First shopping trip with Mom

I have to brag on myself... I've obviously gone grocery shopping with Katherine here by the house. But this week I took my first car trip to a Carrefour (huge supermarket) in France. I wanted to get diapers, laundry deterget and a couple of other things which are way cheaper in France. Cory is on a business trip in Italy this week so I'm having to entertain myself - and her - all by myself. And with the weather really crappy this week (rain and cold) I did not feel like going for a walk so a car trip was the only option. I fed her and as soon as she was burped, I loaded her in her car seat and off we went. It actually went pretty well. She slept almost the entire time. We only had one screaming incident when I got stuck in traffic and the car stopped rocking her. Well done little monkey!

Easter in Lucerne

This past weekend we took our first family trip out of town. We drove to Lucerne (aka Luzern) in the German speaking part of Switzerland. Our friends told us a lot of good things about Lucerne so we decided to see for ourselves. Plus it seemed like a safe choice for the first overnight trip with a new baby.

We packed like typical first time (American) parents and packed our car full - including the pack'n play for Katherine. Haha...
We stayed in a cute little Gasthaus hotel right in the Old Town 5 minutes from the lake and river front. We were able to get to all the restaurants and things to see in minutes. We brought our travel system and the first evening walked around with Katherine in it, but with so many streets paved with cobbles I just hated how the stroller was shaking and rattling her so the second day we switched to carrying her in the Baby Bjorn and it turned out to be the best decision ever. She was nice an toasty inside daddy's jacket and we were able to quickly get into places where a stroller would not have made it (like into old watch towers on the ancient city walls).

The only thing that turned out to be less than perfect was the weather. It was quite chilly when we go there on Friday and overnight it started raining pretty bad. And finally on Sunday the weather turned to a full on winter. Still we made the best of our time there and saw some cool things and ate some good food. And we definitely plan to go back when the weather is better and when she is a bit bigger.
Here are some pictures.

View of the city...

 Daddy with baby...

 Cool view

 Mount Pilatus. There is a luxury resort up on top and a scenic cogwheel railwaiy going up to the top. We want to come back and explore it in nicer weather

 Me

 Riverfront. The city is set up pretty similar to Geneva... lake and river and old town around...

 Kapelbruecke (chappel bridge) the longest wooden bridge in Europe.

 Cool buildings in Old Town

 Lion monument commemorating Swiss mercenary army which fought in Napoleonic wars...

 Tasty pub food

 Walking on the lakefront

And on Easter Sunday we woke up to this view from our hotel:

This is us on the way to church. Katherine did really good during Mass which is a shock. She is such a screamer.

And on the way back we drove through a full on blizzard. Crazy weather for April.

Can't wait to go back when the weather is nicer.

The Newest US Citizen

Katherine is no longer a baby without a country! Last week she finally received her US Passport and birth certificate and she is now officially a US Citizen.
Just a word of explanation - Switzerland does not automatically grant citizenship to people born here, the way that US does. At least one of the parents of the baby has to be a Swiss Citizen for the baby to have a claim. Since neither one of us is Swiss, the poor munchkin was a baby with no land for about a month.
But we finally took her passport photos and went to Bern (capital of Switzerland) to the US Embassy and applied for her passport, birth certificate and Social Security Number.
Here we are, all three now a proper family of Americans.
Best thing - we can now travel with her! Her first plane trip is coming up beginning of May. We will be going to Venice for a a few days. Yay!

Katherine is 1 month old!!

I can't believe that it has been a month already since our little girl joined our family! Time files and the last month feels like a blur. I don't think I will be blogging as often as I used to since taking care of her is taking pretty much all of my time and CJ is always tied up at work so he can't really take over with either task... Sorry guys.

First of all a random comment. You know how people always wonder if the baby will look or feel like the name the parents picked fits? Well this little girl is definitely a KATHERINE, not a Kate.
Katherine just fits her so well!
At the hospital the nurses and midwives were calling her "Kathrine" with a French accent (notice the French spelling with no "e" after "h") and it just sounded so right! So we've been calling her Madamoiselle Kathrine since then.
If in the future she wants to be called Kate she will make that decision.
For now she is our little KATHERINE.

So here are a few thoughts from the last month.

Eating:
She goes about3 hours between feedings during the day - almost on the dot. And 4 hours at night. She would go longer if I let her, but the other night I let her go 4hrs 40 minutes and I think she was so hungry she gave herself an upset tummy from eating too much at the next session. And then I had to rub her belly and bend her legs to get rid of air bubbles that I ended up not getting much sleep after that. So I'd rather get up after 4 hours and feed her than just let her wake up on her own from hunger. I do all the night time feedings and I'm not going to lie - being up all the time at night SUCKS big time... haha... But my goal is to start working on getting her go longer between feedings at night this coming month.
Sidenote: To CJ's credit - he did the night feedings this past weekend and it felt great to have some uninterrupted sleep!

She has absolutely NO nipple confusion from eating from the boobies and from a bottle. I can feed her both and she is equally as good with either one and accepts either one from me without any issue. We even used a nipple shield at the hospital for a bit and she had no issues switching back and forth. I really don't understand how some babies will not take a bottle from their moms. I almost feel that freaked out parents make these things up... Katherine is just happy to eat, regardless of how food is served.

She does not spit up or throw up a lot. Only a bit if I can't get a decent burp out of her. She just gets really gassy after eating and it hurts her tummy so that she screams and strains. I'm trying out different things to help her out.

Sleeping:
She does not like to sleep flat on her back. She is almost always in her Boppy, in the bouncy seat and at night it's the newborn napper attachment of the pack'n play.

Though I managed to put her down flat for a couple of naps in her crib where we stuffed towels and 3 ring binders under the mattress to elevate the head. And once she slept on the couch next to me...

Hopefully she can learn to sleep flat sometime soon, as the newborn attachment is getting too small for her and I am tired of having her in the Boppy all the time. Also, right now she sleeps in our bedroom in the pack'n play, simply because I don't feel like running across the entire apartment to her room every time she lets out a suspicious squeak in the middle of the night and I feel like I want to check on her. I'm hoping we will move her to her bed at some point in the next couple of months.

She hates being swaddled, or for that matter restricted in any way. Hands must be free. She gets really frazzled and upset if she can't move and flail her hands freely. We tried a couple of times and it was an epic fail!! Must be something about how she was positioned in my belly - she had lots of room for moving her hands around. Also she gets gassy and likes to arch her back and kick her feet to help herself. With the swaddle she would be totally restricted and would just scream in protest.

I don't really keep track of how long she naps during the day. She sleeps when she's tired and stays up when she's not. I really don't think you can demand too much of a baby who is this tiny. We'll worry about schedules etc when she is a bit bigger.

Activities:
She's been pretty sleepy this entire month so there is no activities to speak of yet really. She started following things with her eyes if you dangle something in front of her face. She loves looking into our eyes when we feed her. Definitely starting to focus on things more. No smiles yet. And she only lets out occasional coos when she's hungry and calling for attention so I wouldn't count that as talking yet.

Randoms:
When she first came out she kept her legs straight and flexed when we would lift her up. Kind of a residual of having them bent all the way up feet next to her head I guess. She's now straightened out though and on a good day she'll even sleep a little bit all flat on her back. That's not her favorite position though.

She does not get the concept of the pacifier. She will only take it when she is really REALLY cranky or borderline hungry and we're trying to soothe her till we know it's really time to feed. Those times she will take it and chew on it viciously. Other times she spits it out with a disgusted look on her face and almost an audible BLEEEH!!! Haha...  Also, we've tried the American soothie pacifiers and a Swiss paci we got at the hospital (a more traditional oval shaped one) and I have to say the Swiss one won. The American ones seem too round and slippery and she can' get a good grip on them and ends up shooting them out of her mouth and frustrating herself even more.  Also the Wubba Nubs are not working out too great right now, since she loves to flail her arms around so much she just knocks it off her chest. I hope she learns not to do that because I really love the concept of this thing... But the Swiss paci for some reason works for her. She likes to hold the ring of it in her hand and chews viciously... haha..

She has a very strong neck and crawling reflex. She was born with those. Already at a couple of hours old she could lift her head off my chest and when on her belly for a clothes change she tries to pull up her knees and crawl.

She's starting to like baths. At the hospital once she figured out that the bath involved being submerged in nice warm water, she would stop screeching and get this blissful look on her face. At home we only have a little bath seat which is not cuddly or comfy for her and does not allow for being submerged, so we're actually planning to buy a little baby tub and use that for her baths. After all, a bath should be a pleasant, comforting experience not a 5 minute in and out fire drill like it is right now (because we try not to freak her out or chill her too much on that stupid seat).

Oh, she has the cutest belly button! It is tiny and perfectly round. Once the cord stump fell off we discovered it, and it just fits perfect with the rest of her super cute self.

She loves going for walks. She sleeps the entire time. The rocking, shaking motion of the stroller on pavement puts her right to sleep and makes her super happy. If there was a way for me to keep her moving AND somehow get ME a nap, I would take her out all the time.

She seems like a pretty strong willed, determined baby. When she's happy, she typically sleeps. When she's not happy she will definitely let you know. She will scream her head off till something is done. And there is nothing gentle or subtle about her cries. She lets you know she's not happy. Haha...

Here she is the week we came back from the hospital... so at 1+ weeks of age...

And here she is at 1 month... Getting chunky! At her 1 month pediatrician check up she weighed in at 4.03 kilo = 8.7lbs (gained 0.58 kilo - over 1 lb - above birth weight) and 50 cm length = 19.7" (grew 1 cm since birth). still wearing Newborn size clothes, though we started rotating some smaller 0-3m pj's just for fun. I only had 4 Newborn outfits so we were going through them real fast.

 Ooooopss sliding sideways...

What else can I say? It still feels surreal that we now have a baby. It is definitely tough work and no amount of reading or research will prepare you for it. I truly believe that the midwife who came in to check on us a few times saved my life and sanity. So glad they do that here in Switzerland.

CJ's 33rd Birthday!

Posted by CJ

This year marks double threes for me, and my first as a Papa! So what is a guy to do when he has a 3 week old at home and lives in a faraway land you might ask.

Well first off the day was beautiful outside - about 50 degrees and Mada was very tried from being up late night with Katherine (she let me sleep since it was my bday after all) so I decided to take her, and give Mada some time to sleep.

We headed out (our first time alone outside the home).

First off we walked a few blocks to the post office, these are still a big deal in Europe and very busy on a Saturday. We picked up a nice present for Kate from Mada's parents.

After Le Poste we were off to the market for a few groceries, another busy place, and a stroller and a bag on my shoulder didn't make it easy but we managed to survive and the goods fit in the basket of the stroller so we traveled well.

It was about lunch time so we decided to treat ourselves and we went to "Holy Cow" a 100% Swiss made hamburger place. The meat, cheese, bread, topping, beer, napkin, everything is Swiss made and it tastes pretty good. We sat outside and for my birthday Katherine gave me 30 minutes of peace and quiet to relax and enjoy my burger and beer. It was wonderful.

Then we headed back to our flat where we snuck in quietly and hung out in the nursery till Mom woke up.

In the afternoon the 3 of us decided to go for a nice walk and admire the beautiful snow covered mountains all around Geneva, while we had relatively warm weather in town. We decided to celebrate for dinner and treat ourselves to Sushi and a bottle of Italian wine for dinner, and again Katherine was nice enough to sleep while we enjoyed it. 

A perfect day with my two girls and a great start to a new year as a Dad in Switzerland!

Facebook funnies

One more little laugh before we take off to the hospital to have a baby....

 This one was called "The button that Facebook should have"... haha