Long Overdue...Emilia at the Zoo

This post is incredibly overdue. But, in my defense, the end of the semester is crazy for any college student, but especially a full-time graduate student with an assistantship and a job as a full-time mom. And it doesn’t help matters that I felt compelled to get out holiday cards this year. I’ll try to keep this short and sweet, but I’m not promising anything.

I just wanted to include the picture above because it captures very nicely Emilia's self-soothing pose--left thumb in mouth, right hand twirling hair.


Emilia has been a lot of fun lately. She’s really into baskets these days (literally). In the photos below she demonstrates how a one-year-old gets out of her toy basket all by herself. Now I understand why she was always practicing that downward dog pose!



Here’s Emilia’s first encounter with snow. She didn’t quite know what to think, although it’s clear she didn’t like having a cold butt.

One belated piece of news to report is that Emilia said her first Spanish word! Most “words” in her repertoire so far either resemble English (i.e. “bah” for ball) or could go either way (i.e. “bah-bah” for bottle or biberón, “mama,” “papa,” “beh-beh” for baby or bebé, etc.). Emilia had learned to clap when we said “yay,” so Agustín decided to teach her to clap when we’d say “ole, ole, ole!” So now she does just that, but she also says “googly, googly, googly!” at the same time, sticking her tongue out just like she sees her dad doing when he says “ole, ole, ole!” It’s hilarious. And it’s also good exercise for her newly-liberated tongue (see October 1st post if you don’t know what I’m talking about).

This past weekend, my parents and Agustín and I took Emilia to the zoo for the first time. Somehow grandma decided it would be a good idea to show Emilia a soft, plush polar bear in the gift shop entrance as soon as we walked in. Emilia latched onto it for dear life and didn’t let go all day long. So her grandma had to buy the stuffed animal for her (“had to” is a bit deceiving if you saw how quickly grandma jumped at the opportunity). See Emilia with her new best friend (who grandpa quickly named Huggy Bear, which seems appropriate given Emilia’s obvious affection toward the toy) in the photos.


The above picture, which I like to call "Emilia with new friend watching fish" is one of my favorites. Here's hoping your 2008 is equally filled with good friends and a sense of wonder!

Cruisin' Like Crazy!

These past few weeks have been very hectic for me as the end of the semester looms, but it’s difficult to get overly stressed when I have a face like this to look at and an excuse to stop studying and play with Emilia when we’re home together and she’s not napping (which, of course, means I have to make naptime super productive!).

Emilia is “cruising” (walking around with the help of furniture) like crazy these days and loves pushing around the toy Agustin and I gave her for her birthday. She’s even doing “no hands” more often every day. For the most part, we manage to avoid a resultant bloody mouth (but she does seem to be pretty tough when it happens).

Emilia has finally grown into the hat and mittens Uncle Devin gave her for Christmas last year.

In other news, we had a bit of a snowstorm over the weekend. Not very big by Minnesota standards—six inches or so—but still the type where you have to start shoveling before it’s even done (that’s Agustín under all those clothes).

Happy Thanksgiving!

This has been a busy week, with Emilia’s birthday celebration on Tuesday and Thanksgiving festivities today. I wanted to post a few pictures from both events. Above our new little one-year-old tries out some of her birthday gifts with grandma. Emilia wasn’t quite sure what to do with the cake when we plopped it in front of her in one piece, but once I broke it up in small pieces, she scarfed it down in no time flat.


Here’s a cute photo I took of Little Miss Serious in the car on the way to grandma and grandpa’s for Thanksgiving.

And here’s Emilia enjoying “the game” with the boys (grandpa and Uncle Jordan).

As a final note, we are very thankful for the amazing first year we’ve had with Emilia in our lives. We hope you all have much to be thankful for as well!

The Story of Emilia's Birth

Above: Emilia shortly after birth under her oxygen hood (see below for one-year comparison photo)

Tomorrow is Emilia’s first birthday, which makes me feel the need to finally record my memory of her birth. I’ll try to include only the parts that make me look like a hero and Agustín look like a putz, just to fit the stereotypes. But honestly, my husband was as helpful as he could have been without actually giving birth himself.

One year ago this evening, after experiencing two days of increasingly frequent contractions, I said to Agustín around 7:00pm, “I think it’s time to go to the hospital now.” To which he responded, “Oh, now? I still have to shower.” (He’d been working around the house all day while I alternately worked desperately on finishing a final paper and lying in pain on the couch watching the only channel that Agustín had been able to program on our new TV—one football game after another.) On the way to the hospital, my contractions were exactly five minutes apart (which is when we were told to go to the hospital). Upon arrival I was dilated to six and got the epidural I requested an hour or so after check-in. All was good with the world for many hours as Agustín and I attempted to get some sleep in between frequent visits from the nurses to check my progress. In the early morning hours I was told to start pushing, which I did with such vehemence that Agustín told me later he was scared and surprised at just how intense it was (how did he think I’d push—daintily?). At first it seemed like all was going well, but after about a half hour of pushing the nurse realized the baby had turned sideways, so they made me lay on my side for an hour to try to turn the baby. By this time the epidural was wearing off, I was tired from the pushing and the fact I hadn’t been able to eat much before coming to the hospital, and the world was just a little less wonderful.

Luckily, this painful lying in wait turned the baby and we were back to pushing—hours of pushing. For some reason she wasn’t coming out as quickly as we’d initially expected. Meanwhile, my epidural was continuing to wear off and exhaustion was setting in; I swear I blacked out a little at the end of each push (I just remember briefly thinking, ‘Where am I?’ at the end of each contraction). After more than two additional hours of pushing, I finally convinced nurse #3 (funny, when the first one had to go home she was convinced I’d be delivering any minute) to get a doctor to assess whether they could use a vacuum on me (the modern-day equivalent of forceps). By this time they’d realized I had a temperature of 101 degrees, which supposedly meant I had gotten an infection in my uterus during the labor, so they forewarned me that the baby risked having an infection as well, and so they were going to take her away for monitoring right away. I think I was too exhausted to be very concerned, but they acted like it wasn’t a very big deal.

Finally a doctor (I think it was the third one I saw) came and decided it was indeed time for the vacuum. I thought that meant just another push or two, but I actually had many more contractions while they set things up, then even with the vacuum I had to push a half dozen or so more times. But she came out! Monday, November 20th at 9:32am, she finally arrived. Agustín says she looked a little sickly, and she supposedly also had a temperature of 101. I was too exhausted to notice or feel much of anything, so it was just kind of weird when they set her on my chest for a second and told me to kiss my daughter before they carted her off to the nursery.

With the help of an oxygen hood and an IV, Emilia gained her strength over the next few days and was able to be released from the hospital only 12 hours after I was released. We arrived home the night before Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow we plan to celebrate the special occasion with a small family gathering. I’ll post photos of the event. In the meantime, here's a photo of almost-one-year-old Emilia modeling her new winter coat.

A Swimming, Climbing Boogery Girl

Several weeks ago I reported that Emilia was not enjoying her swim lessons. Well, after she screamed through two lessons with her grandma, I decided to get into the water with her. Not one scream, which meant poor grandma had to sit on the sidelines and watch Emilia and I at swim lessons for the next several weeks. Today was the last class, which we had to miss because Emilia was too sick, but they’ve obviously paid off because she started blowing bubbles in the bathtub this week!

Not only has Emilia been sick, but our whole family has gotten the bug. First me, then Emilia, then Agustín. Thankfully I think we’re all in the recovery phase now. But it’s the first time Emilia has been sick, and although it’s just congestion, it’s been a pain. She has a face covered in snot whenever she wakes up and does not like the bulbous booger sucker one bit!

Emilia is constantly on her feet these days. Last week, when I found her pushing around the upside-down laundry basket, I realized it was maybe her way of saying, “Get me a walker toy, you cheapskate!” So, we borrowed this fun toy from a friend, and Emilia has been having a lot of fun with it. They say people resemble their pets, but I think in this case Emilia resembles her toy. Am I the only one who sees it?

Emilia has also become a big fan of climbing through, under and over furniture—the side table (see photo) and the legs of her high chair or the dining room chairs, in particular.

Emilia's Developing Personality

I’ve been a bit delinquent about posting lately, but our camera (or, more specifically, our batteries) have been on the fritz lately. So we’ve had to survive with only a few dozen photos of Emilia over the last week or two rather than a few hundred (remember, she’s our first child, which means we’re a little overzealous with the photos).

It’s been fun to watch Emilia’s personality revealing itself more every day. She seems to experience some separation anxiety when she’s tired, but apart from that she is extremely curious and quite outgoing. We are involved in a play group, parent/baby class, and story time. At all of these, Emilia spends most of her time exploring and paying little or no attention to mom. Yesterday she helped our teacher play the guitar; maybe she’ll turn out to have more musical talent than her parents—let’s hope! When we go shopping, she sits in the cart and smiles and often laughs out loud at anyone that will pay any attention to her. As a result, we get lots of comments on how cute she is and dumb questions like, "Is she always this good?" (anyone who's a parent knows why this is a dumb question--of course no baby is always an angel). Emilia is also learning to be tender and affectionate (something I just learned is natural around 12-18 months of age), but has trouble with the concept “gentle.” But she knows how to kiss Baby (her doll), kiss doggy (a toy), and kiss mommy—although she’s selective about when she chooses to do so. She's also very good at hugging.

Emilia continues to not want us to help her stand up, but instead prefers to do it on her own by pulling up on furniture or her toy basket.

This is a photo I just had to post because I think it’s so funny. No, we do not have Emilia begging in the streets and we don't give her alcohol. Agustín burns a DVD full of photos every month or two and sends it to his parents so they can see how Emilia is growing. This was the final photo on the last DVD we sent them. Agustín took it when I wasn’t home (no worries about the rubber band around her neck; he didn’t let her out of his sight for the few minutes she was wearing it). The sign says ‘Grandma and grandpa (this part is in Catalan, a language from northern Spain where Agustín’s parents are originally from), prepare my room, I’m coming for the holidays.’ That’s right, we’re headed to Spain just after Christmas for Emilia’s second visit. This trip should be a lot more interesting (read ‘difficult’) because Emilia has developed overly-good sleep habits and is incapable of sleeping in our arms. Not to mention the fact that she wasn’t mobile the last time we made the long flight (it’s actually three flights---argh!).

Spanish Visitors

This past weekend Agustín’s cousins Pilar and Emilio spent a few days with us. Pilar is living in Washington DC for a few months and her brother Emilio is visiting her right now. They are only our second Spanish visitors since we moved to the U.S. five years ago, and we had a lot of fun showing them around.

On Friday Agustín introduced them to suburbia with a long (and somewhat wet) bike ride around some local lakes and took them shopping for gifts to take home.

Saturday we went to the Gophers vs. NDSU football game then went to my parent’s house for dinner and a boat ride (boat rides, I guess I should say, as our visitors tested out the kayak and paddle boat as well); thankfully we had the most beautiful weather in weeks that very day.

Sunday we had burgers at a sports bar (one of Agustín’s favorite aspects of U.S. American culture) and took a very windy walk on Nicollet mall (in Minneapolis) before Emilio and Pilar headed back to DC.

No Longer A Baby?!

My how time flies! My mom is already asking if we have plans for Emilia’s first birthday (a little over a month from now) and last night we had dinner with a few other couples with babies—a five-month old and twin four-month olds—and someone commented that Emilia is “not really” a baby anymore. What?! Where did the time go? Actually though, she’s really at a fun age right now. She has several “words,” including mama, papa, do (dog), baba (bottle), bebe (baby), and ba (ball). She uses most of these rather indiscriminately, although baby is the one she uses most frequently and appropriately. This is because she has a doll (see photo above) we refer to as ‘baby.’ When I have my hands elbow-deep in dirty dishes and Emilia is attempting to open the still-not-baby-proofed cabinets, I say, “Where’s baby?” and she takes off in search of her baby. Can you really be a baby when you have your own baby? And last night she kept looking at the other little ones at the dinner party and saying “bebe” (pronounced beh-beh).

Anyway, here are a few pictures. My friend who works in children’s publishing sent us several bilingual board books (thanks again, Ann!). I think Emilia can read better than we think. Here she is eating the book entitled ‘Vamos a Comer!’ (Let’s Eat!) and throwing ‘Vamos a Disfrutar!’ (Let’s Have Fun!). Curious irony, no?

Downward Dog—Emilia now practices yoga daily.

And here she is acting innocent. Hmmm....

Emilia's Gets De-Tongue-Tied

Today Emilia had her first surgery. Thankfully it was a minor one. She was born tongue-tied, which means that the piece of skin that attaches the underside of her tongue to the bottom of her mouth extended almost to the tip of her tongue. Until Emilia was born, I never knew tongue-tied was a real medical condition. Anyway, it wasn’t causing her any problems (often tongue-tied babies have trouble breast feeding because they can’t latch right), but we were told it could cause speech impediments in the future and she wouldn’t be able to do things like lick an ice cream cone. So, because Agustín wants Emilia to be able to roll her Rs like a good little Spaniard and because it seems virtually impossible to be considered good parents by children’s standards if we deprive her of the ability to eat ice cream cones (not to mention it’s what the Ear, Nose, Throat specialist recommended), we scheduled her for a frenulectomy, and today was the big day.

So I packed Emilia chock-full of milk early this morning, then she had to fast for several hours before being put under anesthesia. Later we took a trip to the children’s day hospital where Emilia got all decked out in the cutest little hospital-blue pajamas I’ve ever seen and then had a ball playing with all the new toys in the patient waiting room. They gave me the option to be with her or not while the “sleep team” did their work, and I opted to stay with Emilia. She sat in my arms very calmly as they put a tiny plastic mask over her face and she nodded off.

I was whisked away to the family waiting room, where I guiltily indulged in a little non-academic reading for the first time. But before I even got half-way through my first ‘In Touch’ magazine (honestly, more Hollywood info than I ever needed), the doctor came in to tell me everything went great. He’d done a little clip and put in a few dissolvable stitches to prevent re-growth. Emilia was a little sad and cranky coming out of the anesthesia, but has been improving throughout the day. The doctor said the pain level will be like having a canker sore for a week or so. Thankfully Emilia is a big fan of grape-flavored Tylenol—the only thing that she doesn’t like about it is that the dosage is not nearly as much as she’d like.

I don’t have any photos from the hospital, but these are a few cute ones from the past week. Recent highlights include Emilia’s ability to clap and wave bye-bye (when she feels like it).

Emilia Reaches Double Digits!

This week Emilia reached the double digits—that’s right, she’s now 10 months old. Today she started swim lessons with grandma. Agustin and I were in favor of taking her to the pool and teaching her ourselves (after all, we both spent years competing with swim and water polo teams, as well as lifeguarding, not to mention that I also taught swim lessons in college). But we told grandma she was more than welcome to spend her money if she wanted to have this special bonding time with Emilia. Emilia cried through most of the first lesson, but we assume she’ll enjoy it more in the future since she has enjoyed our informal visits to the pool. It wouldn’t hurt if she put on a few more pounds for insulation.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from this past week. In this first one, Emilia is checking to see if the bathroom is occupied. In the second one, she’s apparently practicing her gymnastic skills (a new favorite pose) while waiting her turn.

Emilia models her new fall coat:

Grandma bought Emilia her first pumpkin, and only six weeks before Halloween!

Discovering the World & Goodbye Devin!

Tonight my immediate family enjoyed our last family dinner together for awhile (where we took the photo above). On Wednesday my brother Devin is off to Washington DC to begin life after college. After many years with all of us spread out over the world (Thailand, Spain, Cuba, Czech Republic, Chicago, Los Angeles, Texas, Wisconsin, Colorado, etc.), it’s been great to have the whole family in the Twin Cities for the past several months. Good luck Devin! We’ll miss you! This picture is a little old, but it’s a great one of Emilia and her uncle Devin. Now you know where she gets her eye lashes!

This week Emilia made several new discoveries, including two pictured below. First she discovered the spring doorstop and had a ball pinging it back and forth.

She also discovered lunch meat, which has quickly become a new favorite. She is really starting to favor table foods that she can feed herself over baby foods. She eats up the turkey almost faster than I can rip it up. Can you find the lost piece of lunch meat in this photo?