Stella at Eight Months

Sorry for the ridiculously long time between posts - things have (shocker) gotten pretty crazy, what with Stella getting bigger and work not slowing down and all... My work blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/aaronhallberg) has slowed down rather considerably as well lately, and I get paid to write that one!

In any case, Stella has learned many new tricks since last I posted, including (just this past weekend) crawling! I have a video all set to post of her very first crawl, for which three of her four grandparents were lucky enough to be present, but I can't find the cable right now to get it transferred from camcorder to computer. :-( It's not the most impressive crawling in the world - basically, she can, with an amazing expenditure of effort, drag herself forward a few inches at a time.

But - she is officially mobile. From here it's a slippery slope - walking, driving, her first jet pack, etc.

Until I manage to get the video posted, check out this gallery of photos from the past couple of months, including one of the aforementioned crawling:

Stella at 8 Months

Stella's First Movies

These are the video clips we turned into a DVD for Mother's Day this year. The menu and stuff on the DVD were really cool, but I couldn't figure out how to include that here... Enjoy!

Just Kidding

And here's the real post...

Since last I blogged:

I had my first father's day with Stella! It was really great - it's been really amazing being a dad so far, and I still have a hard time believing that it's really happening!

Stella flew on a plane for the first time, to go up to Boston for cousin Skyler's baptism. It was a really great trip, a wonderful ceremony, and Chris and I were truly honored to be included as Skyler's godparents. He's an amazing little kid (not so little, really!) and he is truly blessed with a pair of wonderful parents.

Stella went into the ocean for the first time! It was really cute - if I can figure out a relatively secure way to post some video, I'll definitely get it up for all to see.

Grandma and Grandpa Hallberg came to North Carolina for a visit. It was quite nice - Grandpa cooked us some wonderful meals, Grandma went along with Chris to Stella's swim class, we threw a light-up frisbee and played with sparklers one evening, and generally a good time was had by all.

Stella rolled! She doesn't do it too often, but she can do it when she so desired...

I don't have the energy to get all our latest pics posted right now, so you'll have to content yourselves with these two. But - more on the way! Soon Chris will be starting to blog more here as well! (She recently visited MySpace for the first time and is feeling oh-so Web 2.0, although she just said "I don't know what that means." Ha-ha)

Worst picture of Stella ever. Someday she'll be angry with us for sharing this with the world.

Bad Aaron

So I always get into this silly pattern when I've waited too long to do something (call a friend, post to the blog, etc.) where the longer it goes the harder it gets to do, since I feel like I need to do something really cool to make up for the ridiculous delay. Well, I finally decided that this is stupid - I just need to jump back in!

So - here is my first blog post since Mother's Day, and I'm not going to try and make it cool. Not even remotely cool. In fact, this is it - no photos, no cool stories, nothing about what's been happening the last 2 years (or whatever it's been). Just a bunch of blathering about my neuroses.

fin

First Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

We had a wonderful day here in North Carolina. Stella wore a lovely new dress (supposed to be her Easter dress from Grandma and Grandpa Yakubik, but Easter turned out to be way too cold!), mom and dad had their first meal in a real restaurant since becoming mom and dad, and everyone had a grand old time. Here's hoping all the other mother's out there had a wonderful day as well!

Dad got to open an early birthday present from Grandma and Grandpa Hallberg today, and it was (drumroll please) a little pink drumset for Stella! Is that the cutest thing you've ever seen, or what? I've already been trying to get her interested in rythm by snapping different crazy rythms near her head, playing the kalimba to her, drumming on my tummy, drumming on her tummy, etc. Hopefully this will push her over the edge and we'll be able to form a two-drummer band (but way cooler than the Greatful Dead).

Our big non-Mother's Day, non-Drumming news is that Stella is now sucking down bottles like there's no tomorrow. It took quite a bit of work, but it finally caught on a while back and now is second nature.

She's also talking a lot more (she even says "mama" some times, though she probably doesn't know what she's saying), and can almost roll over now. She's holding her head up pretty well also, and in general seems to be pretty much the coolest baby in the history of babies. At least we think so... Oh - and she's now up to 12 pounds!

As always, click on the pictures to go to the new albums - there are only two this time (with the Mother's Day and Drumset photos both linking to one, and the bottle photo linking to the other). Hope everyone is doing well!

Right to the Good Stuff

Sorry again for the lack of posts. Haven't had a whole lot of free time lately, due to various illnesses, gigs with the band, Stella's baptism, etc. As such - right to the good stuff (i.e. pictures).

Each of the photos will take you to a different album - there are some 40 new pictures in total!


Miscellaneous Cuteness...


Easter!


Baptism!

Hope you enjoy all the pictury goodness. We'll try to post some actual messages at some point soon as well...

Too Long!

Sorry everybody for the long delay between posts - I'll try not to make a habit of it.

When last we talked, Grandma Hallberg had just had her accident and the weather was really nice here. Well, Grandma Hallberg is feeling much better now - she doesn't need to have surgery on her ankle, she's slowly but surely figuring out her crutches, etc. And the weather is still nice here, though just barely - it's supposed to be a near-record cold by Easter, even though it was in the 80s today. Lame.


Springtime is really gorgeous down here in general, though. Check out the gallery of Spring-related photos by clicking on the one at left featuring our new rocking chairs!

We've been good this past week or so - starting to figure out our schedule with Stella pretty well. Basically, Stella cries and we jump! We are amazed by how she grows and changes every day. She's giving us real smiles now and is starting to "talk". She makes vowel sounds. When Stella shouts "A!" Chris shouts "B!" So far, only Chris finds this funny... hopefully Stella will also see the humor one day. Stella has also discovered her head this week, which has been extremely funny to watch. She puts her thumb in her mouth and uses the rest of her fingers to feel her cheeks. At the same time her other hand is rubbing the back of her head and playing with her hair. We'll try to get a picture of this in action!


Things are heating up with the band a bit lately as well - we took some photos the other morning with a UNC photojournalism student (Jesse from the band is a journalist for the local newspaper and still somehow involved with the university). We're prepping right now for an upcoming string of shows, starting on April 24th with a show at the Cave in Chapel Hill. Click on the photo to check out our four favorite snapshots - please post comments as to which is your favorite, since we're trying to figure out which to use in our press kit!

Ceiling Fan Obsession

On a lighter note - Stella is obsessed with ceiling fans, and to a lesser extent lighting fixtures. With the one pictured here, the reasoning seems fairly obvious - it's a giant glowing boob in the sky. Not sure about the others, though.

Is this healthy? We're not sure. At this point, we're hoping she'll just naturally grow out of it as she becomes able to crawl, walk, and in general do stuff other than lie on her back staring up at the ceiling.

Yet Another Big Week!

Wow - I was thinking that I would write something about this week going a bunch more smoothly than last week, which I suppose is true to a certain extent. But - there was also a lot of craziness. Here are the highlights:

Grandma Hallberg got hit by a car walking home from work. The most important thing to note here is that she came through the situation in incredibly good shape, all things considered. She ended up with a broken ankle, quite a few bumps and bruises, and some pretty terrible memories. It certainly could have been much worse, but it was extremely scary for her and for all of us nonetheless. All our thoughts will certainly be with her in the coming weeks as she continues to recover.

Chris decided (or rather was told) not to go back to work for the final quarter of the school year, as she had been planning. She went in for her standard six week post-partum checkup, and the doctor told her he thought it would be in her best interest, and in Stella's, to just stay home. His primary concern was the recurring bouts of mastitis, and he thought that the additional stresses and the schedule disruption (especially having to pump all day at school, etc.) would not be a good idea.

Stella continues to put on weight at about an ounce a day - as of Tuesday she was up to 9 lbs 9 ounces! What a bruiser - watch out cousin Skyler, she's catching up with you!

In more pleasant news, it is beautiful in North Carolina this weekend! Currently it is eighty five (count 'em - 85) degrees with blue skies and plenty of sun. How's that 50 treating you, Dover? Ouch - 44 in Boston? Doh - rain in Chicago and (surprise) Seattle? Hope things improve for all of you... If not, feel free to come out for a visit!

Click on the photos to see our latest album!

A Long Week...

Sorry it's been so long since our last post - it's been a rather long week.

I went back to work this week, and all things considered I think it went pretty well. I didn't have too many emails that actually required reading (about 1000 total, but probably around 900 got deleted immediately), not too many bugs had piled up in my absence, my teammates picked up the slack for me on our online forums (where I normally answer lots of questions), etc. Chris did really well without me - kept Stella really happy, made dinner for me every night (!), and so forth.

The new schedule is a bit brutal, however... I typically get up now around 6:30, take a quick shower, eat some breakfast, pack a lunch, and get out the door by 7:30. Work from 8:00 until 5:00, home around 5:30 for dinner. Stella's pre-bedtime routine starts up around 6:30, and we try to put her in her crib around 8:00. An hour or two of relaxing with Chris, and then off to bed. I get up with Chris for Stella's first feeding, typically around 1:00 AM or so. Chris handles the next one (around 4:30 most of the time) on her own. Often I will change a quick diaper around 6:00 or 6:30 before getting up. Lather, rinse, repeat.

In other Stella milestone news, I successfully gave her her first bottle (of mom's milk) last Thursday - she took to it pretty well, and is now a bottle feeding champ (though she certainly still prefers her mommy!). She continues to grow, and now has a great stare and a really strong grip.

This weekend has been an adventure as well - Uncle Tim came to town for a quick visit, which was most excellent. He and Stella got along famously, and he brought her an awesome t-shirt (red, with googly eyes and the message "I understand the muppets on a much deeper level than you"). For those of you not in the know, Tim is working on an MFA at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in Imaging and Digital Arts. He brought along a bunch of cool show and tell items, including the Arduino, a really cool programmable computer chip that can be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes.

In less exciting weekend news, Chris woke up last night around midnight with a 100.7 degree fever. The doc thinks she is having a second bout of Mastitis, which is an infection that you can get while breastfeeding - often referred to as the "boob flu". She's on some antibiotics, and will hopefully be feeling better by tomorrow. :-(

As always, click on the pictures above to see our latest photo album.

Big week...

It's an eventful week for the Hallbergs...

On Tuesday Stella turned one month old! She had her one month checkup the next day, at which we found out her latest vital statistics: 8 lbs 11.4 ounces (still gaining a little over an ounce a day!), 21 inches, and a head circumference of 36.5 cm. Why do they do the head circumference in metric? No idea. All of these are quite normal - she's now at 49th percentile in weight and the 50th in height. Her head circumference is only 47th, so it looks like she may avoid her daddy's pumpkin head...

She also got her first shot since leaving the hospital (see the bandaid in the picture to the left) - the 2nd of two Hepatitis B vaccinations. Her little face was pretty heartbreaking when that needle went in - a sharp intake of breath, the slow transition to purple, and then lots of screaming. She looked quite angry with mom and dad - "Why would you betray me like this" kind of thing... Luckily, she seemed to forget about it pretty quickly. Next time in (for her two month checkup) she's supposed to get four shots, though, which seems completely insane.

Also on Tuesday, dad made his first extended foray into the outside world sans mom and baby. The occasion - first band rehearsal in about six weeks! It all went pretty well - we gave Stella a bath at around 7:30 (part of our new bedtime routine), got her fed, and then I left while Chris put her to bed. They then slept while I rehearsed, and I made it back in time for the first nighttime feeding!

This was good practice, because on Friday I go back to work. These four weeks of parental leave have been really amazing - hard to believe they're over already. Stage 2 of new life with baby is about to begin. (Stage 3 starts in another month, when Chris goes back to work as well...)

Thanks for the comments from our web-savvy readers (Rich, Courtney, and Dave thus far). For those of you not in the know - just click on the n comments links at the ends of the posts to read and post comments. I believe to post you need to have a Google account - if you use Gmail you already have one, if you don't there should be a link where you can create one for free.

Aunt Courtney Visits!

Another big weekend in North Carolina - Aunt Courtney came down from Boston for a visit! The four of us had a great time - Chris picked up Courtney at the airport Saturday morning, and I dropped her off this past (Sunday) afternoon (she's off to spend a few days with her mom in Fort Lauderdale, and Chris and I are quite jealous). We talked, went for a walk, ate some food - pretty exciting stuff for the parents of a nearly four week old... Most importantly, Stella and Courtney got along famously! (Since Courtney left for the beach, however, Miss Stella has been quite fussy!)

In other news, I got my first drum kit in about a dozen years on Friday evening! It's a Mapex M Birch set, about three years old - 22 inch bass, 10, 12, and 14 inch toms, and a 14 inch snare. It came with some Sabian cymbals that I'll be looking to replace at some point, but they sound pretty good for now - 14 inch hi-hat, 16 inch medium crash, and 20 inch medium ride. The drums needed some serious tuning (I think they probably hadn't been played in about 2 years, and were probably never tuned after they were brought home from the store), but they now sound quite decent. Stella even managed to sleep through my first noodlings!

Maryland also beat NC State, and may end up with a four seed in the ACC tournament (which would give them a first round bye) depending on how some other games play out today.

Click the above pictures to see an album of the weekend's photos!

Go Terps!

Wow - first North Carolina, now Duke! The Terps are on fire, baby!

An interesting factoid came up during the broadcast last night - Maryland and Duke, going into the game, had (a) the same conference record, (b) the same overall record, and (c) similar winning streaks - Maryland five games, Duke four. And yet Duke was ranked 14th in the country, and Maryland was unranked. Possibly Duke deserves the benefit of the doubt, based on their history - their recent four game losing streak was their first such period since something like 1860, I think. But have two off years really soured the voters so much on Maryland so quickly? It will be interesting to see where the two fall in the next poll...



In non-Terrapin news, daddy finally tried out the Baby Bjorn today - very cool...

Punk Rock Stella

One of the great things about being a parent, at least so far, is that you can do funny stuff to your kid for your own amusement, and there's not much they can do about it... A mohawk, for example.

In other news, we took Stella in to the doctor today (to investigate a persistent and rather nasty diaper rash) and she weighed in at 8 lbs 2.2 ounces. 9 ounces in a week is pretty great - they expect to see 1/2 - 1 ounce per day at this point. So go Stella, and go Chris! (We got a couple of new butt ointments for the rash, by the way - hopefully it will clear up in the next few days)

As always, click the photo to see our latest photo album.

Big Weekend!

It was a big weekend all around:



Stella got to meet her Aunt Sarah for the first time. Sarah came down for the weekend from Maryland, where she attends the University of Maryland, studying Kinesiology. This summer she'll be winging her way to London to study and to visit some of the cities famed sporting locations - Old Trafford, where Manchester United play; Wimbledon; and probably some other cool stuff that I'm forgetting. Her niece loves her very much!



Stella also lost her umbilical cord! For now she has an outy...

Finally, Maryland beat North Carolina 89-87, soldifying their bid for the NCAA tournament for the first time in three years! I believe Uncle Nick was at the game - he is currently visiting friends in Maryland. Stella is quite jealous that he got to see this awesome game in person, and wishes that Nick would come back to NC soon and tell her all about it...

Click on either of the above photos to see an album of the weekend's snapshots.

7 lbs 9 ounces

We went to the doctor today for Stella's two week checkup, which is when the doctors want to see her back at her birth weight. Apparently babies (especially breastfed ones) start losing weight right when they are born, and don't start gaining it back for a few days. Stella went from 7 lbs 1 ounce at birth to 6 lbs 8 ounces when she was discharged from the hospital. Two days later, at her first doctors appointment, she was down to 6 lbs 6 ounces... A couple days after that, however, after some intense feeding, she was back up to 6 lbs 11 ounces, and today at her checkup she was back up to 7 lbs 9 ounces! Way to go, baby Stella!

She also grew about 3/4 of an inch, although that may have just been because I didn't hold her in place against the top of the measuring table...

Grandparent's Weekend

Grandma and Grandpa Hallberg were in town for the weekend to meet Stella and help out her sleep-deprived parents. To see a full gallery of photos, click the picture to the left...

We had a most excellent weekend, with many of the highlights being of the culinary variety. Grandma and Grandpa Yakubik came over on Friday evening with a bottle of champagne and a box of amazing truffles from a little cafe/bakery down in Apex - yummy! Grandpa Hallberg cooked some truly excellent meals, highlighted by Sundays pork chops in a fabulous sauce (too many flavors to attempt to list here), carrots and red grapes in a Grand Marnier glaze, and mashed potatoes w/bacon and other assortied yummies. That same night Grandma Hallberg made an amazing carrot cake that we are still eating (for breakfast, lunch, and dinner I might add!). She also made her famous Swedish pancakes on Sunday morning - delicious!



Stella also got to wear a couple of beautiful sweaters this weekend - one new one made by Grandma Hallberg (shown in the picture, here, along with matching booties), and one 30-year-old one originally worn by Stella's daddy way back in the last century. To see that one, check out the linked gallery!

Stella is quite lucky, as are her parents, to have four wonderful grandparents who love her very much! Our thanks go out to Grandma and Grandpa Hallberg for a wonderful weekend.

What a Life

I have the great luxury of four weeks paternity leave, so the three NC Hallbergs have been spending a lot of time together since coming home from the hospital. The schedule of a new parent is completely insane, let me tell you - and we've had tons of help (dinners from the ladies at our church, lots of help from Grandma Yakubik, etc.).

Essentially, we have about eight three hour windows during each day. In each of these, we spend about 40 minutes or so feding the baby, 10 burping the baby, and another 10 or so changing diapers, etc. This leaves eight two hour windows for everything else, including sleep! Needless to say, this schedule doesn't leave much room for anything other than eating, sleeping, and the occasional blog post...




-Aaron

Stella Madeline Hallberg

After nine long months...



...Stella was born at 3:41 PM on February 6th, 2007. She weighed in at 7 lbs 1 oz, and measured 19 3/4 inches long.




Mama and papa were extremely excited and proud after their long ordeal!




At three days old, Stella has a full head of hair and beautiful blue eyes!