Uxue's First Birthday!

Happy Birthday Uxue!
Zorionak Uxue!
Felicidades Uxue!

After lots of back and forth, and almost backing out entirely because I was sick, I made a Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with Vanilla Cream Frosting! Warning (this is for you Betsy...) it was a 'granola' cake. Not a lot of sugar, butter, etc and it had whole grain flour and other healthy things in it! But no fear, it was actually really tasty!

Gorka and I requested no gifts since she's only a year old and doesn't really get it anyway. She did, however, get some gifts when we arrived to Vitoria since Gorka's family doesn't see her everyday. Maybe it was they're way of getting around the no birthday presents thing.

Ft Wayne/Thanksgiving

Uxue and I went to Fort Wayne for Thanksgiving and had a great trip. The flights went surprisingly uneventful! Going she crawled up and down the aisles and coming back she slept the entire flight! Chicago is a good airport to have a long layover with kids as they have a great play area. We spent 2 hours there! Jet-lag on the way back to Belgium was definitely the hardest part... although I always struggle with that.

Mom's visit - I mean Grandma!

Busy Months!!!

Uxue is now 7 1/2 months old! I believe the last post was when she was almost 3 months old. We've been sooo busy. As anyone with children (or who has had children) knows. I have started most of the posts so I will finish them in the next week and post them!

Quick version of the past few months:
-Visited Gorka's family in Vitoria, Uxue's first plane ride
-Planned to go to Morroco for two weeks but were grounded by the Icelandic ash cloud. So we took a car ride through France and went to visit Gorka's family instead.
-Went to the beach. Uxue was very scared of the waves.
-Has been on way too many international flights for a baby under 1 year old.

Uxuki now:

• "Eating"
• Rolling over everywhere
• Sitting more or less on her own
• Crawls
• Ocasionally pulls herself to a standing position
• Has 5 teeth as of today

The Beach

Off we go to Girona!

We took a weekend getaway to the beach in Girona, Spain. We met with some friends, Rob & Anne, and had an EXCELLENT time.

They brought Uxue this fabulous outfit, fitted with sunglasses and everything! It was great against the sun and the wind! And she's sooo cute!

Sadly, Uxue wasn't thrilled with the waves. Actually she was terrified of them. We would get her close to the water and she would start screaming and grabbing at us desperately. We tried several times on Day 1. Finally on Day 2, we bought a small inflatable pool and filled it will the water from the ocean.

She absolutely loved it. I'm not sure how good it was for her kidneys since she was thrilled licking the salt off her face!

The weather was perfect for the beach! Hot, hot, hot! It was way too hot for me. It seems that Uxuki got her dad's tolerance for heat because she wasn't bothered a bit while I went home and recovered from heat stroke for a few days. Uxuki did however get eaten by mosquitoes. I guess she is just too sweet.

Open Farm Days

There's a great weekend event here in the francophone part of Belgium, Open Farm Days. An entire weekend to visit all sorts of farms. To be honest I was way more interested than Uxue!

Apparently, the organic hens here in Belgium only get the best to eat! Croissants and "Pain au chocolat" or chocolate filled croissants! Too funny! Actually they probably get the day old stuff for free from the local bakery!

At a different farm, we were able to get close to the animals. Uxue met a sheep, but truly wasn't very interested! I think the sheep was more interested than Uxuki.

Rolling Over

This is actually the second time Uxue rolled over. Gorka and I were talking and looked over and couldn't believe she was on her tummy! Here's the second go.

She isn't rolling from tummy to back yet. We'll see when that starts since it usually comes first.

Meet the Family in Spain

Meeting Gorka's Family

Uxue took her first flight to go to Spain. For those of you familiar with low-cost European companies.... we flew RyanAir!!! Everything went smoothly and Uxue was great. She ate at take-off and fell asleep. I woke her at landing to feed her again. Feeding babies at take-off and landing is recommended to help their ears adjust to the pressure differences, which means no crying babies! The tip worked well except she didn't want to eat on landing but I "forced" her and she threw up! No crying though ;-)

The weekend was packed meeting friends and family. Probably too much. Especially if you count the 2 1/2 hour drive to and from the Zaragosa airport. But it was so great to introduce her to half of her family. We have also noticed a huge developmental jump since we've returned to Brussels. I'm not sure if it's from all of the activity and stimulus during our visit or it's just a coincidence.

Josu (Gorka's Brother) & Uxue

Megan & Uxue

Felipa (Gorka's Grandmother) & Uxue

*Sorry about the poor quality photos! These are the only good ones!

Big Booty Girl!

As you can tell from this picture Uxue has an enormous bum! She looks a bit like Urkel from Family Matters! We are using reusable cloth diapers so it makes her but look so big! She actually has to wear pants for the next age group!

I really am amazed how easy cloth diapers are these days! You place a special piece of paper in the diaper so you can pull it out with the poo and flush it down the toilet! And the diapers come with velcro tabs or buttons, making it just as easy to put on as disposables! No more folding or pins! Then the plastic cover comes in different colors and designs or you can buy them already integrated into the diaper! So easy! The hardest part is choosing what works best for you.

Gorka and I started with the reusable diapers when Uxue was a week old and her umbilical cord had fallen off. My favorite baby store rents diapers for 40€ for 1 month as a trial. You get 20 diapers and are able to mix and match different kinds to see which ones you like the best. It was really great! We were surprised to find the ones we liked the best, we had no intention of trying. The sales lady really pushed us to take at least 2 of that kind, just in case. Good thing she did!

We ended up choosing 2 types. Ones with buttons that grow with her from birth to potty training. And another that just folds without any closing system. This one also grows with Uxue, but will need extra cloth liners as she grows to catch all her pee and poo!

We are now using disposables at night. Our midwife recommended using them so we don't need to change her until morning. As long as she doesn't poo this works really well. It helps to keep her asleep. We were changing her with each feeding which would wake her up and we would never get back to sleep. Thanks again to Barbara, our fabulous midwife!

Time Flies When You Don't Sleep!

Well, things have been interesting! Uxue went through her 6 week growth spurt... which means eating every 2 hours, not sleeping well, and generally cranky!

We have also been struggling with her need to suck. According to the doctor, babies need three basic things to be happy:

• to feel full
• to suck
  
• and something else I forgot because of lack of sleep! It must not have been important since I forgot it!
  

What this means for us is Uxue can stay on the breast for hours just sucking if I don't take her off. I'm not fabulous at calculating when she's full so about once a day for a week or so she was having projectile vomiting. Out her mouth, her nose... everywhere! It was really scary. The doctor said it was fine since she had no pain and recommended giving her a pacifier. That's wonderful in theory but this little stinker has three different binkies and doesn't like any of them! I didn't know it was possible for a baby not to like a pacifier! She actually gags on them!

Along with the growth spurt comes other things: more awareness of things around her and more time awake. It's great! We're beginning to get to know her little personality! I think she's gonna be a stinker! Still no smiling or laughing at us yet though.

Now that Uxue is more awake it's also more difficult for her to fall asleep. Similar to little kids when they get tired, she is cranky before falling asleep. There were 8 days in a row I had to get up in the middle of the night for 4 hours because she didn't know how to fall asleep. It's really sad because their eyes are so heavy and they fight so hard to keep them open, then they cry every time they open them!

Interestingly, Uxue hasn't lost any hair. It just gets longer and longer! She looks a bit like a baby orangutan with this hair!

Uxue had a visit from a little baby boy who was in our prenatal class. It's so funny seeing how different they are in size. He was only 3 weeks older than her, but Noah came 1 week late and Uxue almost 3 weeks early. What a difference in size! They were so similar besides that! Same sounds, expressions, everything! I had no idea babies were soooo incredibly similar. Before this I thought everything Uxue did was so unique and amazing! Little did I know all babies are this cute and captivating!

One Month Old Already!!!

Fed, satisfied, and finally resting!

Uxue is sleeping much better than week 3. She's back to eating every 3 hours regularly. Her growth spurt must be over, thank goodness! At her 1 month checkup, she gained another 250g (9oz) and grew a bit in length. This puts her at the 50% mark for her age in height and weight. She was in the lower egde of the growth chart when she was born, so she's making great progress. We have also noticed the she is more awake.

As you can tell, Uxue is the only rested one in the photo!

Oh no! Now I have 2 screaming babies to take care of!

Gorka's trying to get Uxue to sleep!

She hates sleeping on her back so after she falls asleep upright, we lay down like this, then roll her onto the bed. If she wakes up at any step, it's back to walking around the living room for another 15-30 min and going through the whole thing again!

Getting ready for a stroll in the park!

It's been soooo cold with the snow storms since a week before Uxue was born that this is our first walk! We've gotten out of the house once or twice a week before this, but always for a specific reason. This is the first time we can get out just to get some air! It's been a long 5 weeks of cold and snow!

Week 3!

Week 3 was much more difficult. Gorka and I both got sick. Luckily Uxue didn't catch our colds. She was going through a growth spurt so she was much crankier than previously! She would wake almost every 2 1/2 hours to eat and didn't seem very satisfied :-(

However, she gained 520g (18oz) that week, so must have eaten enough! We even resorted to trying a pacifier. She didn't take it though!

2 Weeks...

Week 2 went okay. Uxue sleeps constantly, waking every 3 hours to eat. She only cries a little to say she's hungry or when we change her diapers. She really is an angel! Besides being sleepy and still physically recovering from the birth, the first two weeks were very easy.

Gorka's mother and sister also came to visit, staying for a week.

We got a wonderful visit from Uncle Rob and Auntie Anne all the way from San Diego!

In Belgium, there are 2 public health organizations that handle well child check-ups until the child starts school at 2 1/2 years old. One organization is in French (O.N.E.) and one in Flemish (Kind en Gezin). Because most of the Flemish speaking Belgians also speak English, we are going to Kind en Gezin. The care is mostly done by a nurse, but a doctor sees the children for the major check-ups. The service is also free of charge!

We received our first Kind en Gezin nurse visit. Geraldine is awesome! She weighed Uxue, checked her belly button, and talked to us about vaccines. In one week, Uxue gained 380g (13oz)! I guess she's pretty happy eating so much!