Post-Halloween Roundup

Well, Halloween was yesterday and as you can see from the above photo, Zoë got to play a little bit of dress up. We took her up to Clarkesville for their big Halloween in the square event. Unfortunately it was raining and quite cold, but we braved the elements nonetheless and showed Zoë off. Zoë enjoyed all the attention she got from the complete strangers as well as seeing all the others in their goofy outfits.

We ran across our friend Clint, who owns Pets Gone Wild and took the time to get some pics of Zoë with some rather large snakes. They had a whole host of them available up there.

Zoë spent a good portion of the evening tucked away in Grandma Toni's shirt. You can't really tell from the pictures but she spent the majority of that time licking Toni's zipper.

After the event we went to dinner with Toni, Lisa, Danny, and Darcy. A good time was had by all.

We also went and had professional pictures taken of Zoë yesterday (though not in costume). We should have some of those back within the next 2 weeks.

Just a random update to everyone

Seems I never have the ability to be on line. Between the hussle and bussle of the day, spending my limited time with Zoë and preparing for the next, by the time I get near our room I am so completely overwhelmed with tasks at hand that have yet to be completed (such as pumping for Zoë's breakfast) or worn out from completing everything prior to 11 at night. And then if I do happen upon a spare moment, it seems that is the only time Ian has one as well and why would I kick him off the net so satisfy my need for it? So, I am online anymore about as frequent as that of the dog that barks all day long in the apartment next to us. Of course I am on line at work, but I am not allowed to such sites as this, and frankly, even if I were, I have become so swamped with work anymore that I end up bringing my work laptop home more often than not just to catch up on the week's activities. Yes, I am sickeningly busy. Yet, somehow, I make moments for our pride and joy, our daughter, our light, our love. And I find the "sucking the thumb whilst eating solids" to be adorable while her dad finds it fitfully annoying. Likewise, as he finds her squeals and shrills of delight amusing and amazing, I find myself rubbing my left ear in pain as my ear drum begins the downward spiral of forever ringing from the sound.

But this has been a blessed ride, full of fun, adventure, and new discoveries. And frustrations on not only Ian and my side, but on Zoë's. As she has begun to master the art of sitting unsupported, she has had an increasing awareness of her own being and has demanded to be allowed to move about at her own free will. Yet, to crawl eludes her needs and she demands to be carried from place to place in forever fuss if left inmobile for longer than one nano second. Of course this is an exaggeration, all in all we have a very happy, healthy, loving baby. But she is getting frustrated at her inability to move, or in what I feel, her lack of interest in moving by herself.

She is, as of today, up to three solids a day. She loves food. She sees it and she starts bouncing, clucking, chirping, purring, doing anything to draw to the fact she is starving and hasn't eaten in a whole two hours. I know, I know. We are monsters. :-) But she is doing amazing awesome. She is 15 pounds, 10 ounces as of yesterday and has caught up to her peers in size. She is an average baby in the 50th percentile. She is on the small side of average, but she is average. Don't recall her length right off, but she is 55th percentile in that. Seems E and I are doing something right after all. :)

But, it being a work night and me being very tired, I post but one picture tonight that isn't a zombie. Good night to all and to all a good night. Lots of love to everyone!

Day of the Living Zoë

I'd say this picture pretty much sums up Zoë's Sunday. Today Zoë participated in her first zombie walk, an annual charity event where hundreds of people dress up like the living dead and shamble through various metropolitan areas.

Our route this year took us through Oakland Cemetery (where another organization was having a fall festival, completely oblivious to the hordes of undead that would soon lay waste to their celebrations), around a few blocks of Atlanta and culminating with a mass rampage through Atlanta Underground, a local shopping center. All said and done about 500 people showed up to take part.

Unfortunately, Zoë was not able to be made up. She's simply too young to put the various pastes and gels on her face, so she had to settle for a hand we made for her, complete with meat and viscera hanging out the back.

We spent the better part of two days getting our costumes ready. In fact, Zoë went down for her morning nap just before we started the main portion of our makeup. When it was time to get her up we went into her room in full zombie regalia. She woke up, did a double take and started quivering that lower lip, teetering on the brink of a full blown meltdown. I quickly called out "Hey, Zozo" in one of my high-pitched daddy voices and then she just started laughing.

She was absolutely the talk of the town at the event today. We decked her out in a little skeleton onesie and gave her that hand. People stopped to take pictures of her constantly. We pushed her in the stroller for the entire two to three mile duration of the walk.

The walk itself was crazy. They didn't close down the streets for traffic, so hordes of zombies would go running at cars that were stopped. It was all in good fun and nobody was actually threatened.

The highlight for myself was watching a fully grown man squeal like a girl and RUN about 15 feet from us. He had stopped to look at a zombie in front of us who happened to have creepy contact lenses in. He squealed and started back towards us so Jen started moving towards him. The man was in an absolute panic. Of course once he realized what was going on he had quite a laugh.

After the walk ended and the zombies dispersed, we stuck around to get some dinner. I left Jen and Zoë with our friends and made my way over to Dairy Queen to get a burger. There was a lady in front of me in line with a young daughter. The daughter tugged on mother's sleeve and said, "Mommy, there's a zombie behind you". The mother turned expecting to see nothing, saw me, let out a very loud "OH JESUS!" and ran a few feet away.

Zoë had an absolute blast. People were giving her attention all day long and she never once got fussy or irritable.

I'll put a few pics up here for now. There will be more coming once I get the pictures from Aunt Lara. Enjoy. As always, you can click on the picture to see a larger copy in a new tab.

Is That Your Yummy Face?

Well, Zoë took her next big step on the way to full blown adulticity. Namely, she tasted solid (well, not entirely liquid) food for the first time last weekend.

You can tell from the video that she was delighted both by its taste and texture. A true feast for the senses, that.

She's relegated to one solid feeding a day, with nursing and bottles for the remainder. She seems to thoroughly enjoy meal time and likes eating from a spoon. That yummy face look hasn't abated one bit, though.

She's still a very active talker and loves to regale me with tales of her day's adventures. Of course, not speaking baby they mostly come out like "Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh", but it's adorable nonetheless.

Zoë Carlyne and the jagged shards of piercing metal

Howdy folks.

It recently came to my attention that Zoë is just too damn happy. There's nothing that turns my stomach more than the smiles and laughter of babies. I thought for quite some time on what I could do to bring just a little misery into Zoë's life, a little taste of the cold, harsh reality that is human existence.

And suddenly...an epiphany! I would wait until she was in her absolute best mood and then pay some sadist to ram shafts of metal through her exposed earlobes. GENIUS!

Okay, so maybe that's not quite how it happened.

We've been talking about getting Zoë's ears pierced for awhile now. The logic behind it is that she cannot "find" her ears yet, so she won't be able to futz about with the earrings. Plus, if she doesn't like them when she's older, pop them out and the holes will grow right over.

We took her up Saturday to the local mall and paid a nice young woman to do the deed. The outcome was pretty much what we anticipated. Zoë screamed and hollered for about 30 seconds and then was fine.

Her ears were obviously tender for the next 24 hours or so and she expressed great displeasure in having them cleaned and turned. The good news is she seems fine now.

Without further ado, here is the video and some pictures from her adventure...

Zoë's Still Standing...

Well folks, it is finally here. Zoë finally has celebrated her 4 month birthday. And she is a whopping 13 pounds, 3 ounces, and is 24 1/4 inches long. Yeah, she is growing. :) And she is finally larger than a newborn! Yippie! Still small, but getting bigger.

Her new pass time is standing. Of course, it is supported and with the help of mom or dad, but standing is her fad right now. We got a honest to god laugh the other day. It sorta sounded like "he-heh-hu-heh-HAHA!" Very cute. :)

She is teething, so she has been just a BUNDLE of joy. :| Scream here, scream there, everywhere a scream-scream. And she managed to get us all sick. Ian says Zoë is not good for his health. 4 months in and he has been sick twice, where as before he hadn't been sick in like 5 years. We will be able to start solids soon...in like 2 months. And we can take her swimming now. :) And we will get her ears pierced soon.

Wrecked my car. Dog decided that my car was a chew toy. Dog won. It caused $2000 worth of damage to the driver side. Zoë was with me when it happened, but we both are okay.

Further ado...here is some recent things of the girl. And her very cool looking rocking chair. Thank you again Caroyln!

Holy Cow, We're Still Around!

Sorry about the lack of updates, folks.

Times have been rather busy as of late and we haven't been able to afford ourselves the luxury of publishing what are doubtless fascinating and perhaps Pulitzer class photographs.

Thanks to a booming economy, ma and I are rolling in the luxury of complete job stability, while reaping the benefits of having abundant free time to share with Zoë.

Truth be told, we recently moved and have spent the last month and a half to two months preparing, packing, moving, and then subsequently packing our collective belongings.

Our internet connection dulled from a full 6 MB cable connection to a paltry 1.5 MB DSL connection. (Dad hopes to upgrade that soon.)

All fun and games aside, here are a few new pics and a video of little Zoë. Now that life is stabilizing a bit, I hope we can get more material up quicker.

For the record, the video shows Zoë in her swing staring down her arch-nemesis...the plastic bear. She is fascinated by that bear and will stare at it the entire time she's in the swing.

Last weigh-in was 11 lbs 14 oz. She's started smiling full time and is working on laughing. She's figured out she has toes and is quite fascinated by them, though she still hasn't figured out how to grab them.

She enjoys mimicking us now, and I frequently play the "stick your tongue out" game all the while making odd noises and blowing raspberries.

For her part, she tends to be one happy baby. That's a plus for all involved...

Update 6-28-09

Seems Haus de Hetten is experiencing technological difficulties. What does that mean? Means we are currently very unable to get any updated photos on either zoecarlyne.com or on MySpace. It isn't a lack of Ian, but more so a lack of internet. I know, how the hell am I telling you this if we have no net? Simple, someone in our new apartment building has an unsecured network so the laptap is able to talk to it. The computer that has all the pictures can not. We HAVE net, just the stupid company delayed in sending us the program needed to hook us up so we have to wait for that.
But, I can give an update. We are in the new apartment finally. Mess and chaos abound, but we are here. Special thanks to Richard, Nat-Nat, Mark, Shelby, THAT kid (OHHHH I REALLY don't like THAT kid,) mom, Bailey, and but course, Lara and Earl. Thanks all for getting us moved in our new place at right under 6 hours. Shows that we are blessed to have such amazing and wonderful friends who showed despite medical and health issuses. We love you guys!
Zoë ended up in the ER the Friday before last. All is well, but seems she has a horrible case of acid reflex so we now medicate our child. Amazing how she went from scream-a-holic to ador-a-holic. MEDS! LOVE EM! Even if the nut jobs at the hospital tried to kill my child. :| Not only did she have to wait FOUR hours despite the fact she was choking, but they prescribed her ONE TEASPOON TWICE a day when she should have only been prescribed ONE MILILITER twice a day...OH I am still livid over that. Kudos to Rob the Pharmasist at CVS off Pike Street who was busy beyond words but worried at the dosage who took time out of his schedule to call the hospital to confirm.
Zoë has a bear that talks to her subliminally. Either it cracks her up, or pisses her off. Ian and I suspect it is telling her to kill her family. :) And for anyone who doesn't understand that...it is a joke! But, time to unpack somemore and get ready for a concert tonight! WOOT! WILL have pictures up very soon, I promise! Just need reliable net first! OH! and Carolyne, Pooh and Friends have a cute home in Zoë's room for now. Will show that picture as well. :)

Visit with Grandma (the un-non Grandma Hettenhouse)

Ian's mom finally got to see Zoë. :) And I guess Zoë has a very pretty mouth. We spent most of the day Weds with Carolyn and all day Thursday and Friday and then most of Saturday. Carolyn was oh so awesome and bought a GORGEOUS rocking chair for us to use in Zoë's room once we move. Given the fact that we rock Zoë often while in a sedetary position, this is going to be awesome when we finally have it. A bunch of Carolyn's friends sent Zoë gifts, that was rather cool given the fact that most of them didn't even know Ian. Zoë behaved beautifully the entire visit, except for the trip to the Body's Exhibit where she wigged out because Ian was apparently beating the living hell out of her. Or at least, that is what people thought. Truth of the matter is, she was hungry, wet, sitting in the world's fullest diaper, dripping with massive spit up residue and pissed that Ian accidently dropped her head 1/4 when she was on the changing table. The joys of being a parent in public, baby whimper and suddenly you are a horrible parent. And given the fact Zoë is a well mannered baby and naturally quiet all we really want to do is scream at the accusers to see if THEY ever had a baby cry at them. Ours rarely throws a fit longer than 5 seconds so they just need to get their noses BACK in their business. Stupid southern busy bodies.

Anyways...we got smiles finally!!!! Full blown, gorgeous, toothless smiles! And no pictures of such. :P But they ARE coming, swear to it. But, without further ado, here are pictures of Carolyn's visit. ...but not the first day. :P

Zoë update and new pics

Ian and his friends are down stairs playing Guitar Hero Metallica while I listen to Zoë chirp and cluck her way to sleepy time upstairs. We have been putting her out in her car seat due to acid reflux, but after reading an article, I found that really isn't the best idea as when she gets older she will have a hard time learning what bed is...so now I am trying to convince her her cradle is where she sleeps. My plot is not working quite so well.
That being said, another milestone is in the works. Zoë has been trying very hard the past two days to figure out how to smile. She suceeded briefly this morning at 3 while feeding. It was an honest to god smile, no gas involved...for once. That smile melted my heart, even though I know it wasn't intended for me but for the warm juicy goodness of mom's milk. Least she thinks I am a good cook...for now. But without much ado, and since I really don't want to spend all night telling about the last 7 weeks and really don't have much to say other than she sleeps, poops, pees, and cries...here are some new and improved pics. I will also be getting more on my myspace (myspace.com/jmwhit for anyone who doesn't know.) I made it public so people can see more pictures of Zoë...takes too long to load a bunch on here but only takes seconds to load them on myspace. I am not lazy, but NEVER have time, so it just makes sense. Will get E to get a vid up soon...I am not the techie kind.
Trying to smile here...



NOTE: E put up the video. :)

This go around it is mom at the keyboard. Tell you what, been crazy trying to get anytime to post on here. I keep thinking only a few hours have gone by but then I realize Zoë is damn near six weeks old. But, such is life I guess. Right now, although Zoë is awake, she isn't screaming for my undivided attention, so I have a few moments to make my first post, finally! And I am going to try to throw as much of my perspective in as possible of the course of events over the last few weeks.

I guess it started really on Saturday night, March 28th. We ate dinner about 7 pm and by 10 I was feeling horrible. It felt like moderate food poisoning, so all I did when I went to bed was moan and groan about how dinner had not set well at all. At this point, I was dilated to 3 cm, had been for at least a week now. My doctor had thrown me on bed rest a few days prior and told me to take it easy. He also said he would take Zoë soon, so basically, Ian and I were in a way, prepared for the arrival of our daughter.

Around one am on Sunday, I woke to go to the bathroom and noticed I felt much worse, but still thought I was experiencing an upset stomach. That is when I noticed I was spotting. Since my doctor had told me it was normal to spot once dilation started, I thought nothing of it. But I did notice that I was going back and forth to the bathroom a lot. Every 5 to 10 minutes, I had to go to the bathroom. That is a lot, even for a pregnant woman. I also noticed that the bleeding was getting much heavier. Around 2:30 I decided to jump on line to do a quick search on preterm labor, by this time, I knew something was up, I should not be bleeding as heavily as I was. Confirmed that I needed to go to the hospital, I walked back to the room to notify Ian we needed to go to the hospital, right when the rain kicked in full force. It truly was a dark, cold, rainy night. So much for old clichés and trying not to use them.

Funny thing is, right when the rain kicked it up a notch, Ian apparently had the thought run through his head that I had been gone from the room for a bit and just knew the next time he saw me, we would be heading out the door. When I came into the room, he asked if I was okay and when I said hospital, the gimpy man with a bad back moved at lightening speed. The commotion woke my mom (whom we had decided to not tell until we knew whether or not the hospital would keep me) and she insisted on coming along. Good thing too. When we got to the hospital, we found I was 3 cm and 90% and that my water had broke. The lab says that was not the case and the midwife wanted them to give me a shot to delay labor, but I was GUSHING as this point...even a dullard would say the water had broke. We REFUSED treatment of the shot and demanded the nurses to call my doctor and not the midwife. Good thing too, my doctor wanted me to deliver.

I don't really recall much of the 12 hours I was in labor. I remember screaming at my mom to stop it because she kept hovering, petting, and asking questions. Where as I wanted someone to touch me, I didn't want my concentration broke, which was mostly what she was doing. I remember yelling at Stacy for the same thing and remember telling Ian to keep the damn rag off my head. I also remember screaming at the nurse to "Stop fucking touching me!" And I wanted to know where the heck Earl was. That one still blows my mind...Ian had told me when I had first asked that Earl wasn't coming and I said okay, then several hours later, I was screaming for Ian's brother-in-law during a contraction...no clue why. Just one of those things I guess.

I know I kept screaming for my epidural and I know the epidural eventually wore off (I could move my legs.) I know Zoë wasn't moving even though I kept asking for her status and I kept getting told she was moving a bit more. But, eventually, the doctor came in and told me a C-Section may be the way to go. At that point, I agreed. I tried. Lord did I try. I remember crying that I can't do it, that I needed help and then later got upset that I couldn't do it, but no one can say I didn't try. I tried for three hours straight. Zoë was straight up stuck.

The C-Section was a trip and an half. I felt absolutely every little cut they made, but the thing is, it didn't hurt. Then I never really acknowledged I had just had a baby. I was so doped up on drugs and meds I was oblivious to anything had happened until later. But, I now had our little baby girl. We go discharged and a few days later we ended up back in the hospital because Zoë had jaundice. That was so heart wrenching seeing the big IV in her little arm. And we couldn't hold her. And I HATED that experience. At least it was short lived and only lasted a night.

We got the juandice cleared up, but lo and behold, Zoë ended up with a second bout of it, this time because of me. She ended up with breastmilk jaundice so we had to put her on formula for a week. BUT, it really IS cleared up now. Thank god. And I have given over 250 ounces of breast milk away and probably still have 400 ounces in the freezer...we NEED a bigger freezer, I have NO where to put food!!!!

A few weeks ago I locked Zoë in the car. THAT was devistating. I was at Applebee's with a friend and when I went to leave, I opened the back door and threw all my things up in the front. Usually I open the front door as weel, but for what ever reason I did not do that this go around. I got Zoë situated and closed the door and turned to open the front door and found out that ALL my doors were locked. My automatic locks had gotten triggered when I threw my keys in the front. Huzzah for Gwinnett County Fire Department who can break into my car in less than 5 seconds!

We also hit milestone number one, as Ian mentioned in a previous post. Nothing amazing in the grand scheme of things, but absolutely amazing when considering Zoë now realizes things exist. :) Smile should be next. I can't wait for that.

We are still working on Zoë to latch on since she was preemie and had nipple confusion in the begining because of all the times we had to give her formula, but now we have discovered my over productive glands are causing her reflux issues and gas, so I am now working on trying to rectify that. Oui...SO much to do! The house is never clean and I never can find time to clean it. I am lucky to find time for a shower and to wash clothes. But it has all been worth it. I will be so relived yet heartbroken come June 3rd when I return to work.

And on another note: we DID find a place over this past weekend. Nice sized three bedroom apartment in G'Ville. I hate G'ville, but at least it is a mid point between E's and my work. And at least it will only be for 1-2 years. And now..maybe a quick shower while Zoë is content at churping still.

Just a quickie...

By popular demand, we're throwing a few new pics up. We're not intending to neglect our blogacious duties, we've just been a tad preoccupied with Zoë.

Her big news for the week is that she can now track items with her eyes. Hooray for biological processes kicking in!

During the course of taking these pics tonight there was a large crash and our power went out. I noticed a bunch of sparks through the living room window. We popped over to the door to see what had happened, and a rather large chunk of a tree had fallen down and nearly taken out the power line. It missed our cars by just a couple of feet.

Zoë spent the weekend with Grandma so that we could do some apartment hunting. Looks like we might have some possibilities.

We'll really try and be more diligent about updates here in the future.

Anyhow, here are some photos.