First Bath

The great thing about a new baby is that there are a lot of "firsts"; this weekend was the first bath, which was really exciting for all of us :-) There was a little hammock for the mini-tub so she wouldn't drown, which was assuring for mom... And the sea turtle that functions as a thermometer made sure that the water was the right temperature, it beeps otherwise. Anouk kinda liked it at first, but then decided that dirty is better than wet..... and started crying like there is no tomorrow. The frog towel afterward felt great though.


We also drove down to Santa Cruz to meet up with Ross, Roxanne and John, who were doing a race the next day. Our first (!) road trip went well, although the traffic jam messed up the feeding schedule, much to Anouk's disliking. But she had fun walking around, we went up to the lighthouse, and we even saw a whale really close to the coast, very cool.


That night, she was not letting us sleep though :-( But she has slept through 2 nights so far, giving Sabine 5-6 hours at night, which is really awesome.

Here are some more random happy and not-so-happy pictures (in her pink outfit!):





And some close-ups:

Active

Anouk is starting to get a little more active, she wakes up and opens her eyes between feedings and wants to be held. If not, she threatens with crying, and is serious about it :-) She is trying to get used to the day rhythm instead of nocturnal, but it will take a while. She usually calms down if I walk around with her and rock her, or if Sabine holds her close. But enough talk, pictures say more than words:

First week

Now that little Anouk is over 1 week old, it is a new occasion to celebrate and to post some more pictures...... Her facial expressions are priceless, it is hard to catch them on camera because they change rapidly:

Curious....

Skeptical.....

Surprised.....

One day she was wearing the onesies (underwear) that Sarah made for her during the baby shower:

It was hard to go to work today, I didn't want to leave my "girls" behind. But the good thing was that they were excited when I got back: I got to change Anouk's diaper, hold her, stop her crying, it was awesome....... I also spent some time holding her before she was fed, and she seemed to enjoy that (viewer discretion advised.... :-))

More pictures

One morning, Anouk was very awake, so we decided to have her sleep in a little more by "skin-to-skin", which seems to be really good for the kid (for logical reasons, that is how they were raised back in the days....). It also makes for great pictures:




And of course, some more shots of her around the house. Last night was not too great, she was very active and cried a lot, but somehow we got her to sleep.

First trip

Today was the first time we took little Anouk out to explore the wide world. She enjoyed the ride to the Marina district in her cool little car seat. We put the car seat in the stroller and walked around to get some necessary nursing accessories. We had a latte in one of the coffee shops, and she slept through all of it. Then we drove to Crissy Field and showed her the Golden Gate Bridge and the skyline on a typical breezy San Francisco day. She acknowledged the beauty, but sleeping seemed a lot more interesting....




The loading and unloading was a lot easier than we thought, so we are now all set for all kinds of trips in the City etc. :-)

Of course, I have been taken a LOOOOOOT of pictures, here are some of the highlights:




Her crib seems a little big for now, but we really like it :-) Thanks, Reba.

Swaddling really makes her sleep better, even though she looks like a little burrito. Sabine has been breastfeeding her, which seems a little painful but is working. It helps with diaper changing, since it doesn't smell nearly as bad as formula. We are also using cloth diapers with plastic shells, and we wash them ourselves. I just finished the first load, and they came out clean. Whatever we can do to help the environment, so our daughter can also enjoy it:

My mom tells me that her living room looked the same when I was a kid, it is funny how some "old-fashioned" things are not as bad as we once thought. It takes about 100 years for a Pamper to be broken down in landfill.

More pictures soon :-)

Welcome Anouk

YAY!!!! Anouk was born 2 days ago, on April 6, at 12:34 in the afternoon, and mom and baby are doing great :-) It is the most awesome experience to see the actual delivery, even though it involves a lot of hard work and pain. But once she came out, hormones make you forget everything and you become the happiest person on the planet.


Anouk is obviously the cutest and most amazing baby on this planet, and everybody who said this earlier about their kid was clearly wrong..... :-) She measures 20 inches (50 cm) and weighs 7 lbs 3 oz (3270 grams), and she was born on her due date (we like punctuality).


After the successful delivery, we stayed in the hospital for another 2 days to make sure that everybody is healthy, and teach us basic baby-survival skills like swaddling, diaper-changing, breast-feeding etc. The staff was very thoughtful and supportive, and the food was good. I slept on a cot in the same room so I could spend the night with my two women :-) On the second night, they served a celebratory dinner with fillet mignon and tiramisu, which was really great. Unfortunately, none of the nurses wanted to come home with us, so now we are managing it on our own.....


We took her home in the car seat (mandatory), and now she is getting her portion of protein as I am writing this. We are obviously very excited, and we'll post a lot more pictures in the next few weeks.


Oh yeah, and some people make you think that kids only smile (you never see other pictures); this is not completely true:

Baby Shower

Our third and last baby shower (after my work's at our place and Sabine's at her office) was hosted by Shannon at our house. I was obviously a little nervous, since she asked me to be the photographer and it was ladies only, so I thought that there would be some silly baby-poop-guessing-games that I was going to be subjected to. In typical Shannon style, everything was taken care of, it felt like a catering service came in and took care of everything. And everything was in our preferred style, not over the top or extreme pink, thanks, Shannon :-) To make it a party, loft of sugar was brought in, including baby shower cup cakes and cookies the size of cakes.

Slowly but surely everybody gathered and after cookies and mimosas, the first game was played: guessing Sabine's belly's diameter with yarn. Most people were pretty close, except for Jen, who purposely over-guessed it to 'win' babysitting duty:


AD ended up winning the competition:


The next game was guessing famous people based on their baby pictures, which turned out to be fairly hard; Obama, Jimi Hendrix, Princess Di and Einstein were among the listings:


After all this excitement, everybody started concentrating on the paint-your-own-onesie, which was an excellent idea. We ended up with about 15 personalized little jumpsuits. But not even Eminem could distract people from their focus:

Erica in full focus.

Marie with her award-winning outfit, but she was disqualified for using stencils :-)

Jen giving the smile for the photo-opp.


Sabine started unpacking the insane amount of gifts:


We got a lot of blankets, clothes, baby necessities and books. Thanks to everyone for being so thoughtful; it's very much appreciated and we are very happy to have such great friends. At the end, we were treated to some more American culture with "Green eggs and ham" by Dr. Suess, read by Principal Steiner:


Now, the wait is on to welcome baby van der Sluis into this world.