A whale of a tale

Dearest readers,
I apologize for my recent hiatus from Emmeline's blog. We have been rather busy this past month (nothing new there...we are always busy) but in addition to our normal activities, Emmeline and I took an unexpected trip to North Dakota for ten days. We had a lovely time with family and friends, despite the fact that we were there due to my grandmother's ill health. But all is well now. She is right as rain, craving sweets like always and looking forward to flying a kite this summer.
Since so much has happened recently, I thought I would just post a bunch of pictures with detailed captions below. They will have to serve as my means of storytelling for the time being. I promise to publish shorter posts more frequently in the future. I know these novellas can be rather daunting to read.
A lot has happened with Emmeline's development during the past few weeks. She is now crawling on her hands and knees, pulling herself up to stand and cruise along furniture, crawling up the stairs, claps every time we say "Yay!", and is understanding "no thank-you" when she does something that we do not want her to do (but does not usually decide to listen). She cries when things are taken away from her and has a bit of separation anxiety. When we arrived at the Grand Forks airport, I handed her to my mom and walked away to get my luggage. In just a few seconds her face had clouded over and she started to cry. By the end of our few weeks at home, though, she was fast friends with everyone.
She is actually very interested in strangers, just as long as they don't take her away from her mom! She has also cut three more teeth (five total): top front left, top left incisor and top right incisor. She is able to make the hard "c" sound for "cat" but has not paired it yet with the "-at". She is pretty good with "duh" for "duck" and, of course, "mamamamama" and "dadadadada". There are many other sounds that she had been working on; I have recently heard ga, ya, na, and wa sounds. She has a very full and vibrant babyspeak vocabulary. It is amazing to think that she will soon be asking (or demanding!) things by name.
Paul and I have grown increasingly frustrated by her nighttime sleep habits. Everything seemed to get worse when we got back from the Midwest, too. We were co-sleeping the entire time we were there so she nursed quite a bit at night. When we returned, we tried to keep her in her crib most of the night but she woke quite frequently. We finally decided to try the Ferber method, which was recommended to us by another mom at the Birth Center. This methods requires you to let your baby "cry it out" gradually. So on the first night, after your bedtime routine, you put your baby in his or her crib and leave the room. You let them cry for three minutes and after that time you may go in to the baby and try to sooth them, but you can't pick them up. Then after one minute, you must leave the room for five minutes and then return for one, then leave for seven and return for one. The first night it took over an hour and a half to get her to sleep. It was awful and I cried through most of it. The method really isn't working that well and I am sure it has a lot to do with the fact that I simply do not have the stomach for this sort of thing. Ferber's bottom line is that even if your child vomits from crying so hard, you clean her up and get back to business. That just doesn't seem right. There must be a better way.
Well, enough of that for now. I hope you enjoy our pictures:

Happy 52nd birthday Grandpa!
Let me help you with that...

Oooo...paper is fun!

Emmeline, me, my dad, and my little sisters,
Jacy and Kelsey

Emmeline and her auntie Kelsey

Emmeline making friends with the
bird at the nursing home

Look how well I can sit on my own!

Emmeline, me and Kelsey posing with
Jacy in her stage makeup and costume
for Guys and Dolls

What you lookin' at?
(Emmeline's great-auntie Darlene
is in the background)

I love my grandma.

Emmeline and her second cousin, Ty,
driving for Team DuPont

Auntie Kelsey is a baby-wearin' expert!

Happy St. Patties Day!

Emmeline's first Easter egg

Hey! Where did mine go?

Emmeline playing with her friend, Baird, and
Baird's auntie Lisa

Baird is fun!


Emmeline, me, Erin and Baird...what a
fun play date!

So content to be home at last
with daddy

Oooo...stairs!

Let's see how I do...

One down, fourteen to go...

Almost there!

Hey, daddy! Give me a spot
while you are back there.

Aw...its OK, Emmy Lou.
Daddy is here for you.

Emmeline playing with her pal, Estella

Wild beasts of the jungle (I mean the mall):
Elisa (and her mommy Deborah)
Haley (and her mommy Alison)
and Emmeline

Yay! Bath time!

That's all for now folks! Bye bye!

To shower or not to shower, that is the question

Emmeline just went down for her first nap of the day and I am deciding how to make the best use of the time that I have. There are only a few things that I can do: eat, shower, take a short nap, light housework or prep work for Monday evening's class. I have not washed my hair since Monday so the shower is a priority. I have also not eaten today so that is probably priority number two (if she naps that long). But then again, a nap would be sooooo nice since Emmeline is waking up every one and half hours between the hours of 1am and 6am.
Everything is getting complicated all over again. We were experiencing a bit of freedom when Emmeline learned how to amuse herself by playing alone but now she just wants to move and groove. Her mobility is such a novelty for her so she is not content to be playing in her crib (which is the safest place for her if I can't keep both eyes on her). I can't leave her on the floor anywhere and she will only stand her highchair for so long if she is not eating. She also does not like it when she can see me leave a room or when she cannot touch me if I am in the same room. This does not make Paul feel very good. He always talks about "playing second fiddle in the band." I told him that he is more than welcome to breastfeed our next child and be the stay at home parent.
Well, I suppose I have wasted enough free time in front of this silly whirring machine. Off to shower!

Heralding the Spring

Today Emmeline had her first ride in a swing and we went for a long walk at Bellevue Park outside with our Birth Center friends. It was a balmy 67 degrees though it was overcast. Before today we have been walking in the two locals mall since it turned chilly in October/November. It was so refreshing to be out of doors for an extended amount of time. It was a tease, though, because it is supposed to stay rainy and chilly for the next several days. It is currently raining and we have a flood watch in affect (sigh).
I love the smell of spring: the fresh, wet mud, the slightly warmer air that carries on it a scent of budding flowers and trees, damp tree bark. These smells always bring me back to my childhood on the prairie. I am reminded of chilly Easter egg hunts, melting ice in the ditches, muddy shoes and discovering toys once long lost in the winter snow. The spring is beautiful in the Mid-Atlantic states, too. The UD campus has loads of magnolia trees that blossom in late March-early April. Our neighborhood has the most beautiful trees; though I do not know what they are called, they look like a cross between cherry blossoms and magnolia blossoms. The trees bloom for several weeks and then when they are good and ripe, the wind shakes them just right and the petals rain down to the street. It makes me think of the scene from Memoirs of a Geshia when Sayurie goes into the country to see the blooming trees. The petals float all around her like hundreds of tiny pink butterflies. When we first saw our house it was in the spring and these blossoms made the house all the more desirable. I can't wait to show Emmeline the blossoms, the birds, the flowers, the greenness of things... it is such a romantic, refreshing and hopeful season. No matter how harsh, gloomy or depressing the winter months have been, the promise of warm spring days and blooming nature is always around the corner.

Emmeline's first ride in a swing!

I don't know what this is, but I like it!

Mommy 'n me

Emmeline and her friend, Elisa, chilling at the playground

The Name Game

ARG! I am so disgruntled. Paul is disgusted. We are both POed! You know what Pier One did?! They named a piece of furniture the "Emmeline Cafe" (click here to see it). It is a storage cabinet made in Indonesia (it comes in blue AND white). Ack! I couldn't believe it when my mom told me this afternoon. She was just flipping through her Pier One catalog and there it was! Paul wants to know if we can protest...and I think we should!
It is interesting how we think we own this name; that it belongs to us and only us. But if you consider how difficult and time consuming it is to find the perfect baby name, of course we feel like we own it. If we could copyright it, I think we would. Can we?
As every parent knows, picking out a name for your child is a very difficult process. There are a lot of things to consider. Here are the basic rules (or at least our basic rules):
1. Pick a name that is different but is not too weird.
2. The name should not be too baby-ish as your child will have to use this name when he or she is an adult (i.e. We had considered Kaylee, but thought that it was too cutesie for an adult woman).
3. The name should have some significance for you; possibly a family name or a variation thereof.
4. The name should not be too hard to pronounce.
5. Don't pick anything that can be made into an embarrassing nickname or initials that will spell out a bad or weird word.
6. Mom and dad must both agree. (This was a very hard rule. Paul vetoed everything but suggested nothing).
So, here is how we decided on Emmeline's name. My great-grandmother's name was Emma and I have always loved this name. Thanks to the TV show Friends, this name has exploded as one of the most popular girls' names in the US. In 2007, Emma was the top third name to Sophia and Isabella. Before this Emma held the number one spot since 2004 (according to babycenter.com). After the episode of Friends when Rachel Green names her baby Emma and this name's subsequent popularity, it was never really a contender for us. I mourned the loss of this name many years before we were pregnant. But three winters ago, I was in London as a Teaching Assistant for a study abroad program. On our second or third day there, I was doing some sight-seeing on my own (see below) and came across a monument next to the Parliament building. It was for Emmeline Pankhurst. She was an early suffragist and political rebel. I thought the name was beautiful and I loved that it was attached to a strong, independent woman. I also liked that it was a variation of my great-grandmother's name that I had been so fond of. At first Paul was not sure of the name, but when we became pregnant two and a half years later, this name found its way to the top of our list. Currently there are 955,000 Google hits for "Emmeline". Recently I have discovered that Emmeline is the name of the heroine from the novel and film The Blue Lagoon, though in the film she is called "Em." Emmeline also appears in the A. A. Milne poem "Before Tea" (see below) which was published in 1924 in the collection When We Were Very Young. (I think that the British pronunciation sounds more like "Emmalean" because in this poem Milne rhymes "Emmeline" with "clean" and "queen"). In addition, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn contains a young poet named Emmeline Grangerford who "could write about anything you choose to give her to write about, just so it was sadful." (Can you tell that I am a literature-junkie, yet?!). After Emmeline was born my brother-in-law informed us that Ben Folds has a song called "Emaline." It is absolutely beautiful. But if you listen to it, make sure you find the live version; it is much prettier than the studio version.
So, on to her middle name: We wanted something that sounded good with Emmeline; maybe something with Ls or Ms in it. I had suggested all sorts of things like Angelou (I liked this one because I thought that Emmy Lou would be a cute nick name-like the folk artist Emmylou Harris), Marie, Lilian... but Paul scrunched his nose up at these. One of my final suggestions (without much forethought) was Louise. Paul really liked the sound of it and I thought that it was OK. I let him pick the middle name because I was so delighted that he finally came around to the first name that I liked. I found out later that Louise means "woman warrior" and it is also a form of Allison.
Viola! Emmeline Louise was born...; I have no regrets (click here to read an article about baby name remorse...thanks for sending this Kels!). I love to see her name on paper, I love to hear the nurse announce it at the doctor's office, I love to see it hanging on her nursery wall, I love to sing it to her, I love, love, love it. I hope she will like it, too. I was not always a fan of my name. When I was a kid I wished I could be a Samantha or something like that. But I grew to love my name as I got older. I am named after my maternal grandmother, Alice, and that always made me feel special, too.
So, the moral of this story is...@%&*$ you Pier One! If Emmeline soon becomes a popular name, I blame it on your cheap Indonesian furniture!

Before Tea
by A.A. Milne (from When We Were Very Young)

Emmeline
Has not been seen
For more than week. She slipped between
The two tall trees at the end of the green...
We all went after her. "Emmeline!"

"Emmeline,
I didn't mean --
I only said that your hands weren't clean."
We went to the trees at the end of the green...
But Emmeline
Was not to be seen.

Emmeline
Came slipping between
The two tall trees at the end of the green.
We all ran up to her. "Emmeline!
Where have you been?
Where have you been?
Why, it's not more than week!" And Emmeline
Said, "Sillies, I went and saw the Queen.
She says my hands are purfickly clean!"

The monument that inspired Emmeline's
name; Parliament is to the left and the Thames
is in the background

Close-up of the plaque

View of Parliament from near Pankhurst's
monument

View of Westminster Abby from near
monument

View of the Thames from rear of Parliament


Emmy Lou's nursery

Nocturnal Woes

Well I must have jinxed myself when I posted that Emmeline was sleeping better. We are back to getting up every few hours. Paul thinks that Emmeline is teething again; I am not sure what is going on. It seems that he schedule is very sensitive and the slightest thing can screw it up. Gone are the days when she could easily take a long nap anywhere. Last night after we put her down, she was up every 15-20 minutes until midnight. Then during the night she was up every hour and a half. We finally ended up co-sleeping but since we have a full-sized bed, this is not the most comfortable for any of us. To make matters worse, the cats decided to add their "charm" to the situation. Rudy started banging on our bedroom closet so he could get inside. Chester was knocking things off counters and dressers. I kicked all three cats out of our second floor, and they started to wrestle on the landing. When they are still bothering us after I kick them out of the bedrooms, I have to chase them down the stairs with a spray bottle. I usually have to do this two or three times before we finally get some peace. This morning Rudy is mad at me and will not wake up from his nap on the couch. I am mad at him, too. Emmeline woke up at 9, despite our difficult night. She definitely did not get enough sleep...none of us did.

A good week

Well, we have had another busy week here in DE! I kicked off the week by forgetting my cell phone at home when I went teach on Monday evening. It was the longest amount of time I had ever gone without knowing how Emmeline was doing. By the time I was on I-95 on my way home, I was convinced that there would be an ambulance outside my house! But Emmeline was sleeping and everything was fine. She was in very good hands, of course. I finally went to the dentist on Wednesday to be tortured. I had the roughest hygienist...I sure do miss ol' sweet Dr. Anderson in GF. After my dentist appointment, I snuck out to the mall by myself. Emmeline was doing fine with Paul so I took advantage of a few solitary hours. (Sears was having an awesome clearance sale). On Thursday Paul had a faculty-student volleyball game at his school. He and his co-teachers creamed those sixth graders...twice!! Emmeline is usually a little fussy in the evenings, but she had a great time at the game. The gym was full of kids, parents and teachers; every person that we passed by had to comment on how cute she was (of course!). I thought the noise might bother her, but she loved the loud music and voices. I guess from now on when she is fussy, she really is just bored!
On Thursday all of the meteorologists were predicting a big snow storm overnight. Paul was praying for a snow day. We woke up on Friday morning and were bummed to see only about two inches of snow on the ground. Paul's school has a phone-chain set up so that if school is canceled, Paul gets a phone call and he has to call the person next on the list. Well, Paul did not get a phone call so he got up, got ready and started brushing off the car. I turned on the TV and saw that his district was closed for the day. I threw some clothes on and ran outside to catch him before he drove off. When he came back inside, we switched the channel to confirm but didn't see he district listed. He didn't believe what I said I saw so he went to school anyway. Needless to say, he was back at home twenty minutes later. The moral of the story is: Listen to your wife!!
That evening I took my friend Kate out for sushi and sake because she had just passed her specialty exam (congrats Kate!). We had a great time out while Paul and Kate's hubby, Mike, watched Emmeline, ate sloppy joes and enjoyed a movie. We all played Scrabble later.
Today Paul took me to the Arden Theater in Philadelphia to see Wittenberg (http://www.ardentheatre.org/). For Christmas Paul bought me tickets to Arden's season. We are also going to see The Piano Lesson and Our Town. Wittenberg was amazing. It was a really great play: thought-provoking, entertaining, challenging, superb acting, and relevant. I also love the experience of going to a play. It is just so exciting! Emmeline stayed with Kate and Mike while we were at the theater and she was a good girl for them. She is at such a fun age as she is really moving around, laughing and interested in new people and things. Last night she even got up on her knees and rocked back and forth. Up to this point she has just been army crawling on her belly and pivoting around on her stomach. We have still neglected to get some baby gates installed...
All in all, it was a good week here; very balanced. I was able to have some time to myself, time to work, time with a good friend, and time alone with my hubby. Here's hoping that next week goes as well!

Big, bad teachers vs. the sixth graders

Emmeline helping daddy celebrate the big win!

Hanging out in the gym

Paul's principal with Emmeline

Wilmington's "big" snow storm

Busy Bees

Greetings family and friends. I apologize for not posting for awhile. It has been busier than usual around here. Emmeline is doing very well, despite our busy schedules. She is sleeping A LOT better! Her nighttime sleep and naps have definitely gotten longer and more "regular." She is taking 2-3 naps a day; if her first 2 naps are a good length (about one hour each) she will not need the third nap. We have been doing a bedtime routine with her and suggesting an earlier bedtime. She sometimes wakes up two to four times for a snuggle before she is down for good, but it depends on the night. We haven't figured out why she does this. Maybe we are being too loud or the cats wake her? Thankfully she usually just needs to be picked up for about five minutes before we can lay her back down. Tonight she has been down for over two hours and we have not heard a peep out of her. Friday night she slept 12 hours straight but last night she woke up once to nurse. She has been very good, though, about nursing and going right back into her crib. Sometimes she is completely awake when I lay her down but she will fall asleep on her own. We never let her "cry it out;" if she fusses for more than a few minutes, we pick her up. But since she is a thumb-sucker, she can self-sooth a little bit. We have tried all this stuff before but it never worked. For some reason she is just getting the hang of it now.

We have introduced her to sweet potatoes and pears. Pears are a bit weird for her (especially when in chunks...see pics below) but she loves loves loves sweet potatoes. She is very excited to eat solids and usually giggles through the entire meal. Lately she can "dance" on cue; she shakes her head up and down, wiggles her body, and claps her hands. So many exciting developments! We still need to find some baby gates...it won't be much longer before she will be cruising around. She actually got into my teaching bag the other day. I had it propped up out of the way and didn't think twice about it. I tried to do a couple things at the computer around the corner and had her on the living room floor with her toys. When I peeked in on her she had tipped over my bag and had emptied my pencil bag. She had pencils, pens, markers and paper clips (!) spread everywhere. I freaked out a little bit and checked her mouth for little objects but thankfully didn't find anything. She was happy has a clam in the middle of that mess, but she so easily could have poked her eye or choked on something. I still feel guilty about that little incident.

Our household schedule has been pretty busy as the winter session ended for me on Feb. 6 but I did not finish up grading exams until Feb. 13. I had the flu on the weekend of the 9th and 10th and for obvious reasons it was a real bummer. I was not able to interact with Emmeline as much as usual so Paul really had to pick up the slack. I didn't want her to get sick but I still nursed her. So far she hasn't exhibited any sick signs, though Paul today has a cold. Ug. The spring semester started on the 11th so I will now be teaching only one evening a week from 6-9. We had a bit of an ice storm on the 12th, but of course it was nothing like we get back home. Paul got to come home early from school (though he first had to go to a farm to pick up the heating equipment for his classroom's feeder chicks) and also got a two-hour delay the next day. On Wednesday the 13th we helped my friend Kate hang some concrete backer-board in the bathroom that she is renovating. It was fun to get dirty and handle a drill again! Emmeline and I had a fun Valentine's Day at the Birth Center with all the moms and babies. That evening Paul and I made homemade pizza and watched Survivor Fans vs. Favorites. We also had sparkling cider, strawberries and lots of chocolate! Both of our families sent fun Valentine's Day things for us and Emmeline; thanks grandmas and grandpas! Emmeline even got a fun package from her great auntie Darlene! Friday the 15th Emmeline and I went to Philadelphia to visit my friend Monica and her four kitties. She and her husband are renovating their house and it is almost finished. We did a bit of shopping and ate at a cute little French bistro in center city. I had a glass of Cabernet, mushroom bisque and quail! O la la! C'est tres bon dejuner! This Saturday we ventured to Baltimore to visit the Inner Harbor and the aquarium. It was our Valentine's treat to ourselves. It was a lot of fun, even though the aquarium was packed to the gills (ha!). On our way out of town we got a little lost and Emmeline did not have a pleasant ride home. Today we were mostly indoors but ventured out to the Wilmington/Woodlawn library and to the mall. We even met a couple at the mall with a two-month old named Ben. We started talking in the food court and realized that we had a lot in common. They also are far away from family and they seem to have similar parenting ideas as we do. They wanted to have Ben at TBC but had complications during her pregnancy. They even had a similar experience with the OBGYN we were seeing before we switched to TBC (pretty much laughed out of her office when we told her we wanted natural labor). It was a very unexpected but very welcome encounter. It is always fun making new mommy friends. I hope to see them again soon.
Anyway, as you can see we have been pretty busy around here. I hope to keep up on posting better as I should have more time. For now I hope you enjoy our pictures below.

Cute little napper

Gorgeous little angel face

Wake up! We are late for mom's group!

Hi, mommy! I had a good nap!

Can you see my teeth?

Still a bit wobbly when sitting alone...


Big girl sippy cup!


Cutie patootie!

Pears are weird...

...really weird!

Really, mommy, I prefer puree!


Do I have to eat any more?


Making friends with Monica's cat,
Saffron, in Philadelphia


At Baltimore's Inner Harbor with daddy!

Can we go see the fish, now?


Watching the sting rays and sharks with mommy.


See the sting ray?


What fun! (I love her reflection
in this photo)


Hanging out at the library.


Library fun!