# 4 Syndrome Part II

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# 4 Syndrome

I am really trying to be cautious about not doing too many things for Claire in the memorabilia department that I know I won't realistically find the time or energy to do for my future posterity. Am I the only one who feels this pressure?

Perhaps this all boils down to the fact that I'm child # 4 in my family. Enough said.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bitter. I don't blame my mom and dad. I only have one kid and I already have a hard time jotting notes and remembering to keep track of all the crazy milestones we are supposed to keep track of. I can only imagine how hard it will be when/if I have 3 other little ones running around. And for the record, I'm still trying to judge if Claire's first smile was actually a direct result of a satisfying gas bubble. So I have a few potential "first" dates listed in that slot.

Nonetheless, I am not naturally a scrappy or crafty kind of lady. So I decided to throw this digital diddy together really quick on Shutterfly. And by really quick, I mean it only took me 5 months to finish. Easy enough to do for all the rest of em', right?

Blessing Day

Claire's blessing day was a great affair. Over 50 family members and friends joined us from six states, and Germany for the big day. We feel very fortunate to be surrounded by such an amazing circle of support.

Niels did a nice job and we were pretty surprised that by some miraculous measure Claire didn't make a single peep with practically half a football team surrounding her.

Isn't she a dream in white?

Grandma and Grandpa Colton came all the way from Germany!

Grandma and Grandpa Jensen

Niels' Grandma Haycock suffered a stroke in December and is living in an assisted care center until she improves enough to move back to her home. We were so touched that the center allowed her to leave for a few hours so she could attend the blessing.

The Thomas Clan

The Vegas Cousins

More Family and Friends

Practically my second family, The Hofheins, made the trip from Utah and helped make it a very special weekend.

A big thanks to all our friends and family for your love and support!

Brianhead

What better way to vacation than with six adults, three babies and a two-bedroom condo in the snow? Okay, I suppose I can think of a few ways. But nonetheless, we combined forces with two great couples from dental school and their babes for a great President's Day getaway at Brianhead. We stayed at Niels' grandparents' condo, which is conveniently located right across from the resort. Not too shabby.

I was a little nervous about how it was all going to work out with all the different schedules, but it worked out surprisingly well and we packed in some amazing food and skiing, and of course a whole lot of baby talk and play. (I wuv baby talk.)

The Mommas and the Poppas:

Niels, Claire, Matt, John, Lincoln, and David


Me, Claire, Mimi, David, Becca, and John

To simplify things a bit we rotated covering meals. The other two couples really brought their A-games and shared some impressive authentic dishes from Korea and Russia, where they served their respective missions. So we enjoyed authentic Korean bulgogi beef lettuce wraps and Russian borsch. Niels served in Argentina and while I fancied the idea of following suit and making empanadas or some sort of amazing beef, I took the Costco route instead and made their take and bake chicken pot pie. Ha! Gotta love Costco. Maybe next year we will be a little more creative. Maybe.

Coupled with the great food, was fantastic skiing. We rotated couples so that 2 couples were watching 3 babies and 1 couple was skiing. Niels is way more skilled than I am but we still had a great time. We were talking about how we don't go skiing often enough to really ever improve. It's almost as if regain our sea-legs the first day and on the second day we do great, but then we don't go again for another year. You'd obviously have to live close to snow to get really good. And on that note, I'm happy with just being okay at it.

Claire was an awesome little traveler. Niels attributes the altitude to her chronic fatigue. She slept in the car both ways as well as the majority of the time we were there. Now there's a reason to move close to snow.

Claire and her two boyfriends, John and David:

It will be a little more crazy next year when all the little ones are walking around, but we are definitely looking forward to it!

Giggles

Baby giggles have to be one the best things ever after baby feet and pudgy leg rolls. Enjoy Claire's first belly laughs. Ironically enough, this was a few hours after she had shots which makes us wonder what was really in the injections since she hasn't done this since. I'm so happy we had the camera close by.

Oh, and I can assure you that we actually do get things done around here sometimes even though she's not dressed and the bed is not made ...

Look Who's Talking

This was taken in December, and she pretty much does this all the time now... she's gonna be a talker.

Forever

Love this. Did I mention he is smitten?

Stimulation

Many people have told us the first 6 weeks of having a baby are the hardest and then it gets a bit easier and fun. So here we are at 6 weeks and are excited to see what's on the horizon.

I can say that I am starting to feel a little more human and less of a zombie lately. No, not becasue she is sleeping through the night like some of the fibbers who claim their babies do at six weeks. Although ... she did hit the 10 lb. mark and it's amazing what a little meat on the bones does. She is now doing two, four hour streches most nights which isn't record setting, but I will take it instead of every one/two hours. Not to say that I don't like getting up to feed her, becasue I secretly kind of love it. I just hate the after effects the next morning.

I feel bad for her sometimes becasue I feel like she must be so bored. I mean, we are a lot of fun and all, but we struggle with knowing what to stimulate her with at this age since she doesn't really smile or make loud squeels of delight yet. So we have just been guessing a bunch and putting her in front of a lot of things. So far I have gathered that she enjoys the following ... I think:

Her Dad. I remember when we used to stare at eachother like this.

Her Swing. I felt guilty at first putting her in it what I felt was too often, but the girl loves it. And let's be honest, mom and dad love it sometimes too.

Bathtime:

Mom's silly home made black & white note cards.

The mobile. Our cousins Matt and Becca let us borrow this beauty that she thinks is pretty neat. Thanks guys!

1 Month

Time is flying by and Claire is already one month old. I have LOVED being home with her all month and am pretty much dreading going back to work in January even if it is only part-time. This is the first time I haven't worked since I was in high-school and I have always kind of thrived on being busy and stressed. Of course motherhood is still insanely busy and stressful but on a different level and I am surprisingly doing a lot better than I thought I would with the new pace of life. I expected to go pretty stir crazy, to be a tad insane and to have a severe bout of cabin fever. But on the contrary, I have found absolute joy in being a homebody and being with this little miss all day long. Don't get me wrong, I have had my hard days and have had a few sleep deprivation/hormonal breakdowns but it is all worth it.

We have enjoyed learning and trying to figure this whole parenting thing out together. Niels is already such a great father and he is completely smitten. Actually, the relationship is very much mutual. She locks eyes with his thick black frames the minute he walks in the door and melts to sleep in his arms. He had never changed a diaper in his whole life until she was born and I would say that he has likely changed more than I have. I am so grateful he loves to help.

Here are a few highlights and notes from month 1:

Birth weight 6 lbs. 11 oz.
Weight at 1 month: 9 lbs, 6oz.

I love how every baby guide book claims that most newborns sleep between 16-18 hours a day. Not our baby, that's for sure. Claire pretty much hates daytime naps and fights sleep as hard as she can. She is super alert and extremely observant and just wants to hang out and look at ceiling fans, blinds and dad's face as much as she can.

We moved her to her room at week 3 because she is a very noisy sleeper. It was like we had a barn in our house. She lasted about a week with us before we moved her about 15 feet outside our door to the loft, only to be moved about 10 more feet into her room a week later. We are a little ridiculous.

She hardly cries, but is very vocal and tells us when she doesn't like something by grunting kind of like a dinosaur or fidgeting until we figure out what the heck she is trying to tell us. We tell her she is "spicy".

She gets bored in about 5 minutes when you put her down anywhere. She just wants to be upright and on the move all the time. Not sure where she gets this from …

She LOVES her hands. We swaddle her as tight as we can at night since that is the only way she will sleep and she always finds a way to break her hands free. It's really quite impressive.

She HATED her first real bath. You would have thought we were dipping her poison. Luckily we bought this highly referred yet kind of funky looking bath contraption and she is starting to dig bath time.

We love our baby girl!

A few thoughts

I know it is so cliche to say she is growing up too fast. But I finally understand first-hand what everyone has meant all these years and completely validate its truthfulness.

I always found it kind of weird when people would say that they could just stare at their newborn baby all day. Ya, I understand this one now too.

I think it is corny when couples claim they are "over the moon" for their baby. But I get it and would say that we share the same sentiment (even though it is still corny for the record).

I find it ironic that Winnie the Pooh is the character of choice on diapers … just saying.

I am confused by the seeds in baby bowel movements. Last time I checked milk did not have seeds in it. Sadly, these are the kind of thoughts that result after days of no sleep.

Sleep when she sleeps ... lofty suggestion.

It's amazing what can be accomplished with one hand.

Nothing in the world feels better than your new baby sleeping on your chest with their feet curled up under them. Nothing.

Nursery

(Click to Enlarge)

Slowly but surely the nursery is just about finished. It still needs a few more things on the walls and some other minor touches, but it is mostly there.

Well I found a way to justify the mini chandelier purchase after all. It's called IKEA makes amazing things for cheap. Thank you, Switzerland. And thank goodness for a great friend that made the pit stop at IKEA in California to seal the deal. I also took the advice left in my comments from my previous nursery post and installed a dimmer light switch. Brilliant.

My friend Stephanie gave me some great dresser knobs from Anthropology for my birthday 5 years ago. I liked them but I thought it was a random gift at the time because I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. I am very much not a hoarder but I have felt the need to hold onto these knobs for all these years because I knew I would use them some day. Nice work, Sonk. They work perfectly and add nice character to the dresser.

My most favorite item in the nursery was the first gift I received about a month after we learned we were expecting. My extremely talented best friend whipped out this beautiful "egg money" quilt in five days. You can't nearly see how amazing it is from the picture, but there are about 300, 1"x1" squares of adorable retro fabric. All of the fabric is from scraps my friend either already had or that she gathered from her fellow quilter friends.

Recently I have been spending more time in this room than in ours, aside from sleeping of course. I really enjoyed nesting my little heart out during my first week of maternity leave. Who knew folding and hanging tiny clothes and sitting in a rocker could be so entertaining?

Baby Flood

This little girl is definitely equipped for arrival thanks to the amazing support of family and friends and to some incredible baby showers … 4 of them! I feel like it might be more fitting to say I was flooded instead of showered. We are still in awe every time we walk in the nursery and see all the itty clothes, blankets, etc., etc..

Unfortunately I didn't snap any pictures at my first shower with all my friends from church since I am a complete amateur at this baby shower thing and was having too much fun taking it all in to take any shots.

My second shower was a double-shower for me and another girl in the office that is due the same week as me but with a boy. It was so great to have someone to check-in with frequently and to compare notes with that was experiencing similar things as me. The shower was our boss' idea and they graciously sponsored the event and turned over the logisitcs to our marketing/PR department to make it happen. They did such a wonderful job with the food, décor, details, etc. etc. There are about 50 people in a pool for a gift card for guessing the closest date/weight/length.

Shower numero three was a great experience. My sister Jen organized it, but many people

pitched in to help her with all the details. There was just something so special to me about being in a room filled with most of my favorite people in the world … people that have essentially helped mold my character and are a huge part of who I am. People that have known me my entire life, childhood friends, high-school gals, college peeps and of course family. I went home that night so thankful for the people in my life. I don't believe in coincidences all that much. I feel pretty strongly that different people are placed in our paths at certain times and throughout different experiences and hardships to help us get along. Looking around the room at this shower reminded me of this very thing.

Shower number 4 was a total surprise. I am pretty hard to surprise most of the time since I am pretty intuitive but these ladies did a great job keeping under wraps. The Young Women and my fellow fabulous leaders were sneaky and planned a little party when I took a mini-sabbatical from mutual last month to take birthing classes on Tuesday nights. They set up a mini sweat shop and made hair bows and flowers. I am pretty excited about them and about the fact that they all met my acceptable head-to-bow-ratio size requirement. They also surprised me with a fantastic quilt they made.





Our little miss made out like a bandit after all of this was said and done, and there were literally only a handful of essentials left to pick-up. She is one lucky gal to have such an amazing fan club before she is even born. We feel incredibly lucky and blessed and are getting really excited for her to get here and play with all her gifts!

Go Gators

Handsome Devil

Niels' 10-year class reunion was earlier this month on 10-10-10. Clever, right? Even though I wasn't super thrilled to waddle in 9 months prego it turned out to be a fun night and on a whole it was surprisingly less awkward than we both expected. I was pretty grateful that we both went to the same school so I knew most of his friends and didn't have to be a wallflower all night.

I will say that I do think it is interesting how Facebook and blogs have eliminated much of the excitement/shock factor of class reunions. We show up already knowing what people look like, where they are working, how many kids they have, what they "like" and of course what they need for their Farmville crop. My prediction is that reunions will eventually become extinct because of this very thing. Perhaps the 10 year events will stick around but I am thinking that the 20^th and 30^th ones will eventually become a thing of the past. Just saying.

September

September started with the great news that Niels passed part I of the NBDE (National Board of Dentistry Examination, becasue I know you were wondering). In a previous post I celebrated the milestone of him just taking the dang thing, but I figured we shouldn’t get too rowdy until the results came back even though I knew he’d be fine. I'm so proud of him and it definitely feels good to officially be more than half way through this chapter of life we call dental school.

Both of us are especially enjoying the additional time he has after school these days now that he is in his third year and is mostly in the clinic working on patients. That basically means a decrease in tests and homework, and an increase of interesting patient/procedure stories. One of my favorites so far is when he had to extract a man's front tooth because there was no way to save it and when he was all done with the procedure the patient looked at him with an extremely puzzled face wondering where his replacement tooth was. Um, there was no replacement tooth to put in … poor guy.

I think I may have mentioned before that I kind of like my nieces. Avery, the youngest of the brood turned 3 last month. This kid makes us laugh nonstop and usually without even saying anything. We just look at her mischievous eyes and can tell she is always plotting something in her little head. It is so interesting how siblings grow up in the same home with the same parents and have completely different personalities. It has been so fun to watch these girls grow up. Unfortunately, it’s happening way too quickly but word on the street is that’s how it happens. I guess we will experience that for ourselves pretty soon.



September equals fabulous soccer weather in Las Vegas so we have enjoyed going out to a few of the girls’ soccer games. Sydney has played for a few years now and is really becoming quite aggressive. It has been fun to watch her team advance from all of them huddling around the ball a few years ago, to actually spreading out and having strategies and plays.

Now Taylor usually does dancing/acting classes but decided to try her feet at co-ed soccer this season. She's doing great, but I can't help smiling when she runs with her hands out like a dancer and occasionally calls her uniform her costume.

We also took 8 hours of "prepared" childbirth classes. They were worthwhile-ish but I am not sure how helpful they were for me since I had read about most of the content they were teaching or I had heard about it from friends. However it was nice to be able to ask the nurses questions and I also think it was good for Niels to learn more about the whole process. AND he got to learn awesome skills like swaddling.

One of the funnier memories of the class is when we got to tour the hospital and more specifically the delivery rooms. We walked in with our group and the nurses started pointing out all the amenites, the crazy amounts of machines and the stale hospital bed. I got slightly misty-eyed and then I looked at Niels and his eyes were somewhat frothy as well. When we compared notes later that night we discovered that we were both emotional for two completely different reasons. I told him that the tour kind of scared me and gave me anxiety becasue I was envisoning myself giving birth the entire time and he laughed and said he that he was emotional because he was excited. Classic.

FAIL blog

I get frustrated when I neglect the blog and then feel like I don’t even know where to start and how far back to go when I finally catch the wild hair to update. I feel silly for going back a few months because bc by then most things are not all that newsworthy anymore. And then I begin to argue with myself about why we even have a blog. I say, “Self, we really aren’t that interesting. Maybe I should dump this thing.” But then self rebuttals and convinces me that we are having a child any day now and cute children ensure fresh blog content regularly. Self wins debate. Let’s just hope she’s cute, and not just that motherly bias kind of cute.

So until our little content maker arrives in t-minus any day now, I will dig into the archives and post some of our latest happenings and whereabouts.