Autumn In SF

The months have absolutely flown by. Its hard to believe our little Peach is 7.5 months old! Due to a horrific battle with the stomach flu (which we all lost, badly) poor Paige missed her first ever Halloween party, and her poor mommy missed out on her most legitimate opportunity to dress Paige in her costume. Admittedly, I'm crazy for the holidays, and having a baby to dress up might just add a whole new level to the insanity. To get in the mood for all things autumn, we took Paige to the pumpkin patch on 7th Avenue and Lawton. Its basically a vacant lot where they put down some hay bails, a bunch of pumpkins, and some scarecrows, and it is magnificent. I have been dying to go for years, and wasted no time taking Paige over for some photo opps.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

One of the many things I love about San Francisco is the wealth of cheap and free musical entertainment. One of the highlights of our year is the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park. Dave and I have made the trek every year we've lived in SF, and seen a lot of great music, but we agreed this year was our favorite. We didn't run around trying to see all of the musicians we loved playing at various stages, and as a result we missed some amazing acts. Instead, we stayed in one spot each day, set up our little leaf shade, and played with the babies. It was a great weekend. On a side note, Paige is at the point now where she is really grabbing at things she wants, including other people's heads. Before, we always joked that she was like a gentle giant, much bigger than the other babies, but very gentle with them. Now the gentle is gone, and I actually have to worry about her man-handling the smaller babies, and the toddlers and adults for that matter.

Starting Solids

We got the go ahead from Paige's pediatrician to start solids at around 5 months given her advanced size and weight and because she was already sitting up by herself unassisted. Emotionally, I was not at all ready, so we held off until she was about 5.5 months. At that point, she was so interested in food that I finally gave in. After a few stops and starts, again mostly due to my feelings regarding Paige growing up (yes, even enough to eat food), she started in earnest at about 6 months. Some of her favorites have been pears, bananas, and sweet potatoes, but she will happily eat just about anything. This is a video of her enjoying a banana and papaya smoothie.

On Meeting Family

In August we took Paige back to Maine to visit all of the family members she had not yet met. Paige and I flew back by ourselves a week ahead of Dave and my sister Halley. It was a red-eye and I had no idea what to expect, but Paige was incredible. She was smiley and charming up until take-off and then slept for the entire flight. No one around us knew she was even there. The woman next to us was so enchanted that she held Paige for me while I ate breakfast and watched our bags when Paige had a giant poo. This girl is going places, I'm telling you. This is a clip of Paige enjoying time with her grandparents, some of her aunts and uncles, and several of her cousins. Being around all of the "bigger" kids (e.g. age 3 and up) was great for Paige. They intimidated her for about 30 seconds with all of their jumping and screaming, but after that she LOVED every second of it. Since we've been back from the trip Paige has been much more interested in bigger kids than babies. Its probably just as well since she has started being a little rough and she is about double the size of all the other babies :)

She Loves to Sing

Paige has been very verbal since day one. She has made lots of sounds, and seems eager to communicate. The best was when we realized that she liked to sing along with us when we sang to her. Here is a clip of her very pretty singing voice. Paige is about 12 weeks old. Please ignore her mama's off-tune warbling, she's a bit rusty ;)

The Baby Monster Loves The Bath!

Paige took an immediate affinity to the bath, and once she figured out that she was the one doing the splashing, there was no stopping her! This is Paige at about 12 weeks splashing away.

Let's Go To the Park

I was up and about quickly after Paige was born. In hindsight, probably a bit too quickly. Due to the fact that I was totally stir crazy, we also had Paige out of the house and interacting with the world by about two weeks old. At four weeks she got to experience the wonder of Golden Gate Park.

She's Cross-Eyed And Bald

So starting at about 3 weeks, Paige went through kind of an aesthetically difficult stage. She was cross-eyed, she started losing all of her hair (in a male pattern baldness kind of way), and developed acne. However, she also started smiling. It was a big, real smile; but thanks to the disbelievers who kept telling me it was gas, I remained unsure until about week 4 when I got a smile so big and so sweet it made me cry. Here is a little clip of Paige at 3 weeks chatting with her Papa.

Paige May Crawl After All

As much as I like to joke about the fact that Paige prefers to lounge and sit over actually moving, she is actually working on crawling. She seems to work on each of the skills in stages. For example, she has been working on the leg motions and strength by very slowly turning herself from her belly to her back. She lays her head on her outstretched arm and then pushes herself over. Its all very slow and controlled. She has also been working on the Cobra yoga position. Today she was trying to put it all together. Here is a little video. The harder she worked at moving forward the further back she ended up pushing herself. She was so frustrated, poor girl.

Our Angel

From the very first day, her sucking instinct was very strong. She was and is the very definition of a comfort nurser. For the first week she spent most of her waking moments nursing and then fussing because of gas. My mom was the first to give her a pacifier. I hate pacifiers and wanted to be upset, but then I looked at Paige resting so peacefully and sucking away. Needless to say, but 3 weeks old we gave in to the evil pacifier and Nuk became a regular word in our vocabulary.

The Swaddle

Paige spent her first several weeks sleeping on my chest. It wasn't until the pediatrician scolded me and pointed out that her sleeping on me wasn't a lasting solution that we really gave the swaddle a chance. While she easily busted out of most of the blankets, the velcro on this bad boy did the trick. We affectionately referred to it as her straight-jacket.

She's Just Tan

Paige developed jaundice in her first few days of life. In the fog of exhaustion I thought she just had her daddy's coloring. In hindsight and based on the photographic evidence, she was bright yellow. Thank goodness for my mother and my midwife. It was nothing a few sunbaths couldn't cure, but it was my first humbling 'first time mom' blunder.

The First Days

I was born at home at a time when the idea of homebirth was was still virtually unheard of. As a child, I was always ambivalent about the circumstances surrounding my birth. It was yet another thing (and there was a long list) that made my sisters and me different from the other kids. It was not until I became pregnant. and actually rather late in my pregnancy, that I began to really consider and embrace my own passage into the world. Once I began to consider a homebith as an option for Paige's birth, I immediately felt a peace I had not felt for most of the pregnancy. I did not have to deal with the fear over the 'safety' of a homebirth that many expectant mothers experience, because I innately knew the birth would be safe.

Although in the end Paige was born at St. Luke's, I did get to experience 36 hours of laboring at home. I passed through the excitement of the early contractions, and breathed and meditated through the intense contractions that accompanied dialation. Unfortunately, after 36 hours of labor, 6+ hours of vomiting, and a less than relieving stint in the birthing tub, I remained only 5cm dialated. In the end, my labor was 56 hours. It turned out the little lass was posterior, which caused the labor to stall. Repeatedly. I made a calculated decision to transfer at the 36 hour point because I knew I only had a finite reserve of strength. I had been vomiting long enough that I was dehydrated and could not hold anything down long enough to accumulate any calories. I knew I could either continue on at home and risk being unable to push, or transfer to the hospital for some pain relief while I continued to dialated. It wasn't an easy decision, and there were many tears shed. I really was mourning the homebirth I was so looking forward to, but I knew the decision was the right one.

The staff at St. Luke's is incredible. The midwives there checked me when we finally got checked in a situated and somehow in all of the hustle and bustle of traveling the 5 blocks to the hospital I had increased to 7cm. At that point, the labor nurse and midwife, knowing that I was a homebirth transfer, actually encouraged me to continue laboring naturally. Feeling rejuvinated by their confidance, I labored for another 4 hours with no pain medication. Sadly, I did not progress at all during that time and when they began talking about pitocin, I knew there was no way I could continue without some kind of rest. At that point I had been up for two straight days, besides the 15 seconds I was passing out in between contractions (it really was passing out, my mother had to hold my head up in the birth tub because it would go under water).

After receiving the epidural I slept for several hours. My labor continued along slowly while I managed to sleep. Due to an unfortunate timing problem with the anestheseologist it wore off just as I entered into transition, so I started vomiting again, and was on my back on the table, but I give them a pass, it was a busy night.

Not surprisingly, after all of this, Paige appeared with a great deal of molding. Although we (of course) found her beautiful, there were no disillusions, she looked like an alien. Her hands and feet were giant and then there was that cone-head...

Despite my fears over the effects of the epidural, Paige began rooting the second she was placed on my chest. I was so drugged up and exhausted I could not provide much help which resulted in hickeys on my breast where the poor girl was trying to latch on. The good news for both of us was that when the epidural wore off about an hour later, I got to breast feed her in a quiet dark room. It was in that quiet moment I knew I was in love.

The Beginning

Paige Ellen Snyder, named for my grandmother Ellen Miller. My grandma died when I was 21, shortly before my college graduation. In her last few years senility set in and the woman who was once a teacher and taught me so much could no longer remember whether she just made coffee. Despite losing much of her short term memory, she remembered my graduation and asked my uncle and mother to drive her from Maine to Vermont to attend. She passed away in her home a week before I graduated. My grandmother's death was the first I experienced and I was deeply affected. Although I had planned to continue living in Burlington, Vermont, I suddenly doubted my choice. When my mother asked if I would consider returning to Maine to live with my aunt for a short time until I knew for sure what I wanted to do, I agreed. Two days after returning to Maine, I met the love of my life. Dave and I often talk about my grandmother and our mutual belief that she had a hand in our union. It seemed only fitting that our daughter share her name.

In August of this year we brought Paige to Maine to meet her family. It was at this visit that my mother told me that she met a woman who claimed to be a medium. My mother told the woman that I was coming to visit with my daughter (my mother's first grandchild). The woman replied that my mother's mother, the same grandmother who brought Dave and I together, was always with Paige. She also said that Paige's generation will be a generation of grace and change.

Paige was born at 2:15am on March 15, 2008. She was 8lbs 1 oz and 21.5 inches long.

Where have I been?

Paige Ellen Snyder is now almost seven months old. Recently, my friend Sam asked for Paige's blog address so she could link it to her daughter Silver's. I'm guessing she mistakenly believed Paige had a blog because I send around online photo albums so frequently. This mistake led me to wonder why Paige doesn't have a blog. After all, I love to talk about her, she is one of the funniest people I know, and I know I'm never going to get around to making that Baby Book my mother told me to make so I would never forget all of Paige's precious first moments.

Since I'm already 6 3/4 months behind in documenting this amazing little girl's life, and since the only thing I seem to be able to do consistently is take ridiculously large numbers of photographs, I decided to make Paige's blog largely a photographic one. Enjoy.