Mommy and me

Today was a busy day for Madeline and me. We dropped Max off at work in the morning and then returned home for half an hour or so where Sprout ate, got a diaper change, and spent quite awhile staring at her lizard toy. Each day she seems more and more interested in toys. She was also very smiley this morning, which is a lot of fun.

Then we were off to a reunion of the prenatal group gang at one of the mother's houses. Unfortunately, google maps and our GPS gave conflicting directions. I tried to follow a combination of the two and got utterly lost. What should have been a 10 minute drive became an hour long "adventure." It turns out there are two Willow Streets! Luckily Madeline was extremely patient during this ordeal--I think she was awake the whole time--and we arrived at our destination eventually.

The prenatal group proved the "it's a small world" phenomenon that seems to occur so frequently in Rhode Island. I had both OHSU and Carleton connections in this group of four other moms! There were two babies born the same week as Madeline and two that are roughly three weeks old. It was interesting to see the similarities in the behaviors of the older babies and to see how different they are from the younger babies. Madeline seemed particularly interested in baby Desmond. The babies took turns doing the typical newborn routine of eat, sleep, poop, repeat. The mothers relived the days after birth and shared infant stories.

After the mommy/baby visit, we headed to Brown where I had to sign a form for my grant renewal. Since we were already in the building, we made a surprise visit to lab. We visited with lab members for a few hours and even watched Ceci record some calcium currents (something Madeline may remember hearing a lot about while in utero).

We headed back to downtown to pick up Max. I recounted to Max that a professor I ran into in the hallway at Brown reminded me that now is the time to go to restaurants before Madeline gets very mobile. We decided to try our first dinner out with the babe. Max and I enjoyed delicious BBQ--complete with Storm King Stouts-- at LJ's while Sprout enjoyed a snack and a nap. The waitress couldn't believe it had been more than two months since our last visit (when I was quite pregnant). It was great to have a successful dinnertime restaurant visit with the baby!

Now baby is cooing and flailing in her cosleeper while listening to her windup dog (specially selected by Max before she was born) play "How Much is That Doggie in the Window?"

Unfortunately, the only pictures I took today were on my phone. Max took some this evening so I'll have him add them below (and some links above).

[Max here: I'm going to hijack the post by captioning the pictures unless Summer overwrites me.]

At LJ's: happy Summer, unsure baby.

Summer checking out what baby's checking out on the wall. Also, beer.

All smiles back at home.