Wow! Mira is already a MONTH old!

You know how they say time flies when you are having fun? Well, so it goes with your first month as a parent! Mira is getting bigger by the minute, holding her head up more, and looking around with much more curiosity. This last weekend she got a visit from Grandpa Steve and his special lady Maryline. It was an incredibly hot weekend so we spent most of the time relaxing in the backyard. Here are some pictures of our time together.




With Grandpa Steve


Relaxing with Mom


It was so hot Daddy had to get a small pool to relax in. Coco kept him company in the pool!






Getting a bath outside


Drying off in Mom's arms




Post bath faces


Having a nap in Daddy's arms


Getting bigger


A red-tailed hawks nest in the eucalyptus stand across the street, can you spot the bird?

Comic relief

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For those of you that do not know Coco, she can sometimes be a spaz. Here is a perfect illustration. Sprinting spastically from room to room, her untrimmed nails clicking on the floor, she exhasts herself. In severe need of hydration she gulps water in the background.
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Below are a series of video's of Mira sleeping. Some are of her sleeping, while grunting, making funny noises, smiling or opening her eyes.
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In the system

The last couple of days have been filled by a rapidly more entertaining Mira, growing more conscious of her surroundings (I think she has gotten much better at focusing!), smiling at us for extended periods (for non bowel pushing reasons) and becoming more vocal (in both acute and benign ways). She continues to gain weight, we do not own a scale (who wants to live in fear of knowing ones weight) but purely on how she carries herself in her clothes. She has also continued her intermittent fussiness. While we still have not really figured out why, we suspect that this may be a multifactorial problem requiring years of data collection and many samples to accurately assess causality.

Perusing pubmed there seem to be some interesting articles that address the role of crying in mammals and means to evaluate communication cues by parents. These shed light onto crying as an important tool in a babies development and while it may be hard for a parent to listen to, there are ways to identify why the child is crying and try to resolve the situation. Further, excessive bouts of crying can lead to undue stress, strain relationships and trigger the onset of postpardum depression thus understanding how to alleviate crying and cope with the repercussions are critical tools for young parents. What we have learned thus far about communication is that it is really important (perhaps adults can take a page from this). Before a child is capable of communicating using language it seems to be really helpful to expose them to sign language as a means to facilitate communication and prevent frustration due to failure of communication.




Sleeping and then...



Fighting until she is completely out of energy, she collapses into a deep sleep.



On another note, Mira has received her paperwork from The Man. Will she be a productive member of society? Some predict that she will be a dog show judge (Thanks Faryn & Eli!! wrybaby: mysterio predicts) but honestly could Coco drive her to see perfection in dogs? Only time will tell.

She's got some pipes

Mira turned 18 days old today, she has completed her second doctors visit and is doing well. She gained 21ozs in 12 days!!! WOW!!! Big Baby!!! In the last two days Mira has had two unconsolable episodes. Right away we thought that this could be an indication of colic (of course as new parents we may be jumping the gun but isn't that what you are supposed to do?). The medical definition of colic is a condition in which an otherwise healthy baby cries for no particular reason. The causes of colic are not quite clear, there is some evidence that the sudden onset of colic may be due to the passage of gas causing abdominal discomfort. However, there is very little scientific evidence for the causes of colic, and thus how to treat it. While at the doctors this week we were warned that due to Maikke's ultra rapid milk flow rate we could expect a "firehose effect". This results in larger air intake during feeding, which manifests itself as accumulating gas. There are several ways of treating this; with an anti-foaming agent (simethicone), or using a nipple shield to regulate the flow of milk. Yet another consideration is a rapid growth spurt, these happen in roughly 3 week cycles (we happen to be around that time) and are thought to be cause some discomfort as the body expands.

At this point it has been to soon to assess causality, if it ceases then it will likely be a growth spurt or the anti-foaming agent doing the trick, however, if it continues we may have to explore the colic effect.

Here's an effort to document what happens in the next 24 hrs, can we capture Mira in an unconsolable state?



Sample 1: In a grunty mood.



Sample 2: Maybe a bowel movement?



Sleeping in the new rocking/vibrating chair. She really loves this chair! A wonderful gift from our baby shower!



Still sleeping in the chair, albeit in a different location.



Post-feeding sleepy baby.



Post-feeding sleepy baby in Daddy's arms.



24hrs later, still a happy baby. Not bad.

Lucky to say MIRA has been feeding and sleeping great since the aforementioned episodes!!! She is again fully consolable!!!

Simply Mira

Our days of bonding continue. Mira is more active. We've also discovered that she enjoys sleeping in a more vertical position, I suppose this may have something to do with passing gases both in the upward and downward directions. From what I have read on the internets this seems to cause some discomfort to the baby, not really clear why, because as adults we all know that this is quite easy to do and for some even perhaps pleasurable.



Actually she prefers Etta James to Etta Jones.





What is the Doc going to say? (Update: Mira has gained 21ozs in 12days, the milk is definately going somewhere!!!)




We've been making a conscious effort to take her on walks and get some fresh air and expose her to new sounds and smells, the most recent park that we have visited is called Byxbee park in Palo Alto. The park itself is quite scenic (despite being built over a former landfill) as it is located directly on the San Francisco bay waterfront, what is sort of strange and disappointing is that it's surrounded on all other sides by commercial enterprises that define our spiraling consumerist society; an active landfill, an airport, a sewage treatment plant and a golfcourse. Of course because it's Palo Alto they've made an effort to beautify it with art installations.



A windy path leads through a telephone pole field over the old landfill space in Byxbee park.




Looking over the wetlands area of the park there is lots of bird life including some white pelicans.




Our new companion, the Buzz, takes on uneven terrain with ease while keeping little Mira well asleep. Complements of Dziadek Andrzej/Babcia Grazyna. With planes overhead, this park does not feel natural.




A nice shot of another large white bird, a great white egret. Pretty amazing.

MIRA milestones

Mira is now 2 weeks old (WOW!!) and is doing great. Ready to spread her super cute powers Mira has already made the 28.3 mile trek to SF to visit wujek marcin and ciocia ania. And yes, she is indeed wearing a cape.



"Caped crusader arrives in San Francisco!!!"



She has lost her umbilical cord stub, had her first bath and her hair has become a better medium for self-expression. She seems to be steadily gaining weight and continues with her intense regiment of ravenous feedings and deep sleep. She is increasingly becoming more aware of her surrounding, scanning with an intense curiosity that no doubt will come in handy deciphering the jigsaw that is life . Coupled to this she has also become more vocal, at the moment still incomprehensible, but with some refinement has potential to strike fear with a shocking epithet.









Look at those big eyes. Still dark but the final color is TBD.






The hair is actually long enough to style!!!! A fauxhawk?








We've found that she is quite fond of motion, whether it's in a car or swinging at home. Recorded on our new (and tiny) flip camcorder, complements of dziadek Steve.


Miscelaneous information:



Frequency distribution of Mira name usage over the last century (US only).







Some more statistics for the given name "Mira", funny to think about how many other people share your name, especially if the number is small.

MIRA MIRA

Things are starting to settle down after the whirlwind series of visits of family and friends. Here are some more pics of the princess and others from this weekend.