Colonial Williamsburg

We currently live about 20 miles from Williamsburg and since Colonial Williamsburg is the history nerd's Disneyland, I have been dying to go. But, the price of admission is currently out of our price range, I couldn't justify a visit. Then I learned that you can actually visit the city without a ticket, you just can't go inside any of the homes or partake in many of the extra tours, demonstrations, and programs. That was fine by me, I just wanted to wander around the city and breathe in the history.

We actually visited the city briefly a few weeks ago to meet one of David's oldest friends, Renee. We ate a late lunch and then wandered around the "Revolutionary City" for about an hour. We even got to see their military review that they put on every day at 4:30. Since it was outside, we didn't need a ticket and we could to watch them shoot muskets, cannons, and march to a fife and drum band. It was pretty cool.

 That first visit (however brief it was) whet my appetite for more, so I convinced David to go back for another visit last Wednesday. We packed ourselves a little picnic lunch and strolled through the town, enjoying the old buildings and soaking in some of the history.

 

Of course, I would love to go back again sometime soon and actually pay to go into the houses. I might just go back by myself and visit the decorative arts and folk art museums (which you can pay to visit on their own for a much lower fee). 

 We still had fun with what you can do, though. You can go into all the shops (of course) and I lusted after the old soaps, candles, dolls, clothing, toys, and slateboards. And to his credit, when I told David that someday I'm going to have to buy all that stuff, he just nodded his head and said, "I know."
 

 It was a relatively chilly day (and a Wednesday), so there weren't many visitors which made for a very pleasant visit. It warmed up in the afternoon. 

 This tree was awesome and twisty.

 And of course, this is the cutest baby bear ever.

 I just love Zara's big grin in this photo.

Yup, I definitely want to go back again soon. I would seriously spend a week here, just enjoying all the tours and programs. It also reawakened my desire to go to William and Mary. Maybe some day.

A Comparison of Daughters

When Adelaide was born, David and I marveled at how similar she looked to Zara. We'd compare pictures of them as newborns and could barely tell the difference. Both had full heads of dark hair, blue eyes, and chubby cheeks slightly indented by the promise of dimples. David called them our clone babies. 

But miss Adelaide has definitely grown out of her Zara phase and is becoming her own little person. A very cute person, I might add. Unlike Zara--who's hair never fell out and just continued to grow long and dark and luxurious--Adelaide's brown locks have slowly fallen out and in bits and pieces, and is being replaced by blonde baby peach fuzz. I think her eyes are just a bit bluer and her dimples much deeper. She's remained a large baby for her age and her thighs are simply the most delicious things I've ever seen. 

At five months, Adelaide is adept at rolling over and has even started to army crawl, just this week. She loves to smile, but doesn't giggle very easily (much to David's dismay). She seems interested in food but makes the most hilarious faces of disgust when we try to feed her solid food. (So far, just a little bit of rice cereal and applesauce. We're not pushing it too much. I think I started Zara way too early and have wanted to wait until Adelaide really wants to eat it.) She thinks electronic devices and kitties are delightful and is trying to bang on my laptop as I type this. 

But the very best, most wonderful thing about Adelaide (in direct opposition to her older sister) is that she a wonderful, fabulous, super easy-to-put-to-bed sleeper. I cannot express my deep and abiding love for this child for this one thing. She takes at least two naps a day (and her afternoon nap is often 2-3 hours long) and all I have to do is feed her some milk, make sure her diaper is clean and put her in her bed and then I CAN WALK AWAY. She just sticks her thumb in her mouth and puts herself to sleep. It's the most wonderful thing in the world. If all my babies were this easier, I'd have a lot more. And by more, I mean one more. Because that's all I want. Okay, maybe two. But I'm only saying that for David's benefit. 

We love our Miss Adelaide. (And Miss Zara, of course, but she's already gotten a lot of love on this blog.) 

To compare our little girls, I pulled out some old photos of Zara to compare with some new ones I just took of Adelaide, wearing the same dress. In these photos, Zara is only 3 months old, and Adelaide is 5 months, but you can see a lot of the similarities and the differences.

Miss Adelaide at 3ish Months

Let's be honest....Adelaide is going to get the shaft when it comes to monthly blog posts about her growth, she's not going to have photographs of every day of her life (at least for the first year) like Zara, and she's certainly not going to get lots of brand news clothes when her sister's hand-me-downs will serve her just fine. Life is tough for child #2.

That does not mean, however, that Adelaide is any less adored by all of us. She is a ray of sunshine in an otherwise difficult time in our lives. I want to jot down just a few things about her at 3.5 months so I don't forget.

Nicknames

Adelaide is quite a mouthful and we often get asked if we use a nickname for her. The short answer is no. The long answer is yes, but it varies.

David feels strongly that if Adelaide wants to shorten her name to any one of the many options available to her, that is her choice but we will not chose it for her. David absolutely detests the fact that even though his name is David and he always introduces himself as such, the majority of people who meet him automatically shorten it to Dave. (I did too when we first met.) He really wants to avoid that for our children. Adelaide is her name and Adelaide is what she shall be called until she informs us otherwise.

Personally, I call her lots of things. All parents have nicknames for their children...it's just the natural order of things. Some of them play off her name and some of them have absolutely no relation to her given name at all. The two most common names I call her are Lady Adelaide of the Cheeks and Smiles. The first because she has the most awesome cheeks in the world and the second because she loves to smile and show off her dimples.

I love the name Adelaide but I also love that it has such a large number of possible nicknames available to chose from including: Addie, Ada, Adele, Della, and Laidy. My favorite of the bunch is Laidy and I secretly sometimes call her that (when no one else is around). Laidy Malone sounds very regal. (Adelaide does mean noble after all.) My least favorite is Addie and I would just a tad disappointed if that was her preferred name. But I do believe it's her choice to decide what she prefers. I did the same, when I changed my name from Amanda to Lizzie in 4th grade and again when I shortened Lizzie to Liz in 9th grade. And for the record, I have never been called Elizabeth.

Stats
Adelaide was an above-average baby at birth (in terms of weight and length) and she has continued to top the charts as she has aged. The last few times I have weighed her, she has measured between 16 and 17 pounds and about 25-26ish inches.

Disposition 
I find Adelaide to be a relatively happy and easy going baby as long as she is properly feed, diapered and burped. She smiles all the time now and we've even managed to elicit a few adorable giggles out of her. (Zara is often the most effective at making her laugh.) She is also surprisingly tolerant of her big sister and cousins' almost incessant need to touch her, poke her, or pinch her cheeks. She rarely cries without reason and often calms down quickly if soothed.

She started to spit up a lot (both in frequency and volume) around week 4-5 and all attempts to discover the root of the troubles were in vain, including my pathetic attempt to eschew dairy. I was beside myself with concern over her constant reflux and it magically seemed to resolve itself during our 4 day cross country drive from Utah to Virginia. I don't know if she really was allergic to Utah or sitting more upright in her carseat for so long helped alleviate her problems but since moving to Virginia 5 weeks ago, she has only had 2 larger-than-average spit ups. It helps to burp her and keep her upright for a little bit after feeding.

Sleep
Sleep issues are the bane of my parenting existence. Zara was the model sleeper until everything went to hell at 4 months and I live in constant terror that Adelaide will wake up one day and decide that sleeping with any sort of regularity is for sissies and putting her down to sleep will not be tolerated. So far, she's a decent sleeper. She cat naps a lot during the day and often falls asleep while nursing and will stay asleep if held. Despite my love of cuddling sleeping babies (seriously, I think the key to world peace has something to do with snuggling sleeping babies), I often have to put her down to attend to her sister or take care of other things around the house. She will occasionally stay asleep, but more often than not, she'll wake up within 15-30 minutes. Depending on what I'm doing, I will wear her in the baby carrier and she will always conk out and sleep in that as long as I keep wearing it.

I do love wearing her and letting her sleep on me, but I also fear having her develop such a need to be held that she won't sleep on her own. By 4 months, Zara would not sleep anywhere but on me for any nap and refused to sleep in a crib so we co-slept for about a year. I don't mind co-sleeping at night, but having to wear and/or hold Zara for all her naps was very hard on me after a few months. I feel a bit selfish saying it, but I force myself to put Adelaide down so that she will eventually learn how to continue to sleep on her own.

She is, however, an excellent nighttime sleeper (knock on wood) and will often fall asleep all on her own. (A skill Zara never developed until much, much later.) I'll often nurse her around 9-9:30pm, wrap her up like a little baby burrito and put her down in her pack n' play still awake. She'll inevitably wrest her arms free after a few minutes of struggling and will munch on her fingers and occasionally whimper just a little bit until she falls asleep, often within 15-20 minutes, and will stay asleep for several hours. Since Zara never did this, I find this behavior in Adelaide to be the mark of angels and worthy of endless praise and adulation. I don't care that other babies have been doing this for centuries....mine is a blessed baby. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that month 4 doesn't unleash the furies of hell like it did with Zara.

Other Observances
Adelaide hates tummy time, but has excellent head control and strong legs. She's great at standing on her own with very little support and assistance.She will often roll from her back to one side or the other. She hasn't attempted to roll from her back to her belly or vice versa. [Update: As of 9/12, Adelaide can roll from her tummy to her back.]

She has entered the oral fixation stage of life and loves to put her fingers or her blanket in her mouth. She has started to drool more (as a result of munching on more) and sometimes acts irritable like she might be teething, but I think she's still got a ways to go until then. She is also quite taken with sucking her thumb, which I have many mixed emotions about.

When she gets excited, she'll start pumping her legs and flapping her arms with a huge grin on her face.

Unless pinned down, she will not allow any blanket to continue covering her for any amount of time.

She also moves around a bunch. She is never exactly where I left her.

She's almost outgrown her 3-6 months clothes, which she has been wearing since she was 6 weeks old.

By this age, it was apparent that Zara's hair had a bit of a curl to it. Adelaide's foretells no such future and is lighter than Zara's was. I think Adelaide's might continue to lighten, so that it's a nice honey blonde or even strawberry blonde.

All in all, we love our Adelaide and couldn't imagine these last 3 months without her. Here's hoping I'll update again before another 3 months have passed. Of course, we need some obligatory pictures:

Virginia Zoo at Norfolk

Last Thursday, my sister Cassy and I took our brood of 6 kids to the Virginia Zoo at Norfolk. Since I grew up attending the San Diego Zoo (one of the best zoos in the world), I have understandably high expectations of zoos. I try to lower my expectations so I don't leave them disappointed. The Virginia Zoo was a delightful zoo. Small enough to enjoy in a day and the enclosures were nice and mostly spacious for all the animals. They had the regular cast of zoo characters and several splash pad areas for the kids to play in between exhibits. We dressed the kids in their swimsuits and took them all around the various "villages" (grouped by area of the world the animals come from) and enjoyed a very nice, surprisingly not too humid day.

This sign made me laugh.

Cute sleeping babies. 

Zara's Third Birthday!

My little girl turned 3 on Saturday! It really is hard to believe that Zara is both so old and so young. I feel like she's been our lives for a long, long time and yet it also seems like just yesterday she was just a baby. I know everyone says that, but it's true. Zara had a fun birthday. On Thursday, Cassy and I took our brood of 6 kids to the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk (photos to come in a separate post) since we wanted to spend most of Saturday working at their new [old] house to get things repaired and painted before moving in. 

I made chicken alfredo bake for dinner (with bread, salad, and pineapple) and then we had vanilla cupcakes with vanilla or strawberry buttercream frosting with Neapolitan ice cream for dessert.

Anxiously awaiting her birthday cupcake and listening to everyone sing Happy Birthday to her. 

Daddy teaching her how to blow out her candle. 

Digging into the goodness.

Zara and David have the same EXACT face. Ha! Love my girls (David too). 

I just threw this one in because I love Adelaide's face in this one. It screams, "What am I doing here?!?!"

A very rare family photo. 

Zara was very excited about her toys. I let her have her first birthday present after dinner--the Fish and Splish bath toy set from B. Toys. (For the record, B. Toys are some of my very favorite.) Zara loves bathtime and I thought she'd have a great time with this set.

Bath time! Love that wild mane. 

In fact, all her cousins felt the need to join her for bath time, even if they'd already had a bath already. It made it hard to get any actual bathing done. But they all loved the toys. 

After her bath, Zara opened her other presents: new set of socks, a book of Hello Kitty stickers, and a new outfit from her grandparents. But her very favorite was the Super Girl cape from her Aunt Cassy that has her name written on it. Now she matches all her cousins and they all run around being super together.

There's so much I could say about Zara and what a sweet, special person she is, and how lucky we feel to be her parents, but I'll refrain for now. I just love this kid so much and look forward to watching her grow for many more years to come.