16 Weeks

Kristina is 16 weeks now, 17 weeks tomorrow and a week ago today she weighed 11lbs 5oz. I look at her and I see both how big she's gotten and how tiny she still is. She's smal but strong and active and interested in everything.

We went "away" for the weekend the 11th-14th, down to the Crieff Hydro hotel in Perth. Chris was attending the Scottish Ruby Conference (or as the signs around the hotel proclaimed it, Scotland for Ruby) and Little Djinn and I went for a little holiday. She loved it. She liked the train ride, she liked all of the people, she liked going swimming for the first time, she liked everything but not getting to pick her own bedtime. We did leave her with a baby-sitter for the first and second time after discovering the hotel has a baby-sitting staff that we could hire. Paying someone else to watch her sleep (read a book?) was an improvement over the first night when we went to bed at 9 having run out of things to quietly entertain ourselves after she fell asleep. The woman from the second night complained that Little Djinn was such a good sleeper as she'd been hoping for a cuddle. Sorry, our baby goes to sleep and is out for at least 6 hours. Such a good sleeper.

She loves swimming. I bought her a little swimming costume because people were confused by a baby in just a swim nappy. There was the double confusion of "person swimming in just bottoms = male" and "but that's not a swimsuit". I expected that would be how all of the babies were attired, but they mostly seem to come in little wetsuits*. Is this a Scottish vs Californian thing or a non-body conscious one? There's a class at the leisure centre across the river from us for babies as young as 6-months and I have information about when and how to sign her up (June 17th for a class starting Sept. 2nd) and in the meantime we'll go sit in the shallow end and she can kick and splash and rediscover time and again that one can't breathe water.

Little Djinn is sitting up and standing with help. She hates laying down, she wants to be able to see what everyone is doing. She's getting very coordinated with her wiggling on her tummy but still isn't going anywhere and that's very frustrating for her. She's moved to her big-baby cot (and I may have found someone to pass the basket on to**) and while she's a champion sleeper at night, she'll only nap on me after nursing or in her pram or carrier when moving. I see a lot of walks in our future as the weather improves. Our little booboo is getting very coordinated at holding things and can usually manipulate them into her mouth. Her sounds are coming along, there was an amusing weekend when she figured out how to blow raspberries and that's all she did for a couple of days though her latest thing is a high-pitched squealing or shrieking and we can't tell if she's happy or sad without looking at her face. This is a lot less amusing. The changes from month three to four, from new born to infant, have been astonishing. The next big developmental milestones should happen around 6 months: sitting up unsupported, crawling, babbling (as opposed to just vowel sounds), starting on solids...Exciting times.

On the craft front, very little is happening. I got plastic tubs for storing my yarn and now I can see how much I have, a thought I try to keep in the front of my mind when tempted by squishy yarns, and given that I have maybe one hour at night to work on something my three projects (socks for Chris, a sweater for me, and a cross-stitch for Kristina) will probably keep me busy until Christmas. I am making good progress on the cross-stitch but I'm second-guessing my sweater so maybe I'll get to cast something new on sooner rather than later. I got a birthday cheque from my FiL and part of me really really really wants to buy a sewing machine but the rest of me is being quite snarky about where would I put it and when would I use it (not what would I make with it, no, never doubt that there are thousands of things I could want to make with it).

On the media front, I finally caught up with The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (there was one novel outstanding and I'd missed a few of the short stories), and I just finished the October Daye books by Seanan McGuire who you may remember is also the woman who wrote the Newsflesh trilogy as Mira Grant. I also read her Sailor Moon inspired fairy tales and I want someone to illustrate and publish them for Little Djinn so she can hold them in her hands. They are exceptionally delightful.

~ * ~

* They're heated indoor pools so that's not the issue.

** We both like the idea of having another child in the abstract*** but if we do decide to have another it won't be for years yet and we don't have room to store every baby thing that has passed into our lives on the off-chance that we'll need it again some years down the line. Most of the baby stuff came into our lives very easily and we're happy to send it back out into the world to be used by other people in the assurance that we can acquire similar things again when and if we need them.

*** I had a bad night when I realized that it was too late to have a second child also born in 2013 which was odd on several levels including that it wasn't something I'd ever considered, it wasn't actually something I would logically want and I've not started menstruating yet so even if it was something I desired it's not something I would have been capable of. Nonetheless there was a night when I was suddenly very depressed**** that it wouldn't happen.

**** While I don't have PPD, I have been very emotional (for me). There are times I get a little choked up, which is my equivalent to bawling one's eyes out, usually when thinking about how much I love Little Djinn and our family. It's been very weird for me.