Stacking Rings...

Rockin' in front of the Christmas tree...

Visit with Santa

What you've all been waiting for...

video of Marlena walking!

Marlena meets a box of Kleenex

The sun, the surf the sand on November 20, 2006

Part I



Part II

Daddy and Marlena Moments

from November 19, 2006

Some silly moments from November 17, 2006...

New skills that aren't so new anymore...

Neue Fähigkeiten die nicht mehr so neu sind...

From November 16, 2006

A Winter's Day...

Took Marlena out for an afternoon stroll at the beach. A little chilly, was in the high 60's. Had to put on a long-sleeved onsie.

Two Videos from November 12, 2006...

Part I / Erste Teil



Part II / Zweiter Teil

Marlena is still sleeping so....

I'll post some more pictures... These are from October. We didn't dress Marlena up for Halloween, but we did take her to a pumpkin patch. Maybe I'll also load another video.

Da Marlena immer noch am schlafen ist werde ich die Bilder von Oktober auf laden. Und vielleicht auch noch ein Video... Viel Spaß daran!

Video of Marlena from September 7, 2006

Here is a video of Marlena - it's somewhat older. We have some newer ones that I'm planning on posting over the next few weeks or so...

Don Sein Neuer Haarschnitt...

Es ist jetzt schon eine lange Zeit seitdem ich hier etwas auf Deutsch geschrieben habe. Es ist auch eine lange Zeit seitdem überhaupt etwas geschrieben habe... Und da es doch so lange ist, weiß ich nicht wo ich anfangen soll den ich habe eine Menge Bilder und Videos von Marlena. Doch dann dachte ich daß ich vielleicht mit etwas lustiges anfangen sollte - nämlich Don sein neuen Haarschnitt.

Don, um Geld zu sparen, hat sich ein Rasier gekauft damit ich seine Haare schneiden kann. Doch er entscheidet sich immer ganz kurzfristig das er jetzt seine Haare geschnitten haben will, und immer bevor Marlena ihren Schlaf, oder weil sie am schlafen ist. Da wir unten in der Garage seine Haare schneiden ist es schwierig für mich da es ja nicht geht Marlena in die Wohnung alleine zu lassen.

Jedenfalls, kurz nachdem Katja zurück nach Deutschland geflogen ist wollte Don daß ich seine Haare schneide. Da ich nein gesagt habe meinte er er würde sich selber die Haare wieder schneiden und ging in die Garage.

Eine viertel Stunde später kamm er wieder hoch. Als ich ihn sah hab ich mich fast in die Hosen gepinkelt ich hab so gelacht. Wäre Marlena nicht in meiner Armen gewessen wäre ich auf dem Boden gelegen, so doll habe ich gelacht! Er hat vergessen den Teil vom Rasier das die Haare eine bestimmte länge abrasiert an den Razier festzumachen und fing einfach an seine Haare zu schneiden! Dann kamm er hoch nachdem er nur die Hälfte abrasiert hat! Es sah sowas von witzig aus!

Er hat versucht es zu verbessern, doch eventuell musste ich bei Hand mit sein Rasier alles abrasieren und jetzt hat Don keine Haare.

Um mehr Bilder zu sehen, drück auf dem Bild hier von Don.

New Pictures

So, by switching my browser (right now I'm using Firefox), I seem to once again be able to add pictures to my blog. Here is one from last week. I liked all the colors. Marlena's new favourite spot is sitting right in front of all her toys. That way she can pull out whatever catches her eye. Already, she is trying to pull herself up and you'll often find her on her knees with her hands in one of the bins, playing with whatever toy.

Today I tried a different approach. I pulled the bins out of the shelf and placed them on the floor. She didn't seem as interested. I think she liked the challenge of reaching up and in.

Her latest skill, is banging two toys together. She seems to like to do that. Other "skills" include holding an object in each hand. Did you know that was a skill? I didn't. I found that out last night as I was surfing the web to look for suggestions on how to play with her to develop her skills. One suggestion was, once she had an object in each hand, to offer her a third object to see what she does. This morning I did just that - she dropped one the took what I was offering her. What we still need to learn: dropping things into buckets.

Some More Videos

Here are a couple more videos. These were taken by Don. Not having much success in getting him to actually create a post to share with you.

I also seem to be having problems uploading new photos to this blog, though. Not sure what the problem is. All of a sudden it seemed to stop working. Wrote to the people who manage this site, but haven't heard back from them.

This video shows Marlena eating beets for the first time:



Listen to the sounds of this video. Marlena has discovered a new sound she can make. But you have to listen closely...

The Ironing Can Wait...

So I have a HUGE pile of laundry that needs to be ironed, floors to be washed, a kitchen to be cleaned... But I know how everyone is just dying to see new pictures of Marlena, to watch videos of her (interesting, I'm sure, only to those who are family... ) and to hear about how wonderful she is. So, enjoy the feast after the famine. I'm sure it'll be followed by another famine as soon as I get tired of this new "toy" I'm playing with - I'm talking about the video feature on our first digital camera. I now take it with me wherever I go so that I can capture the latest skill Marlena choses to show off.

The video below shows her eating cheerios. I think she only ended up getting one in her mouth...



Her newest skill involves language. She's starting to make more recognizable sounds. Stay tuned for a video that captures her talking.

Something new and exciting...

So, I've taken our old digital camera out of retirement and recharged the battery. It's a little more portable than the big one we have, so it's good to take along to play dates. Also, it has a video feature, and it's primarily for this feature that I've gotten the camera out. I'm hoping to upload some short videos of Marlena that you'll be able to enjoy. The first one I'm posting I took today at home after our playdate. It'll give you an idea of what she can do.

Forget the housework...

I'm keeping the blog updated! We went to a 1st birthday party today for the daughter of one of Don's former co-workers. Great weather for the party, which was Hawaiian-themed and featured hula dancers. Couple of firsts for Marlena again. Her first experience with a balloon. She was a little surprised when it bounced back at her after she hit it. She also tasted watermelon for the first time. The women sitting across from us had a great time watching Marlena's expression. It was also her first time on a swing today. She seemed to enjoy it, but you can check that out for yourself by viewing the pictures from today.

Major Milestone Reached: She's a Crawler!

So it's been ages and rather than go into detail about all the stuff that Marlena has accomplished I'll list them in briefly:

• she can roll over and back again
• she can reach forward and pull toys towards her without falling over
• she can sit herself up
• she can crawl

The last two happened pretty close together. Within the last week. She actually really started to crawl Thursday morning, and is pretty happy about it. I think what it means to her is that she can get to the toys that are out of reach. No more frustration. It also means she can head directly for my Japanese chest of drawers to play with the metal handles, because they bang so nicely!

She's also eating "solids", so to speak. We started off really well arounds 5 1/2 months with applesauce and cereal. Then we went to chicken. She was not impressed and refused to open her mouth for the next several weeks. She's gotten over that and we continue to eat applesauce and cereal in the morning, but have been working our way through green veggies. So far she's eaten:

• sugar snap peas
• green beans
• zucchini
• avocado

She's also eaten banana (constipates her a bit) and sucked on bread - she enjoyed that, but the piece of bread was gross when I took it away from her...

The picture here shows her enjoying green bean and avocado facial... And I feel like such a great mom because I've cooked and pureed all the food myself. No processed food, except for the cereal and the first month of applesauce which was left-over from my earlier days of pregnancy. I still want to introduce her to broccoli , asparagus and some green leafy stuff, much to Don's dismay. Many of these foods he does not like at all. Too bad. Also ready and waiting for her are beets and carrots that I bought the other day from a local farmer's market. The carrots are an amazing orange color! And the beets are this deep purple. Don is all excited about her eating the beets. He can't wait to see what color she'll poop and pee! I think it has something to do with his fraternity initiation ritual... Maybe she'll be an honorary FIJI (Phi Gamma Delta)...

Her 6 month appointment went pretty well. She got a couple of shots again. She's no longer in the 95% range for her height, instead she's now in the 75% range. So, she may not be a basketball player. Still she's healthy and continuing to progress normally. She didn't grow so much between 4 and 6 months, nor gain a whole lot of weight. I think all her focus now is on developmental stuff. In the week before she started to sit up by herself and crawl, she regressed in her night-time sleeping habits. She had been waking up only once, but she started waking up every 3 hours or so. I heard that when babies are about to make a big developmental leap, it affects their sleeping because they're trying to figure it out. Well, now that we have the sitting up and crawling behind, I'm hoping the sleeping will improve, and it definitely did last night. Of course, now we can tire her out by getting her to crawl all over the place, and I'm sure that'll improve the sleeping situation.

Other things that have happened to us, my mom who came to look after Marlena, has returned to Vancouver, and I decided to stop working. Just wasn't worth it. So I'm able to see all the firsts, I get to help her eat and I get to meet lots of other mommies in the mommy groups I've joined. We've also taken Marlena up to Santa Barbara for Isabella's first birthday and introduced her to the swimming pool. Daddy's really good at that. And we have a bunch of pictures that we've put up on the web, but haven't linked to from this blog, so I'll do that now.

Click on this picture to see other pictures of Marlena in hats and other head gear... This picture, by the way, was taken on Mother's day. My mom and I dressed Marlena up to get nice pictures of the three of us down at the beach, and Marlena fell asleep on the walk down and slept all afternoon. We didn't get very many pictures...

This picture was taken at Isabella's birthday party at the Santa Barbara zoo. Here Marlena and Don are having fun lying on the grass. It was a great afternoon! Did you know a giraffe's tongue can reach out and grab stuff?!? We saw it when we were watching kids feed the giraffe's. Looking forward to taking Marlena to the zoo when she's older and really gets it. We took her to the San Diego Zoo with Desiree and Craig a few weeks ago. She had a lot to look at, but I'm not sure she really got it. And most of the pictures that were taken were taken by Don of the chimps and apes...

This group of pictures was taken the day before father's day. We went to some botanical gardens close by and got some great pictures of Don and Marlena, and of my mom with Marlena.

And here are some pictures of Don and Marlena enjoying the pool in our complex. Don is a little more daring with Marlena in the pool... and when he bathes her. It's turned out to be a good thing because now she doesn't mind water streaming down her face. If I had been the only one bathing her, well, she wouldn't be as tough. We went to a play date yesterday to a pool in another complex. Marlena seems to really enjoy the water now. She certainly loves the floaty thing we put her in.

The pictures at the beginning of the blog were taken on Wednesday, August 9th, the day before she started to crawl. Click on them to see the most recent pictures.

Enjoy!

Update: 4 Month Checkup

Marlena had her 4 month checkup a week ago today. She's continuing to grow very well. She weighs somewhere between 15 and 16 pounds - forgot the exact amount, but I was surprised because I thought she's be a little heavier. Height/lenght-wise she continues to be above average. She measured 25 1/4" long. She's long for her age (she's actually outgrowing her 3-6 month sleepers), but average weight-wise.

The doctor said she's very healthy. The doctor also said we could start introducing rice cereal. I think we'll wait a bit longer.

She also had 4 shots, poor baby. She didn't like that at all. She did sleep all night that night... that was pretty great, but she hasn't repeated that since. It doesn't look like any teeth are comming....

[08/12/06 - just noticed that I hadn't actually posted this post, so I will, but leave it as incomplete...]

Look what I can do!

Marlena seems to discover a new skill on an almost daily basis. First she found her right foot, grabbing it with her right hand. Then she found her left foot with her left hand - this is very helpful when changing her diaper because she's practically holding her bum up.

As you can see, she's progressed even further, her mouth has discovered her toes... At first it was with Daddy's help... but the other day she got her toes to her mouth all by herself... Is this a useful skill to have? Maybe if she joins Cirque du Soleil...

We got some great pictures of her dressed up on Mother's Day. A nice outfit we got from Todd and Liz. Of course, then we had to put her underwear on her head as if it were a hat... Poor Marlena!

Blowing Raspberries...

Marlena has learned some new skills in the last month, the most impressive of which is blowing raspberries... A few weekends ago that's all she did - blow raspberries. All day Saturday. All day Sunday. Even when she cried, she was blowing raspberries. Don and I couldn't stop laughing.

Her legs are getting much stronger and she can pretty much hold her weight as long as you keep holding her. She's learning to roll over, and she's also enjoying her tummy time a lot more. She's doing really great holding her head up. She's also getting close to sitting on her own.

We still working on getting a good picture of her smiling... Everytime I get the camera, she stops. But we're working on it.

She's not sleeping thru the night yet... But we're working on it. She is enjoying her baths more. Even with Daddy. Actually she's gotten a lot better with Don. She no longer screams when she's with him - not unless she's really tired.

We do have some new pictures. Check out pictures of Marlena and us as a family.

Maternity leave almost over...

Time has flown by and my three month maternity leave is up. I'm heading back to work Monday. Marlena has experienced a lot these last 3 months. First bath, first shower, first bottle, first cold, first ear infection, first plane ride, meeting all the aunts and uncles and cousins for the first time. She didn't really experience any snow because by the time I took her out in the afternoon it had all melted...

She's a great little traveler. Didn't mind the plane at all. Spent most of the time asleep. Neither the ascent nor descent bothered her. She enjoyed meeting her cousins. Not sure how much she comprehended, but she really loved Elliot. He was able to make her smile. She also liked hanging out with Uncle Lylo - maybe because he resembles Daddy? Maybe, but she's not too impressed with Daddy at the moment. She can take him for short periods of time, but he still needs to find a way to soothe her when she gets upset. Hasn't found his trick yet. She, of course, loved being held by all her grandparents, Oma and Opa, and Grandma and Grandpa. In fact, Oma has moved in with us and will be taking care of Marlena while I go back to work.

But most people reading this site may be less interested in reading about her first three months than in seeing what she's been up to. Just click on the picture above for pictures of Vancouver, and here for more pictures...

Well, to be perfectly honest, the pictures are actually all really from the last month or so.

Sling Daddy and Sling Baby

Target Found!

She found her thumb...

Sie hat ihren Daumen gefunden...

Marlena's First Week

It's been about a week since Marlena was born. We're all still getting used to the new arrangements. Marlena is eating, sleeping and pooping, with some short alert periods in between. She's seen her pediatrician and received her first immunization. Her Oma (my mother) has taken her for a couple of walks outside while I've slept. And yesterday, her umbilical cord stump fell off - or came off when I was putting her into her car seat.

We're also breastfeeding successfully. there were a couple of rough spots along the way - sore nipples, latch on difficulties... Getting her to sleep after feeding, I've been less successful at. If I hand her off to Don, however, he is generally quite successful in putting her down - with at one interesting experience last night, which I'll get him to write about. Don has also become very skillful at swaddling her. He wraps her up nice and tight and she looks like a little burrito. With his superior swaddling skills, he'll have no problems with the cloth diapers... which we haven't tried yet. Maybe today.

Right now she's in bed with us having a bit of tummy time. She's just managed to roll herself over from her stomach to her back! What a girl!

Today, Don wants to take her to the beach. We have a sling pouch that in which Don loves to carry her. It calms her right down. I have one too, but haven't had much time to carry her around.

Time to get up. It's supposed to rain today, and I think we want to get her to the beach first.

It's a girl!

Marlena Sophie Isaak


















Born: January 7, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Weight: 7 lbs, 9 oz
Length: 18.5 "

100% natural...

Bun is still baking...

The bun is still in the oven. Guess it needs to bake a little more.

I was thinking about it, tho' - if this baby is its father's child, it'll probably be born on the weekend so that daddy can be back at work Monday morning.

Will keep you all posted.

Still waiting...

Today is the due date calculated by the doctor... The fertility software (yes Virginia, there is fertility software) calculated the due date to be tomorrow. I'm not so sure anything is going to happen. The nesting instinct hasn't hit me yet.

I did go for a long walk on the treadmill this morning. About an hour. That's supposed to help get contractions going and also helps the baby drop into position better.

My parents also arrived today. I think they were shocked when they saw me. I must be pretty big - tho' I don't see it when I look at myself. I do see it when I see pictures Don has taken of me - but I think I've said that before. Also, when I went with my dad to Costco, one older gentleman made the comment that "someone" had just eaten a watermelon. Took me a while. Then, in the parking lot at Costco, a professional-looking woman looked at me and said "When are YOU due?". Told her today. She wished me good luck.

My parents both think it's going to be a girl. And according to my mom, they take their time. Still, I think I'll go for another long walk tomorrow.

Nothing yet...

Well... the due date is tomorrow... but I'm not sure anything is going to happen. Our doula says to beware to the nesting instinct - basically the unnatural urge to clean drawers/cupboards at 1 am. If I get that urge, that means labour is imminent. Haven't had that, but did spend all day yesterday cleaning the apartment. We took the Christmas tree down - that was sad - vacuumed like crazy, dusted down the chandalier-thingy (don't think that's every been done), re-arranged the furniture (by myself) and then moved it back otherwise Don said he would beat me...

Today on the list of things to do is organize the laundry closet... I'm contemplating organizing the pantry cupboards, but that's a pretty big job and I'm feeling kind of lazy - I may not even do the laundry closet. No nesting instinct there. I did get up to go walk on the treadmill, but it was already being used. And now I'm sitting on my couch and don't much feel like moving. I was thinking of going to a movie today. I wouldn't mind seeing the Chronicles of Narnia and Memoirs of a Geisha. Seems like now would be a good time to check out a movie. But that would involve getting off the couch... Maybe I'll go have a snooze...

Maybe I should have just kept working... would have been more productive and distracting. The only thing is you can't really take on projects if you don't know when you'll be handing them off.

More news: the other two ladies who were also pregnant at Verity and due on the 2nd and 3rd of January have already had their babies.