Cousin Danny Hawkins

Poor Vidamae has had to adjust her morning walk schedule since Elsie came to town. It used to be that we'd hit the park by 8 or 9 every morning, but now Vida has learned to simply curl up at the foot of the bed until whatever hour it is we manage to get outside. Today it was noon. Little Elsie likes those wee hours.

Today we had a visit from Uncle Dan Kanju and Aunt Susanah. They brought along Cousin Danny Hawkins, age 4 months. Here's big sister Maggie with Dan Kanju and their respective Vining offspring. Dan Kanju has begun training little Danny Hawkins to avenge years of sisterly hazing heaped upon him by Maggie and her accomplice Ella (who is due to give birth to yet another Vining in April - look out!):



And here's Elsie and Danny Hawkins looking fairly friendly:



Until this big rumble broke out!



The doctor told us to give him a call if Elsie looked any more yellow, "like the color of an orange". She's getting her hearing tested tomorrow so we might just ask them to throw in a billirubin test for good measure.

Great Granny!

We went back to the doctor and he checked Elsie over and said she looked fine. No need to even test her blood. I was surprised by this since her nose looked pretty yellow to me. But what do I know? She seems fine and is feeding away, so hopefully that'll be the last time we visit that hospital for a while. When we spent the night there they put this little alarm sensor on Elsie's ankle so no one could run away with her. For some reason those beeping alarms were going off every ten minutes the whole time we were there. We don't think anyone was actually stealing babies though.

Last night Adam and Whitney came by and we all ate pizza while Elsie slept. Here they are doing the obligatory holding the baby shot. Elsie's laughing at a funny joke Adam just told:



And this afternoon Elsie met her great grandmother Anita. She's 94! It was very touching and Granny Anita brought us lots of unusual vintage foods from her refridgerator at home.




Elsie gained 10 ounces since her last wiegh in. She's almost seven pounds! She doesn't cry too much yet, but here I am trying to imitate her crybaby face.

You asked for it...

It has been requested that we post a picture of Vidamae licking the baby. So here it is:



It should be noted that Vidamae had to be coerced for this photo. We put a dollop of butter on Elsie's head. But this licking has also happened without any promting as well.



We had a nice visit from cousins Ben and Emily and Godmother Mimmie. We read over their old baby books and decided that all babies basically look the same at this young age. Don't try to fool us by saying how cute Elsie is! Here's Emily looking nervous she might drop the baby. She's practicing up for her own baby, due any day now. Bump alert!



And here's Ben shielding Elsie from danger. He's praying she doesn't barf on him.



Tomorrow we go back to the doctor for a "rebound" billirubin test. We think some of that yellow is making a comeback in her complexion. No more lights! Please! At least we got to take showers.

We're Home!

Elsie's billirubin went down to 12.1 and they let us out of there. Maggie is very happy about this and so are we.