Pictures: Cottaging, Sophie Smiles

Here are some photos of Sophia's smiles. I have not been able to capture a photo of a wide open grin yet, but these give a good idea of her cute factor when she's happy.




This is a photo of Tricia with Sophie and Haley on a deck lounger at the cottage, and Sophie's Grandpa Gerhard patting Haley's head


Haley also enjoys the cottage lifestyle:

Cottage: week-1

Sophia is seven weeks old and has now spent an entire week at the cottage (David's parent's cottage in Sioux Narrows, Ontario). We will be here for another week, but it felt like a good milestone to record, in addition to the numerous internal and external milestones that Sophia has achieved in the past week.

Among her external milestones, those things she has done or been exposed to:

• Driving in a car for 5 hours, then three hours the next day. She slept well during the drives but was awake and a bit crabby for the following night
  
• Her first visit to Ontario
  
• Her first trip in a boat
  
• Her first lounge on a beach
  
• Her first hike over Canadian shield country (the sling we have for her was fantastic for this)
  
• Her first bath in a big bathtub
  
• Her first visit to a liquor store (the salesperson didn't even ask for ID!)
  
• Her first treasure hunt - Adam and Kristine (her Aunt and Uncle) prepared a GPS-based, clue ridden treasure hunt for the three of us. Very fun.
  

Among her internal milestones, those things that she has grown old enough to be capable of

• She is starting to smile in response to external stimuli (and not just because she has gas)
  
• She is occasionally sleeping through the night, from 9pm to 5am the first time she did this
  
• She is occasionally holding her head up for a few minutes at a time
  
• Her vocalizations are starting to include high-pitched coos, in addition to the normal grunts and groans.
  

She has also, officially graduated to size "1" diapers from size "N" or newborn. She is starting to get taller rather than wider - her big distended baby belly is starting to feel more in proportion to the rest of her. Pretty soon she won't be able to sleep sideways in the crib anymore. They grow up so fast...

As usual, I'll post a set of pictures in the next little while with examples of some of her recent accomplishments. She's really very cute with the smiling and cooing. Hoping it will stay that way for a while. We're going to have to post some video and some sound clips, in addition to the photos, in order to fully capture her personality on this blog.

Oh, and one more milestone: She finally fits some of the clothes she received at her various showers. No, wait... she's grown out of them.

The Winnipeg Shower

Sophia's Auntie Kristine and Uncle Adam threw her a shower in Winnipeg on Tuesday, and it was well attended by lots of people who hadn't seen her yet - the Winnipeg gang. I grew up in Winnipeg, and although Mom and Dad Gerhard had seen the new babe as early as a week after she was born, that was, till Tuesday, the only Winnipeg contingent to have met the new arrival. We were on our way to M&D Gerhard's Cottage, on Lake of the Woods in Ontario, and A&K threw us the shower as we were passing through from Regina. It's a 4-and-three-quarter-hour drive from Wolseley to Winnipeg, then another three to the cottage, so it made good sense to break up the trip, what with it being Sophie's first big long car ride.

So we packed up the car with all our belongings, put Sophie in the car seat in the middle of the back seat, Tricia sat beside her, and Haley (the Dog) rode up front in her car seat. Sure, we're yuppies, but we're not the ones who just bought an audi.

So we got to Winnipeg on Monday afternoon, and the car ride went really well - Sophia slept most of the way, with two short stops for food and bums, and she seemed to be happy with the whole distant-car-ride experience. Of course, she was up most of the night, but that wasn't too bad.

We shopped and hung out in Winnipeg for Tuesday morning, and then to the shower. Many many friends and family were there - Auntie Kristine's parents and sister, Sophie's Grandma and Grandpa Gerhard, various family friends, but what made it the most exciting shower by far was the proliferation of small people. Many of our Winnipeg friends are recently family-oriented (we're just now following the trend) so there were, let's see... Jack and Anna and Aiden and Quinlin and Ian. And all of them under five years old. Quite the cacophony, but it was great to see all of that little-person energy. Charlie the cat was there too, it being his house and all, and he was a little unwound by the presence of Haley the Dog, but for the most part they stayed out of each other's way.

Sophie was passed around from willing hands to willing hands (I think there was a "take a number" thing going for a while) but Uncle Adam had her first and I think he would have held her forever - she seemed pretty comfortable too. Kristine seemed to have not-so-great timing, since Sophie was just on the verge of getting crabby or needing to be fed or diapered whenever Kristine took her turn. No worries, Sophie seems to like both her Gerhard Aunt and her Gerhard Uncle equally well.

And they threw us a wonderful party.

The 5 Week Check-up

Today marked Sophia's second trip to the doctor. She was supposed to have a six week check-up but seeing that we will be cottaging at that point, we needed to go in a week early. Dr. McDonald did all the regular things: checked her heart rate, her hips, her chest, her neck etc. Then came the all important weigh-in. Any guesses for weight and length? No takers? Well, keep in mind that Sophia was 6.14 lbs when she was born (that's almost 7 pounds!), her weight total as of today is --dum dum da dum: 10 pounds! You got it! 10 pounds (and 2 ounces but in her defense, she was wearing a diaper)! It's incredible to think that in the last five weeks Sophie has gained three pounds, and that the calories came from me. Whew, I am exhausted thinking about it. She's also 22 inches long.

Needless to say our little girl is growing. She's already out grown some of her earlier clothes. She's a tall, ten pound girl. She really doesn't look it because she's not too roley poley. But she is a comfortable size for cuddling...which we do a lot of!

That's news on the health front.

An Irish Blessing

One of the joys of having a new baby is the fact that you get to visit and share her with people you enjoy knowing. While we were in Vancouver, Ciara (a good friend of mine) invited us (David, Sophia and myself) to come to the house and see her parents. Now, Tom and Mary Martin (the aforementioned parents) have known me since my early teens, so I was more than glad to introduce Sophia to them. Visiting Tom and Mary is always tonnes of fun, but that evening we had the wonderful addition of Mary's brothers, Declan and Euguene (I really hope that I got the spelling right, I apologize if I didn't!). Declan and Eugene had traveled over from Ireland to spend three weeks with the Martins. Something you should know about these two incredibly neat men... They are Catholic priests in Dublin. Declan plied us with questions about Sophia --what her name means, how we picked it, what was her weight etc, when do we go about baptizing our babies here in Canada... Things like that. Eventually, the conversation turned to weblogs and strange computer things, which meant that I got a chance to steal Sophia and chat with Tanya (who was also there that evening), Ciara and Mary.

At one point, Mary asked if Declan or Eugene would give a blessing for Sophia. Declan turned to me and asked if that would be okay, after all I am a United Church minister. I told him that I was ecumenically minded and would be thrilled if he would bless her. David made some cheeky comment about her baptism bouncing off when it happens at a later date. But I assured Declan and Eugene that we both would be honored if they would bless her. And so Declan did... a quick and quiet blessing shared between Sophia and himself. It was wonderful.

The way I figure it, one can never be too blessed! I thank Declan for the gift, and when Sophie is old enough I will let her know that she had received an Irish blessing from some very special Priests. Thank you so very much, Declan and Eugene!