Chlöe's first day of school!!!

Chlöe's first day of school was yesterday! She did so great! As you can see from this picture, Chlöe was not used to getting up so early and getting to school. She was asleep as we walked out to the car.



I was very sad to have to put Chlöe in day care, but I just simply cannot get my work done fast enough, even with a babysitter here in my home. My job is very important to me and I am so lucky to have it. Without it, Chlöe and I can simply say goodbye to our quality of life, which obviously is not desirable. With a babysitter, Chlöe would try to crawl over to my desk and I couldn't explain to her that I was working. She couldn't understand why this other person was playing with her while her Mommy ignored her. It was very stressful.

So I looked into the Goddard School which is only a block away. They have a wonderful program in a beautiful brand new building with loving, caring teachers. I am SO glad to have found it. Chlöe goes four mornings a week for now. I don't think it is too much time. For her first day, we took it a little slow and brought her at about 8am. I went to the school to visit her and nurse at 10:30. It was a little too late as she'd refused her bottle and they'd put her down for a nap. I hung around a little while until she woke up and then I nursed her and said goodbye until later. I made a mental note to make sure to get there by 9:30am to nurse every day as I felt sad that she'd gone to sleep hungry after refusing her bottle.

Here's a photo of her happily sleeping in her little crib there. She woke up about ten minutes later.



The teachers do a lot of interesting activities with the babies. They send emails regularly with the lesson plans. The days include all sorts of fun things like baby yoga, spanish, art, music, outside play, reading, and playing at the mirror wall. In fact, on her first day, she made a beautiful art piece out of colored construction paper. I'll try to get a picture of it tomorrow.

When I picked her up, they give me her "Daily". This is a daily report with details on her eating, sleeping, diaper changes, and a "memorable moment" of the day.

Here's a picture of the one from her first day.





Happy 1st Day of school, Chlöe!!!

9 Month Birthday!

It's so hard to believe that Chlöe is 9 months old! In the past month she has really changed SO much. Every month she changes, but it ramps up when the crawling begins. In the past month, Chlöe has learned to crawl, and cruise (hold on to furniture and walk). She visited her pediatrician and was 17 pounds 8 ounces, and 28 inches long! She did drop to the 25th percentile for weight. That is normal though. The charts used are based on formula fed babies and breastfed babies tend to be leaner. Based on the WHO charts for breastfed babies, Chlöe is a little more in the middle. She is within the normal bell curve in any case. She's happy and healthy. Crawling around burns a lot of calories. She is still eating happily quite often and we are not worried.

Actually speaking of eating, she has been loving organic fruits and veggies, mostly pureed, though she can also mash food with her little gums and use her two teeth (on the bottom). Today she even tried to hold her own glass of water and drink by herself. She doesn't quite have it figured out, but enjoys trying!!

This is the last week of having her home with us. Beginning next Monday, she will go to the Goddard school on the next block over. She'll be there Monday - Thursday for a half day. I'll go there half way through her half day and nurse her. So she'll have two blocks of about two and a half hours at "school". It is a very nice place and we are excited to have her begin making friends and socializing. I don't think the transition will be difficult and actually think she will be pretty happy. Here she tends to cry with the babysitter when I am working and she can see me, and I can't bear the thought of her crying and thinking that I want to ignore her. So I always go to her. But at the school, she wont be able to see me and will be busy with all of the activities (they do a LOT, including an art project, music, spanish, and sign language, everyday).

My sweet girl is growing up. I'm not really sad about her getting bigger and growing and learning. I feel so lucky and just am incredibly grateful for her health and happiness. She is wonderful. Yay for 9 funfilled life changing months!

Other birth tidbits from Chlöe's entry to this crazy world

I was so delirious at the hospital. I was excited and nervous and scared and happy and sad and a million different things. Looking back, I was kind of out of it. My labor started so late in the evening, so I did NOT have the benefit of a great night's sleep or anything. I basically had already been up lots of time and was ready for bed when it all started.

Sherry, my doula, tried to help me labor. At one point after being in labor for so long and not seeming to make progress, she thought maybe I could side step up and down the stairs outside. It was about 8am on July 8th, a sunny summer Thursday. There was no way I could walk outside into the normalness with the craziness going on inside of me. I was paranoid. I said I can't and she asked why. "Someone might see me?" I answered timidly haha. I really did feel really nervous about it. It all seems like so long ago. Especially since I've rearranged my furniture. The sofa is no longer where I sat and labored for so long, gripping the cushions and wondering how much more I could take.

My contractions were lasting a long time. They were mostly over 2 minutes long and up to 4 or 5 minutes. I had them all put into a calculator online, and meant to print it all out and save it, but I messed it up, so I don't have it. That's ok though.

Once Chlöe was born, I was very out of it and it was so surreal. I remember feeling so quiet and peaceful in some ways. I spent the first week or so alone for most of the day. My family ran errands for me and picked up things that we needed. Then they would come over in the evening and make dinner and spend time with the baby etc. Then once that was all done, they would leave us and Chlöe and I would stare at each other and she would nurse and sleep. Time moved really fast and slow all at the same time.

I didn't have most of my music in my laptop and didn't have my ipod for some reason. I felt really opposed to most of the music I had access to. I downloaded a few songs that seemed compelling to me at the time and played them over and over and over again.

Two of the songs were Nick Drake "From the Morning" and Dean and Britta "Moonshot". I must have played them a hundred times.

Here are the two songs if you'd like to hear them. I loved the words and music. My hormones were all over the place at that time. I was elated, but also pensive and completely sleep deprived. For weeks, when we rode in the car, if Chlöe cried, we could play Moonshot for her and she would calm down. She loves it. Even now at 8 months old, I was playing these for her and she was so calm and peaceful.

Everyone asked how I could handle being there alone without Chaos there in those first few days. The truth is that I would have loved him to be there. It would have been different and wonderful and special. If anything I was sorry that he wasn't there to experience it. I never felt left behind or abandoned. And truthfully, having Chlöe there with me, just the two of us, was really special. We were well taken care of by friends and family, and I was able to just hold her and get to know her. I can't describe what it was really like. People would say how it goes so fast and try to enjoy it even though you're tired etc. But I felt like I wasn't missing a thing. It was the best time of my life. All I can say is that everything was pretty much perfect.

Anyway, here are those songs I promised you.

Chlöe Magnolia Willis - July 9th, 2010

Chlöe Magnolia Willis was born July 9th, 2010 at 2:43 AM at St. Mary's Hospital in Reno, NV. She was 19" and 7 pounds 13 ounces at birth. Labor was really long, like 28 or 30 hours or so. I am not sure how you decide when you are actually in labor etc. I'm counting it from my strong contractions that began a few hours before my water broke at 1:00AM on July 7th (Wednesday).

Chlöe's birth story is hard for me to remember. I need to make an appointment to hang out with our doula, Sherry Asp, and try to write it all down.

Basically, at around 8pm or so on July 7th, I started to feel some real cramping and contractions and all around agitation. I didn't think much about it, though I did make some attempts at counting the length and time in between the contractions. Then I tried to pack my bag a little bit for the hospital and went to bed around 11:30pm. At about 1:00AM my water broke. I called Sherry and told her all of this and she came to my house. I labored all night at home and at about 10 or 11 am, Sherry and I went to the hospital. Then all sorts of things happened including me nearly having a C section. I am a little blurry on everything that happened, but ultimately at about 1:00am July 9th Friday, the nurse told me I was fully dilated and would be able to push soon. It took a while to get everything set up. I Skyped Chaos in South Africa and told him we were about to have the baby. He was standing outside of Nelson Mandela's house and it was really loud and there were some people singing about ice cream they were selling.



Then everyone came in the room and it was time for Chlöe to be born. It took about 25 minutes or so for me to push her out. I'll leave out the details there, but it was an amazing experience.

That's our story in a nutshell. Maybe one day I'll have the rest of the details, but for now, that is the basic story of how Chlöe was born.

The above picture is just a few hours after she was born.

Miss Chlöe Magnolia - It's time for a spot to celebrate you!

So Chlöe is 8 months old and I could procrastinate no longer. I've wanted to have a place to share pictures and observations and have been slow to actualize it. I thought I'd try to do it this evening while she is cuddled in my lap sleeping away and Chaos is working out of town. I'd meant to do it so many times, but it's hard with so much to do and anything that feels time consuming is difficult to find the time or desire to do. I guess I'm guilty of preferring to stare at her in my free time.

I named the blog Petite Marshmallow for her nickname. Her little skin feels like it is made from marshmallows. It has always felt like that, super soft and squishy. I never intended for her to have a nickname, but this one stuck. She is definitely a little marshmallowy ball of magic and I love her so much I can hardly stand it.

The above was taken the day she was born. The below was taken yesterday. I'm so grateful for her health and happiness and the joy and fun she brings me every day. How'd I get so lucky?!?!?