Happy girl

Best smiles for March not yet posted (from my camera anyway)

Big mat

Getting artsy fartsy with Eden photos

Here are a couple of photos I decided to play with on my phone sketch app....

Eden at Suzuki - March

Our school puts up pictures of the class every month--here are the pictures featuring Eden this month!

Tummy time really is better with friends!!

Bumbo!

Eden's First Purim - Baby Doctor in the House

Eden's first Purim!  She's wearing her doctor scrubs, provided by Bubbe.  Happiest doctor I've ever seen!  (She's happy being with Mommy :-)

Play group

A bunch of new Jewish mamas getting together monthly!  (and abbas - they're around the corner eating snacks at the moment)  Clockwise: Eden and me, Ari and Allison, Oliver and Stephanie, Sydney and Amy, and Gabriella and Avital.

The face of 4 month sleep regression

Guess how many times I woke up last night?

Higher... 

Yep.  Twelve.

Neither mommy nor Eden made it to school/office today. 

Now the whole family is going to sleep before sundown!!  Wish us luck!

Weight watchers for baby weight - update

It's my 4th week on Weight Watchers.  I've lost 10 pounds - a little faster than what's recommended for breastfeeding, but I feel great and my milk supply seems ok.  I am finally starting to be able to tolerate looking at myself in the mirror and in pictures.  And -- the real test -- I feel like I look fat in my pictures from a few weeks ago!  I still have about 10 pounds more to go before I can realistically try to fit into prepregnancy pants and 15 before my actual prepregnancy weight.  But I feel SO much better now.

A few comments about Weight Watchers:

• A friend told me the first week or two is easy because counting points is a novelty at first.  Then after that it becomes kind of annoying.  I've hit the annoying part at this point.  BUT... 
• It frigging works.  Tracking everything I eat and knowing it's going to become part of a balance sheet makes me less tempted to gorge myself on dessert every day, and even when I go over my points it's a considered decision and I'm sure I'm still eating far less than I otherwise would in that situation.  There has been Death by Chocolate ice cream staring me in the face the entire time, and I haven't been tempted to eat it.
• It has some screwed up incentives that I'm not sure I like, so I don't know that I really want to stay on it forever.  For example, 1/4 cup of almonds is 6 points.  A piece of Papa John's pizza is 7 points.  What am I going to pick there?  Hmmm....  Also, my brussels sprouts aren't quite as good without the gallon of oil I pour all over them.
• I remember when my dad was on WW, and he got really skinny from it - but I was kind of worried about him, he would eat nothing but baby carrots and one time he got dizzy and almost fell over.  I actively dislike baby carrots but they really are the perfect food for this diet - easy to eat, somewhat filling and zero points.  So, I am eating a lot of baby carrots.  But especially because I'm breastfeeding, I am trying to make sure I don't reach the point of getting dizzy and falling over.  
• Another friend told me it's really important to weigh/measure everything at home so that you can be better at estimating when out.  I'm sure she's right - and I did get a little scale - but I haven't really eaten enough measurable stuff at home to do this.  The diet works for me even if I use imperfect estimates - the point is that I try to be honest about what I'm eating and that act itself helps me eat well enough to lose weight.
• I get 40 daily points because I'm exclusively breastfeeding.  I think this whole thing would be extremely frustrating if I only got 26 points, which is what my friends who are at or near their goal weight get.  I can reasonably stay under 40 points in a day - I could not do 26.  

Here's hoping to get back into my jeans by May!  

Eden & Daddy Dancing to "Terk" By the CBH Choir

(posted 7-1-14, backdated to 3-10-14)

Eden & Daddy Dancing to "Terk" By the CBH (Congregation Bet Haverim) Choir.  Will was looking for mixing feedback, so Eden & I listened, danced & gave feedback :-)

Spring day

A walk around the lake in the spring weather, in Pine Lake GA!  (Gayanne's house after rehearsal for AJMF)

 

Baby's 1st Chantlanta

Sunmoon pie has played Chantlanta - Atlanta sacred music festival - for the past 3 years - this was our first year just going as attendees.  Unfortunately we couldn't stay long because Octave's CD release party was the same night.  But Michael got to dance with Eden briefly during 5 rhythms...

And we attended Miss April's Chantlanta TLG session!

Hair?

We are noticing more hairs coming in lately... What color do you think Eden's hair will be?  

We are thinking light brown like both her parents... Not unexpected.  But we'll see!

Our little roadie

We went to Birmingham to lead a few services at Michael's hometown synagogue, Temple Beth El (my hometown synagogue in Williamsburg is also called Temple Beth El).  It was our first attempt to travel and "gig," as it were.

Last week when she was still not sleeping well after her illness, I was starting to get nervous about this trip - having to set up and perform three times + nonsleeping baby seemed like an ominous combination!  Thank goodness we had lots of family and eager synagogue ladies to help us out.  Even so, she had her worst night of sleep ever on Friday night, and given that we were already operating on a severe sleep debt from the week before, Eden and mommy were both kind of a fussy pants by Saturday afternoon!

But even with that, it was a super fun trip with lots of great moments like these (thanks to Bubbe for many of these photos):

With Aunt Michelle!

Baby cousins mat time

With Bubbe, looking intently at her cousin

She was smiling like crazy at all the synagoguegoers, 2 hours past her bedtime -
I didn't manage to capture it on camera, though

She's a little too small for this one, but it was fun to try!

Snuggling with Nonnie at the end of a very fitful 24 hours of not sleeping!

About to hit the road home -
she soiled 5 BIBS on the trip, but luckily received several more as a present