Potpourri

Posted by kara

Things in Toshi Land are pretty good. Paul’s parents took us to the three week mark; we just have to make it to the four week mark; my parents will take us almost to the five week mark; and then we’ll just have one more week until the six week mark! I feel like all I’ve been doing for the past nine months is counting down weeks. It’s fun seeing slight changes in Toshi as time goes by. I wish it would go a little slower so I won’t have to go back to work quite so fast. I really miss my work buddies and doing work, but I have a feeling I’ll miss Toshi more!

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On Wednesday, I took Toshi to Paul’s work. They were having a Cookies with Santa shindig. It was my first time taking Toshi anywhere alone. I felt like it was a big production getting her ready and into the car. Lugging her in the carseat felt like quite an accomplishment. Anyway, I met Paul’s nice coworkers (well, maybe 7 of the 100) and saw lots of cute kids and babies. And the cookies were delicious! Anyway, no pics from that event because we let Toshi sleep in her carseat the whole time. It was fun though and Toshi received a cute book and t-shirt.

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The Christmas tree has been found! We can stop harassing my aunt and uncles now. Paul found the tree at UB’s in the basement (not garage) under a big, low coffee table. I felt bad when AK showed up with one of their Christmas trees– nothing worse than taking a bit of Christmas from your younger cousins… So yeah, we have our tree up and Paul put on ornaments but I took this pic before that.

Now you may have noticed that there appears to be one single ornament already on the tree. That, my friend, is Toshi’s first ornament from her Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Irland. Notice the scarf says “Granddaughter”.

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My parents sent a big box of baby stuff. The ornament was one thing, along with lots of other stuff for Toshi. They also sent me my baby book. I saw pictures of me as a chubby baby with a full head of hair. It made me think that Toshi looks a lot more like Paul because my face was so different. Maybe I can get Lynn to send me a baby picture of Paul and we can do a comparison. Anyway, the baby book recorded a lot of good fun info for me to read. My favorite part was hearing what things I told my mom. When she said she needed to color her hair, I told her that crayons wouldn’t work and she better use markers.

Also, my grandma sent me her kokeshi doll. It’s the coolest one and I know my little bro had his eye on it, but I managed to finagle it first.

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Toshi said her fake first word. (I’m not counting the “Ohio” that her grandma claims to have heard.) She said “Ow”. The first time I heard it, I was changing her diaper and it freaked me out a bit. I thought I was hurting her or something, but then I found out that she says it all the time. Between “Ow” and all of her grunts, it can be distressing if you don’t remember that she’s just making noises and they don’t necessarily mean that she’s upset.

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Toshi also has her first best friend. His name is Reggie the Register. One of the good things about having a baby in the winter and living in a cheaply constructed apartment is that the heater needs to be on most of the time. Luckily, each room has its own thermostat and heater. So we keep Toshi’s room nice and cozy (some would say sweltering, but that could just be postpartum hormones). Anyway, her register seems to make the perfect white noise for her. So after I put her down, I make sure Reggie is keeping her company with his humming. It seems to work so far…

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On Thursday and Friday, my Aunt Karen came to help out with the baby. It was great having her here so I could take a nap or do some things around the house. She was able to soothe Toshi much better than I can, and AK’s patience is unending. She is also coming over on Monday! 🙂

Toshi loves her Aunt Karen and likes to follow AK with her eyes. Toshi is also stretching a lot and seems to be moving her arms more.

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Now it’s the weekend and Paul is home! Yay!