Saturday, December 22, 2012

the end of october

Time for another week's pictures. We begin with a Sunday project: hand- and footprinting the baby. They either don't do this at our hospital or they snuck it in when we weren't paying attention, so we didn't get the opportunity to get Evan's prints for the baby book while we were there. Instead, I had to order a DIY kit from Amazon. I wouldn't have bothered, but there's a page for it in the baby book. Also, my footprints are in my old baby book, so I thought I should do it for Evan. Mine are labeled as being from when I was 11 days old. We did Evan's at 10 days old, and they look pretty similar.

I was rather apprehensive about the whole thing, not knowing whether the baby would cooperate or if we would end up with a huge mess and no usable prints. So I was really glad that Bonnie was there to help me. We stripped Evan down to his diaper, waited for him to fall asleep, and then Bonnie held him while I did the printing. It was good that I used the card stock that came with the kit rather than trying to do the prints directly on the baby book page, because there were some failed attempts before we got good ones that weren't smeared. The feet were actually relatively easy; it was the hands that were more tricky. We had to pry open his fists to press them to the ink pad, hold them that way without rubbing the ink off, and then press them to the paper before he could make fists again.

On the last hand, Bonnie got a little too excited at our success and let go for a second. When we looked back at Evan, he had an inky handprint in the middle of his face. Naturally, rather than cleaning him off right away, I ran and got the camera. I guess now we have an accurate idea of how big his hands were relative to his face!

After all that excitement, I was finishing the ink removal process and heard a dribbling sound. Evan's diaper was leaking... He got both Bonnie and the wood floor. Good thing baby pee is sterile.

302/366 the great handprinting caper


The ink experiments weren't the only events on Sunday. After that, we walked to Mitchell's again for ice cream with Bruce, Bonnie, Carmen, Dan, and Elsa. And then there was the final game of the World Series that night, when the Giants won over the Tigers. Evan was wearing his new Giants onesie for the occasion, but I didn't really get many pictures of him in it. I had to fix that on Monday. It was just as well; I probably wouldn't have picked a Giants onesie shot over the ink photo for my picture of the day on Sunday anyway.

303/366 hopping on the bandwagon


Tuesday's picture wasn't terribly day-specific. It was Steve's first full day back to work. (He had stayed home the previous morning and then gone to the office after Evan's appointment with the pediatrician.) Other than that, it was a pretty typical day. Evan ate and slept in the morning, Bruce and Bonnie came in the afternoon, and then they ended up holding Evan while he slept some more. The only pictures I took were of Evan napping in his bouncy seat. It's the bouncy seat that we gave Dan and Carmen when they had Elsa, and it's been quite handy for us too.

304/366 naps in the bouncy seat


Wednesday was Halloween! When I was pregnant, I made the decision that I was not going to buy a Halloween costume for Evan. After all, his due date was October 27, so I had no guarantee that he'd be home from the hospital or even born by Halloween. I had decided that we would just use the Baby Gap bear suit/outerwear that Evan had inherited from Elsa. It would be nice and warm, and it was close enough to being a costume. He ended up swimming in it—it's 0-3 month and he was still wearing newborn sizes—but he was pretty cute and cuddly. We had a photo shoot in his room, on the bean bag, and then we went to Dan and Carmen's Halloween pizza party that evening. Evan slept through the whole thing. Several of Elsa's little friends and their families came—all dressed as various animals, so Evan fit in well—and then they went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. We, on the other hand, took our sleepy bear back upstairs, saving the trick-or-treating for next year.

305/366 scary bear


Because Thursday was November 1, I took a break from the baby picture of the day so that I could do the calendar picture of the month. I was still firmly in baby mode, though, so the backdrop was one of Evan's swaddling blankets in his crib. That was when he was still small enough to be swaddled with blankets rather than the special swaddles...

306/366 november


I decided that it was time to get out for another walk on Friday, so I proposed a trip to Ritual for some coffee with Bruce and Bonnie. I broke out the Baby Bjorn for the first time and wore Evan all the way to the coffee shop before deciding to let Bonnie wear him for the walk back. He wasn't much more than 8 lbs at that point, but that was plenty of exertion for me for the time being. 

307/366 out and about


Saturday's picture was taken in the morning, while Evan and I were hanging out on the floor in his room. I propped him up with the Boppy pillow and took a few pictures while his eyes were open. I also got his umbilical cord stump in the shot. By the next morning, it had fallen off.

308/366 last day of the umbilical cord


That wraps up another week and another month. Here's the October mosaic. I like how the picture from Evan's birth ended up exactly in the middle.


2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed reading this post...took me right back to that exciting week with you kids. The inking of the hands and feet episode made me LOL again! I was just telling Tom and Gerri about that today and they thought was a hoot! I'll have to show them the picture. All these Evan pictures make me miss him even more. BSD

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  2. Wow! this is amazing! How special to see your little guy! You are quite creative with these pictures! Wonderful!
    Love,
    Marilyn

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