{"id":2378,"date":"2012-07-25T20:35:14","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T03:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/?p=2378"},"modified":"2012-07-25T20:37:11","modified_gmt":"2012-07-26T03:37:11","slug":"life-with-sirena-weeks-3-and-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/?p=2378","title":{"rendered":"Life with Sirena: Weeks 3 and 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Things seemed to change dramatically after the first two weeks but thinking back on it now I think it had less to do with Sirena and more to do with me and Kevin just getting the hang of things!\u00a0 Quite a few people reached out to me after reading my last post about my experience with the “baby blues” and I appreciate it so much.\u00a0 Although it was hard to write and even harder to post for everyone to read, it felt really good to be so honest about it and to receive such positive feedback from moms and future mamas alike.<\/p>\n

I wanted to share with all those future mamas out there that one of the things that helped me the most was reading the book The Happiest Baby on the Block. <\/a> Although the book focuses mostly on how to calm a fussy baby and how to help relax and put a baby to sleep, what I found most helpful was reading about a newborn’s development.\u00a0 I had heard before that the first three months of life are considered the “fourth trimester” but I never understood exactly what that meant and the author, Dr. Karp, explained it extremely well (and much better than I’m about to do, I guarantee that)…he says that babies younger than three months old can still be considered fetuses because they have not finished developing and still need 24\/7 attention.\u00a0 They were so used to living in the womb where their every need was met on demand (eating, warmth, movement, being held tightly) and after birth they’re still in need of those things all the time.\u00a0 Reading this helped me understand a lot about her and her needs and it helped me to understand why my sole job right now is to take care of her.\u00a0 This understanding has helped me immensely!<\/p>\n

In other news, we had her first appointment with the pediatrician on June 18 and she weighed in at a whoppin’ 8 lbs, 14 oz and measured the same as she did at birth at 19.5 inches.\u00a0 The doctor said that everything looks good and that we’ve got a healthy baby on our hands!<\/p>\n

We continued to keep ourselves mighty busy the last half of her first month including a visit from her Grandma Dorothy and celebrating Kevin’s first Father’s Day!\u00a0 Pictures of our adventures…<\/p>\n

A hike at Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve<\/a> in Oakland<\/strong><\/p>\n

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First time baby-wearing for me and I loved it!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Sirena’s first-ever visit to San Francisco! <\/strong>
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Me and the little Bay Area native looking out on the bay<\/em><\/p>\n

A not-so-happy bather<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Preparing for a dip in the bathtub<\/em><\/p>\n

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Not digging this experience in the least<\/em><\/p>\n

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“Quit taking pictures and dry me off NOW!”<\/em><\/p>\n

Tummy time!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tummy time is a really important part of a newborn’s development to help them strengthen their neck muscles and practice keeping their heads up. She likes it for a couple of minutes but then won’t hesitate to let us know that she is very unhappy and wants to get off her tummy as soon as possible!<\/em><\/p>\n

A hike in Glen Canyon<\/a> in San Francisco (Mom and Dad’s old stompin’ grounds!)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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After the hike we spent some time sitting in the grass and taking in the sunshine…<\/p>\n

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What day at the park would be complete without a showing of Kevin and Lola’s tricks?<\/em><\/p>\n

Some more random photos from these two weeks…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A naked, sleeping baby…could life get any better than this?<\/em><\/p>\n

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Hanging out at Auntie Jessie’s apartment<\/em><\/p>\n

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Getting to know her cousin Mars<\/em><\/p>\n

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Me and my girls<\/em><\/p>\n

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Kevin and his lounging “beach bum”<\/em><\/p>\n

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Sirena and Mama<\/em><\/p>\n

Grandma Dorothy’s visit<\/h3>\n

Grandma Dorothy came up to visit for a few days to spend some more time with her fourth grandchild (oh yeah, and us too \ud83d\ude09 ).<\/p>\n

We spent one day at the Berkeley Rose Garden and Codornices Park across the street (the last time we went to these two places was back in 2010 when Kevin’s brother Thomas came to visit, see post at this link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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Notice Lola’s photo bomb? Haha, that girl is such a ham.<\/em><\/p>\n

We also spent an afternoon at Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland to hang out and play frisbee with Lola…<\/p>\n

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Ready for some sunshine!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Me and Dorothy chatting while Sirena napped the afternoon away<\/em><\/p>\n

This girl makes sleeping look so good…<\/p>\n

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Big foot!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Kevin’s first Father’s Day was spent at the botanic gardens<\/a> at Tilden Regional Park<\/a> in Berkeley at Kevin’s request.\u00a0 We packed a picnic lunch and enjoyed the beautiful gardens together.<\/p>\n

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Chow time!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Sirena napped in her stroller while we had our picnic lunch<\/em><\/p>\n

Then it was time for our hike…<\/p>\n

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Kevin and Dorothy<\/em><\/p>\n

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The gardens had TONS of stairs so Kevin and I had to carry the stroller quite a bit, haha.\u00a0 And we quickly realized that we definitely need an off-road stroller (which we’ve since gotten, hallelujah!)<\/em><\/p>\n

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Beautiful trees in the garden<\/em><\/p>\n

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Diaper duty for Kevin on Father’s Day<\/em>!<\/p>\n

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Happy girl with a clean booty<\/em><\/p>\n

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Papahood sure looks good on Kevin, wouldn’t you say?<\/em><\/p>\n

I have to admit, saying the words “Happy Father’s Day” to Kevin for the first time that day was the sweetest thing!<\/p>\n

And some final random photos from Grandma’s visit…<\/p>\n

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The three of us hanging out in her room on the glider<\/em><\/p>\n

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Kisses for my Buddha baby and her giving me a goofy grin right back!<\/em><\/p>\n

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It’s so apparent that Grandma has so much love for this little lady (wearing her “Grandma gives the best hugs” onesie for the occasion!)<\/em><\/p>\n

And finally some short videos of Sirena in action to close this post out!<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Sirena making some funny faces at me here<\/a><\/p>\n

Getting kisses from Lola during a car ride here<\/a><\/p>\n

Me trying to wake The Grump up here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Things seemed to change dramatically after the first two weeks but thinking back on it now I think it had less to do with Sirena and more to do with me and Kevin just getting the hang of things!\u00a0 Quite a few people reached out to me after reading my last post about my experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,3,21,6,52,14,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dorothy-george","category-family","category-hikes","category-lola","category-sirena","category-video-blog","category-visitors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2378"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2452,"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2378\/revisions\/2452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lisankevin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}