Trip to Indiana, Part 3

We woke up Wednesday morning (after the fifth straight night of not sleeping through the night) and spent some time visiting with Papaw and Ruth before we all dispersed to go our separate ways. Adelaida looked smaller than ever with Papaw's big hand holding her!



Rachel Murphy left that afternoon to drive back to Ohio and Adelaida and I left to visit Karen and Marcus in Illinois. The drive to Illinois was easy--Adelaida slept and I stayed awake--and we had a nice relaxing evening with Karen and Marcus. I got to meet several of Karen's friends, who were intrigued by (and maybe a little scared of) childbirth. I revealed to them most of the gory details, and hope I didn't scare them or Karen too much! (Just remember, the pain is temporary and it's all worth it when you hold your little one for the first time!)

We spent Thursday morning catching up, since we hadn't seen each other in six life-altering months, then the three of us (Karen, Adelaida, and I) drove back to Indiana. We hung around the house with Mom and Mikel for a few hours, where we met David and Patsy, who had come to pick up Karen for Easter weekend. Mom and Mikel had other obligations for the evening, but David and Patsy were wonderful enough to take Karen and me out to dinner (although I'm sure they really wanted to practice their grandparent skills out on Adelaida!). Adelaida got a little fussy during dinner and David insisted on walking with her while I continued eating--and she loved it! David left the table with Adelaida and came back ten minutes later with Adelaida fast asleep on his chest. Aren't babies supposed to be good judges of character? Well, I guess that means David is a good guy after all!

After dinner, I briefly stopped by Mom and Mikel's neighbor's house, where they were having a henna party--the first of several events for their daughter's wedding that weekend. Mom and Mikel both got henna tattoos on their hands and had a great time visiting with their neighbors.



Friday was a relaxing day for me and Adelaida, although Mom and Mikel had an exciting day attending more wedding festivities. The wedding was a traditional Indian wedding, with many traditional Indian festivities. Eager to embrace the Indian culture, both Mom and Mikel wore traditional Indian clothing to all of the wedding events (four different sets of clothes for four different events). The clothes were beautiful, with intricate hand-sewn beadwork and matching jewelery, and Mom and Mikel were so gorgeous in them!

Trip to Indiana, Part 2

The next day was Sunday, and after a night of interrupted sleep, we woke up and had breakfast with the family (thanks Mikel!). I dressed Adelaida in her fanciest little pink dress with lace and we all went to church together. I had planned to put Adelaida in the nursery during church, but after vehement protests from relatives who don't get to see her often enough, decided to take her in to the service with us. She spent the entire service awake, mostly on Auntie Rachel Murphy's lap (although I think Uncle BJ got to hold her for a few minutes).

The service was about an hour long and she was silent and happy for the first forty-five minutes. With about fifteen minutes left in the sermon, she decided that she could add to the sermon and started babbling happily. She didn't quite drown out the minister, but several people around us were watching her and smiling. This only lasted about ten minutes and she let the minister finish his sermon in peace.

After church, we went out to eat and said goodbye to Uncle BJ, who had to drive back to Ohio so he could go to work on Monday.

The rest of us (Mikel, Mom, Rachel Murphy, Adelaida, and I) went home to quickly change clothes, then drove down to southern Indiana to see Adelaida's Greatgrandmother Rawlinson, Auntie Rachel Rawlinson, Uncle Bill, and Billy, none of whom had yet met Adelaida. We had hoped that the Rawlinson crew would be able to drive up to Greenwood for the gathering on Saturday, but they had other obligations and weren't able to make it, so we drove down to see them on Sunday.

After sitting around talking for a while, we went out to eat at Sandy's Pizza, arguably the best pizza in the greater Fort Branch metropolitan area! We had a great time visiting with Rachel, Bill, and Billy, but still had a long drive ahead of us, so headed home after dinner. Adelaida was great in the car, sleeping for both of the long drives. She also sported a Pebbles hairdo with her new ladybug hair clip (thanks Auntie Rachel Rawlinson!).



Monday and Tuesday were relaxing days. Rachel Murphy, Mom, Adelaida, and I all slept in both days (which I really needed after two more nights of Adelaida waking up!), then ran errands around town, including testing and finally purchasing a sewing machine for Mom, buying golden sandals for an Indian wedding, searching unsuccessfully for scissor-type cuticle nippers, buying an adorable swimsuit for Adelaida, and getting pedicures (for Mom and me) and a manicure (for Rachel). We had a great, relaxing time together.

Monday evening Rachel Murphy, Adelaida, and I met Dad, Mary Jo, and Annabelle at the mall for a classic Easter event: taking a picture sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap. I'm not entirely sure why kids sit on the Easter Bunny's lap (it's not like the kids tell him what they want for the holiday, like they do with Santa!), but it seems to be a strong tradition in Indiana, so we dutifully paid exhorbitant prices to get a single picture of Adelaida with the Easter Bunny. Even Annabelle, who confided to us that the Easter Bunny is just a man in a bunny suit (the real Easter Bunny lives at the South Pole), was willing to sit on his lap for a quick photo. (Note: the Easter Bunny's bow was nicely tied just moments before this photo was taken!)

After the obligatory Easter Bunny photo, we all went out to dinner, then went back to Dad's house to talk after dinner. Annabelle is 5 years old and was quite interested in Adelaida. She was kind enough to share all of her baby toys with Adelaida and seemed to enjoy watching her play.


Tuesday evening, Mom, Mikel, Rachel Murphy, Adelaida, and I journeyed down to Bloomington to see Michael and Sami and to eat at Lennie's (Michael and Sami's restaurant and one of my favorite places to eat!). Sami gave us a tour of the restaurant, including Michael's four pieces of art that were displayed in the restaurant's Staff Art display. We again had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed the company all around the table!




By Tuesday evening, we had already had a very full trip, but the visit wasn't yet half over! I'll write more about the rest of the trip in future posts.

Trip to Indiana, Part 1

Adelaida and I recently traveled to Indiana, to give my family a chance to spend some time with their newest niece/granddaughter/great-granddaughter/cousin/etc. Although we've already had visits from Nonna and Poppa, Grandpa Steve and Grandma Mary Jo, and Auntie Rachel Murphy, several of Adelaida's relatives had never seen her before.

The trip began with several complete strangers going out of their way to help us through the airport, as I was traveling with Adelaida and all of her gear by myself. The TSA security guards in Albuquerque were particularly helpful, carrying Adelaida's carseat through the security line for me, collecting all of our belongings (carseat, shoes, laptop, diaper bag, liquids, and so much more!) off the x-ray conveyor, and letting me sit in a little room to get everything back together once we were through security. The kindness continued with the Southwest gate agents and flight crew, who were all extremely helpful in getting us and all of our gear on the plane and settled.

We had two flights to Indiana (through Denver); the first (shorter) flight was mostly empty and Adelaida sat in her carseat the entire flight. The only sounds she made on that flight were coos and a few laughs, and she made friends with everyone around us. The second (longer) flight was overbooked, so Adelaida rode on in a carrier on my chest. She did well on this flight as well, sleeping most of the trip, but woke up just before we landed and was not happy to be confined to one spot. Fortunately, she only cried for about fifteen minutes and was then her happy self again.

We arrived in Indiana on a Friday afternoon, and Adelaida's Auntie Rachel and Uncle BJ arrived from Ohio just a few hours later. We all went out to dinner with Grandpa Steve and Grandma Mary Jo, then talked and played with Adelaida late into the night.

The next morning was a time for Adelaida to spend with her Nonna while I help Mikel stain the deck--a surprisingly tiring process. We finished just in time for a quick shower before family began arriving for a "meet Adelaida" party. In attendance were my mom and Mikel, Michael and Sami, Rachel and BJ, Rob and Laura, Amanda, and Melanie. It was a beautiful Midwest spring day, so we spent most of the afternoon sitting out in the yard, where Adelaida had her first feet-on-grass experience. This was also the inspiration for Adelaida's first song, composed by Auntie Rachel Murphy (with help from Uncle BJ and cousins Melanie and Amanda). I've included the lyrics here, and it is sung to the tune of Alouette (a disturbing French song about plucking the feathers off a skylark in preparation for eating it!):

Adelaida, little Adelaida
Adelaida, your hair is so big!
You like to play in the grass
In sunny Indiana
Your mom should bring you back to us
So we can love you more!




As the day waned, so did Adelaida's energy. We migrated inside and sat around talking for hours. Adelaida spent most of the time (about two hours!) sleeping on her Uncle Michael's chest. She looked so comfortable on him, and he was completely at ease with her--it was quite a beautiful sight!








We had all had a long day and most of us slept well that night. Whether it was the long nap she had on Uncle Michael's chest just before bed, the time change, or the new environment, Adelaida was not one who slept well. She woke up crying once that night, which is not too unusual (she usually wakes up in the middle of the night about twice a week and sleeps through the night the rest of the time). I fed her, changed her, and she went right back to sleep. However, it turned out that this was a regression that continued throughout the Indiana trip, progressing to Adelaida waking up three to four times each of the last four nights we were there!

Bath Time!

Several of Adelaida's activities happen solely or primarily with me--things like nursing, getting dressed in the mornings, and playing during the day. Dale and I both wanted him to have some special times with Adelaida as well, so Dale volunteered to be Adelaida's primary bath-giver.



He bathes her twice a week in the evenings, using an infant tub inside the regular bathtub. She is still too small for the infant tub, so ends up getting sliding down the tub pretty frequently. Dale has to set her upright periodically during the bath.

He puts only a small amount of water in the bathtub, then pours warm water over her to keep her warm. Adelaida spends most of her bathtime just looking at Dale, and has recently started splashing in the bath as well. She definitely enjoys her baths...
















...right up to the point that she gets out of the tub and Dale wraps her in her flower blanket. Fortunately, the crying is very temporary and she is soon her happy self again.

After her bath is over, Dale dutifully puts baby lotion on her face, puts her diaper on, dresses her for bed, and brushes her hair--which results in her crazy hair being slicked down on her head for at least a few minutes.



I've only bathed Adelaida a few times--when we were in Salt Lake City, twice in Indiana, and once when Dale was working late. Every time I do, I conveniently forget to brush her hair. I think she likes having crazy hair :)












18 Apr 2009 Update: Adelaida has now outgrown her baby bath (or rather, she still hasn't grown into it and it is too much trouble to keep her upright), so we stopped using it. She now lays down in the tub during bathtime on a towel in the tub. She seems to like this, as she can wave her hands and splash herself during the bath. She also has a tendency to miss the water and hit herself instead!

Salt Lake City

Disclaimer: This blog post is not about Adelaida. I may mention her a few times in passing, but the story here will not revolve around her. Feel free to stop reading now if you like.

When I set up this blog a few months ago, I vowed to keep it up with frequent posts--my goal was an average of two posts a week. Looking over the blog now, I see I've only written three posts in almost four weeks! It isn't that I don't have anything to write about, but rather that I can't seem to find the time to write. With Adelaida, chemistry, work, rental properties, travel, visitors, cleaning, cooking, laundry, and so much more to keep me busy, taking ten minutes to write a blog post has been hard to justify. For that, I apologize to you, my faithful reader!

One of the things that has kept me so busy for the past month or so has been preparing for the American Chemical Society (ACS) national meeting. The ACS is the nation's largest society for chemists; they hold national meetings twice a year and generally attract 12 000 to 20 000 attendees for each meeting.

This year, my advisor's PhD advisor (my academic "grandfather") was being honored by the ACS for his "distinguished service in the advancement of inorganic chemistry" and my advisor put together a symposium within the national meeting to celebrate the award. The other grad students in our lab and I saw this as a great opportunity to travel to Salt Lake City, to present our research at a national meeting, and to meet people who might be interested in giving us jobs one day. So, our entire lab (my advisor, the lab's staff scientist, the lab's postdoc, and all five grad students) traveled to Salt Lake City for a week of chemistry lectures, posters, and discussions.

Not wanting to leave a three-month-old baby at home for a week, I took Adelaida with me, and my mom met us in Salt Lake City to babysit for Adelaida while I went to the conference. I won't bore you all with the chemistry details, but did have a fabulous time, including two great poster sessions and several discussions with people who were interested in the research I presented ("Computational Insights into Palladium-Hydride Bond Polarization and Molecular Oxygen Insertion").

I was a little apprehensive about driving 650 miles with a baby, but it actually turned out to be quite easy. My friend Diane, who is also the post-doc in our lab, bravely agreed to travel with us, and we took a leisurely two days to drive up to Salt Lake City and two days to drive back. Adelaida was an angel in the car, falling asleep within two minutes each time we put her in the car. Acutally, the trip was going so well that on the second day of driving to Salt Lake City, we stopped by Utah's Arches National Park for a couple of short hikes around the arches, which were absolutely beautiful.

Highlights of our time in Salt Lake City included:

Dinner on Saturday night with the entire group, at which our waiter Adam serenaded Rick with an impressive rendition of a song that wasn't "Happy Birthday."


Touring Temple Square. The weather wasn't the best (rainy-snowy, cold, and overcast), but the grounds were beautiful and the tour was interesting.


Driving out to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, where we tasted the water (yup, it's salty!) and had a close encounter with a group of American bison.


All in all, it was a great trip and made me much more confident that I can successfully travel to Indiana with Adelaida this weekend.

Three Months Old

Adelaida is now three months old -- a whole quarter of a year has passed since she was born! It's hard to believe sometimes how much she has grown. As promised, here are pictures of her at various ages:

At four days old, Dale and I were still trying to figure out how to be parents and Adelaida was figuring out how to be a baby. We took pictures of her in this dress because it was one of the only outfits that fit her!


At one month old, we were much more comfortable living our regular lives--eating, sleeping, buying groceries, and even doing laundry--with Adelaida in tow.


Two months old was a time of discovery for Adelaida. She was just learning to grasp things with her hands and was getting better at lifting her head up while on her tummy.


Three months has turned out to be a time of finding her voice. She likes to hum, coo, gaa, and make other adorable baby noises, adding to her previous vocabulary of grunts and squeaks. She especially enjoys "talking" to things with faces--people, dogs, stuffed animals, and pictures in books.


Thanks again to Connor's parents for the serial pictures idea :)

Four Generations of First-Born Daughters

Adelaida had two very special visitors this week: her Nonna (my mom) and her GG (my grandma Betty). Adelaida enjoyed playing with her Nonna and GG, and I'm pretty sure Nonna and GG enjoyed playing with Adelaida :)





Having them here was especially wonderful for me, as I'm trying to finish a poster that I'll be presenting at a conference in March. I was able to get a lot of work done while they kept Adelaida occupied during the day, and they were a wonderful help with folding laundry and preparing dinner!







The week was full of fun activities, most of which focused on Adelaida. We played with her on her turtle play mat, took a couple of walks in the neighborhood, and introduced her to a mylar balloon tied to her ankle (more on that later). We also introduced GG to sushi on Saturday night, when we met some friends for dinner (both Adelaida and 4-month-old Shreya were wonderful restaurant patrons and weren't at all scared by the sudden heat from the Teppan grill's roaring flames).

Both Nonna and GG were amazed at how much Adelaida changed just in the few days they were with her--most notably, she really increased her vocabulary (adding "goo" "gaa" "uhh" "ohh" and "baa" to her previously limited vocabulary of "caa" and "ahh"). Adelaida really enjoyed making sounds this week and would lay on her changing table or turtle play mat and "talk" for ten minutes at a time.

Nonna and GG also provided Dale and me with a much-appreciated evening out. We went to see Comedy of Errors on Sunday afternoon, then stayed out for a wonderful dinner of prosciutto-wrapped scallops at Artichoke Cafe. Thanks GG and Nonna!

The highlight of the visit was our opportunity to take a picture of four generations of first-born daughters--a pretty special picture!

A Growing Girl

Adelaida at 2 weeks old, wearing a cute little pink dress that reached down to her ankles:


Adelaida at 10 weeks old, wearing that same cute little pink dress, that now is more like a mini-skirt:


She's growing!

Trip to Colorado, Part 2

We loaded up all of our gear on Sunday morning and drove around the Rockies and up to Loveland to spend time with our family there. We stayed with Charlotte, who was amazed at how much Adelaida had grown in the eight weeks since she'd seen her last (more on that in a future post!).


We spent a nice, relaxing afternoon that included a game of cards for the adults. About a quarter of the way into the game, Dale was losing horrendously to Charlotte (and I wasn't far behind her), so he paused the game to go get his "good luck charm." She had just woken up from a nap and was eager to help him play cards, but she must not have known the rules of the game, because Dale never did catch up to us.

We met Dale's extended family for dinner: his aunt Karen, aunt Janet, uncle Steve, cousin Kris, cousin-in-law Steph, and second cousin(?) Kadan all went out to dinner with us. Kadan is five months old and is so big compared to Adelaida! He is a beautiful baby and his favorite activities seem to be grinning and jumping. He would stand on his dad's or mom's legs and jump and jump and jump and jump... for what seemed like hours! The two babies were passed around all evening and were just as happy as they could be.

Here are some pictures from dinner:
Aunt Janet holding Adelaida

Aunt Karen holding Adelaida

Kadan, with Steph and Kris

The two babies eyeing each other


We ate breakfast at Schmidt's (Dale's favorite breakfast restaurant), then packed up our things and drove back to Denver. We were sad to leave the Mazda 5 (what a great vehicle!), but happy to fly back to Albuquerque and rescue the pups from the kennel. We didn't have any problems flying with Adelaida, and I now feel much more comfortable about our upcoming trip to Indiana, when I'll be flying with her by myself.

Trip to Colorado, Part 1

Dale and I traveled to Colorado this past weekend with Adelaida. It was her first trip on an airplane and her first out-of-state experience. It was a short trip--only 2 1/2 days--but a fun, busy trip and Adelaida got to meet several new people.

Adelaida traveled beautifully on the plane. She was a little fussy before takeoff (because she was hungry!), so I fed her and she slept the rest of the ride in her carseat. Dale carried her onto the plane and immediately became irresistible to all of the women (and a couple of the men!) we passed walking down the aisle. She woke up when we got to Denver, so Dale showed her how to play SuperBaby by helping her "fly" in the front of the airport train.

From the Denver airport, we got a rental car (incidentally, we fell in love with the Mazda 5--the sliding rear doors are awesome for a carseat!) and drove to a ski resort town on the west side of the Rockies to stay with some friends. Dave and Brooke have three little girls: Elise is 4 1/2, Alexa is 3, and Anna is 1 1/2. Elise (in purple and black) and Alex (in blue and white) were fascinated by Adelaida and very gentle with her. We know that Adelaida will have lots of fun playing with the older girls in a few years!

With three young girls of his own, we weren't surprised that Dave was a master of multi-tasking, able to hold Adelaida and Anna while helping Anna drink out of a big-girl cup and playing the role of "Son" to Alex's "Mommy" in "pretend."




Despite the fact that Anna and Elise both came down with the flu and got sick while we were visiting, we really enjoyed spending time with Dave and Brooke (and miraculously didn't catch the stomach flu ourselves). Dale especially enjoyed wrestling with the older two girls, and Alex cast me in the role of "Lion" in a game of pretend that must have lasted at least two hours!

After a fun day with friends on Saturday, we packed all of our gear back into the Mazda 5 (which we love!) and drove around the mountains to Loveland for some time with family--which will be recounted in a future post.