This meant to be a quick photo update (I uploaded new pictures to flickr) but now I have to add the bad news: Georgia is sick. Poor baby. she kept me up most of the night because she couldn't breathe, too much gunk caught up in the back of her throat (I know exactly how that is as I have the same problem). Finally got up at 7 this morning and got some breastmilk in her nose. Shortly after she sneezed and cleared out a ton of gunk and then spit up a ton more. She's still breathing difficult though, and she has a slight fever, 37.6°C. I called Andrea immeidately and she said: breastfeed her, put milk in her nose, take her outside for fresh air, keep her bundled up warm and if her fever gets worse, go to the doctor.

The worst thing is that Sven (who probably gave it to her in the first place as he's been sick) has a Christmas party at work today and probably won't be home until 3am or so, and when he does arrive, he'll be so drunk he's not allowed in the bedroom (dangerous to have a drunk in bed with a baby). Such bad, bad timing. I hope Georgia can sleep most of the day and that her nose eventually clears up and we don't have to go to the doctor.

I leave you with this:

clicking on the photo will take you to the updated set at flickr.

Friday was a good mail day. Sometime before 1:30 that afternoon (therefore before G and I went down for a nap) the bell rang. The DHL man had brought us not one, but two packages! One came from Oregon and had a gorgeous hand-knit hat for Georgia (and some fabulous Ribbon Jar ribbons for me - thanks Amber!) and one was from Baby Walz and had G's new baby gym in it:

The gym is pretty cool, it plays mozart or funny animal sounds, has tons of hanging things and a mirror and noisy spots on the blanket. I put it together and stuck Georgia under it and....she screamed at me until I picked her back up. But hey, we had a tough week last week and she actually stayed under the gym today and almost smiled...so there is hope yet!

Check out this hat - is it not fabulous? so bright and orange and fun! It totally makes me laugh. I can't wait until Georgia's head is big enough for it - which seems like forever away, but considering I thought the same thing about most of the hats that have been waiting for her to grow for months now suddenly FIT, it might not be that long before the fun orange hat fits after all (was that a run-on or what? cut me some slack, I'm having to type with one finger and a baby and it takes forever. by the time i finish half a sentence, my brain has raced ahead and totally forgotten what my finger is typing...)!

On Saturday (yesterday) I got a day away from home, first time since Georgia was born, and first time I'd been away from her for more than 2 hours! I met Liz at Stacchus at noon, we wanted a few hours before the movie (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) started to eat lunch and shop. The movie was supposed to start at 2pm, but when we got there, we found out it didn't start until 3:15pm!!! So we had even more time to kill. We had lunch then went shopping and finally headed over to the theater. The movie is LONG, but the stupid theater had a half hour of commercials - commercials, not previes, commercials - before the movie even started. Anyway, the movie went until 6pm! You can imagine how much in pain I was before I finally got to feed Georgia. I went from 11am to 8:30pm without feeding her and I was wet from top to bottom. The day was worth it though - it was fabulous getting away, and as you know from my last post, necessary. Today was much more bearable after a complete day away from my angel. Okay, the sunshine helped as well!

And now, today is the first day of Advent, a very big deal here in Germany. In fact, Advent is almost more fun than Christmas itself over here - yes, I've even done a whole layout about Advent here in Germany - and all the Christmas markets opened and it's cold and snowy and just very cool. So first of all:

No, normally I wouldn't bother wishing everyone a happy first day of advent, but we had this adorable christmas jumper for Georgia from her Grandma, right? Unfortunately, the jumper is a size newborn, which just a week ago, was the size she needed. However, she literally grew overnight and the newborn size no longer fits. I have proof:

Here she is in her jumper. See the bit of white peeking out? That white onesie beneath the jumper? Yup, that's the first snap that didn't snap. The other is the top snap at the back of her neck. And in all honesty, it was a tight squeeze getting her in the jumper at all. I usually put socks on her inside the jumper, but her feet were not going on this one with socks on... So there you have it, official proof that Georgia has truly grown and no longer fits the newborn size. She has moved up to 0-3 months!! And just in time too, as she was 8 weeks old yesterday and I guess in a few more days she'll be 2 months!

I mentioned we had sunshine today? Gorgeous lighting, we took over 200 pictures of Georgia. I haven't had time to edit them yet, so can't share many more with you, but click HERE to see a few I got to and be looking for more in the near future.

After taking all the photos (Georgia was an angel, hardly a peep, but plenty of smiles) she didn't want to nap, so we decided to take her on a walk. Luckily, Sybille dropped the snowsuit off yesterday while I was movie-watchin' so I bundled Miss Mae up good and warm and then put her down in her crib while waiting for Sven to get ready (he's very sick) and she fell asleep. Crazy girl. She's all crying and unhappy about being awake and being stuffed in a snowsuit and then BAM, she's out like a light.

Anyway, snowsuit is very warm (though big) and she slept nicley insulated while we walked down to the Putzbrunn City Hall to check out the little Christmas Market. Not much going on (Putzbrunn is not big) but we got some 'gebrannte mandel' and giggled at the live nativity, which had a donkey and a bunch of kids playing Mary and Joseph andthe shepherds, all dressed in their warmest BAVARIAN attire...

if you were debating whether to click on the link I mentioned above (with a few of today's edited shots) then let me just leave you with this sneak peek of what today's shoot was all about. Awwww, what an adorable little elf, eh?!

One last word: thank-you to everyone who called or emailed or responded to my last blog entry. I appreciate it more than you can imagine. I am doing better, but I honestly think it is because I took off yesterday and got a day to myself. It really freshens your whole outlook and lets you start new on the following day, ready to face the world. Oh, and if you were wondering how Georgia and Sven got on while I was gone - fabulously. That's right. She didn't give him a hard time at all, she took her bottles when he gave them to her, only cried when she was hungry, and went down for a nap with him, without needing to suckle on a boob. So not fair. He'll never have a clue how freaking hard it is to be home day after day with a crying baby if she doesn't give him as hard a time as she always gives me!

Ah well. Happy first day of advent everyone.

A few things. I realized wth a start today, that november is more than half-over and I didn't have nearly as many photos of Georgia, although she has gone through more milestones this month than last. Oops. I didn't do anything about it at first, the light is bad and I rarely have her off my lap in a new and interesting position to photograph...but then I put her down this afternoon, in her crib after changing her diaper and turned on her Winnie the Pooh mobile.

We've been doing this pretty much since day one, though I'm not sure how much attention she paid it. Recently however, she's been intently watching as the stuffed tigger, piglet, pooh and eeyore go round and round, I mean, really following them with her eyes (yup, milestone!). Today, I saw her doing it and thought it was time to grab the camera and record it. It was pure luck that I not only got her watching the mobile, but I also got her smiling at it. I'd just taken a number of shots with her watching it and then the mobile stopped and what did she do? She suddenly got this huge grin on her face, waved her hands in the air and if she could have, would have laughed for joy at the mobile!

So woo hoo - here you go, two milestones captured on film (well, digital film anyway!), eye movement and smiling. She's actually been smiling since about her 2nd week (or first?) but unconsiously, mostly in her sleep. For a week or so though, she's started doing it consciously, but fleeting. She'll do it if she is in a VERY good mood and looking right at you and you grin as big as you possibly can at her. So I didn't think I'd be getting smiles on film yet. However, she surprised us by grinning like a crazy lady at Tanja and Markus this weekend as well. She was in fact, very well behaved for their visit.

Click HERE to see the newest shots of Georgia.

1. No matter what i do, in these first 3 months, I cannot spoil her, no matter how often I hold her, carry her or cuddle her.
2. The pacifier is not evil
3. I can give her my breast 100x's a day and it's not a bad thing, it's what she wants. My life might be easier if she wanted to be rocked, or to have constant white noise, but it looks like my little burrito wants to suck, and not necessarily the paci, she wants the milk that comes with the sucking.

The book is pretty damn cool. I am convinced now, that there is no need for her to scream uncontrollably and even though she's only done it twice without being able to soothe her, I am ready for her to go at it again so I can give the whole "Cuddle Cure" a try. Actually, I did give it a go last night before going to bed, and she calmed down while I was doing it, but started up again as soon as I stopped. She was hungry though, so I didn't continue with it, but went ahead and fed her.

Growth spurts, man. What a pain. She went down around 10pm last night and was up again at 2am, fed for about 20 mins (and that was iwth me sitting) and trhen she was up again at 4am and she ate and fell asleep only to wake up screaming if I tried to lay her down, ate again, fell asleep, ate until 6am. Then she was up again at 7:45! I thought I'd get some sleep this afternoon during her 'long nap' but that nap lasted all of 45mins before she was awake and crying for food again.

This should last about 3 days, right? Oh how I long for a good night's sleep...

Now, as for blogging. I do it only for my audience, it was originally my goal to keep family and friends who live way too far away up-to-date on my pregnancy. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't boring you with day after day of baby stories. I mean, I'm not even recording the whole truth here, because that would incriminate certain parties and I once got yelled at (in blog comments) for knocking on that person too often and I've been scared ever since, to tell the whole truth publically...So I'll keep at it, and I'm glad for luring so many lurkers out, I had no idea some of you read my blog!

Last success of the day, I typed up this whole entry (and edited the photo) with Georgia in my lap eating, followed by her falling asleep. Her head is on my left forearm and yet I still managed to type with both hands, otherwise this never could have been so long! ha! See, that's the better thing about recording events in her baby book, I only need one hand to write with, and I can write at the coffee table, while sitting on the couch with both hands free because she's on the boppy...