8 Weeks Old

Why am I wearing this headband?..I'm a baby!

And now I can smile..

As the time goes by, I am reminded everyday of how lovely innocence can be; the world is blossoming around her everyday and as she learns and responds to all that surrounds her, she brings light to our lives. At 8 weeks, Evallie is really cool to be around, she recognizes us and spends time scanning around to see what we are doing. You can "talk" to her and she responds with a very enthusiastic wiggle of her entire body, a smile and sometimes even a sounds. Its an exciting time for her as well, she spent the last few days discovering her hands..and fighting everyone uncoordinated bone in her little body to get it into her mouth and keep it there. I don't know what she weighs yet but I do know we do not wear nb sized clothing anymore and we're deep into our box of size 1 diapers. 

Her schedule is actually becoming just that..she is pretty good with what time she sleeps and wakes and eats..she's still a very quick eater so my awake time at night is very limited if any. Half the time she sleeps from 12-6am and the other half she will wake up at 3am for a quick feed and change depending on what time she went to sleep. 

We're fully out of the fragile newborn phase and into the chubby baby stage, she can hold her head up pretty well so I carry her around in the Bjorn or the Moby Wrap and she loves it. As far as tummy time, she isn't a fan..she could do without it but I realized the other day that Arielle was rolling over by now so I've really go to get her down on the floor more often. I take responsibility because, when Arie was young we had carpet which we have replace with hardwood so laying on the floor isn't as inviting to me, it can be hard on my old bones! In the last few weeks she's met a few more family members, been to the park many times, been out to dinner, been on a train, in the city, on the beach...

Anyway, I decided to stay home with her, the semester has begun and I turned down the courses I was scheduled to teach, I am looking forward the next three months I have and really want to make the best of the time I have with her. Anyway, enough of this mushy stuff. 

and sometimes I even laugh..

I watch my sister do funny things..

She's really silly..

Coney Island Beach

Labor day weekend is usually the weekend everyone goes away but we did the weekend before and stayed home for Labor day. So we decided to take some local day trips hoping that the city would be empty and we could squeeze in a few more days of summer. We went to Coney Island beach which was kind of an adventure for us because although my husband is from Brooklyn, he hadn't been to this beach since he was a child. Coney Island is kind of an icon but doesn't boast of the best (cleanest) beach. But for our purposes, it was perfect that day. I was just looking for a relaxing afternoon, the cool breeze, smells of the ocean and sounds of the waves while Arielle wanted to play in sand (which she wants to do everyday!) It was nice to see I wasn't the only one dragging a Bugaboo down the sand, I needed to because my little Evie was sleeping the whole time although every time she got hit with a cool breeze she gasped and cooed! It was very cute. It looks like we are getting better at balancing outings with the two kids..we are still not able to leave the house as quickly as we'd like but at least we leave the house...showered..and looking somewhat decent. 

Brit in the City

My auntie and cousin Brittany visited from Florida last week and although we spent most of the week swooning over the babies at home (Evalie and my sisters son), we did get a chance to get out a bit. Our outings were a compromise between what she likes to do, where I could handle going with two kids (and all that involves) and shopping which we all love! We went to Garden state plaza mall one day which was ok, we went to dinner a few times and on their last day here, we took the train into Penn Station and spent the day in the city. It was kind of like a real New York experience except we skipped the subway and walked mostly and we spent a fair amount of time in "The Macy's"..a nine floor mega department store. We ate at Chef Yu which everyone liked and then had some street meat after our shopping marathon. It was really nice to see them since we rarely see them for some reason. Basically, we see each other at weddings and funerals (luckily we haven't had many of those!) Its actually like that with most of my family, they live all over from Manchester and Leicester in the UK, Lagos, Virginia, Ontario, in total, I have 17 cousins and even though years pass in between our visits, when we do get together we have a blast...miss you all! 

Sesame Place

What a place..this was a really intense weekend of coordination, color, characters, crying and more..Sesame place is not for just anyone and I didn't know what to expect with a six week old baby in tow! You've really got to put on your happy pants and smile because it's packed with people and the sounds of Elmo are blasting throughout the day. The scenery is very colorful and around every corner there's something to see or do, so I put away all my reservations (..well, most of them anyway) and tried to embrace the world of make believe for forty-eight hours.

We arrived on Saturday morning around 11:30 and after waiting to park and a few trips back to the car to get things we forgot we made it into the park. The lines were a bit long but we had our tickets already so we skipped over to the security and got our bags searched ( yeah!..), you aren't allowed to bring in food and drinks so we just stashed our food in the stroller! 

As we walked down Sesame street, we noticed lines controlled by young girls in yellow shirts who take their job of policing the characters very seriously, it was rather funny how in the world of Sesame the kids are in control.

Anyway, on one side of the street was Ernie and Bert while across the street was  guy named Murray. At that moment, I realized why parents do this for their kids and knew it was worth it to make this trip happen. The look on Arie's little face was priceless!

Once we were done with Murray we went to to find some rides. They really liked the Counts Castle which was a large pool with slides and water falls all over it and dropped an enormous bucket of water on the crown every few minutes. 

The rambling river ride was also pretty popular for both kids and adults..it was worth the wait because you could stay for a while and enjoy the water while floating along. 

Most of the day Evalie slept in her bassinet or in the Bjorn, she did open her eyes once or twice but  could tell she was enjoying the breezes; she would make humming sounds every time there was a breeze. I carried her around a lot but we did switch off on the second day so I got to go on some rides as well. She was actually quite easy to deal with, we had a cabana on the first day so I had a private. cool space to go and feed/change her each time I needed to but even when we didn't on day two, somehow I was able to manage to find places to discretely handle all that. 

Next up the Sesame Street parade! At about 2:30 we noticed people crowding along the street and realized it was tie for the big parade..this happens twice a day but the second one is at close and I wasn't sure we'd make it to 8:30pm so we rushed over to get a spot to watch the parade. Although we didn't have the prime spots, Arielle go a good view of everything and really enjoyed all the music and dancing. good times..

It's really funny how kids think the characters know them and so they scream and yell and wave excitedly until they get their attention and get them to wave back..its really great. All the characters came out on floats and danced, waved, some even got off to play with the kids and hug them, it was like a scene from the Michael Jackson concerts in the 80's..people fainting and crying..pure pandemonium..I say!

Evalie awake at the parade..

Slimey's Shoots..

Evalie finally woke up

Meeting Elmo

Telly..

Bert's Bouncy Bed..