rachel and chip got married.

i already wrote about it and stuff, but i can reiterate, six weeks later, that it was fun times.  to fully embrace the fun times of it all, justin made a video for them.  justin is talented (if i do say so myself...).

jamaica, no problems.

neither justin nor i were entirely sure about jamaica leading up to the trip.  we, of course, were super psyched to get to be there for mike and kim's wedding; and we were pumped to see some friends we don't see very often; but, we had heard mixed reviews about the island.  dirty and dangerous were the two adjectives that worried me the most.

fortunately, i can now say that that was NOT our experience at all.  we had a wonderful time, and i would probably go back to jamaica before any of the other islands i've been to in the caribbean.

we began our trip with a short flight to houston, then on to montego bay international airport.  emmeline was a trooper and slept and played quietly for both flights.  we met up with mike, kim, and kim's family when we landed.  the looooong customs line was a tough wait, but we finally made it through and hopped in a van to make the trek out to negril.  negril is about 70 miles away, but it takes a little over an hour and a half to get there because you have to drive through towns and all of that.  our driver was exceptionally nice and informative.  i spent the majority of the ride quizzing him about jamaica's political structure, school system, economic issues, etc etc.  it was fascinating.  it's a very, very poor country.  but people there are well-educated and welcoming.  they also have an immense sense of patriotism and fellowship amongst each other that i found to be very inspiring.

the place we stayed is called idle awhile and it was incredible.  there were about 12 rooms in the whole resort, and our fellow wedding-goers (and we) took up probably 7 of the rooms.  it was super clean and mellow and the staff was so nice.  we had a room with a big porch facing the ocean that was also tucked back a little so you could see everyone else's room when you were on our porch.  i loved that since i spent a lot of time out there while emme napped inside!

our days were very laid back.  we would wake up, walk along the beach a little bit, eat some breakfast, then head back to the room for nap #1 (which usually lasted 2-3 hours).  everything operates on island time, so breakfast took at least an hour and a half.  i love the slow-eating thing, but emme was usually ready to leave right as the food was getting there, so i found myself eating while standing a few times, so i could bounce her on my hip.  the coffee was strong and delicious.  i do love my coffee in the morning, and jamaica served it up just right.  while emme napped in the morning, i would read on the porch and visit with whoever was passing by and justin would usually swim or be out and about.  when she woke up, i'd lather her up with sunscreen and her swimsuit and all the necessary gear (man, babies need a lot of gear) and we'd head down to the beach.  this is where emme was born to be.  that child would scoot herself into the sand or just wave her legs and arms around and squeal and sigh with delight.  i have rarely seen her happier than she was on the beach.  she loved the water too, of course.  it was warm and super calm.  she would have liked to have been in it for hours, i'm sure, but i was paranoid about the sun, so we would just do a few minutes and then duck back under our umbrella.  she ate a few handfuls of sand, and i think she liked it more than other stuff she's eaten.  after some playing and adult lunching, we'd head back to the room for nap #2, another 2-3 hours.  afternoon play time was usually on the porch or in the shade or in someone else's room, then it was bath time in the sink (we had no tubs, only open-air showers) and time for bed.  emme would get so fired up about everything that she would end up going to sleep around 6:30 at night - about an hour earlier than she does at home.  so, she was sleeping 12-13 hours at night in jamaica.  it was crazy.

oh, i should also mention that emme has a new boyfriend.  our friends merritt and vanessa had their 10 month-old son reid with them, and he and emme hit it off splendidly.  he is a super physical dude - he's walking/running/climbing all over everything and is generally adorable.  he would put his head in emme's lap and steal her toys only to hand them back to her like he was giving her a gift.  too precious.  he also tried to crawl into her carseat with her a few times, which i found hysterical.  i think merritt got some pictures of their antics, so i will post them when i can.

even though i spent a ton of time hanging around because i was watching a bebe, it was a wonderful experience for me.  because i work full time, nothing sounds better to me, vacation-wise, than spending as much time as possible with my little bunny.  i also read 2 entire books, which is basically heaven as far as i'm concerned.

anyway, the wedding itself was on monday.  it was absolutely gorgeous.  people who were walking along the beach stopped just to watch.  kim looked radiant, and the resort and wedding coordinator did a great job with all the little details.  justin was the best man, so he toasted the couple at dinner.  it was an intimate group and everyone had a fabulous time.  emme made it up a little later than usual, so i got to play with the grown-ups until 7:30 or 8.  then, debbie (kim's rad mom) came to porch-sit for a few minutes so i could run and have a few dances with jb.

the trip home was longer, as they always are.  emme was still great, but she was awake for a lot more of it.  she also pooped all over herself/me/the plane on our last flight, which was hilarious.  i think i used approximately 53 wet wipes.

so now we are home, and i would say our first (of hopefully many) international adventure with a bebe was a great success.  we have zillions of pictures and hours of video that our resident media-manager will be wrangling over the next few days/weeks.  but for now, i'm posting a few he pulled out last night.

highlights of jamaica:
- chicken curry meat pies
- coffeeeee
- constant breeze
- brief afternoon rainstorms
- tree frogs singing (which annoyed me the first night when justin told me the sound was a bat alarm, but was surprisingly pleasant once i found out what it really was).
- dinner out with all the big kids saturday night while debbie watched the bebes at the resort
- mike and jb getting ready in our room, trying to figure out how to iron linen and silk
- emme spitting up all over her face and the bed, moments before we were walking out the door for the ceremony.  fortunately, i made the wise choice to not dress her until the last second, so she was just in a diaper
- francine, our squinty-eyed porch cat
- emme in a swimsuit
- emme pooping on me twice (once while in a swimsuit and nursing; once on the plane)

a couple more quick notes: i didn't actually give emme a big spoon to feed herself, she just likes playing with it under close supervision.  and video will be forthcoming, jb promises.  also, i really love pictures of our daughter making weird faces.  is that weird?

we are here.

i have not blogged in what feels like forever, even though in actuality it has only been two weeks.  i owe like 3 posts on all the stuff that has been happening lately - we went to jamaica for mike and kim's wedding (awesomeness), emme's first easter was yesterday, justin started a new job....it's been pretty busy in browne towne lately.

anyway...i promise to offer the full summary with pictures and possibly even video included VERY soon.  but i just wanted to tell all our loyal readers (do we even have those?) that we are all alive and well and stories will be forthcoming.

for now, please enjoy this hilarious picture of emmeline from this weekend.  she is creeping like a maniac these days and we were doing random things around the house while she was having some play time on the floor.  within 2 minutes, she had creeped herself off her blanket, off the rug, right under the chair in our living room.  child-proofing probably needs to happen stat....

five months.

let me just say, preemptively, that i am about to post an embarrassing number of pictures of our daughter.  it's not my fault.  i am truly defenseless when it comes to this little monkey.  every slight nuance of her face, every tweak of her smile...i feel like i just need to have it all on here.  it's for our family book for 2011, right?  so just please excuse me (and scroll faster if you aren't interested in the overload of cuteness - ha.).

so, (four days late), emme kay turned 5 months last thursday!  unreal.  she is doing fabulously and is a real sweetheart.  last week, she didn't poop for over 6 days, so i brought her to the doctor.  i'm sure when she's older she will hate hearing about this - friday morning i had numerous texts from friends that just said "poop?".  i think it's hilarious how tuned in we all are to our babies' ins and outs, so to speak.  anyway, the doctor said it wasn't a huge deal and to give her prune juice and other solids with fiber (beans, berries, oatmeal).  she said it was likely due to starting solids and that it happens to lots of babies.  i don't feel like she's had a ton of solids, and i had tried a few different tricks, so that's why i was worried...but in any case, she finally had some success on friday night and the relief in our house (and at kk's house) was palpable.  because of that whole experience, though, i know that she now weighs 14 lbs, 11 oz.  still hasn't quite doubled her birth weight, but i bet she will by 6 months, and i've read breastfed babies are slower to double, sometimes.  regardless, she is super healthy and happy, and we are so grateful and blessed by that.

emme loves tummy time and loves to roll.  now that she's figured out rolling back to tummy, she occasionally forgets that she can go tummy to back, too, so it will randomly surprise her sometimes and it cracks me up.  she scoots like a little inchworm and motors her chubby thighs in a crawling motion which helps her creep a few inches forward here and there.  she's surprisingly mobile (well, i'm surprised  because she still seems like such a baby to me) and is always in a completely different place in her crib than where i've put her down.  she's still a great sleeper, and with her sleeping through the night now, i could not be happier.  she's using her thumb to soothe since we robbed her of the pacifier, but she's not obsessed with it, so i think that bodes well for her not being a life-long thumbsucker.  it's still really hard to make her laugh, but she gives us some giggles now and then and we pretty much swoon.  she likes to dig her heels into her mattress and slam her body down onto it when she's excited to see me after a nap.  she does the same back bend with an arch and a twist while we're doing diaper changes and gives us these grins like "let me make this easier for you".  she loves when we sing songs and she loves to play superman in either our hands or by resting with her belly on my shins while i lie on the floor.  she thinks baby yoga on sundays is the greatest.  the spitting is still full throttle, but i feel like it's starting to dwindle a little bit (some days).  i've been told she'll be done with it by 6 months, so i really hope she is in the realm of normal for that.  she can stay sitting up for a few seconds before toppling over.  she has tried banana, avocado, and pear so far, and pear is the clear winner at this point.  we're taking the solid foods thing kind of slowly because of the spitting and the lack of pooping and the jamaica trip this week.  when we get back, i imagine we'll move into proteins and other fun new things for her to try.

thursday, we take emmeline on her first (of what i hope will be many) international trips to jamaica for mike and kim's wedding.  we are sooo excited to introduce her to sand and swimming, as well as to have some days of relaxation and vacation for us.  this is our first "family vacation" with just the three of us.  we also can't wait to see mike and kim tie the knot - i love a wedding.

so, now on to the pictures.  i apologize again.  i took some on the 7th and then justin and i took a bunch more yesterday outside.  all total, we had about 290 pictures, so i hope you can appreciate the whittling i did to get it down to this many....

yard work

our front and back yard have looked a bit on the rough side lately. really the only thing separating us from white trash was the lack of a car on cinder blocks... that and a tub/major appliance in the yard i guess. we decided that the weekend of April 9th was to be a yard beautification weekend - so we had sod delivered, rented a tiller, and coerced our buddy mike to come help lay some grass. we still have plenty of mulching and planting left to do, but our yard already looks at least one billion times better. maybe two billion times.

cloth diapering: the how and the why.

someone on facebook just asked me about cloth diapering, so i thought i would post a modified version of my note to her here.  i have to say, cloth diapering has been such a great decision for us.  i admit, i am a little bit crunchy when it comes to all this mommy stuff, but i think cloth diapering can be for everyone - not just us pseudo-hippie types.  it's infinitely easier, cheaper, and better than i ever could have imagined.  emme will be 5 months old on thursday and has yet to have any diaper rash.  oh, and that's with us not even using diaper creams as a preventer!
so.  we use fuzzibunz and we absolutely LOVE the brand.  my mom tells me they were invented by a woman from lafayette, which makes me like them even more, but beyond that they are amazing quality and amazing cuteness.  
we have about 13 diapers which means we wash every other day. this has been fine, but i think an ideal number would be about 20. you don't really want to go more than every 3 days just because even breastfed baby poop gets stinky. i am hoping to buy 6 or so more soon...
after 5 months of use (50-70% for the first month or two, full time by 8 weeks or so), the diaps still look pretty much brand new (i plan to use them for baby #2 if we have another and they should totally hold up for multiple kids). we use the "one-size" fuzzibunz so she will be in the same diapers until potty training - i'm not about buying more diaps in different sizes as she grows. 
the way we wash them is throw them all in the machine (you take the inserts out and put everything in together) and do a cold rinse. then add about half the amount of detergent you would use for that size load (XS on my washer) and a capful of white vinegar and do a hot wash. tumble dry on low and they're dry in about 30 minutes. 
other supplies you need are a "wet bag".  i have the fuzzibunz one, but there are some wicked cute ones on etsy that i would totally buy if i'd known about them when i was getting this bag. this is basically in place of a garbage can and just hangs on a hook by the changing table. you can wash them with the diaps, so you may want two bags in rotation (i just have one).  we also use re-usable wipes, which is totally not necessary, but i have found it to be cheaper, better for her bum, and way easier. easier because i can throw the "wipes" in with the diapers instead of having to put diapers in the bag and wipes in the trash.  everything in one place = key.  i just bought some cheapo thin washcloths on amazon - i think i have like 30 (3 10-packs) and it's more than enough. then, i have a spray bottle. the mix i make is just: fill spray bottle with water (mine is about 24 oz i think), add 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp baby shampoo/soap, 10 drops of lavendar essential oil and 10 drops of tea tree essential oil. the lavendar and tea tree are anti-bacterial and smell awesome! the soap and olive oil act as cleansers and moisturizers for baby parts. there are a zillion different recipes for diaper spray online, i just use this one because i can remember it and we had all those ingredients on hand. 

i think that's it! we still use disposables when traveling, but i even bring cloth when she and i are out and about - they have mini wet bags for that and it's just easier, honestly. when i embarked on the cloth diapering thing, i thought i was being so noble and environmentally conscious and it would be worth all the extra work. as it has turned out, it is really not hard AT ALL and the cute, colorful baby tush is awesome. also, the complete absence of anything resembling diaper rash is amazing. if you use the re-usable wipes, you just wet a little part, so you can dry them before re-diapering too, which helps also. i absolutely love the fuzzibunz, but i have friends that use bumgenius and gdiapers as well. 
i'm pretty passionate about all of this stuff now, so if you're reading this and considering cloth diapering, even part time, feel free to ask me any questions!  it's totally worth it.  

big big big week.

whew.  lots of developments and new things this week.  i've completely lost track of days and times, so i am not really sure what happened when, but this week we sleep trained the little monkey, got rid of the beanie, AND started solids.  somehow i don't think it's advisable to bombard your not-quite-five-month-old with tons of new things in this way, and yet....emme handled everything like a total champ.

first, the beanie.  when we were in the hospital, the second the nurses got her away from me, they popped a pacifier in emmeline's mouth.  for the record, i have absolutely no issue with the pacifier; i was just worried about nipple confusion and all of that in the first couple of days.  as it turned out, that was not an issue at all, and emme was in love with her beanie from then on.  as soon as she started sleeping for slightly longer stretches of time, we realized that the pacifier may be our best friend sometimes, but it might also be our sleep enemy.  when it fell out of her mouth, it would wake her up, and when she woke up and it wasn't in there, it would make her really sad.  in the early days, we would just get up and put it back in and all was well.  but, since she's older and so much more aware of everything now, i didn't know if this was a help or a hindrance.  in any case, waking up 2-3 times a night when you work full time to put a pacifier in your baby's mouth is not a winning proposition for any duration of months...

so, i've been reading a book called sleeping through the night by jodi mindell.  in this book, they talk about positive and negative sleep associations.  i won't get into it all (although i do think it's really interesting), but basically i believe that the beloved beanie had become a negative sleep association.  meaning, even though it helped soothe her and put her to sleep, it was the thing that caused her night wakings and ended up disrupting her sleep (and prevented her from falling asleep on her own).  anyway...right or wrong, i decided to see if we could eliminate the pacifier.  this was the precursor to sleep training.  i should also mention that my pediatrician advised me to be done with the paci by 6 months, and to just cut it out cold turkey.
wednesday night (i'm pretty sure that was wednesday) was the end of the pacifier and it was not fun.  emme cried for about 45 minutes after being put down and it pretty much broke my heart.  i had to stay in the kitchen and keep myself busy with chores and obsessively watch the clock until the next time i was allowed to go check on her.  BUT...she did fall asleep, without the pacifier.  and she only woke up a couple of times, and those weren't bad.  thursday night i decided was the official first night of sleep training (even though wednesday kind of counted too).  she cried for another 45 minutes and i had to force myself to re-read the chapter about this whole thing and make internal bargains like "i will try this and if it's still this horrible on sunday, i don't have to do it anymore".  friday night, mom came into town.  i was worried since kk hates to hear that bunny cry almost as much as i do.  but i stayed strong and she was asleep within a magical 11 minutes.  saturday night, we were down to 8 minutes, and tonight i don't think i heard even a full minute of cries.  AMAZING.  everything i read and everything everyone told me was that it would be worth it, and i must say if she keeps this up it was worth every single second.  not only do i feel like a new person getting more than 2-3 sequential hours of sleep, but emme is waking up in the BEST mood because she's getting great rest.  i seriously could not be happier about this whole series of events.

the other big action this week was starting solids.  i have read and researched way too much, and i decided that organic bananas were what we were going to start with.  since mom was coming to town, and emme seemed more than ready (it's crazy because 2 weeks ago i would have said she was not ready at all and then it was like she woke up this week demanding to eat food), i figured it would be fun to try it on friday night with all of us around.  so i mashed up a bite of banana with some breast milk and offered emme her first "real" food.  she took to that stuff like she'd been eating for years.  it was awesome.  thankfully, jb was there to document the event.  i think our next food will be avocados one day this week....