Prego no no

My one redeeming feature is my buff looking shoulder.  Thank you Clementine for keeping my arms strong!

I got this amazing little collage from my friend Alissa in July when Justin finished taking his board exams, but just barely figured out how to take a screen shot so here I am, pregnant with little Vivi Lu.  I'm wearing a dress that is not maternity and don't look at all as spectacular as I thought I did that night.  I was trying to go for pregnant/sultry(with the red), but I'm just bulging out all over the place! haha!  I pretty much had the fattest pregnancy ever with this tiny little girl. 

Anyway, this is the same day I forgot Justin's clothes and we all ate a super fancy dinner up at Sundance while we were all dressed up and Justin had no shirt on, a coat, biking shorts and biking shoes.  He could have cared less though since he was so happy about being done with all his tests. 

Neck Cheese

Happy, Chubby, and Clean!

I have to admit that up until this month Violette probably had about one bath per month.  One day I was nuzzling her neck and smelled something horrid. I looked in her neck folds, which wasn't easy btw, and saw a collection of all sorts of things from curdled milk to lint and spent the next half an hour scraping it off her neck and bathing her.  Since then I have been more regular in bathing my little Vivi Lu.  She actually enjoys her baths and she can't wait for the day when she can be in the tub with all her sisters!  Clementine also had a bout with this stench, but it was in her armpit fold.

I have had such productive weeks lately and it's all thanks to my super sleeping baby! Violette sleeps next to me on the bed and now sleeps about 12 hours straight and she's the first baby I didn't have to do the transition with a few nights of screaming.  She just naturally goes to sleep on her own with a binkie and a blanket over her eyes and falls asleep.  I wish I had a crib I could transfer her to so I could get my room back, but hopefully soon we'll move to a new house that has more rooms and we can put all our kids in their own rooms.  They'll eventually share rooms but not until they're a little older.  Henry wants to be with Violette and Bea wants to be with Clementine.  Sounds good to me. 

Violette is getting close to rolling over. She tries to twist her body and I think she'll roll pretty soon.  She is also close to sitting up, my favorite stage.  I can't believe how fast this has transpired.  The more babies you have, the faster life flows along.  She smiles, talks a lot, is playing with toys, is holding her bottle and starting to enjoy being awake and isn't just sitting around doing nothing during the wakeful hours. Welcome to life little one!

Like Brother, like Sister

Blue eyes, red hair and red lips.  Doesn't get cuter than that!

Thank heaven for toys that make the crinkly sound.  They're the only ones that keep her attention for longer than 30 seconds.  Violette is like Henry in so many ways, which scares me to death thinking about her as a toddler, not that anything could be worse than Bea right now.  I just remember how hard Henry was too.  Anyway, Henry wasn't that into toys and neither is Violette.  Bea and Clementine would sit and play for long periods of time but Violette likes to be interacted with and held and looked at by people.  She loves to laugh at the kids and it's a good thing I have so many kids who love her because she gets entertained almost all day long.  Even though she gets bored quickly with toys, she doesn't complain too loudly and if she's cranky, she usually just whimpers until I can come get her. 

My three girls! I'm the luckiest mom in the world.

 Violette is growing well now and has a fair amount of chub on her tiny little body.  She's still really short, fitting in her 0-3 month clothes still but her head and weight are back where they should be.  Henry was also pretty small until he was about 9 months, got chubby and then around 18 months started to get really tall.  Hopefully she'll be the same. 

Bea loves her baby sister

She is sleeping in my bed with me, which is different than all my other babies.  It's just more convenient when she wakes up at night, plus Justin has decided to sleep in the guest room until next month when she'll be forced to sleep through the night by none other than mean mommy.  The day you turn 5 months old, I'm not coming in anymore.  Sorry baby doll.  That's the way it goes.  That's the day Daddy moves back in!  Back to the sleep issue though.  So, I never snuggle with her when I'm sleeping or anything so is that still called co-sleeping? I never got into that, but maybe I'm doing it now.  I really don't know. 

She's not sitting up yet, or anywhere close to that, and she's not rolling over and hates to be on her stomach, so no serious progress yet.  She's just smiling and laughing up a storm.  We love our little redhead.

Poor neglected baby

Sweet Smile

Violette, we took you up to Snowbird today at the end of the day to watch the kids ski and to go hot tubbing in the awesome outdoor hot tubs and you were miserable.  By the end of the day your little eyes were red and your little voice was hoarse.  It's probably hard to be the fourth child and be neglected, and less considered.  I'm sorry that we drag you around, even when you're sick and tired and that you don't have a perfect schedule for your naps.  I'm sorry that Bea hugs you too hard and sticks her feet in your face many times a day.  I'm sorry that when you cry, I usually can't come to your aid right away.  I wish I could just hold you and be sensitive to all of your needs.  Just know that I have a special place for you in my heart and that I love you Vivi Lu. 

For the Record

Look at her double chin emerging and those rosy cheeks.  No more starving baby here!

So just for the record I have to document Violette's first few months of life since we basically have no photos because our camera broke and because it was the holidays and it got hectic around here.  Also I have to document that I have been trying to breastfeed her and no matter how much I feed her, she doesn't seem to be getting enough milk, possibly because she sleeps so much at night and even if I feed her every two hours during the 12 hours she's awake, my milk supply seems to be confused.  When I stopped pumping exclusively at around 7 weeks and just try to start breastfeeding I got thrush again for like the umteenth time and had to get on serious medication.  Thankfully it went away, but during that time I was in such pain that I would just put off nursing for one more hour here and there until I was only nursing like 4 times in a 24 hour period and Violette had so little energy that she wouldn't even cry, but just slept all day long.  She went 12 hours one day without even waking up and that's when it hit me, plus that same day I looked at her and she seemed to have that "starving child" look:Hunger in her eyes and cheekbones poking out.  I took her to her appointment and she had indeed lost over one pound.  I felt horrible and cried in agony at my neglectful behavior.  How could I have not known? I guess it's because she never cried that I thought she was fine.  Thankfully, our pediatrician immediately had us pump her full of extra milk and formula, which I did, and now she's three months old, doing great, gaining weight and smiling all day long.  She still sleeps about 7 or 8 hours straight from when I put her to bed until I wake up in the morning, which is a huge blessing for me, then I nurse her and she sleeps until about noon if I want her to.  If not, I get her up and she's awake for a couple hours before needing to take a really long nap.  All in all, she probably sleeps around 18 hours per day still if I let her.  The least amount she will sleep is about 14, but then she's usually really cranky and wants to be put to bed.  All I have to do is swaddle her, nurse her or put her binkie in and lay a soft blankie over her eyes and she'll fall right to sleep.  She really is a sweet and easy baby.  I even love hearing her little cry because it's so soft and unoffensive.  I just wanted to admit to your history that you had a continuation of a rough start and that I'm sorry little one.  I felt horrible but now you're my 1st priority right now.  I just love you so much!

What's in a name?

Violette's blessing dress made by my mom

So, "Violette?", you ask yourself? "What was Amelia thinking?" you say to your spouse? Well, I'll tell you.  Justin has two grandmothers, one named Viola(Vai-O-la) and another named Violet.  I always had Violet on my baby name list and it seemed to be at the top, but something just wasn't right. I didn't like any of my other names as much, but I didn't love just plain ol' Violet so I looked up the variations and when I read Violette, it just stuck and it was the one.  I briefly considered Violetta, the Italian version, but for some reason I don't like names ending in an -uh sound because it makes our names sound like full sentences like Bea's middle name, Isabella which is gaggingly overused.  I could make a sentence out of it.  "Isabella Hohl" changes to, "Is a bell a whole?" There are so many names that we couldn't use because they either created bad concepts or other full sentences like my personal favorite, Phillipa, which is a name I would have  totally used.  I LOVE that name, but put it all together and it says, "fill up a hole".  There is no way.  A, P, and I names are out of the picture and then I have to be careful of names ending in -es -is or -as for obvious reasons.  Since I like unusual names, you'd be surprised at how many names I couldn't use that I would have considered. 

Violette starting to smile.  She looks just like Henry to us!

I like my concept names like Jackson Hole, Whole Clementine, Be Whole and now Vivi Whole which also means "Live Whole" in Italian.  I'm trying to embrace our last name and turn it into something interesting instead of naming my kids really boring, normal names to downplay it.  All our kids have ties to ancestors, but have an international twist.  Even Clementine is French.  Henry doesn't respond to his name anymore, so I call him Enrico most of the time.  So there you have it, we have two Italian and two French babies.  Would you expect anything less from me?

mer baby

This is Violette in her merbaby costume. It was a big hit and she was so warm in it. We didn't even have to wear coats this year it was so warm, then we woke up the next morning to snow on the ground. Perfect timing!

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