Violet

We need to post pictures of Violet more often. We know this.
To our defence, the computer is not 100% back yet, which is all my doing because I'm still deciding on what version of Linux to run. I'm a little torn between Mandriva, which I've talked about and Kubuntu (Ubuntu). I have both installed and I like things about both distributions. I like the software and management better in Mandriva, but things seem to just work a little better in Kubuntu - things like power management (sleep - hibernate), and user switching. So that's making me lean towards Kubuntu.

Anyway, all of this tech-babble just leads to one thing. We still don't have a computer with everything back on it (although our files are safe on the new hard drive), and Marn is getting annoyed with my indecisions regarding it. She doesn't care, she just wants it to work :)

Anyway, Violet is still a great baby. She couldn't stop smiling yesterday - we don't know why. She just smiled all day, every time we looked at her. Maybe because she was laughing inside thinking to herself how she wasn't going to sleep at night and keeping us up trying to settle her. Now, let me qualify that. Saturday night, Marn decided (I had decided a few weeks ago!) that it was time to put her in her room over night. It went beautifully. Sunday night, not so much. It seemed like every time you put her down, she'd wake up fussing in her "pathetically cute" little way. Pick her up and she'd go calm, quiet and fall asleep in about 1 minute. Put her down and 5 seconds later, fussing. It went on for about 2 hours, which might be the longest she's ever gone being "fussy", especially at night. At 1:30 am, Marn came in to relieve me from trying. She gave up another 30 minutes later not knowing what to do. We didn't swaddle her that night, but I think that was our mistake. She's going through the "jimmy" arms and legs phase (she's constantly hitting herself and us) which I think is waking her up, so I mentioned to Marn to try and swaddle her to see if that helps. Once swaddled she fell asleep and didn't wake until morning (about 7am). Or least, that's what I remember! If Marn got up to feed her earlier than that, I didn't hear.

She's also starting to play shy, we think. Tony was the target this weekend. We went over for cake and ice cream for Mackenzie's birthday, Violet was happy and smiley. Then has a look over across the table at Tony. Her lip starts quivering then gave him the saddest look and starts wailing (again, I have to qualify the "wailing" - cut any normal kids scream in half, and that's Violet). We think she does this when she's either tired or hungry. She was hungry as she just woke up. It was still funny because she smiled at everyone else! She did it twice to him... haha
That's also the second time she did that to someone. The first was one of Marnie's friends show came over to meet her the other week. She was holding her, then Violet turned to look at her and started crying....

Violet is also really starting to grow some hair, even since Christmas! It's about an inch on top now (maybe a little less) and really starting to thicken up. She's also really starting to explore things around her and taste them. Yes, everything-into-the-mouth has started, and her tongue is constantly out now trying to taste and feel. That really started this weekend. We had her in a snow suit at the market on Saturday and the whole time she had her tongue out trying to feel or taste the jacket. It was pretty funny... The funniest though is when you're holding her and she tries to eat your chin, nose, cheek or hand. She digs her whole face into yours trying to suck, bite, lick, whatever.

We have about 550-600 pictures to unload from the camera's, and 2+ hours of video to try and hack together onto DVD, so I'll try and get on that soon...