The Jane: One Month Old

Jane and I shared a birthday this week: she turned one month old and I turned 35 (gulp). Years (!). Old (sigh).

I was missing my boys and husband madly, but I actually really scored for my birthday: I saw Wicked with my sister Lesli a couple weeks ago when she was here (an early birthday treat). This week I went to Oxford, Stonehenge, Chester, and a beach in Wales with my babies, and came home to lots of sweet emails from family. I also happened to be visiting Nobody's sister who lives in England (and is the one who toted us around the English countryside), and she had a birthday cake for me! So, aside from the aging bit (which only gets to me on an occasional birthday, this year being one of those times...), my birthday was great.

Today is my baby sister's birthday! I was just a little older than Calvin when she was born, and she is the first baby that I distinctly remember wanting to care for and love on. I rocked her and sang to her when she was tiny, and I have loved and admired her all our growing up. I love it that she was almost born on my birthday. Happy Birthday, Jojiemo!

And now about The Jane. We are unabashedly girly when it comes to her, and Auntie S gave her this adorable tutufied onesie (the tulle on it is so surprisingly soft!), which I almost immediately decided would be Jane's first year outfit. (I accordingly took it upon myself to order the next two sizes in it so she can don it each month for a growing-up photo shoot.) And if you'd liek to, you can skip the following blah, blah, blah and go straight to the pictures...

Here's the background: I've been wanting to take monthly photos for the first year of each one of my kids and the closest I got was taking a picture every second of Calvin's life and then assembling a calendar for Henry, but the photos were never organized and even Henry's calendar is missing two months. I also wanted to find a cool toy or prop that would always be in the photo with Jane for a size comparison, but couldn't find anything that thrilled me enough.

In the end, I decided that the quilt my grandma made would be a lovely backdrop and the pictures will show how she changes and grows even without a size reference.

So we entertained ourselves with a little photo shoot earlier this week. I know I will eventually have to choose just one photo for the month, but for the grandmas, here is our one-month-old being pink and soft (in several pictures):



This shot is to show off her luscious arms:



This is Jane's "thinky" look. It is a little more intense at times, but she is a very serious girl. Her brother Calvin had this look on his face basically at birth. It took Jane a week or two, but she's got the intensity of figuring out the universe in her, just like him, I think.



The next two pictures are Jane being distracted by Charlie. I think she recognized and followed him with her eyes even before she knew me, but it is precious how much they are interested in each other.



(No babies or two-year-olds were harmed in the taking of this photo shoot. I stopped them before the arm of the sofa turned into a vault routine...)



And here Jane is modeling her Babylegs - the best solution for cold-weather dressing of babies ever. I love them and almost can't wait until the weather in Kiev really warrants them.



And this is Jane letting us know that enough is enough. No more photos, no more questions, please! She's very assertive that way.



Things are settling a bit now, and Jane is starting to console better and sleep a little longer at one time. It looks like we will be headed back to Kiev next weekend. I'm getting myself together a bit and hope to be blogging more regularly (as much for me as for anyone who might care to read) soon.

Happy September!