We had a delightful time.  Our hosts agreed to a flexible arrival time so Anna was awake but not nursing. Anna recovered quickly from the trauma that is riding in a car that has the nerve to stop at stop signs and red lights. She was content when Abby, 8, presented Anna with a beautiful painting she had made just for her that day.  Abby became the youngest person to hold Anna yet.  Genna, Abby, and I chatted in the kitchen (and I do mean to include Abby, who kept up with the grown-ups conversations the entire evening with a maturity beyond her years) while Matthew and John toured the backyard and tended the grill.  Classic.

We got to be a part of the inaugural meal on their gorgeous new table.  Like us, their taste is for fine, solid wood furniture, and like us, they would rather watch used listings for weeks (or months) than pay full price. Matthew had picked it up that day along with chairs and a beautiful sideboard. This was one of several commonalities that fueled the evening’s conversation.

And so Anna nursed or slept contentedly in my lap while we enjoyed good food and good company. Abby taught us how to recognize mint plants (they have square stems), and told us about her painting and violin. Noah, 3, regaled us with the story of Jesus calming the storm. Later, Anna began to cry, so Noah rushed off to his room to retrieve his blankie to comfort her. When his mom explained that Anna was hungry, he offered to get her some food from the kitchen. What I had feared would be stressful was laid back and comfortable. Just another step towards rejoining the outside world as a family of three.

P.S. In some ways, text posts are harder than photo posts, as the majority of this was hunt-and-pecked with one hand while nursing. Just keep that in mind when you get e-mails from me that are rather short these days; it’s nothing personal.

That said…beautiful! And visited today by a tiger swallowtail, no less:

» View in HD (it’s much cooler…)

Anna meets Mary and Emily, takes a bath (just one modest photo here), holds her torso up, and enjoys Daddy time.  These photos are added to an existing gallery, Anna’s Summer.  Anna has also now taken three bottles from John, but hasn’t yet associated it with food and/or just still wants to nurse.  So it doesn’t stop her from screaming yet, but it is at least a way to feed her in case of emergency.

John: “Why is there a baby in our house, and why are you calling me ‘Daddy?’”

Anna update:

Anna’s vision range has expanded considerably in the past week, which has fantastic benefits like enabling her to be happy looking around for a while (without constant entertainment).  She can also have both John and me in her effective field of vision at once.

Our most exciting news is that Anna has begun to consciously smile.  Which makes us smile. Which doesn’t yet make her smile, but will soon.   John and I were both privy to her first smile on Independence Day.  My parents and Megan, my sister, had entertained Anna much of the day while John and I recovered from burnout.  After they left, we had the time and energy for both of us to play with her.  (Often, when one of us is playing with her the other is wasting time doing things like brushing teeth.)  And she smiled at us!  We think.  We thought.  Now we’re pretty sure.

Today was also her first real bath!  Grandma (my mom) brought a waterproof tablecloth and many towels, prepared for a screaming, flailing child.  We steeled ourselves for a very unhappy child.  Anna loved the bath.  Really loved it.  She actually smiled while taking her first bath.  Parenthood is full of surprises.  She did start to fuss once she got cold, but that was ten minutes from the beginning of the bath.  I did manage to get a few pictures towards the end, but for the most part we were pretty busy trying to figure out how to bathe her.  And after all the rubber duckies we received, we forgot to have one in there for her first bath!  Ah, well.

For all of you on the hair-and-eye-color watch, her eyes are still blue (I really like dressing her in her cousin Josh’s hand-me-downs as they have some blue).  Her hair continues to lighten, just as John’s did when he was a baby.  I’m sure the fact that Anna is a summer baby who gets taken outside (albeit shaded) nearly every day helps.

Lots of pictures for you to see!  We’ve got meeting Aunt Megan, Donna, Ann Marie, Michelle, and Granpop Bill and Darlene.  Then there’s playtime with Daddy, a picture on her one month birthday with Mommy, and playtime with Grandma.  Or you can just go to our 2010 galleries here and browse. The below photos are from three different galleries.

Lisa, with help from John, Anna M, and others, managed to surprise me.  Completely, totally, and utterly surprise me.  I cannot remember the last time this happened.  While Anna M, John, and I were at church, Lisa, Sarah, Noelle, and Vinitha went into our house (John had hidden a key for them), decorated the living room, set the table, put lunch in the oven, and got flowers, bibs that we decorated, and a cake.

All in all, Lisa, Sarah, Anna M, Anna W, Vinitha, Noelle, Sam, Karis, Tiyona, Ruth, Miriam, Sharon, Bonnie, and Lauren came, wrote in the book, and/or contributed to the stroller.  Everything was choreographed by Lisa, who thought to ask John where everything was, down to the masking tape.

Here’s what I wrote them, with a few annotations:

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciated the surprise shower and gifts.  If word hadn’t trickled down to you, I was completely surprised, definitely for the first time in a long time and perhaps for the first time ever for a surprise party.  That was wonderful, and took a lot of effort, I know.  For those of you who were able to come, your presence was a treasure.  Seeing several of my closest friends is so precious to me.  If you weren’t able to come, I completely understand.  Know you were well represented.

The book with pictures [of me with "my girls"] and notes to me and the baby will be one of the things that mean the most to me.  I can see myself reading your words to her while rocking her, pointing out your faces and telling her who you are so that she’ll know you when she sees you.  If you didn’t get to see the final product, Lisa did a spectacular job of pulling them together.  Hopefully there will be a blog post about the shower with pictures.  [There is, but I didn't take a picture of the book!]

The stroller [photos of it in use pending--Jeep Liberty stroller] is just plain awesome.  My mom and I assembled it on Monday, and I’m really looking forward to taking it around the block and town with the baby.  The wheels are perfect for Princeton’s bumpy sidewalks and curbs, and having it be from you is so precious.  Her infant seat locks right in, so we can start using it early on.  We’ll think of you all when we use it.”

Thanks to all of Anna’s aunts!

Anna’s favorite activities are nursing, sleeping on people, nursing, riding in her Ergo Baby carrier or sling from Aunt Megan, nursing, listening to Daddy play the mandolin during family hymn sing time, and nursing.  Her least favorite activities are bathing, having her diaper changed, and changing clothes.  So basically, she’s happy to eat and unhappy about basic hygiene.

During “waketime,” sometimes she likes to be entertained by stuffed animals Mr. Giraffe and Mrs. Bear (creative names they are not–but when you are sleep deprived and are naming an animal while holding a screaming infant, you want something you can remember).  We have seen her (or like to imagine that we have seen her) open her hand to pet Mr. Giraffe’s nose and lift her feet to continue “dancing” with Mrs. Bear.  Like most newborns, Anna likes motion, especially large motions like flying or spinning, or dancing (being danced?) to music.  Her favorite books are anything she has her eyes open for, especially black and white books, and she was quite happy in her “bouncy seat” except for that time she spit up the majority of her 3am feeding in it.  Sometimes talking to her or giving her a house tour or something to look at is sufficiently entertaining to stave off fussing and/or screaming, but she usually demands non-stop stimulation when she’s awake and alert.  This can be rather exhausting for those of us playing with her, but I tell myself that it means she loves learning.  She has also just started (yesterday) being content to sit quietly and watch life go on around her.

Another trick she does is what we call “sleep leaps.”  When she is startled in her sleep, her arms and legs fling outward quickly and forcefully (see the first few seconds of this video of a newborn’s Moro reflex).  If you’re holding her, sometimes this causes a violent change in position, which can be quite surprising as she tries to sleep leap out of your arms.  The first time  John observed this, he said it lent credence to my mom’s claim that I “lept” out of her lap onto the concrete patio (headfirst–explains a lot) as an infant.

We’re looking forward to her first social smile, as right now she expresses her pleasure with a blank stare and her displeasure rather noisily.  For now, she’s terribly cute and quite tiny.  We notice small changes every day.  New behaviors, her hair lightening, dislikes becoming likes, etc.  But you probably came for the pictures.  So enjoy.