2 Month check up ...

The Murphy grandparents - Sequoia's Mamasita and Pop-Pop - drove up to visit for 3 days this week. As part of their visit they got to help Colleen take Sequoia in for her 2 month check up.

This is normally a very painful experience for the baby since they get 4 significant vaccination shots in addition to a few other oral vaccinations. These include vaccinations against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, haemophilus influenza, streptococcus pneumoniae and rotavirus. Please pay attention to that list as there may be a test later.

Well Sequoia took her shots and medications with a modicum of stoicism. By that I mean she only howled for about two hours after a two hour delayed reaction. In reality I think she did very well and was mostly all smiles by the time I got home from work, having been spared the agony of watching my baby girl cry in pain ... for the moment anyway.

The fun part of these appointments is getting her official stats so we can get some indication of how healthy she is. I love the antique baby scale the office uses. Can you imagine how many little baby bottoms have spent time on that thing over the years? So much nicer than a sterile looking stainless steel grocer's scale that I was expecting to see.

Anyway, it was very nice to have Pop-Pop and Mamasita up for their visit with Sequoia. We hope that all of her vast extended community of family and friends continues to stay actively involved in her life as she grows up.

The important stats from her visit are

Weight - 11 pounds 10 ounces (top 75%)
Height - 24 3/4 inches (top 95%)
Head circumference - 16 inches (just right)

The future's so bright....

Sequoia turned two months old on the 25th and that means she gets to go in for a series of traumatic immunization shots on Friday. Everyone we know has been warning us for months that this is a heartbreaking and emotionally scarring event ... for the parents.
It is just plain painful for the kid.

So let's not think about that just yet as there are plenty of great and groovey things associated with turning the big little 2.
One new and fun thing is her Bumbo seat. This is yet another gadget that will help her develop all of her muscles and motor skills - plus it is just too cute watching her chill out in her little lazy boy...what in the world am I teaching my little girl? Actually, if you must know, this is giving her a Gold's Gym level abdominal work out as well as concentrating on her neck and lower back muscles. She is dedicated to her work out schedule, although you would not guess it based on the fat rolls that continue to appear on a daily basis.

Turning two months also gives you time and coordination to begin enjoying some of these odd little toys that she's been collecting since well before she was born. She really gets a kick out of herself when she gets in the groove with one of her toys. What is it they say about laughing the loudest at your own jokes...? Well, on her it's charming.

We had a lovely three day weekend in honor of her two month birthday coinciding with Memorial day. The weather was stunning and we spent most of our time outside. We had most of our meals on the back deck, went for many short walks around the woods, walked along the beach at Yorktown a couple of times and hung out in the back yard. Sequoia and daddy built mommy a wonderful composting center that could double as housing for a small petting zoo if the composting thing does not take off. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend - really quite typical of how life has been since Sequoia has joined the family. So who has time to worry about a few shots that are coming her way on Friday .....?

Right now, the future's so bright I have to wear shades...........

Shake, rattles and roll.....

Sequoia is having a ball with her different rattles and toys these days. She actually has a favorite toy - her Sea Turtle teether that Elizabeth Miller gave her. I think it is awesome for several reasons -

- First of all I love the fact that the sea turtle is wearing a dive mask and snorkel.
- Secondly the fact that Sequoia has a favorite toy means that she is actually playing with toys now. That's big stuff around here. She picks it up. She hugs it. She stares at it and laughs at it. It is really cool watching her play and entertain herself. She just shakes, rattles and rolls all over the place - smiling the whole time.

This playing and entertaining herself extends to a lot of other things as well. I've already mentioned how captivated and animated she gets on her underwater activity mat. Lately she has really been having fun with her rattles. She picks them up and shakes them and chews on them and just really thinks she is funny with them.

Something I find pretty funny are these Velcro wrist and ankle rattles that Mark, Gena and the boys gave her. She just has a ball with them even if they make her look somewhat like a court jester.

This is a little girl who knows how to follow her bliss....

Sequoia gets mom out of the house...

Now that this parenting thing has gotten so easy that Colleen can do it in her sleep, she and Sequoia have been lighting up the Gloucester social scene. This past week saw them attending their first class of Babygarten at the library. It is a fun and dynamic class for babies from zero to 18 months old. They sang songs, danced, read stories and will add other interactive activities like crafts each week. Sequoia really enjoyed the class, although I am not certain that I was thrilled with one development in particular. From what I hear, she was quite infatuated with an older man - 8 month old Tristan. Tristan is a devilishly handsome, blue eye, blond hair piano player ... certainly NOTHING good can come from this. Sequoia also met a few other cute and friendly kids and mommy made some nice contacts as well.

Later in the week Sequoia had a lunch date with her best bud Grant. They all met at The Wild Rabbit and were joined by Pam Speiser. Sequoia has always enjoyed her time being held by Pam. They had a good lunch and then spent some time strolling around town.

Later, Colleen found herself down in Newport News near Ava's house, so she and Sequoia stopped by for an unscheduled visit (they called first of course). This was in place of a walk that they had to cancel earlier in the week due to Rebecca's work schedule. Colleen and I were both surprised by how similar in size Ava and Sequoia are these days. They both had the same birth weight, but Sequoia is two months younger than Ava. She is really growing like a weed trying to live up to her name-sake, the Giant Sequoia's of California.

Sequoia also got to meet Brooklyn, a 4 month old girl who was in our Baby class along with her mom Jennifer. We had not been in touch with them since our class since they had to "drop out" early. Although Ava, Connor and Sequoia all managed to graduate, they do not plan on holding it against Brooklyn. Brooklyn is adorable but oh so tiny - she still wears newborn clothes at 4 months old. Sequoia is wearing 3-6 month old clothes these days at 2 months.
We also had a nice cookout and croquet evening with our friends Becky and Jeremiah.
Eventually even the most patient superstars get tired of constantly being harassed by the photographers and paparazzi.

No more photos please......

SCUBA 2 makes an appearance.....

I think a lot of you out there might already be thinking that the only reason Colleen wanted a kid was so that she could have a built in dive partner...a little SCUBA 2 to her SCUBA 1. Well as you can see, Sequoia is just like her mom - "Go shark power!!"

We spend a lot of time with her on her underwater activity mat. She really likes it and plays with the rattle toys and laughs at the music and is mesmerized by the lights.

It appears that there is no age limit on who can enjoy the excitement of the activity mat. Here Colleen and Sequoia discover the wonders of the undersea world together. With all of the sharks, rays, whales, fish, sea turtles and other sea life creatures that dominate Sequoia's room; a friend of ours commented that if Sequoia did not grow up loving the water something just wouldn't be right.

Certainly she can grow up to love whatever she wants to love, but right now it really makes me happy to watch her pure joy when she is on her mat. I look forward to many days spent out on and in the water with my girls.

This pink outfit was a present from our friend Katie Carnevale.

Creepin, crawlin critter.....

Sequoia is slowly beginning to figure out that gravity is not an unconquerable force. She amazes us every day with her ability to hold her head up and look around. We have started giving her more tummy time and she is getting fairly adept at slithering around a bit.

I'm not delusional enough to think that she will be crawling in the next few days, but this process is teaching me the value of decreasing the size of the yardstick. Weight is measured in ounces, height in 1/4 inches and a good night sleep in minutes - so why shouldn't mobility be measured in inches and intentions?

Sequoia is able to "crawl" over her Boppy to get to Colleen at the other end of the couch. This is of course with me giving her something to push her feet against, and some purist may cry out that I should put an asterisk by this stat, but I defend the noteworthy nature of this accomplishment.

See, the thing that amazes me (other than the fact that this beautiful little girl is my baby) is that Sequoia WANTS to crawl to the other end of the couch. She sees her mommy down there and gets the coordination train in gear and starts to climb, wiggle, creep and yes, crawl down there to get to her. The intention is pure even if the accomplishment is mediocre. Can't a dad be proud?

Fashion show...

Sequoia has been very fortunate to have received some beautifully handcrafted clothes from a few of her admirers. One of the people spending countless hours toiling with the needles and yarn is Sequoia's Great Grandma Dot - Colleen's grandmother on her father's side of the family. Here are a couple of the sweaters that she has sent her so far.

They are obviously sized for Sequoia to fit in to next fall and winter when it gets a bit colder again, but we could not resist seeing how she is going to look in them. I particularly love the red sweater in this picture.

I think that Colleen is a bit more fond of this pastel number that is complete with a very sweet and feminine headband and bow. I'm warming up to the whole girlie motif, but honestly I'm still holding out for a bit of a tom-boy since I'd like to be able to talk to my baby girl at least a little bit.

Here Sequoia is reclining on a beautiful and soft afghan that Great Grandma Dot made for her. Again, many people have taken the time to make Sequoia things, and I apologize if I slight anyone by not mentioning them on the blog. This is certainly not intended to be an all inclusive reliable source. Trust me when I say that the three of us have been overwhelmed with the outpouring of kindness we have received while we bumble through this process. We cherish each and every act of kindness and especially treasure those items that have special stories and histories behind them.

The 7 week stretch.....

Sequoia is in her seventh week of life and is growing up faster than I can keep track of.
Things at the house are continually evolving to the point that things that did not exist 7 weeks ago now form the starting point of what we consider normal. A night with 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep qualifies as a great and restful night.

The dogs are happily sharing their world with their new little buddy. Neither of them show any signs of jealousy although Yukon's unbridled joy can be a bit too much sometimes - but that is true for adults as well as young babies. Eventually Sequoia will grow up and be big enough to wrestle him to the ground -

Two big developments in her life these days are her smiles and her increased movements. Both of these are related to her generally improved motor skills. I did not realize that babies had to learn how to smile, and it is a wonderful experience when your kid starts to smile in response to you.

These pictures of her on her changing table show a variety of her fancy moves accompanied by her pretty smile.
She has been surprising us lately with her ability to not be exactly where we left her a few moments ago. She is holding on to her rattles and shaking them. She has ridiculous control over her head already. She rolls herself on to her side and almost all the way over. She has started spinning around in her crib at night so that she is pointing the opposite direction when she wakes up. She "crawls" very effectively when we lay her on her stomach with the Boppy under her belly. She will actually crawl up and over the Boppy to get to Colleen at the other end of the couch.

The long and the short of this is that we can no longer just set her down somewhere and anticipate that she will not have managed to launch herself somewhere else by the time we return.
This Tuesday she will be starting her first class - Babygarten. It is a mommy and baby class that meets once a week at the local library. We anticipate that she will be quickly promoted to the head of her class - possibly all the way up to Babygarten grad-school....
Well at least we hope that it will help continue to develop her socialization skills.

All of this increased activity can leave her pretty tired.

Southwind to the south seas...?

Sequoia got to meet Tom and Betty Bowdle on board their boat, Southwind.

It was a beautiful afternoon to spend with two of her biggest Blog fans.

Of course an afternoon down near the water can leave you feeling a bit sleepy.
Here is a shot where she is looking just like mommy....

While we were down on the boat we got to see a water snake drag it's catch of an Oyster Toad Fish up on to the bank. I'm not certain that the snake was able to do much with something that big, but I'm assuming it knew what it was doing.
Trips with Colleen and Sequoia tend to closely resemble episodes of Wild Kingdom....

More than one nut in this family tree.....

This was a pretty cool weekend for me. I got to introduce Sequoia to my parents, the rest of my sisters, a brother in law, a sister in law and four of her cousins. That still leaves two of my brothers, another sister in law and two more cousins on my side of the family that she hasn't met yet, not to mention Colleen's remaining 4 brothers and sisters and associated families that are yet to meet her.

Here is Sequoia with my mom and dad Saturday morning about 5 minutes after their first introduction. I think Sequoia was pretty comfortable with the situation.



Sequoia had to endure a six hour car ride Friday night, "camping out" in the camper and being passed around from one adoring relative to another from 7 Am until about 8 Pm Saturday and from 7Am until 3Pm on Sunday. Although she caught the occasional cat nap in someone's arms she was up and amazingly alert for most of that time.



She obviously felt comfortable with everyone - finding it equally as comfortable to drool on grandmom's lap as it was to snore in granddad's arms.





Here she is obviously bored with my oldest sister Peggy. Peggy might say that it was her magical soothing touch that put Sequoia to sleep, but until Sequoia learns to talk we'll just have to keep our personal theories to ourselves.



Regardless of what the previous photos appear to show, Sequoia really was very awake and alert most of the time. Here she is in deep conversation with her Aunt Trish, the youngest of my three sisters. I think it is obvious what Sequoia thought of whatever point Trish was trying to make.

But like anyone skilled in debate, Sequoia knows how to keep the conversation moving with a well timed joke. I think this one was about her Aunt Sweet Butt.... I'm not sure who that is....





This was Sequoia's second visit with her Aunt Cathleen - my middle sister. If you remember Cathleen and her son Sam came out to our house for Colleen's birthday cookout. Once again Sequoia seemed very happy to be toted around by pretty much anyone willing to hang on to her 11 pound frame for awhile.

They weren't all strangers ... this was Mommy's day after all.
Sequoia and Colleen spent a lot of time together showing off how very cute they are. I am constantly amazed by Sequoia's expressions. She is so darned cute - I really don't stand a chance.

Here she gives Grandmom Leila one of her patented half-smiles. It is a pretty cute little face that is usually accompanied by a bit of a dance as she flirts with you.






This is the part of the gang that made it out to my parents house on Sunday. Trish, Peggy and her husband Jeff had been out on Saturday. This picture from left to right is cousin Jens, aunt Gena, Granddad, cousin Will, cousin Christopher, Grandmom Leila, Mommy, aunt Cathleen and cousin Sam.



And here is mommy and Sequoia holding hands on their first Mother's Day together.

You have to admit that is precious...