12 weeks now!

Friday makes 12 weeks, with Fern's 3-month birthday coming up early next week. Thought I'd post a nice "waking up" series we got today: enjoy!

Related Photos on Flickr : Kristin, expressions, faceroll
File Under : Kristin, expressions, faceroll

Jacquie and Patrick visit

Graham's friend and fellow outdoor educator Jacquie & her husband Patrick came over to visit. It was so nice out that we decided to take Fern and J & P's dogs for a walk up to Alamo Square. Fittingly, they had brought Fern an organic cotton carrot hat, since "nice" in San Francisco can still mean chilly, and boy was that fog rolling in!

Related Photos on Flickr : "Jacquie & Patrick", outing
File Under : Jacquie&Patrick, outing

waking up in a new dress

I got a few "expressive" photos of Fern waking up in a mixture of moods today. Her level of "expressiveness" continues to grow: apart from faces, she's also gurgling many different syllables and coos.

Related Photos on Flickr : expressions, faceroll
File Under : expressions, faceroll

things are just ducky

IMG_2661
Originally uploaded by grahampc.

Fern is starting to react to "things" around her, like toys, books, and cats (well, one cat, anyway). She'll grab and pull, feel and marvel, and, inevitably, put things into her mouth. Sometimes, though, she doesn't like what she tastes!

return to Crissy Field

Another entry by Kristin!

East is East and West is San Francisco.

—O. Henry

We finally made our way back to Crissy Field, which you may recall as the site of our endless walking the day I went into labor with Fern. It was great to go back and to remember that special day, particularly without the accompanying pain of contractions! The weather has foiled our intentions to get out more—another intended destination on our list has been the zoo. We hope to get there before my maternity leave ends (I return to work on May 8)!

Jeanne & the girls come visit

Francesca and Fern

Jeanne, Francesca, and Marisa were our first post-Easter visitors, come over to see the little one. She's still a little jet-lagged, as you can see!

Related Photos on Flickr : Francesca, Jeanne, Marisa
File Under : Francesca, Jeanne, Marisa

last Easter pictures

OK, just wanted to post a few final Easter shots...

In the car seat she borrowed from Kamryn

Speaking of whom...

In Sven, twice

Easter relations

Still catching up on the hundreds of photos from Easter: ours, Linda's, and Gary's...

This time it's all about the Minnesota branch of the family (and a few who came to town for the occasion). Unfortunately (and I'm sure she'd agree) Ali seems to always have Fern grabbed from her -- we didn't get a single picture with either her or Mark!

Once again, these are just a few highlight shots... here's the link to the whole trip.

Papa Gary

Grandma Linda

Grandma Joanie

Kristin's brother Luke & his fiancée Morgan

Easter friends!

These are highlight photos; click here if you'd prefer to see the album of the entire trip.

Fern got to meet (and see again) a lot of friends from Minnesota during our Easter holiday there. In addition to those she met at the shower, here are some more of her new (and continuing!) admirers. In this first photo, at right, Fern is meeting a fellow St. Matthew's parishioner (and the grandmother of Kristin's childhood friend Alison), also named Fern!

Fern the elder is in her 90s, which fits with what we've found: most Ferns in this world seem to be of her generation. It's possible that trend will change: we're told that a new version of Charlotte's Web is coming out soon with Dakota Fanning playing our daughter's namesake. I expect there might be a few more Ferns around soon...
Here's a few of the many people who visited Fern this week. Apologies in advance to the many visitors who are not pictured... we are still assembling our photos (and I think we missed a couple folks, too, I'm afraid!).

Rekha's mom Karin

Janice

god-grandmother Marge, with Joan

Eileen

And, just for fun, one last picture of Trevor!

Easter friends, part II

Just wanted to include this one picture of Hershbell family friend John F. from the Easter trip; it came from Gary and was so sweet I thought it needed to be included!

an Easter album

Hey all! Sorry for the delay in getting these up; there was so much to do in Minnesota, I've not been able to post until now! Here are a few shots from the christening day. I've also posted a slide show of all the photos from this trip at this link.

First off, we unfortunately only got one photo of the fourth-generation christening gown, which my mom fixed up (and in parts, rebuilt!) just for the occasion. (It was worn by my brother, mother, grandmother, and great-aunts. I'm not sure how I got out of it!) In this photo, we're just getting ready to go. She kept the lovely gown on for the entire ceremony, but unfortunately, had an, ahem, accident immediately afterwards, so we had to switch her into a backup outfit it before we could get any photos. The backup's got a history, too: it was my mom's when she was a baby.

The baptism itself was lovely, and Fern was a doll during the ceremony; her few slight moments of fussiness were taken care of by a walk with new godmother Beth, shown here with godfather Steve. Pictured in the center is Blair, St. Matthew's new rector and the officiant today. Fern seems to like hymns -- my theory centers on the vibrations in the church, but maybe I'm being too scientific; mabye she just likes the music!

Blair gave a lovely homily, celebrated the baptism, and then Fern got to travel around the church a bit meeting everyone. Not the first time she's been the center of attention, of course, but the largest number of people!

Finally, one last cute photo of Fern at her most contented, enjoying the bustle and attention!

a Minnesota shower

These are highlight photos; click here if you'd prefer to see the album of the entire trip.

We started our trip to Minnesota with a shower/pre-baptism party thrown by godparents-to-be Beth & Steve at which Kristin got to meet a few of the Kristin's childhood friends, including (pictured here with Beth) new godbrothers Liam & Lucas, and, of course, her god-guinea-pig.

Also at the party were childhood friends Sonia and Barry; Barry's here with five-month old Trevor, who's a little shy -- but interested!

Fern, however, is generally more interested in falling asleep, although I thought maybe I saw a glimmer in her eye. Maybe that was just the flash, though. She's pictured at right; this time Janna is holding her and Trevor's with his mom, Sonia.

Janna's boys were unfortunately not able to make the party, but at least that meant she got a lot of good Fern time!

We'll close on a picture of godgrandmother (are there such things?) Marge with Fern and Lucas.

Mary visits

IMG_2178
Originally uploaded by grahampc.

Kristin's family friend Mary was in town from Michigan for an education conference and couldn't resist trying to extract yet another smile from Fern -- and she succeeded! Together with her friend Bill, we all went out to The Metro afterward; Fern's getting to be quite a frequent diner!

having a moment in Sven

Fern's newfound interest in the world is still nascent: she really prefers sitting this way most of the time. (Personally, I think that it's because she gets bored with me; if she's sitting face-front, she can't just fall asleep whenever she wants.)

Fern's finicky feet

Another entry by Kristin...

Fern saw her podiatrist yesterday and came home with knee-high casts on both feet and legs! It turns out that she does indeed have metatarsus adductus; the surprise was that she has it in both feet, rather than in just her right foot.

As you may recall from an earlier blog entry, metatarsus adductus is a condition in which the forefoot curves inward (if you were to examine Fern's feet, you would see that they are c-shaped). She will undergo "serial casting" treatment for roughly 3 months (which simply means that she will have new casts put on every week), after which we will receive instructions in how to massage her feet to continue encouraging them to straighten out. We really thought that this wouldn't be necessary (and to a certain extent still wonder whether it is)! The good news is that Fern doesn't seem overly bothered by the casts. From our vantage point, it's a bit dramatic, but we're starting to adjust to the sight of them without wincing.

We captured some moments on film---first the casting process itself and then Fern and her casts later in the evening on her changing table where she now regularly "talks" (i.e., coos and gurgles) to her colorful and, evidently, joy-inspiring quilt (it makes us happy too!) made by Grandma Joanie that hangs on the wall.

File Under: : casts, feet

Jessica & George visit

Our friends Jessica & George came over on Tuesday and we all went out to dinner (at, of course, The Metro), but not until Fern got to visit with everyone a bit! As you can see from the photo at left, Jessica is auditioning for "first babysitter" privileges (it's astounding how many folks have asked for that!).

Seriously, though, it's nice that Fern's a little more holdable now than when J & G first came over last month (you'll remember that they were part of the food delivery network, but came at some "fussier" times, most of which, happily, have passed). Fern was pretty interested in (confused by?) George, too!

two months!

Believe it or not, we've reached two months! We were reminded today that Fern really is changing with another milestone: she actually looks at and then grabs at things around her. (In the photo, her target is a fun toy from Ali & Mark that they report to be Kamryn's favorite!)

There are other milestones, too... Fern's feedings have become much more regular and large, although she still falls back into the habit of eating "just a little bit more" as a soporific -- but who among us hasn't done that! She is smiling quite a lot now, and even laughing sometimes. She also makes eye contact when in the mood, as you can see in this picture with Uncle Ken.

Here are a few more "face" shots, too, just to celebrate two months. Sorry about the focus on some of those, but just consider it "artistic license!"