Probably the Best Baby in the World!

She looks like a boy in this picture, but we all know she's a girl...and probably the best one in the world!

Pictures of Allison's first Christmas are coming soon!

... and then she smiled

This morning, in the groggy cold darkness, a baby started fussing. An exhausted daddy reluctantly stumbled out of bed and took his child to the changing table. Opening the diaper, the daddy discovered unusually copious amounts of poop curds, those nasty little milky remains that cling tenaciously to the baby's skin like burs on the socks of a child running through a grassy field in the summer. Patiently wiping them away, the daddy's attention was suddenly diverted to the baby's other end, where white spit-up came flowing out of the baby's mouth. Further warning bells sounded in daddy's head with the realization that the baby, seizing the opportunity afforded by her father's distraction, had taken delivered a strategically-timed blow back down below, where a now-open diaper failed to offer much protection against the wet trickle that flowed down the baby's side, across her warm fleece sleep sack, and onto the fabric of the changing pad below. Once the now-harried daddy attended to this emergency and began to prepare for the "diaper swap," the baby launched the one final salvo, sending forth a fresh wave of liquidy poo. The daddy would have slapped the palm of his hand on his forehead if his hands weren't already engaged in the handling of diapers and cloth wipes.

Tired, bleary-eyed, and frustrated, the daddy completed the operation and fastened the final snaps on his daughter's clothes. His feet were cold from standing on the hardwood floors; his back ached from cradling his baby in his arms and from hunching over changing tables; his head throbbed from being awoken in the middle of a sleep cycle. And then she smiled, and the daddy's heart did, too.

How will we ever say no to this?!

Someone loves her stupid bears!

Tiffany:

There is a mobile that consists solely of three white bears hanging by the backs of their heads that came with Allison's Pack 'n' Play. It doesn't have a wind-up feature. It doesn't run on batteries. If you want the bears to move, you have to push them with your finger. My mom says this is "eco-friendly", but I think it's just stupid.

Apparently, I'm the only one that finds the mobile stupid. Allison loves to be in her Pack 'n' Play staring at/kicking around at/talking to the bears (see video). I'm hoping that it will take more to impress her later on, but, for now, her infatuation with her stupid bears buys me 10 minutes to start laundry, eat a meal, or go to the bathroom. Thank you, stupid bears!

Our Cloth Diapered Baby

We started using cloth diapers on Allison about a week ago and it's going great so far. It's quite a simple process and not nearly as much work as everyone wanted to tell us it would be! Tiffany also made some flannel wipes (with the help of her mom!). She made two kinds - one with a washcloth on the back (for those sticky messes) and one with a double layer of flannel. The double flannel ones even have a fancy edge to them. It was lots of fun to make them and only cost $9 to make 39 of them! Here are some pictures of our cloth diapered baby and the cloth baby wipes that Tiffany made.

She likes Mom, too!

I realized there are lots of pictures of Allison and Kevin, but not too many of Allison and me. I swear she likes me, too!

first bottle

Kevin gave Allison her first bottle on Tuesday night. She gobbled it down like a little piggy with no problems at all! She'll be getting one a day to get her ready for Nana and Kevin staying with her in the mornings when Tiffany goes back to work in January.