Since Veronica has become increasingly interested in sitting up all the time, we bought a bebePod for her. Of course, the other thing she’s excited about is putting everything in her mouth, (she tried to snatch and eat someone’s sandwich today) so I should have known that when I put her in it she would lean over and try to eat the pommel. Silly girl.

It was a long weekend in more ways that one. We took Veronica on her first “long” trip?to Goldendale for the first leg, then on Sunday, from Goldendale to Portland and all the way home again. The drive to Goldendale wasn’t too bad, except that it took a bit longer since we had to stop to feed V and then, ten minutes later, to change her diaper. (The spouse is way better than I at back seat diaper changes.)

Had lots of fun at Brian and Nohe’s on Sabbath: Pathfinder Sabbath, potluck and hanging out.?

Sunday we headed to Portland with a couple of stops on the way to take pictures. Nohe did an awesome job (see the pictures at the spouse’s blog) but V was not cooperative. She was ready for a nap and not at all smiley. Of course, ten minutes before and 20 minutes after the pictures, she was smiley. Sigh.?

Got lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory, the original restaurant. It has a purple roof! I neglected to get a photo, but let me say, it was an awesome purple roof. The ?not-so-awesome part was that Nohe wasn’t feeling well and didn’t get to eat with us. We celebrated Ariana’s upcoming birthday at dessert and then headed to the zoo to see gorillas, monkeys and baboons. Also, elephants, polar bears, a sea lion, and more. V got to ride on the train around the zoo with her cousins (and parents) and all too soon it was time to head for home.?

As for the ride home, I can do without another of those. We left Portland at 6 p.m. and got home at midnight. Veronica was not excited about being in her car seat; she wanted to be out and playing. We ended up stopping several times between Portland and The Dalles. Every time, I swore she was hungry, and every time she just wanted out of her car seat and to avoid sleep. After we stopped for supper and emergency diaper run (she had exploded her way through both of her diaper covers and we had to get some disposables to tide us over), she was even worse. Finally, FINALLY, she fell asleep when we stopped yet again in Biggs.?

Moral of the story: make sure baby gets enough play time before putting her in the car seat for the long drive home. Or maybe the moral is: don’t take long car trips. One of those.

In the last week, Veronica has:
Been sleeping in her crib until 1 a.m.
Decided she only wants to take naps if someone is holding her.
Been reaching for food when we are eating (though she also tries to eat the iPhones…).
Woken up at 5:30 a.m. far too often.
Grown like crazy. I swear she looks more mature every day.
Become more adorable than ever.

The spouse to me, showing off his new HIC hat: Look at my new hat.

Me to the spouse: Wow, that looks like a trucker hat.?

Spouse shows me label on inside of the bill of the hat: Trucker hat.

I am so good. Seriously.

Apologies for my lack of posting recently. Between finishing up my previous job, taking care of the baby girl, doing household stuff, and starting my new job, it’s been hectic.

Got to see family this weekend, including my cousin’s son Malcolm, who is definitely not a baby anymore. I was very impressed by his play skills: he can name all the shapes he drops into his shape-cutout-box (whatever that toy is called). And he is very precise in his language use: he calls his shorts khaki shorts and differentiates between his blanket and his afghan. And he has a gorgeous mop of red curls.

I am over halfway through my first week on the job. Tomorrow: my first donut day (and no matter what the spouse says, underwriters do get donuts, and I bet I can beat him to the break room because I’ll have a clear view of when the donuts arrive). There’s lots to learn (besides how to beat the spouse to the donuts) and I’m excited about it all so far. It makes my brain snap, crackle, pop and while it’s a bit slow right now since I can’t really do anything useful, I can tell it’s going to get busy once I get up to speed.

Save September 19 on your calendar: Veronica is going to be dedicated at the University Church at first serve that day.

Gave my two weeks’ notice on Monday. I start a new job on the 18th. Looking forward to learning all about loan regs and leveling up my banking stats.

If you cannot tell, I have been playing too much Kingdoms on the iPhone. The spouse installed it so he could create a character for me to join his army. Then he showed me the game and my competitive streak kicked in. And since I can do quests to earn gold, I of course have been saving my game money to maximize my ROA. I can buy buildings like quarries and barracks to increase my cash flow and revenue stream. We have been racing to see who can level their character faster. It helps that I can play while I am feeding baby at night when the spouse is sleeping, hee hee.

See, we can still find something to argue about now that we both work for the same bank.

Tuesday, Veronica had her four-month birthday on Cinco de Mayo. She celebrated by sleeping six hours that night. (She must not have liked it because she hasn’t done it since.)

I celebrated on Wednesday: finally got my pre-pregnancy pants buttoned! They are still too tight for daily wear, but still, they can be buttoned.

Thursday was the status update with the doctor. V is +2 length at 25 inches. She’s outgrowing some of her 6-month pants in the brands that tend to run a little small. I dug out some 9-month pants to start trying on her.?

Her head circumference is 15.2 inches: 2nd percentile. This is down even from her 2-month visit, when she was at 8th percentile (14.5 inches). Considering she’s very active and passing all the other brain tests with great marks (head held up, rolling over, laughing, grabbing her toys, etc.), we’re going to ignore this idea that her head is small. It proportionate to her body, so that’s OK.

She now weighs 13 pounds, 8 ounces, which is the 46th percentile. I’m guessing she will double her birth weight by next month. She looks more grown up every day: more alert, and showing off her sanguine personality. She loves people so much that she refuses to go to sleep if there are people around. It’s so much more fun to smile and giggle at the new faces than to go to sleep.

The downside of the doctor visit was the shots. And the fact that we did not have a binky in the diaper bag to help calm her down after said shots. It took me 15 minutes of distracting her, trying to tempt to her nurse (epic failure) and soothing her to get her calm enough to leave the exam room. She ran a fever from Thursday through early this morning, when it finally broke. I was glad because we were just about to the limit of infant Tylenol we could give in a 24-hour period and I wasn’t excited about continuing to give it to her though even less excited about her not feeling well. She’s still a little fussy if we touch her leg (she got both shots in the same thigh) while changing her clothes or diaper, but overall doing much better today, thank goodness.

Today, we skipped church because of the extra whatever-it’s-being-called-today flu germs possibly floating. I know it’s just a variant of the flu, but the flu is not good for babies. The pediatrician agreed avoiding large groups of people would be good. (They had extra hand sanitizer in the office and masks for anyone with a cough.)

I think we’ll go for a walk in the beautiful sunshine this afternoon.