Nadia turns ONE!

Our sweet smiley girl celebrated her very first birthday just under two weeks ago!!!

She had a blast! Played with friends (both the babes of those from our birthing class and of those mamas from my mommy group), hung with her family (Anneanne was there!) and hosted her teyzes and amcas (some of our dear friends).

She had her first cupcake on the night of her actual birthday...and after daddy helped her realize it wasn't just for playing with, seemed to like eating it...and feeding it to us!

Since the first night of Hannukah came early this year, we also lit the first candle on her birthday and read the Hannukah book her Grandpa Gaffin gave to her.

At her birthday party she fell in love with balloons...and also really liked her chocolate cake (from Blue Sky Bakery). She got a lot of absolutely wonderful gifts and is a lucky little girl to have so many who love and adore her.

9-Months Today!!!

WOW! Nine months have gone by. WOW!

Our precious sweet girl is nine months old today. I keep saying it. It's amazing. She is amazing. The mommy thing is not a walk in the park but it is so rewarding. Seeing Nadia grow right before my eyes...seeing her discover and mature...seeing her understand things and try to communicate...it's all so awesome, in the true sense of the word. Kory and I do have a sense of awe as we watch her wave for the first time or the second or the third or the 25th time. We are awed when she smiles wide so pleased with herself that she picked up a piece of banana. We are awed when we tip-toe to her crib during the night and watch her angelic little self sleeping peacefully.

The day-to-day seems to have gotten easier but then again the variables that come with each passing week always add a new dynamic, a new hurdle that we have to learn to navigate around constantly.

Miss Nadia P helps by napping consistently - now once in the morning and once in the afternoon - and so I have a bit of free time to catch up on email, take a shower, eat, write a blogpost. I got an Event Coordinator gig that has me making calls and sending emails during most naps over the last few weeks and....drumroll, I am in a show! It goes up Sept. 10th and we've been in rehearsals since late August. I'm doing a show!!! I'm a mom and an actress! This is truly a dream come true. Now I know that even when I'm not in a show, I'm still an actress (auditioning, etc) but the fact that this is the first theatre production I am doing since she was born is still thrilling. Of course the juggling of Kory's and my schedules in terms of childcare has been a little tough, but overall it's been manageable thankfully. So Yay!

Nadia has her nine-month check-up today with Dr. Gold. We'll see how much she weighs now. She got her first fever last month which was hugely stressful and anxiety-producing for us but, as all my wonderful mommy friends said she would (and we would), she got better and we got through it.

I found a lovely young Turkish woman who will now be her regular babysitter which was a huge goal of mine. So Yay on that too! The hope is that she will be exposed to Turkish and pick it up a bit.

And Nadia...she is rolling over and really getting around. She holds herself up on her tunny expertly and even scoots around with her arms and legs, besides the rolling everywhere. She loves rolling under the couch. She loves chomping on the pieces of her playmat. She is a great eater...now everything from yogurt and avocado to peaches and olives. Most things she eats on her own with her tiny little fingers bringing each morsel to her mouth. She has a new smile where she scrunches up her face and her eyes narrow...it's an adorable 'whole face' smile. She has added tttt-tttt to her repertoire of ggg-ggg, ddd-ddd, nnn-nnn and mmm-mmm.
She drinks from a cup (even if she dribbles most of it). She's not so hot on the bottle but did take one from Sila the other day, and occasionally from her dad.

I love her with all my being. And when at night when she is falling asleep and I'm holding her in my arms listening to her breath against my neck, I am filled with so much joy. Any of the stress or anxiety melts away for those moments and I try to capture them in my mind as I know that sooner than I can really wrap my mind around, she is going to be a grown up little girl and such moments will not come as often.

Happy nine months Nadia Perihan. You are ever-smiley and so so sweet. I love you I love you I love you.

Your Momma,
Esra

A recent day at the park. Some fun shadows to play with. Miss Nadia is pretty in pink.

Time Flies! Looking Back at Six Months of Nadia P!

Last week, last Tuesday, June 1st, our little Nadia turned six-months old. Wow, how time has flown by! I look at pictures of her from January and she seems so tiny in comparison to now.
Back then I would at the clothes so generously sent to us by Auntie Paige and Uncle Dary and from Marisa & Seth and the six-month size seemed so big! Now she is wearing it and it fits!

Oh my goodness...where to begin? As I try to recap the last three months or so since I've last had a chance to write...

There are little memories like the first time I found an imprint of her little ear on the inside of my arm after nursing her. Or her flashing an amazing smile at me while I changed her diaper at 6am all bleary-eyed and groggy...her wanting to play and connect helping me feel more awake and blissful and not so grumpy anymore. There's the first time I went to get her from her crib one morning and she smiled so wide and so sweetly, like she was so happy to see me after her night's slumber. And she continues to do that to this day...brightening my morning as soon as I see her amazing grin and her arms and legs wiggling around with excitement.

Not long after the gorgeous sparkly smiles came the giggles. Oh the giggles! Our friend Erika and her sweet son Japhy were over and she began an impromptu game of peek-a-boo with Nadia. The giggles began - they were possibly the most wonderful sound I've ever heard. Full-on belly laughs accompanied by wide beautiful smiles. What seemed to make her laugh the most was the surprise aspect of it - she'd jump a wee bit in her bouncer but then immediately laugh with glee. It was awesome and thinking back on it makes me smile. It was one of those moments that I think I'll never forget.

Soon Miss Nadia P (as I've taken to calling her) was enjoying tummy-time a bit more and then she started rolling over onto her back. Each time she did it, Kory and I would encouragingly clap and say Yay! And by now in June she's started moving from her back onto her belly. She's always loved to stand - even as early as six weeks and her legs are very strong. Now she is working on sitting unassisted! Sometimes leans over to the side and Bonk! she's down but every day she's getting better at it. I love watching her sit and discover the world from that particular vantage point (i.e. not lying on her back for a change).

As of May we started her on solid food...slightly earlier than the AAP recommended six months, but not at all harmful according to our pediatrician and we were careful to space out each new food by a few days to test for any allergies. She'd also been staring at us while we ate for a while...sometimes even reaching for our fork as it went towards our mouth. And we'd also been giving her little tastes of things like bananas from our fingertips and she licked away with curiosity and pleasure.


Carrots were first and she LOVED them! Then peas...not as big a fan but she still ate them. Then sweet potatoes...a huge hit! Then green beans which she seemed somewhat ambivalent about. And those are the vegetables in her repertoire thus far. As for fruits, we soon started to add mashed up banana, some pears and an applesauce with rice cereal mixture. All of these were immediate favorites. More recently we added peaches, an applesauce and blueberry mixture and tonight we will try apples and mangoes!


And as of this week she has a tooth poking out!! Her bottom left tooth and it's jagged little edges is in sight! It is so exciting.

The Blizzard of 2010 and Other Moments...

Today it snowed all day long...big fluffy white flakes of pretty snow. Nadia & I watched as it piled up outside, on the window sill, on the planters and pots on the fire escape, everywhere. We listened to the people shoveling outside...to the sound of plows scratching against the gravel of the streets as they whizzed past on Douglass or on 5th Avenue. We both had snacks...one of us every two to three hours or so. We listened to Raffi's children's songs and danced to Ladyhawke blaring on the stereo speakers. Nadia lightly napped while I did not.

...this 'blizzard' was actually 2 weeks ago on February 10th...and I intended to write more but have realized that keeping up with a blog at this stage of things is...well, not too realistic! Since finding time to take a shower and get dressed is still tough, a daily...even weekly blog entry is not in the cards. BUT I will plan to keep at it, remembering to be very easy on myself when I don't get to it. I've had this feeling that I'm not 'capturing' the moments either in writing or on film and of course I wish we had a video camera. Now, the fact that I dumped a table full of coffee drinks on our digital camera at one of my mommy group meetings does not help things one bit. And even when it is working the video is hard to upload...or I just don't know how to do it, or my PC isn't equipped. Dunno. And then there's the afore mentioned inability to sit down and write an email let alone a blog entry.

Anyway, I think it's because the moments are so breathtakingly beautiful, they are so incredibly amazing, I want them to last for longer. To hold them a little longer. Like the first time Nadia smiled at me. My goodness, it was one of the best things I could have ever imagined. Her eyes shimmered in a special way and she was looking at me!!! At me!!! And she was smiling and it was honestly like a drug. Like something I wanted/want over and over and over. And luckily she is such a sweet natured baby who likes to smile. She doesn't cry unless she's hungry and even when she's tired, she more whines than cries...maybe more like whimpers. I'll have to think of the right word. Lately she's a bit more gassy (maybe because she eats so much more?) so there's a little crying after she's nursed and before the big, if you will, frat boy burp that comes out. Overall though, she's got a wonderful temperament and we are so very blessed. Now of course she's been a drool machine, which is supposed to be a sign of teething, so that whole limited crying thing is likely to change but for now it's a blessing we are thankful for. She just turned 12 weeks old this past Tuesday, February 23rd. The 3-month mark!!! So exciting. And she is so amazing and we are so in love. Her smile = eternal sunshine. It makes every part of this oftentimes bewildering and sometimes exhausting journey all the more worth every single precious moment.

Our Precious Girl's Arrival

After about 30 hours of labor and 45 minutes of pushing, Kory and I were given the most precious gift ever: our first child, a baby girl! Nadia Perihan Dayani was born at 5:21AM on Tuesday, December 1, 2009. She weighed 6 pounds and 15 ounces and she was 20 inches long. Here she is at about 8 minutes old...alert and ready for her first meal. As I hold her for the very first time and marvel at her beauty - and her sweet little tongue! - you can see her Anneanne's loving hands right behind her. And speaking of Anneanne's (Grandmother in Turkish), Nadia's middle name was my Anneanne's. My mother's mother (her Great Grandmother) was named Perihan Akture and she was --is-- one of my most favorite people in the world. I am so thrilled we had a girl so I could honor her memory and give Nadia such a special namesake and guardian angel. She has two such angels really, as her beloved Grandmother, Donna Gail, is also watching over her.