Hadley's 1st Ballet Class

With much anticipation, Hadley had her first ballet class this week.  She had been longing to join in with Arden's class most of last year so we knew we had to enroll her this season even though she's a little shy of the two year age expectation.

I'm posting these photos chronologically so you can see the succession through the half hour class.  Let me set the stage a bit: Arden has a 45 minute class from 4:30 until 5:15 and then Hadley's class begins a half hour after that at 5:45.  The studio hallways are crowded with dancers, parents, teachers, staff and all the accompanying gear.

Hadley's class begins with a little barre time, though not in the traditional sense...

Checking out the cute dancer girl in the mirror.  I had to put her hair in the classic ballerina bun even though it makes it look like she has very little hair which is not the case.

And then this is the reaction we got when the teachers tried to get her to join for a group picture before class began.  Normally I wouldn't post the other kids faces in the background, but the focal point is not on them and the looks on their faces are priceless.  "What's her deal?"

A little better when they started the music.

And back to this.

Marching in a circle holding hands...  getting better.  Plus I gave her pacifier back to her as a little security blanket.

A few more bouts of crying with a lot of hand holding in between.  She latched onto this little girl and would not let go for well past when the hand holding portion of class was over.

And the sucker at the end of class - her big reward.  I should point out what a horrible Mom I am that I wouldn't let her have one along with Arden's class even though they surely would have given her one.  I didn't want her to be all sticky and covered with sucker juice for the pictures of her first class.  Might just have backfired on me since that's all she wanted - even as her class was beginning and they were giving them to the previous class.

I guess I deserved some of these shots...

Easter 2012

As proof that I stepped away from flag production to celebrate Easter with my family, here are a few from an egg hunt we took Arden and Hadley to at our local state park and then dying eggs at home later that day.  I have more photos from Easter morning with baskets and another egg hunt at our house as well as a visit to my brother's house for yet another egg hunt, but those are still in the camera.

Did you hear that some egg hunts had to ban parents from the course so there wouldn't be problems with aggressive adults?  Insane.  Parents were allowed to walk with their kids but asked not to handle the eggs.  The older kids were on their own but were on a different section.

That's Erwin in the background.  We have three cats, two dogs, and two kids three and under.  It can get cra-z at times!

Butterfly House

I took the girls to our local garden's Butterfly House this morning.  Hadley started out with a little snooze in the car to build her energy for the big outing.

These big butterflys were more than willing to perch on the visitors.  Arden wanted nothing to do with it, but Hadley didn't seem to mind.

It sort of looks like a big hair bow!

Still there!

And proof that Arden went along and I exist - here's a group shot of us; butterfly still included!  One of the staff from the house went to grab her camera because it was so cute and offered to take one of all of us with my camera.  I'm still getting used to handing my DSLR to people - everyone's so accustomed to being able to preview the image on screen that going back to the eye piece requires explanation.

I have done some sewing (other than nautical flag banners!), but Arden has been reluctant to model my creation even though she says she likes it.  Maybe tomorrow...

Entering in the spring challenge at:

Eating and Sleeping

Hadley's 1st Day at Daycare

My maternity leave has ended, so Hadley started daycare on Monday.  Since we had kept Arden there to hold her place and to keep her attending preschool we were all pretty used to the routine for getting out the door in the morning.  I don't remember why Arden was upset, but check out that pouty lip!

The 2nd was a holiday for most businesses so it was pretty quiet.  Both Dave and I had decided to take the girls to daycare and use the day to get some projects accomplished - One Month To Win It for me and building a wall between our breakfast nook and the office for Hubby. 

She did fabulous!  I had to refrain from overselling her to the teachers because I didn't want it to backfire, but she's such a good baby.  Everyone said she was super easy - drank her bottles down no problem, burped right on cue, slept really well, etc.  She's more excited and happy to have her diaper changed than any baby I've ever met.  Cracks me up!  Since there were so few kids there that day, Arden got to spend some time in the infant room with Hadley, which makes me feel happy that they both got to have a special day for Hadley's first day.

With Arden, Dave used a week of paternity leave and stayed with her the first week I returned to work.  This really helped us determine how she would react to bottle feeding for a whole day - she was a snacker and I didn't want to make the bottles too big and risk having them dump them out because they were out too long.  No worries like that with Hadley.

I work three days a week, so we sort of have the best of both worlds - the social interaction for the girls at daycare and some adult and intellectually challenging time for me, and then four days at home with my babies!

Hadley Marie: One Month

Our sweet little Hadley has reached her first milestone - one month!  After initial concerns about failing to gain weight after leaving the hospital, she's made up for it in fine form and at her one month check was 11 pounds, 4 ounces and 23 inches long.  Both measurements put her in the 97th percentile - quite a change from Arden who was 15th percentile for weight and was nearly three months old when she was Hadley's size now.

She's a super snuggler, and pretty quiet unless she needs something.  We started calling her "mouse" at the hospital because she was quiet except for some squeaks.  I've added "Gus", after the chunky mouse on Cinderella now that she's gotten into her eating groove.  She likes to fall asleep while eating, and then get really upset as soon as you try to put her down to sleep; begging for more.  This is a bit tiring at night when I get up to nurse her, but I'm getting the routine down a bit now.  She sleeps in three hour stretches and is creeping up on four hours, so that's not too shabby for one month.  I'm not able to keep up with her appetitie solely with breastfeeding and expressed milk, so we're supplementing a bit with formula.



She's doing great with tummy time; doesn't complain and lifts her head up really nicely and tries to scoot with her little legs - I'm thinking we have an early crawler on our hands.  She loves to look at lights and faces, and there's a tree outside our living room window that she could stare at for hours.  She's awake and alert most of the morning, and then begins a cycle of cluster feeding and snoozing from afternoon through night.

Big sister Arden is still doing amazingly well with her and as a bonus seems to have clicked with the potty thing and is now on her fifth day accident-free!  Let's hope I haven't jinxed things!  The key seems to be some cute panties I got from Old Navy and we let her pick a new pair of "big girl panties" at the end of each day without accident.

Establishing Routine

It's been nearly three weeks since Hadley arrived into our lives.  My body is recovering well, and we're all doing remarkably well with sleep and routines.  We were monitoring her weight gain closely for the first couple of weeks because she lost a couple more ounces between being discharged from the hospital and her well baby visit with her pediatrician.  I was trying to exclusively breastfeed, but we had to supplement with a little formula to meet her feeding demands and she went from 8 lbs. 2 oz to 9 lbs. in less than a week.  This is pretty much par for the course for us as we had to supplement Arden's feeding a little as well.

Arden has truly exceeded any expectations I had for her as a big sister.  She is very gentle with Hadley and completely unprompted says goodnight to her with things like "cutie pie" and "I love you".  She brings toys for her to look at and is always willing to help bring me things while I'm feeding Hadley.  We discovered that she can swap out DVD's on the machine in a much easier fashion than my father can!

The little fair isle sweater I knit for Hadley fits really well right now, so I've been devoting any free time I have to trying to finish Arden's matching one so I can get a picture of the two of them together before Hadley outgrows hers.  I have the back and both front pieces completed, leaving the arms and cowl to go. 

Hadley is a really sweet baby - we've taken to calling her mouse to Arden's monkey moniker since Hadley is pretty quiet except for some squeaks and squawks and happy little grunts while feeding.