My lovebug :)

Just wanted to share the cuteness of my Sasha...

A busy busy weekend!

Baby Sasha had a very very busy weekend (which of course affected her sleep a little):

We visited grandma and grandpa A. and Sasha hung out on their table in her new big-girl pink sneakers...


...then we visited Zhenia's cousin Julie and Sasha hung out with her big cousin Jonathan (who was so very excited about seeing her)...


...then Sasha sat on grandma and grandpa L.'s awesome orange armchair...


...then after hanging out with uncle Mike who came to visit from London, she did aerobics with dad...


... and finished off the weekend with munching on the butterfly on her Jumperoo! Busy busy weekend!

We started solids!!

Last Friday (at exactly 20 weeks), we gave Sasha her first taste of "solid" food (I put solid in big quotations because as you'll see from the video, the rice cereal was very very watery).
It was really funny watching her try to figure out what this thing that mommy and daddy were putting in her mouth was. At first, she completely ignored us coming at her with a spoon and instead stared at the camera. Then she'd let the cereal just flow out of her mouth. Then she figured out she could play with it and started blowing bubbles into the spoon! By the end of the feeding though, she seemed to have figured out that she needed to open up her mouth and swallow.
All in all, I'd have to say, it was a success and we continued giving her some more every day. Originally, we were going to wait until 6 months to start her on solids, but the recent wave of waking up every hour each night and crying non-stop (until, after trying everything else, we would give her a couple of ounces of breastmilk which seemed to help a lot) made us think that maybe she was just not getting enough anymore. It made me a little sad knowing that my breastmilk wasn't enough to satisfy her, but at the same time she's growing so fast and her needs are changing!

"Ma, I'm so not amused right now!"


"Don't tell him, but I'm pretending I don't see daddy"

So we have a sitter!

... and almost a roller! Ahhh, it's wonderful: last night after her bath I was getting Sasha ready for bed and sat her up, surprisingly enough she held herself up for a few minutes! I thought it was the cutest thing! I'm so proud of herself, she'd always topple over before when we tried to sit her up.


And we're working on rolling over, too. A few days ago, she did this: rolled over the bottom half of her body, but the top stayed on the side; I think the hand that's underneath her belly is what's stopping her, so we're working on that now.

My baby's sneezes are the funniest!

Yes, I'm blogging about Sasha's sneezing! I know, I know. But a) a few people have complained about lack of updates recently and b) would you rather read about the lack of sleep lately due to Sasha's crankiness and being up every hour during the night? I didn't think so. So here are a couple of videos of her sneezing, go ahead and tell me that's not cute!

The swaddle is gone!!

I think... a few nights ago, we got quite frustrated with the swaddle and just gave up. We realized that we'd have to stop at some point so we basically just quit cold turkey. We put Sasha in her comfy cozy Carter's sleeper and decided that she can't possibly wake up more than she has been in the past couple of weeks (ok, she could, but we decided to take our chances). And a miracle happened, she only woke up twice! Since that night, Sasha's been sleeping in the sleeper and doing just fine. I don't want to jinx ourselves, but she actually slept for 6 hours straight two nights ago and till the morning last night. Yay! I didn't think I'd be this happy about getting rid of the swaddle, but I am thrilled!!

One year ago today

One year ago today, we took our first look at our daughter, she looked nothing like a baby, but we were in love even then. And we are even more in love today!

March of Dimes

I just signed up with the March of Dimes to do their March for Babies walk in April. It is such a wonderful organization helping out families with premature babies and babies with birth defects. Really, this shouldn't even be a part of our reality, all the babies should be born healthy and definitely no parent should deal with a loss of a child.
This really hit me hard when a fellow mom from my online NYC discussion board had lost her baby girl only a day after she was born. We all grieved with her, but none of us could ever imagine the pain and suffering she was going through and will have to live with her entire life.
Please join me and my team in our efforts to help out the organization that can prevent this from happening to other parents out there - join us, walk in your area or donate to the cause (click on the widget on the sidebar) I know this is a very tough time but every little bit helps!

Ms. CrankyPants

Miss Sasha has been a Ms. CrankyPants the past few days. Ick. She doesn't want to sleep during the day, even though she's so tired, which makes her even more tired, which in turn makes her cry even more. Sigh, poor baby. I think this may be a combination of a reaction to her shots on Tuesday and something known as the 4-month wakeful period. The idea is that at this stage babies learn so many new skills and their brains are working very hard to absorb all that information and constantly going. So they are constantly up and it's hard for them to relax and go to sleep. Or something like that. And mommy was naive and decided to start weaning baby Sasha off the swaddle this week, not a good move! The swaddle stays... I keep joking that we're going to swaddle until she's 16, but definitely for another couple of weeks.

Dr's appointment today

We had Sasha's 4-month appointment today and we got to see how she's growing and developing. The pediatrician was very happy with her progress and said because she's gaining so well (she's now 15.5lbs and 25" long), we don't need to start cereal until she's 6 months old (she was going to recommend we start now before). She got 2 more shots but this time she took it much much better. She cried for maybe 5 seconds total and then quieted down. Granted she did fall asleep 5 minutes later, I barely had the time to get her dressed! Sasha's been cranky all day since then though, whereas last time she just slept for most of the day for a few days after the shots. But she does seem to be doing well otherwise, no fever.
We did have to leave Sasha with grandma A. today since we're refinancing and had our closing. The timing wasn't perfect but it seemed that today was the best time for the bank (boo). She did sleep a while, but not nearly enough and was cranky. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better. And hopefully, she will sleep tonight. We've had a series of icky nights over the past week, I wonder how the vaccinations will affect that. Good night!

Four months!!

Wow! Sasha's 4 months old today! Four months! That's a third of the way to being 1! Ok, maybe a few too many exclamation points, but I'm rather excited. She's growing so fast and changing every day (although I must admit, every time someone says "Oh wow, she's changed since last week when we saw her", I think I pretty much look at them like they have three heads). When I look at pictures of her from when we first brought her home and then at her sitting there in her jumperoo, laughing and jumping around and actually communicating, my heart just melts. She's been a part of our lives first as a tiny teeny baby who'd just sleep all day long and wake up to eat every 3 hours, then waking up for longer and longer periods and showing off her giggly personality, then babbling and trying to talk to us, and now really enjoying things around her more and more. I sometimes wonder how we ever lived without this little girl before, it all seems so surreal, the past four months flew by!

Sasha's new favorite toy

We got Sasha a Fisher-Price Rainforest Jumperoo for New Year's and so far she seems to really enjoy it! We first put her in it on the 1st and the first two times she was a little cautious about it, but today she really had a blast in it!! Here are some pictures and a video.

Yashka the lizard


More rainforest friends




Staring at the blue frog up above


"I love this thing!"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year! 2009 is here and we cannot be more excited about it! I absolutely love the celebration of the New Year - it is probably the biggest national holiday back in Russia, so it is still a huge deal to us. This year, we decided that it may be easier for us (and for baby Sasha, since she doesn't really sleep anywhere else) to host it at our house... that turned out to be quite an adventure, but I have to say, it was a lot of fun. We had ten people over and everybody brought something for dinner, so we didn't have to slave in the kitchen the entire day on the 31st.
On the 30th, we went to my parents' house for part I of the celebration because my sister and her boyfriend were leaving for the actual NYE. So we exchanged some presents there. Sasha got the most beautiful hand-knit booties and a head band from auntie Anna (in blue and green, since daddy always complains that everything she owns is pink).

Auntie Anna showing off Sasha's new fancy outfit


She got really tired and fell asleep in my arms before the gift time was over!

On the actual NYE, Sasha managed to stay up until 11:40pm (although I'm sure she'll be ok not having seen the ball drop at Times Square this time around). Presents were exchanged a little bit after midnight and I have to admit, Sasha's got the cutest coolest gifts of all!

Sasha with grandma L.


Sasha with grandma A.


Sasha with uncle Leon


Check out the fancy Happy New Year hat on my baby! Oh, and whoever took this picture apparently didn't think I was important enough to be in it...


My husband getting ready for his duty as a Grandfather Frost (essentially the Russian Santa Claus, he also brings presents and leaves them under the tree)

Then, on the 1st, my uncle and aunt came over with my cousins, which meant yummy leftovers and more presents for everybody!

With uncle Steve and uncle Mark


Sasha liked her presents so much, she even attempted to eat the bow on one!

I have to say, year 2008 has been a great year, though of course it had its ups and downs (really, what year doesn't?) But we got to meet our precious little girl, celebrate her first Turkey day and New Year's Eve. Next year is going to be just amazing, with a lot more firsts. I doubt that anything can compare to our daughter's birth, but I just know that 2009 has a lot of great things in stock for all of us! Happy New Year!!