Life Downtown

Another month has passed and I'm due for an update. I've meant to write sooner but life just seems to get busier and more complicated every day. Most recently, I've thrown my back out and had to take a mandated few days of rest which is a nice byproduct of injury. The less fortunate byproduct is that I haven't been able to lift Dahlia so Peter and our nanny, Noeleen, have been taking over most of the heavy (she's 20 pounds now!) lifting.

The good news is that rest, stretching, and acupuncture seem to be working and I'm feeling much better. I hope to resume some significant yoga practice asap as I think that strengthening will help immensely.

Other than our family's injuries, life is good so far this summer. I enjoy taking Dahlia on walks on the Embarcadero or through North Beach, and we've picnicked in the nearby park twice already. Nana (my mom) was here for two weeks through the Fourth of July, including a weekend at a rustic B&B in Healdsburg, and Uncle Brennan visited with his girlfriend, Linnea, for the holiday weekend. Unfortunately, Aunt Molly is in Chicago for the summer working at her law firm's office there, and has missed out on the fun, but her boyfriend, Adam, joined us in the park on the Fourth.

Here's a recap in pictures:

One weekend I took Dahlia on a walk to the Chinatown branch of the SF Public Library. We were delighted to find that the children's room is on the first floor with a wheelchair- and stroller-friendly entrance. After that, we walked to Washington Square Park in North Beach and I FINALLY got to put Dahlia in a swing! I've been thinking about this day since before she was born and just hadn't gotten a chance to do it since moving downtown (there are no playgrounds near our apartment, only this one and one at Pier 39). I think she really liked it!

Another "first" that day was placing Dahlia down in the grass. Having never encountered this strange surface, she studied it intently, watching it move in the wind and gently feeling the blades in their different forms. She also enjoyed watching other little kids and dogs running in the park.





On Father's Day we ventured to the park near our apartment (on Jackson across from the Safeway) for a small family picnic. This was Dahlia's second time sitting in the grass and she enjoyed playing with the tiny grass flowers and watching the birds that approached bravely in hopes of eating some of our food.

We've found that whenever we eat in front of Dahlia, she stares at us with a quizzical look that says, "where's mine?" so we've started making sure that we carry half an avocado and a sippy cup of water whenever we go out to eat. She loves her avo but she is crazy for her sippy cup. We started giving her a little water just to wash down her meals but she goes crazy at the sight of her cup and gets all excited and grabs it from you and chews and drinks from it all herself. It's a good way to help her entertain herself for a good 15-20 minutes while we eat.



In the picture with Peter, you can see our building behind him (the tall white one with all the balconies).

The first weekend that Nana was here, we packed up a rented Subaru with our various equipment: wheelchair, walker, stroller, carseat, and Pack-n-Play, and drove up to Healdsburg for two nights at Gipson B&B, or what we have dubbed "Dan's place."

It was planned for a couple months and the only bummer was that Molly and Adam couldn't come, but we had a lovely time anyway.

It was HOT -- upwards of 100 degrees -- but we spent the weekend sitting by a pool and finding a couple of local, air conditioned places to eat. Dahlia experienced another first -- getting dipped in a pool -- which I think she enjoyed but still felt the water was a bit too cold (it cooled down significantly at night so the pool was pretty cold). We all appreciated the chance to get out of town and out of the apartment for a few days.

Then, for the Fourth of July, Brennan and Linnea arrived to spend the weekend in SF. We had another fun weekend picnicking in the park and going on a walk in North Beach. Here are my final few pictures from that weekend.

Dahlia playing with her new phone rattle (thanks to Uncle Chris who was in SF for two days that week as well and brought us toys from the cousins!) and her favorite baby doll from Grammy.


Brennan and Dahlia enjoyed the swings.

Yay for family visits!

Peter's update: Saw the doctor on July 7th, who looked at X-rays and declared Peter ready to start walking again. Yay! Now it's a matter of starting physical therapy and moving on to crutches instead of the wheelchair and walker. Once that transition is complete, we should be cleared to return to our Mission apartment after 3+ long months of recovery. We are hoping for the end of July but don't want to put any additional undue pressure on Peter. He'll recover quickly once exercise begins, I'm sure!

Later....

Solids!

As someone who loves food and eating as much as I do, this month brought exciting developments for the Butler family.

Dahlia turned 6 months on May 25th, and since just before Peter's birthday on the 19th, we've been feeding her a couple meals a day of solid food. We started with avocado and it continues to be one of her favorites. She's also eating banana, peach, sweet potato, rice cereal, and we're currently working on peas.





Dahlia eating her first meal of banana on May 16th

At first Dahlia seemed like she'd eat anything, but when we tried steamed and mashed apples and carrots, she gagged on the tiny chunks and puked into her conveniently located bib pocket. So we're sticking with soft foods for now; relying mostly on avocado for dinner, and rice cereal with peach for breakfast, and banana for a midday snack with our nanny, Noeleen. Our pediatrician, Dr. Julia Getzelman, recommended feeding her mostly savory vegetables before moving ahead with any more sweet fruit, so she's sure to keep eating her veggies. So I tried peas, and next up are spinach and summer squash.

When Dahlia gets a spoonful of peas, she makes a disgusted face, gags and coughs but manages to move it around in her mouth and eventually swallows it. I've read that the way to get your baby to eat veggies is to give it to her as the first bite of a meal for 10 days straight. If she doesn't like it, don't force it, just give her the one bite, then finish the meal with food she likes. After 10 days, or sooner, she will love the new food.

Except for the rice cereal, I've been making all her food myself. With the farmer's market located so close to our "summer home" at the Embarcadero, I have access to fresh, gorgeous organic produce every week. I'm steaming or baking her food, pureeing it and freezing it into 1 tbsp cubes in rubber ice cube trays. It's inspiring having the market so close, but I'm also finding guidance and inspiration from a cookbook my friend gave me called The Petit Appetit Cookbook, and a blog run by a high school friend of Peter's called weelicious.com.

On the eve of her 6 month birthday, Dahlia cut her first baby tooth. I know it was that night because she had a particularly tough time going to sleep; she fussed and cried for an hour, even with Daddy singing to her and soothing her. She usually goes to sleep with only a little help so this was very unusual behavior. Poor girl! That night she woke up several times and we finally gave her some baby Tylenol which helped her sleep the rest of the night. A day or so later, I heard a "tink" sound against the spoon during a feeding and on Friday her doctor showed me the tip of the bottom right front tooth just poking through the gums.

Speaking of the 6-month check-up, Dahlia is doing great, the doctor says. She weighed 18 lbs, 8 oz, and measured 27.5 inches, putting her in the 90th percentile for height, weight, and head size. She is sitting up confidently, having been stable in this position for about 3 weeks now. She doesn't show much interest in rolling, so for now she still isn't mobile, which is nice.

The doctor also recommended cutting out the nighttime feeding, which usually happens between 2:30 and 4:30am. This could be tough, because we all sleep in the same room and don't have the option of moving her to her own room until we move back to our apartment in the Mission. So for now I have to try to soothe her when she wakes up at night using just her pacifier and my hand on her chest -- without resorting to picking her up and bringing her to bed for a nursing. If she's particularly upset, I cave pretty easily. Unfortunately, her teeth have been keeping her up, and nights have been somewhat eventful for the past couple weeks. But we'll get there -- she has a couple times gone all night without needing the comfort of mommy's milk, and we hope to improve on that in the weeks to come.

Lastly, her new favorite toy is "the pond," an Exersaucer on loan from my friend Mimi. Dahlia loves the variety of toys to explore, the sounds and music, and the chance to stand up and jump around a little. In all, it's quite a play-time adventure! And it has the added bonus of keeping her safe and occupied while I start dinner or whatever.


Dahlia playing at the Pond

And finally, an update on us in general. We've settled into a good routine at our condo downtown and I'm actually enjoying the change since it's such a great location. And since Dahlia is back at our house in the Mission for share-care, I can bike to work and save about 30 minutes on my commute each way.

Peter is improving every day, and is now helping out so much more, doing things like: reading to Dahlia on his lap, feeding her solids, and even assisting with dinner preparations while I get little D off to bed. His days are long and a little boring, as he's home alone most of the time, except when friends and sisters can stop by for lunch. He's also started working from home for 2 hours a day, mainly checking email and communicating with people again.

We get out for family walks on the weekends, with me carrying Dahlia in the Moby wrap and pushing Peter in his wheelchair. Our location is perfect for long, flat walks, so we can't complain. Now if the fog would just lift and we could have a taste of summer... for now we'll have to rely on the delicious summer produce to remind us that it's hot and sunny somewhere out there in this great, bankrupt state of ours.

Bye for now!

Movin' on up

It's been a busy, exhausting, and emotional 2 weeks since Peter's bike accident, and we're finally settling into our new digs downtown. With lots of help from family and friends, we found a nice 1-bedroom apartment in a high-rise near the Embarcadero with a view of surrounding parks, downtown buildings, and the Bay Bridge.

Dahlia is adapting well; she's been amazingly good natured during all this drama. She's a very happy girl and she's growing bigger every day. She had more vaccine shots this week and weighed in at 16 lbs, 12 oz. She's outgrown most of her 3-6 month clothes and has lots of new cute things from the 6-9 month bin.

Nana and little D in some of her new clothes.

We are so grateful to our parents for flying in to help us through this tough time. Dad and Gloria helped by babysitting Dahlia while I spent hours visiting Peter in the hospital last weekend, and helped us figure out what kind of living situation we needed to prepare for his release. Mom arrived this week and spent a day scouting corporate housing apartments, then helped me pack and schlep all our necessities to the new place in time for Peter's arrival. Peter's mom arrives tomorrow to stay with us and help care for Dahlia and Peter while I get my new work/commute routine figured out.

Poppa took this picture of Dahlia with her favorite lion.

We thank you all for all your support during this tough time. The past two weeks were intense but I think we're out of the woods and on the road to recovery. And we have a sweet downtown apartment in which to rest and recuperate. I think that one "silver lining" to all this is the chance to experience our city from a new neighborhood and perspective. It's so close to the Ferry Building that I was able to take Dahlia to the farmer's market yesterday morning for a quick hour before it got crowded. Bonus!

The view from our balcony at night. That's Three and Two Embarcadero Center.

Parrots from the famed "Parrots of Telegraph Hill" like to roost in the trees below our place. This one sat on our balcony for a few minutes today.

Back to work

Since our last post, I have returned to work after 5 1/2 months of maternity leave. It was such a wonderful, long time to spend getting to know Dahlia and learning about being a mother. Though I loved spending all that time with her, I'm glad to return to work and have a little more balance back in my life. She seems happy with our nanny and since we're doing a share care, she gets to spend her days with another baby girl, Muriel. She's napping better than ever, sleeping well at night, and is close to sitting up on her own. She's also showing signs of wanting to crawl, so there's that to look forward to (time to baby-proof the house!!). She's also quite big, probably over 16 lbs now; she'll be 5 months next week, on April 25th.

Back at work, I get to take 3 breaks every day to sit in a quiet, private room and pump breastmilk. I find it helps me produce more milk if I get inspired by looking at pictures of Dahlia, so I'm trying to take one every morning with my phone so I have something new to look at. This is one of those pictures.


Just before returning to work, my mom came to visit for a week, and we spent one sunny afternoon in Dolores Park eating lunch and playing with Dahlia. I took a short video of little D to show how much bigger she is, and to listen to her fun verbal noises.



Nana and Dahlia in Dolores Park:

Florida 2009 Slideshow

We've been ridiculously lax with the posting recently, but it's been a busy month. Here's a quick one from our recent adventure with the larger Butler family--including Grammy, Poppy, Uncle Chris, Aunt Wendy, and cousins Josie and Nick--to the Gulf Coast of Florida.

Mom, Dad, and Dahlia were lucky enough to stay with Grammy and Poppy in a beachfront condo for a week, replete with a patio for watching the sunset or watching the cousins in the pool as well as the absolutely essential AC and crib that helped us help Dahlia get a decent amount of sleep.

Chris, Wendy, Josie, and Nick stayed in a similar condo two floors down, and the kids had a plenty of fun getting spoiled by playing with the grandparents and, of course, lots of swimming in the pool. Here's a quick montage we threw together with some great photos from Amy and Aunt Wendy.

Videos of the motorboat mouth

Here are two videos to illustrate Peter's post below.


Motorboat mouth


Dahlia with Sophie the giraffe

And a bonus picture of Dahlia rocking tummy time. She's getting so good at it!

Bronx Cheer Bandit, or L'il Miss Motorboat Mouth

Little Ms. D takes a rest from her mouth farting.

So what's Dahlia been up to for the past month and a half?

Well, all sorts of stuff like learning how to roll over from her front to her back (the lazy baby's solution for getting around tummy time), going on fun trips around town and down to Southern California, getting two sets of vaccinations, celebrating her 3-month birthday, and grabbing stuff with her hands. We're also pretty sure that her teeth have started coming in, 'cause she drools like nobody's business.

One of the more amusing recent developments is Dahlia's habit of ending words or sentences by blowing bubbles with her lips, which makes a sound like a motorboat, or actually, more like a bronx cheer. (Some call them raspberries?)

Anyway, it's pretty funny to hear Dahlia respond to some of our questions with a grunt, gurgle, or squeak, followed by a fake fart sound and bubbles. A sample conversation:

"Hi, cutie. Aren't you a good girl?"

"Urgle blerg pbbbbbbbbbbbt."

"Do you want to see what mommy's doing?"

"Erra hoo pbbbbbbbbbt."

Maybe you have to be there. ;) We'll try to get it on video and post. I don't think it will last long.

Thank goodness for a daughter who likes to make fart sounds with her mouth. Hooray!