The Papoose is loose!

Violet has been quite vocal and active, I am happy to report! She had her 2 month appointment today. (She is 2 months today!)






We have her on a very delayed vaccination schedule and her one shot in her leg did not phase her at all. She didn't even flinch. Not only am I shocked by this, but I am very proud of my tough little lady! The stats: 11 lbs and 23 in long. How about them apples?! We spoke about baby-led weaning, too. That won't start until she is 6 months old anyway. For those not in the know, this has to do with consuming solids and I will still be BFing.

Hanging out with Daddy, happy as can be at her appt.!






I really thought the questions and unsolicited advice would stop once she was born, since it seemed neverending while I was pregnant, but I was dead wrong! Here's the big one - "How is she sleeping?" - that I will now answer: On her back, with her eyes closed. ::blinkblink::
(P.S. on the whole sleeping deal - V laughs, coos, babbles & smiles in her sleep a lot!)

By the way, we have been cloth diapering and it is much easier than I had originally anticipated. Such a relief. So we are saving money and the environment, all while V is sitting pretty in her cute little FuzziBunz, SwaddleBees EcoNappis, etc. Love it!
I guess I am becoming a crunchy granola mama! Breastfeeding, babywearing (yep, we have a sling, an organic Ergo and a Moby!) cloth diapering mama...then hopefully baby-led weaning as I've stated earlier. Maybe I should get her an amber teething necklace and call it a day (or do an at-home water birth for future baby Hursts!) Okay so maybe not? But I have been reading up on infant potty training. Who knows? We may try that, too?


Eek! Don't mind my tired, blemished, non-made up, new mom face! :P

On another note, Santa is visiting our neighborhood on a train tomorrow, so we are going to try to take a few snapshots and we really hope that it snows. There is snow on the ground in our backyard right now. Just a light dusting, but still, it is snow! This weekend or next, we also plan on putting up Violet's first Christmas tree, while watching some claymation holiday specials and sipping on hot cocoa. (Loaded with marshmallows, of course!)


P.S. Still figuring out and breaking in the new camera, so a lot of the photos and all of the videos are still from my oldie (but goodie.) We're getting there, folks! :)




This is what Violet & Daddy look like when they watch The Walking Dead. Mike is somehow immune, but Violet, apparently, was fresh zombie meat!

Eight Weeks and Something to Say

Violet turned 8 weeks old last Sunday (11/28). She's got a lot on her mind, issues she's very passionate about. The other day she said to me, "Hey, I see all these YouTube people talkin', when do I get my shot?" Well here's your shot, kid.



Here's a compilation where we caught Violet talking to Momma / Daddy / the camera / her stripes (really anyone who would listen) in the eighth week of her life.

<4

Black Friday Champion

Without wholly intending to, I joined the masses in this retail mania. Good thing I did because I ended up receiving the 'Most Winning-est Consumer' award for my efforts. There wasn't any super-sale I was chasing, just a few good buys and a well placed acid reflux attack to rip me out of bed in the early morning.

It started in flames.
I have frequent discomfort from acid reflux, but this was a full-on attack. It felt like a dozen lava monsters were trying to climb out of my throat. But like lobsters in a bucket, any time one got close to escaping it was dragged down by other lava monsters, clawing my esophagus the whole way. Once I semi-recovered and cleared my head I hit the bricks.

Onward to Target.
Got a nice $70 deal on a 2 TB hard drive. I figure with our new D-SLR, 14 MP pictures and 1080p video will eat up space fast. I'm always on the lookout for bargain storage and backups, backups backups!

I got my eye on you Gamestop.
I visited the store for some $15 PS3 games. It was obvious they were being paid to hype XBox Kinect. And they did it passively. The employees chattered about how much they wanted one in between register transactions and in a grand show the manager took the floor to announce the going rate on ebay. The funny thing was, they claimed to be sold-out. I know Target and another Gamestop less than 1 mile away had piles of Kinects 6-foot high. So what's your game Store #4913?

And onto Kohl's.
I finished the morning with a trip to Kohl's for a nice winter jacket for Momma. Then without further delay I was headed back home, with deals in hand and only a slight echo of the lava monsters ringing in my throat.

Violet's First Thanksgiving

Ahhh the great bird day, where Lea and I get to live a little like Violet by stuffing our faces, napping, then heading back for leftovers. Violet had a blast. She got a kick out of seeing pilgrims and couldn't get over the 'weediculous' (her words) idea of wearing your belt on your hat.

Violet started off the day lounging and being cute. I walked in on Lea explaining what a turkey was. Quickly, I interrupted the lesson. My kid has to hit the ground running, so I skipped the turkey talk and jumped right into explaining the turducken.

Enough napping in this house, let's go nap at GiGi's house. Violet slept through our Thanksgiving feast (she would have to wait a few hours for it to show up in Momma's milk). Of course there was turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and slaw, in addition to the debut of Lea's GF apple sausage stuffing. All AWESOME. To put a Frable appropriate cap on the dinner, Lea pulled out her 'Fire Marshall Bill' face and didn't stop till Uncle Thom did a spit-take, then vomm'd in his mouth. Time for Violet to continue napping through the day, this time by the auxiliary Christmas tree.

After all this excitement we headed back home for some quality time. Violet tasted some turkey. We watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. Now, on the eve of Black Friday, we can all relax. For the time, Violet's precious mind is invincible to the evil grasp of advertising. On future Black Fridays I'm sure I'll be planning covert ops to retrieve the latest tickle-me-furby or silly-hamsters or cabbage-patch-elmo.

<4

Parents = Automatically Unhip

I was watching Sesame Street with Violet this morning. At this time, I also realized that becoming a parent has automatically made me unhip. In fact, I am so unhip, it's a wonder that my ass doesn't fall off! (I am slapping my knee right now, geezer style. Har har.) This is what I saw on Sesame Street. It has really gotten 'street' since I watched it last.

'Zat you Santa Claus?

'Tis the Christmas season. The boxes are out of storage and the lights are strung on the roof. The holiday has overcome Thanksgiving and begun encroaching on Halloween. As we were unpacking the Christmas decorations and watching some old stand-up comedy, Violet and I had the following conversation (paraphrased below).

V:  haaaaaaaahhmmmm (Hey who's that?)
M:  Who?  Me?
V:  ahh ahhhhzzz (No, the guy in the red suit.)
M:  Honey that is Eddy Murphy. We're watching an old tape of his stand-up.
V:  thig-g-g-g-g G-G-G-Gh (THE ONE IN THE Hat!)
M:  This is Santa Claus.  He brings toys to good children every Christmas Eve.
V:  h-rumph (Toys you say? I must meet this man.)

And so the journey began.  We set out to meet this Santa Claus Saturday (11/20) afternoon, unsure of the mall traffic we'd face. We were also unsure of what Violet would think of her first encounter with Santa Claus or her first shopping trip.

Santa was so happy to see Violet. And Violet was happy to see Santa. Through Santa's magic powers he was able to understand what Violet wanted for Christmas.

Afterwards we went shopping.  Violet showed us when she'd had enough of the mall by dropping a bomb in the seat of her pants. I decided to give changing her in our Honda Element a shot, while Lea stopped into a shop to make an exchange. I was scared to see how a 350 lb. man would fit in the back of this car. There was plenty of space for me without having to hang out of the car; and the way the seats reclined, it made for the perfect changing table. Who knew? Now I do. Now you do. Doo doo.

Su-su-sudio!!!

Okay, so I feel that I have to explain the whole Phil Collins thing. At the end of the video Mike posted in the previous blog entry, there's a clip from the song, "Sussudio." That was not just for your entertainment, people. We say this everytime our child sneezes. Yup. You heard it right. Instead of saying "God Bless You" this is what we say. We are not religious, so we don't want to kid ourselves here. (Or kid our kid.) We sometimes say "gesundheit" which is German for "good health." Mike found this all pretty ridiculous and started saying "sussudio" instead. It is just as ridiculous! So that is what we are going with. I don't care to get into a religious debate here, so I am leaving it at that.

Other random fun things :

*We update Violet's picture album as often as we can. So if you look to the left, you can click on her album and see new pictures fairly often.
New, higher quality pictures and video are on the way! (Last video was taken in the dark and I didn't even fix my camera settings accordingly...she was smiling! I was in a hurry!)
I know that she will be smiling more often and giggling and cooing, but I am a first-timer here and every first moment counts!

*We listen to super cool music. If you want to hear some random picks of ours, go crazy! (Also on side of page) We did not choose the option to have a song automatically start up when you come to our page. We find it slightly startling and forceful. Okay that last line was a bit harsh. We are actually just easily startled by LOUD NOISES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Right now, Violet's two favorite songs are the Hokey Pokey and Winter Wonderland (as sung by the Eurythmics...oh that Annie Lennox!)


*Mike says some pretty weirdo things to her, by the way. This will not come as a surprise to many, but I thought I would share just a few of them here:

-Dear Santa, please give me stripes for Christmas. No, not the Bill Murray movie Stripes, but the actual pattern. Ten feet tall, please.

-Listen Violet, sometimes the "k" at the beginning of a word is silent. DON'T ASK ME WHY! JUST DO IT!!! (The part in caps was totally said in a typical Brooklyn accent, by the way)

-We need to go to Old Country Buffet for the Early Bird special and wear large jackets so we can stuff them with chicken fingers that we can take home to eat later. We need to get a goat whose milk is honey mustard. Did you know that honey mustard is just honey and mustard?

-Watch the head, kid! You'd think you were at an Iron Maiden show!

-I think your diaper needs a therapist.

Again, these are just the few that I can remember (I have to write them down.) It's just weird, funny but cute things I just happen to overhear him talking to her about.

Enough random for now. I shall leave you with the sneeze song.