CAMERA FOUND!

Oh, Halelujiah! Today I sqeezed a solitary load of laundry into my day and lo and behold, there was our digital camera, tucked in the pocket of a fleece jacket. I thought I had checked every pocket, but thankfully I hadn't. No wonder no one answered my lost & found ads.

To celebrate our reunion, the camera and I enlisted our favorite subject for a rapid-fire photo shoot. Here are the results, taken just today, to keep y'all up to the minute on Van's life.

Today Vanessa is 14 weeks old. Such a cutie! I will say it is hard to capture her full repetoire of smiles and giggly expressions, since she becomes fascinated with the camera and doesn't know how to pose yet. In this shot, I had to hold the camera over my head and hope I was pointing down on her.

In this next picture, she was waving her arms and legs so hard I would not have been surprised if she had lifted off the changing pad.

Can anyone else see the strong Jennings male influence in our beautiful baby daughter's face? This morning her open-mouthed, full faced grin looked exactly like my father's (her grandfather's). Watch out, world!

MY! HOW SHE'S GROWN!

Auntie Susan, Uncle Jimmy and their baby daughters Adrienne and Julia (who are on spring break from college) came back this weekend to inspect wee Vanessa Lou Hoo. You may recall they were the first family to visit other than the grandmothers, way back in January.

Vanny came into this world looking eerily like cousin Adrienne as a newborn. Now, with a bit more meat on her bones, she's morphing into an eery copy of Julia as a baby. What on earth?

Here is a photo of Julia and VanNestle from Julia's first visit. Nessa is one week old.

And here they are together now, Week 13, and one of them is um, twice the size. Let's just say Julia did not gain the proverbial Freshman Fifteen this year at college, but Vanessa? Not waiting until college apparently.

Not to be outdone, brunette cousin Adrienne had a dimple-off with baby Vanessa. Adrienne noted Nessa used her monkey toes to grip the carpet whilst she demonstrated her Johnny-Jump-Up prowess. Adrienne has those monkey toes... but neither were posing for the cameras this weekend. However, see VH1 pose on the famed magic ball.

Here we are, the paparazzi, documenting a diaper change. No secrets here! Vanny simply loves to be changed. We think it's because she's always delighted to see her "baby sister" again in the mirror.

Also visiting were Auntie Susan and Uncle Jimmy. Auntie Susan is the one person who loves holding baby Nessa so much I, the mother, sometimes feel guilty when I'm holding her. It's a wonderful thing to know Susan never ever minds taking your baby, even when she cries.

Uncle Jimmy has to fight for a chance to hold his tiniest niece. He's right there with the camera, though, just as Nessa's grandfather Poppa would be if he were still roaming the earth with his many gadgets. We have Uncle Jimmy to thank for almost all of these photos.

Sneaking in on the visit was Granny Ernestine, who zipped down from her new digs. She hadn't seen baby Vanessa since her birthday party, a month ago, but that didn't matter to Van. When Granny came near or spoke, Nessa would grin ear to ear. She must know her voice! See Little Miss V. hanging out on the couch while cyber Granny catches up on her text messaging.

THREE MONTHS OLD

Well, Little Miss V. is all growed up now. Yesterday, the 22nd, she officially hit the three month mark. Today she's 13 weeks old. To document the end of her "fourth trimester," I turned in the industrial strength breast pump I had on loan from the hospital and got Vanessa weighed. Ahoy! She has successfully doubled her weight, thanks to my stupendous milk. She now weighs 14 lbs. 8.8 oz. (she weighed 7 lbs. 3 oz. at birth), prompting the lactation specialist to remark, "You must have very rich milk!" Hmmmmm. Yes.

Vanny has had a pretty good week. We went to the Mommy's group on Wednesday that has some of the new moms from our birthing class, plus some other new moms. It was great: the facilitator, a nurse midwife, has exercise balls and all the other breastfeeding mothers were nursing right there during the group. Bouncing + nursing = happy Nessa.

We came home, met Daddio, and Van actually agreed to her first tour through the neighborhood in her stoller. I wish we had the video camera for that! As the stroller bumped along her jowls wiggled furiously. Then she slept through the night again, from 11 pm to 5 am. Thank you, daughter!

This weekend the Little Monkey Princess has more family coming to bounce her and snap her picture. I will show them how Nessa and I chat every day with grins and giggles. All I have to do is say, "Hi Vanessa! HI VANESSA!" and she busts out a huge smile and maybe a coo. Oh melt my heart!

Here's a reminder photo of that little miracle child who so recently changed our lives. She's 3 days old here and not so very much bigger than my swollen Shrek hand!

A WEEK OF FIRSTS

Well, I've been under the direction of my wee daughter, which has not included time on the computer. Here is a long overdue post with photos.

A week ago we had a reunion of our birthing class - Vanessa's first official graduation! All of us showed up with our new babies. What a hoot! We lined them up by age, prompting Daddio to get a tear in his eye, saying, "Our baby girl is First in Her Class!" She has the strongest neck and was able to hold up Marcos, her first date, who was born one day later. Vanessa has a cosmic twin, Scarlett, who originally shared the same due date but is actually 5 weeks younger. They look and sound so much alike it confused all four parents. Scarlett is second from the right.

Also this week, we celebrated her first Saint Patrick's Day by attending her first track & field meet here at home. Afterwards, we went over to Mark & Kelly's house, where Kelly is on bedrest with a belly full of growing triplets. Jack gave coworker Mark his first diaper lesson - coach to coach - which was Vanessa's first modeling gig. Mark is in for many, many diaper changes.

"Auntie" Sarah visited this week for her first introduction to Vanessa. She quickly learned to bounce VH1 on the magic ball to soothe her, but had no problem with the fact that Ness can cry nearly nonstop when she's awake and not eating. Darned reflux!

[Since the last blog post our poor little gipper has vomited two more times. Once while she was nursing, so I quickly sat her up, and once while she was flat on her back in bed, so I turned her to her side. So now she's "spit up" seven times in her 12 weeks of life. As usual, she emptied the entire contents of her stomach with a range of 2 to 3 feet. Afterwards, presumably because all that nasty acid was voided, she slept through the night for the first time, midnight to 6 AM.]

We toured around a bit while Sarah was here. Nessa paid her first visits to See Canyon Road and to Cayucos. See photos of the Irish Hills and Morro Rock in the distance, then of Morro Rock from the Cayucos pier. Sarah offered to take Nestle around in the Baby Bjorn, and Daddio did his best to keep her happy, but Nessa only wanted to be held by mama and nursed. Luckily, she travels well on the highway.

No one answered my ad for the lost digital camera, so I'll have to get another ASAP. Luckily Sarah brought hers, so thank you Auntie Sarah for loaning me the camera this week!

LITTLE MISS GIGGLY

This morning cousins Corey and Meghan flew away. Some of their comments while visiting:

"I know I'm a relative, but I really think Vanessa is the cutest baby I've ever met." [Corey]

"When you look at her you get a special feeling." [Meghan]

"If Milo had puppies I would definitely want one." [Corey]

"You can tell she's really a happy baby because she smiles as soon as she can between crying about her acid reflux." [Meghan]

"When we were baby sitting and she wouldn't stop crying, but she's so cute we were actually laughing hysterically at her sad faces." [Corey]

"I don't want to leave..." (because you love the weather? the ocean?) "I'll miss the baby. Maybe I could take her with me." [Meghan]

Corey and Meghan we extaordinary with Nessa. She has been rejecting the bottle lately - even from her Dad - but the cousins stood firm and patiently got her to take it while I ran out to a county board meeting. After an hour and a half of crying and eventally taking the bottle, they all took naps. VH1 slept on them.

Corey was our resident childhood development expert, since she's taking Psychology 101 as a college freshman. Dr. Corey thinks VH1 is trying to speak to us. Also, she has a very strong neck: she can hold her head up and turn it back and forth, right to left. The jury is out on whether or not she's a leftie. Her legs are extra strong and quick ("She's a jumper!"). The hair is growing in again on the crown of her head, reddish and perhaps even curly. Her eyebrows are orange; she often raises just one of them.

Van does really well at night - she hasn't woken us up with crying in weeks. It feels like she sleeps through the night, but really she sleeps with me so I can feed her at 1 AM and 5 AM without getting up. She wakes up all grins and giggles.

We were all laughing at Daddio last night when he held Van and had her "Vogue" to the music. Another classic for youtube for sure.

COUSINS VISIT!

We've had a few technical difficulties with the blogmaster (me) this week. First, blogger made me switch to a new version in the middle of my last post. Second, I seemed to have lost our digital camera, which will mean no more Vanessa photos online if I can't find it. Third, we have a house full of family. And lastly, Nessa seems to have moved into a new phase of needing her mama, not feeling comforted by anyone else, and, horrors of horrors! not taking a bottle. So sorry I've been unavailable by email, snail mail or telephone for so long. I'm able to take care of my daughter, but absolutely everything else has fallen away.

VanNestle is having great fun with Rhode Island cousins Corey and Meghan who are here on their spring breaks. Uncle Marky and the Magic Aunt (Debbie) have also been here with them for a few days. Nessa has cracked out her giant new smiles for their visit. Not only that, she has been caught giggling at them! Maybe it's because they are so fun and have taken us around to a couple beaches, which the Little Monkey Princess loves. She does eat a lot, though, so we have to stop every hour for a milky snack. Makes for slow going.

We took a funny video of Daddio demonstrating Nessa's athletic repetoire and are considering putting it on youtube. We'll let you know if we do.

Last night after a long meal Vanny barfed up a day's worth of nursing effort. It was bad. Not sure why she did it, but that makes the fifth time she spit up in her life. Of course when she does, it's epic. Naturally I took full responsibility and feel certain it was the double scoop of triple cream ice cream I ate on our way home from the dunes. No more ice cream for us, huh Nessa?