need to stop calling her cute right to her face).

A Who's Who of our Family

btw - you can click the little HD button on the lower right side of the video for higher quality, and the button just to the right of the HD button will make it full screen. give it a moment to buffer if you click HD.

this was taken w/ our new HD Flip video cam. notice the much better video and sound quality!

Two! Two Two Two!!!!

she likes to count now, but is basically fond of only the number that follows one.

First Sentence!!

More cheese please!

Update: STAYING IN AUSTIN!!

So we found out on Thursday that we're staying in Austin. Yay!! Once we got over the shock of our new situation, I think Kenny and I are both a little bit excited about it. Kenny has fantastic ideas all the time as to one thing or another that he wants to invent, build, whatever, and the only thing holding him back has been his slave-labor-type job. Well, now that that's out of the picture, he has all options open and waiting for him. I get to focus on my job for a little while, Jackie will get some great Daddy time, and our house might actually be clean for once. What will be even more fun will be watching Kenny figure out what he's going to do next on his career path. Like I said, it's exciting to have the world at your feet and nothing in your way :)

And life changes before you have a moment to breathe...

Today was one of those days where your life is turned upside-down in an instant. I got a call from Kenny at around 11:45. He says, "Can you meet me on the Riverwalk downstairs...right now?" This is after I know that he received a cryptic email from his boss this morning asking whether he could "meet for a couple of minutes" at 9:30. Kenny assured me he had not been fired, but he did say "We need to talk." That was the longest 30 second elevator ride of my life. So we meet on the promenade, and Kenny tells me that, as of Friday, he is transferred to the Dallas office of his firm.
Let that sink in for a second. We have lived in Austin for 7 years. The longest place I ever lived is in Dallas, which was for 14 years. Atlanta follows behind Austin at 3.5 years. We have built a life here. We have bought a house. I, who usually kill plants, have established a garden in our backyard and invested $400 in said garden. I have recently survived the split of my law firm. I have helped build my new firm. I serve on two boards of directors here. I have built an established network of contacts in the Austin legal community. I have cried twice today at the thought of leaving Austin. I am sad. 3 of my 6 closest friends live in Austin.
Dallas will be alright, assuming I am able to keep my job. I know some people there, my parents are there, my high school is there. I have always wanted to be more active with my high school- I feel like I owe much of my current fortunate situation to my high school.

My life is serendipitous. This transfer could have happened 3 months ago, right in the middle of my law firm's split. It could have happened while I was pregnant. It might not have happened at all, which would mean Kenny would be jobless.

It means I have an opportunity to build a network in Dallas. I can meet a client I've worked for for 4 years but never met in person. I can open up the Dallas market to my law firm. I can get to know a new group of lawyers. I can still visit Austin once a week. It will all be ok. My daughter can attend a really great school- the one I owe my own education to. That alone makes me happy. Everything will be alright. I will still visit Austin to buy lead-free wooden toys.

Hoo!

Adding to her list of sounds and words, Jackie hit us up this past week w/: owl (and it's accompanying 'hoo'), the letters a through f, numbers 1 and 2, and bubbles. While she's been saying bye-bye here and there for a while, it really took hold this past week, along w/ hi. This morning she followed all the directions given to her by her sing-songy satanic talking bear (actually, the bear has cute songs - it's the devilish fisher price dog that drives us batty) -

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, clap like this!

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, blow a kiss!

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, reach up high!

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say bye-bye!

It's like we're at the beginning of a long race and we're starting to pick up speed...

Last weekend, a good friend and her son (just a few months older than Jackie) visited us from Houston. Jackie and the boy have known each other since they were just a few months old, so they remember one another when they visit. They're now old enough to recognize that one of them is a boy and one is a girl. Kind of. When we got them undressed for a co-ed bubble bath, th

e boy poked Jackie on the butt, then noticed she had no boy parts. "What's this? Where's her wee-wee? It should be right there!" This, of course, must have been his internal monologue as he squatted in front of Jackie to get a better view of what he couldn't find. This story will be forever retold as they grow older, embarrasing the two of them for years to come.

I see you under the table!

...moments before the glass shattered on the ground...

"Not now, I'm taking a call."

By the way, notice the nice scrape on her forehead in the last pic? She got blown over by the wind at the playground this week. I don't know if the wind is really strong at her daycare or if it's just really easy to knock her over.

Park Pics

just wanted to post a few of the pics from this weekend's playdate at Barton Springs. the first two were taken by Troy or Kristin w/ their super camera.

Who's my little Terrorist?

This weekend was an outdoor weekend - now that the weather's nice, we try to spend as much time outside as possible. Yesterday morning was spent prepping an area of the yard for a new vegetable garden - Jackie enjoyed holding (and nearly crushing) her first rolly-polly bug (it was my first time holding one, too), helping us put the removed grass into the compost bin, and throwing Nathan's toys around for him to grab. Lunchtime was spent at the playscape near Barton Springs w/ some of my co-workers and their kids, and then back home for naptime and more outdoor work. It was great to spend time outside and get some exercise!

Today was similar - woke up to a hugely grinning and babbling Jackie (such cute babbling that tho Cindy was planning on sleeping a bit more, she felt the need to get out of bed and come play). Spent the morning out in the yard, getting the walls to the garden all set, and pushing the Jackster in her swing. She rewarded us with a new trick while swinging - a fist bump. High-fives are too passe' for this little one. She also says 'kerl' for squirrel, and can tell you what sound a bee makes. It blows my mind how quickly she picks things up - and how much she understands, so it's definitely time to watch what we say...

What does a Chicklet say?

Jackie woke up this morning w/ a crusty nose and a fever of 101. It hasn't affected her mood, though, and she showed us some new tricks during breakfast. In keeping w/ her recent predilection for imitating animals, she can now buck like a chicken and meow like a cat in addition to her famous Monkey Face.

Monkey Face

Jackie has recently taken to pouting out her lips to such a degree that they increase the depth of her face by half. It makes us laugh, which causes her to do it more. She likes to exaggerate the entire thing by throwing her head up as though howling, which is really the icing on the cake. We obviously find it to be hysterical, which only reinforces the monkey face (to our delight). It has gotten to the point where we can now, on command, ask for 'monkey face'. To top it off, we tap her on her 'monkey' lips, which sends her into fits of laughter. ahhhh...

Retrieval of the phone pics

Yesterday evening, Cindy had a great time taking pics of Jackie using her phone. Jackie had been waddling around the backyard and squealing in delight wearing nothing but her big 'ol diaper. Cindy sent me a few pics, but my phone was already filled to the brim w/ pics I had taken of Jackie, so in order to see Cindy's, I had to remove pics from my phone. I emailed myself the earliest pics from my phone, and then retrieved Cindy's. Here are a few, in a chronological order:

Mid-December, 2007 - ~6 wks:

March 2008 - ~5 months:

February 2009 - 15 months:

March 2009 - 16 months:

Take this for a moment, will you?

Yesterday at daycare, Jackie apparently did not remove her barrette from her hair. This is a triumph of sorts, as tightly bound pigtails had been the only assured means of keeping her hair out of her face the whole day through. She did take a break from the barrette, however. We were told that upon entering the playground, she marched up to Jill, one of her caretakers, methodically removed the barrette, handed it over, then turned around and scampered off to play. I guess she likes to take her hair down. She's that kind of girl.

a decrease in grunts and snorts

as i noted in the previous note, Jackie has recently taken to grunting and snorting. it got to a point that we got a bit concerned that she might be having trouble breathing. this lead us on a journey that resulted in aspirations to become ENTs. looking up her nose, we discovered Jackie had some giant boogies. now, this may not be the most glamorous image, and surely not one that you'd expect from a gushing father telling the world about his precious little butterball. but it is the post of a concerned father posting the very real and daily goings-on of a baby.

at first, cindy decided to extract said boogie w/ the squeezie-bulb thing they gave us at the hospital (you know - the turkey baster they use to suck junk out of the baby's nose and mouth when they're born). unfortunately, it just lodged the boogie a little better in Jackie's nose. a tenacious little crusty it was. we recognized at that point that best course of action would be to let the child blow that nugget out all on her own.

it took nearly 2 days, but our patience was rewarded yesterday evening as i was preparing to take Jackie on a walk. she was all bundled up in her quilted kimono outfit (thanks Grandma!), hat, mittens, and warm fleece blanket, strapped into her car seat (in turn attached to the bugaboo). i was about to put her pacifier back into her mouth (she spit it out) when i noticed this huge dark thing on her cheek. what what what?! it was the elusive boogie! i didn't hear the sneeze, but i saw the evidence - i heard it, too, as the snorts disappeared. we then proceeded to have a lovely walk about the neighborhood.

Baby Belly at Capacity

so Jackie's going through another growth spurt. there's no way to be absolutely sure till she gets measured and weighed again, but we're 99% positive. how do we know? she's been eating every 2 hours or so for the last 2 days - even at night. she's gotten to the point where she can sleep 5 hours a stretch at night, so every 2 hours is a noticeable change. her behavior at this point is: eat, sleep, cry for food.

so it made us giggle when she cried for food this morning while she was eating. she burped up some food while she was eating. presently, she's lying on a pillow on mommy's lap, looking up at us - saying 'what you typing dad?'. well, baby, I'm saying that you are moving beyond piglette stage to full-on pig status. but we still love you.

in other Jackie news, her eyes are turning blue, she's starting to coo, we're getting the occasional smile (which is the absolute best thing in the world - it can make your anger at rocking her to sleep for and hour and a half at 4am melt away), she grunts and snorts, and it looks like her hair is getting a bit reddish!!! as my friend Liz noted in a gchat conversation this week, she is my doppelganger. we are actively looking for physical resemblance to mommy, but are sure that it will come in her personality.

Jacqueline Lee

So if we haven't been in touch and you've been keeping updated on our progress by reading this blog, then you ought to know that by now, something big ought to have happened.  and it did - a month ago!  Jacqueline Lee Grossman was born on November 6, 2007 at 6:44p.  She weighed in at 7lbs 8.3oz, and measure 20 in. long.  Cindy was induced at 8am that morning, but labor didn't really kick in until about 10a.  It was a relatively short labor as they go, and fairly easy (epidural).  Everyone came out healthy and great, and we were ecstatic to have our little Chicklet here in person (except now she also goes by Jackie).

Brief synopsis of everything since the birth:  in an attempt to fully emulate her father, Jackie came out w/ my puffy froggy eyes (as my mother called them when I was born) and then proceeded to come down w/ a lovely case of 'the jaundice'.  thankfully, technology has progressed by leaps and bounds in the nearly 30 years since i was born, and the therapy lights can now be brought to your very own home!  very cool - fiber optics were threaded through a gauze blanket that we wrapped around Jackie, and it was hooked up to a light in an attached casing.  we had her wrapped in that for about 2 days, and she was as good as new (which for her meant setting the clock back 5 days).  poor Jackie had blood tests every day though, so her heels were a bit sore for a few days.

Once we got past that, we had the 1 week, 2 week, and 4 week checkups, and I am completely blown away by how fast babies grow.  Of course, I thought at first that my daughter was extra special - which she is - but this growth is actually quite typical.  She lost a bit of weight in the first week, which is normal, as it took Cindy's milk a few days to come in and start regular and sufficient production.  By week 2, though, Jackie had surpassed her birth weight by a few ounces, and by week 4 had grown to 9lb 4oz - that's nearly 2 lbs in 4 weeks!  Sure, I can pack on 2 lbs in a lot less time than that, but considering that it was about 25% of her entire weight...  Even more amazing to me than the weight gain was actually the growth spurt.  She grew 1.5 inches in 3 weeks!  Crazy.

And who's gotten to see little Chicklet?  First and foremost, Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Lauren (my parents and sister) and Grandmommy and Grandaddy (Cindy's parents) all came in immediately.  Grandmommy and Grandaddy actually came in Tuesday morning when Cindy was induced, and they stayed w/ us through most of the labor - which had been progressing quite slowly.  Cindy was induced at 8am and was only 3cm dilated by 3pm.  We were sure that there was a long night ahead of us, so Linda and Dwight went back to our house to let the dog out and to get some dinner.  By 5:30pm Cindy was 8cm dilated, so I called them up to advise them to make their trip short.  30 min later Cindy was fully dilated and the nurse (Nadia, who was awesome - she was actually a physician in her homeland of Afghanistan but hasn't had the time to take her boards in America) told us it was time to push.  Say what?  We thought the baby was going to be born late at night or early in the morning, but 30 minutes after the pushing started, out popped Chicklet!  I insisted that I was not going to watch the actual birth, but at the last moment my curiosity got the best of me and I'm glad it did - it was so cool!  I cut the cord, and Jackie was placed on Cindy's chest for some immediate bonding.  Cindy was absolutely stunned - it was incredible to watch the two of them.  I then stayed w/ Jackie as she was cleaned up, and then it was back to Mommy.

We stayed in the hospital for 2 days after the birth, and the hospital was great.  St. David's Northwest Medical Center has an amazing birthing center.  We had our own labor/delivery room, which is where we checked in and spent all of our time until after the birth.  Hardwood floors, tv w/ cable, private room and bathroom, and a pullout sofa/bed for me.  After the birth we were switched to an equally comfortable, though smaller, Recovery Room, which is where we stayed until we checked out.  I highly recommend this hospital if anyone is set to deliver in Austin.  Nadia even stopped in to check in on us in the Recovery Room (she was a labor/delivery nurse), which made us like her even more.   We brought the nurses homemade cupcakes to show our gratitude about a week later.

And so now we've just been spending time w/ our rapidly plumpifying butterball of love.  Cindy is on 2 months of maternity leave, and I took 2 weeks off to stay at home.  Getting back into the swing of work was hard, but Jackie's gotten the hang of generally sleeping well, getting up only to eat and poop.  Occasionally she'll have a fussy night (like 3 nights ago when I had a cold and wouldn't take her, and so Cindy didn't get much sleep at all that night), but generally she's pretty good.  As a matter of fact, I wrote most of this during her current nap, which appears to be ending, so this is where the post shall end.

Labor Induction Methods That Don’t Work Part 2: Spicy Food

So there’s this silly myth out there that spicy food (or "Mexican food" for those who generalize) can induce labor. I say this is silly because if it was actually true, I, as well as most of the pregnant women in the State of Texas, would never have to wait to go into labor. You see, we eat LOTS of spicy food down here. It might be Mexican food, or it might just be something I cook at home that involves liberal quantities of cayenne pepper. Either way, if it was going to cause labor, I doubt I would be here writing this now.
I figured that spicy food probably wouldn’t work for me (again, since I’m writing this now, you know the outcome already), but decided to try it anyway. Being a connoisseur of Mexican food (I eat Tex-Mex at least once a day), I figured it would not do the trick in terms of spice since I've developed a resistance to it. I opted instead for what I consider the food with the greatest potential for overdone heat: Chinese food (since I generalize too, this includes Thai food). Those guys will get you with those black peppers if you’re not careful! Last week, after the acupressure didn't work its magic, Kenny and I went to a local Chinese restaurant (we walked, hoping to induce labor, of course) in our neighborhood. I ordered some spicy dish—it had two peppers next to the name on the menu, indicating maxed-out spiciness. I was sadly disappointed until they brought out the side dish of crushed red chilies in chili oil. Yes, I was convinced this would bring Chicklet out screaming. I doused my food in this pepper sauce, but all it gave me was a burning tongue. It didn’t even give me indigestion. That’s actually what I was hoping for. I really think it’s not so much the spices in the food that trigger labor, as it is the mother’s inability to stomach those spices. They get the digestive system all worked up, and one muscle spasm leads to another, and soon enough, the uterus wants to get in on all the muscle spasm action going on down there in the digestive tract, so it joins in, causing contractions and eventually labor.
Unfortunately, due to all the cayenne pepper I regularly ingest, I have a digestive tract of steel. Crushed red pepper is not enough for me. I need those peppers that will kill you if you eat too many of them. Anyway, the moral of the story is: Spicy food (or “Mexican” food if you’re from up north and lump it all together like that) doesn’t induce labor. Next post: the full moon.

Labor Induction Methods that Don't Work: Part 1- Acupressure

Today we begin a series of posts on the various natural labor induction methods that I've tried in order to get this kid out. Today's topic is acupressure. For the past three nights, I've tried acupressure on the pressure points just above my ankles, and the points between my thumb and index finger. Since I'm still here typing, you obviously know the outcome of this method: it has not worked. This is not to say I'm giving up. Each morning and each evening, I intend to continue to press on these pressure points in the hope that one day something will actually happen, other than just bruising myself. I even bought a hand-held massager to rub on them to help out a bit. It's funny, though, for all the times I've been warned by various people NOT to push on these pressure points "unless I want to run the risk of early labor," now that I actually want them to do something they're proving sadly ineffective. For example, Kenny and I went to Relax the Back last night to pick up an exercise ball to use during labor, and as I browsed their various massagers, I was told by the woman who works there not to use it on my calves or I might go into labor. I looked at her and asked, "Where exactly on my calves am I not supposed to use it? Can you show me exactly?" Like I fooled her. I probably looked unbelievably desperate as I asked. I then told her I was full-term and approaching my due date and looking for any way possible to jump start things, so she showed me. Of course, it was the same pressure point that hasn't been doing anything for me thus far, so my heart sank a little. Then, Kenny sat down in one of their massage chairs and started testing it out. He told me to come over and try it, at which point another sales person stepped in and said I couldn't because, you guessed it, "it might send me into labor." Please people!! Can't you see that I WANT to start this process? Do I not look ready to you? This isn't a watermelon under my shirt, and I'm not just happy to see you. I have what appears to be a pretty good sized human being (helped along by the box of Nilla Wafers I ate this weekend) under my shirt and she needs to come out! I think I'm going to scope out that store again, maybe disguised as someone with a pituitary problem or benign stomach tumor (we've all heard those stories), and sit in that chair. Who knows what other accupressure points it can hit that might just do the trick. Of course, now that the sales person has cursed the chair by promoting its labor-inducing qualities (the kiss of death for any induction remedies, I've decided), it probably won't work. Next post: spicy food.