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...