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Welcome to Aliyah Viall's Website Aliyah Irene Viall August 8, 2007 1:21 pm 5 lbs 6ozs |
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Stories October 25, 2007 - First day back to work...Aliyah was going to bed fairly early on Monday and Tuesday, but once Wednesday hit, she decided to stay up until 2am! Al stayed up until he couldn't stay awake anymore, then woke me. Needless to say I was pretty tired on my first day back. To make it even better, nobody expected me until Friday. Sure enough, I talked to my boss and he said that the 25th was my last day of maternity leave and I didn't have to be back until Friday. So, after lunch I headed home. I missed Aliyah, but managed only to cry once or twice.
October 19, 2007 - Since I have to go back next week, we decided to do a trial run today. We went through the routine as if I was going to work and as Al was getting ready to take her to Grandma's house she was smiling and cooing and I lost it. I was a puddle of mush at the thought of going to work everyday and missing her so much. Our saving grace is that she'll be with Grandma, so we don't have the added worry about a stranger taking care of her, but I'm going to miss being home with her. I only cried 3 ro 4 more times during the day and talked to my Mom the same amount.
October 8, 2007 - Hi everyone. Aliyah is doing great these days. Mom and Dad are still trying to figure out the difference in certain cry's. One big change this week. All of a sudden, she started smiling. Not that sort of half smile like, 'I just pooped and I like it', but more like, 'Hey, you guys are pretty cool, and I am a pretty lucky baby, so I'm going to smile.' There is a great deal of interaction now. Rubbing her cheeks or poking her nose, she gets a ear to ear grin with a couple of coo's. Extremely cool. I can't wait for next week.Susan also started talking to her in Spanish from time to time. Not quite sure if Aliyah's first words will be in english or spanish, or maybe in some of the japanese, german, and french I have been teaching her. :-) -- Al
October 4, 2007 - ALIYAH IS 8 WEEKS OLD today. Dad was out of town on business while she got her 2 month check up from Dr Michel. She weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 11ozs. It was also the checkup where they give her all of the immunizations and other pokes and prods with sharp objects. Mom says Aliyah took her shots like a champ. The advantage to having the shots, they seem to have made her quite drowsy for the last couple days. This has been different behaviour we have seen from her lately where she is INTENT on being a nightowl and won't go down to sleep till all hours of the night. Once alseep, she has been giving us anywhere between 5-6:30 hrs. For me, the clock doesn't start ticking till about 2am. I had to travel this week, so I was very excited to get back to find that Aliyah is starting to smile alot. And not just gas smiles like before, but real cooing smiles. We can also notice how much better she seems to notice things around her. It started with lights, but now regular objects are plainly in her view so you can see her flitting her head about to see EVERYTHING. Her eyes are definately lightening now, and its a pretty sure thing she will end up with my blue eyes. --- Al
September 17, 2007 - Aliyah had another boating excursion this last weekend. Taking to heart the wisdom everyone has given us about 'you rule the baby, don't let the baby rule you', and the fact it was going to be fairly cool, we did a family boat trip to Stillwater. Our good friends Peggy and Dave joined us with their boat for a couple nights at the Andiamo docks. They are expecting their first the end of December, so its neat to get together with them to share our war/horror/wonderful stories. We ate at Luna Rossa on saturday, then Susan and I had a nice dinner at Cafe Marx on sunday night. Its all smokefree in Stillwater. Yeahhh. Pictures coming soon. We can tell that Aliyah is able to see more things, and see them farther away. She has started to get into more of a routine these days. We are able to go a few nights with almost 6 hours between feedings. Gas is still an issue, but it sounds like that is the case with all babies. The doctor said we can use Mylicon at each feeding and that seems to help. We still have good nicknames we call her from time to time, like 'Gassius Clay' and 'Queen Tootankahmen'. This too shall pass :-) -- Al
September 10, 2007 - Hi everyone. Today was my first day back at the office since August 8th. Aliyah gave us some good time in between feedings, so I got some sleep, but that 7:30am alarm came as a bit of a surprise. Given that I have averaged getting up at 10am for the last few weeks due to late night feeds, I am still not an early morning person. Getting back into my routine of coffee, shower, shave, dressed into my suitcoat and tie, was not the distressing point this morning. The distressing, heart wrenching part of this morning, was having to walk out the door without getting Aliyah up to play with beforehand. I had to creep into her room, say 'bye', before she woke up. I missed her during the day, and was happy when I got home. I guess she 'fussed' all day long. I am sure she noticed I was gone all day ;-) As you have noticed, we have slowed down in our publishing of new stuff, but we will keep it coming when we can. I have heard from many of you that this has turned out to be a great tool to keep in touch with whats going on with the family, so by all means, keep coming around. If you know of someone who wants to setup a website for their baby or kids, check out Baby Home Pages. It was quick and easy to set up. -- Al
September 8, 2007 - Another boating weekend. It was Prescott Daze this weekend and we took Aliyah in the stroller for her first participational viewing of the car show. Okay, so mom and dad looked, ALiyah slept. Whoo Hoo. Dad ate corn dogs, garlic cheese curds and a few other things. No wonder Aliyah gets nicknames like 'Gassius Clay' and 'Queen Tootankahmen'. Aliyah's cousin Nick came down to the boat to see her. Later in the day, the Regenhards were generous enough to take a few of us on a ride on 'Nautica' for appetizers and cocktails. Aliyah got some special attention from her favorite kids in between games of Halo. Thanks to Kim and Charlie for the wonderful ride.
September 6, 2007 - Aliyah was 4 weeks old yesterday. We took her in for her 1 month old checkup and all was just great. She weighed in at a whopping 7 lbs 8 1/2 ozs. Okay, whopping for her. We can now move to on-demand feeding (when she wants) instead of waking her every few hours. -- al
September 5, 2007 - We took Aliyah out for an extended trip on the boat over the Labor Day weekend and she was a trouper. It's Al's last week off, so we extended our weekend until today. One night she actually slept 6 consecutive hours, but she got us back the next night, when she wouldn't sleep for anything. She got her first PFD (life jacket), and although she looks like she's sandwhiched between 2 slices of bread, it would keep her afloat in an emergency. She wore it 3 times this trip, when we took her in the dingy. She went with us to Pier 500 in Hudson, Wi and to the Harbor Bar in Red Wing twice. The picture is coming soon.
August 29, 2007 - Today I'm 3 weeks old and I've been fussy all day. I really wish I could tell mom and dad what's wrong, but they just don't understand me. It's time for another meal, so I'm going to go tell mom. Maybe I'll give them a break and sleep well tonight, or maybe not. Aliyah
August 27, 2007 I got to stay home with my Grandma tonight. I guess Mom and Dad wanted to go out and celebrate their first year anniversary. I don't know what that means or why they wouldn't bring me, I usually just sleep throught their dinners anyway. Grandma and I had a lot of fun though, she loves to play with me. Aliyah
August 26, 2007 - Happy First Anniversary to Aliyah's parents! We took Aliyah out for her first boat ride, as Al mentioned. She did great, although, she knew something was different when we were on plane. I was trying to feed her, but she was a little freaked out with all the bouncing. I think she'd rather eat when we're in the no wake zone next time. Other than that she was a trooper. She slept well that night, because she was awake for most of the boat ride. We all went to the Stag Head in Red Wing for dinner and stopped by to introduce Aliyah to Jim and Cindy at Red Wing Marina. S
August 24, 2007 - This weekend is Aliyah's first time down to the marina and the boat. We had a little impromptu open house for her on the boat on friday night. Quite a few people showed up like the Stroups, Regenhards, Forlands, Canfields, Adams and Posts. Aliyah hung out with us on the back of the boat for quite awhile. It happens that this was the Marina Annual party as well. Our first chance to crank out the 'stroller/car seat dealio'. Alyah was a hit at the Marina party. Everyone loves babies.It took Susan about a half hour just to get in the door because so many people wanted to see the baby. Aliyah was also a real trooper and slept most of the time, even amidst the roar of the karaoke going on inside the showroom. The party had a really good turnout this year. Saturday was a good day to get maintenance on the boat done, also a wakeup call to me not to get complacent with things sitting on my hips while working around the boat. The baby monitor flipped right off my belt 'plink' into the water. Ah well. We can get another. Sunday was Aliyah's first ride on the boat. Guess what she did, she slept, and then wanted to eat. :-) It was a nice day for a boat ride. We then showed her off to our friends down in Red Wing at Red Wing Marina. Jim and Cindy bounced Aliyah around for a bit and then we went to the Staghead for dinner. -- Al
August 24, 2007 - Hello all, sorry I haven't written yet, I finally got more than 2 hours of sleep last night and Al showed me how to enter a story to the page. For years, my friends have been telling me about the trials and tribulations of having kids. Of course, when I would mention that Al and I were thinking about starting a family, every one of would immediately change their tune and strongly suggest that we do..."It's the greatest thing in the world." This always confused me, because the previous story did not sound wonderful or glorious. Well, I think I finally get it. All the nights without sleep may be starting to wear on us, but when she looks up at me with her eyes wide open or falls asleep on my chest, I just melt. She's a total joy and we're loving it. I'm still moving slow and healing from the surgery, but I'm able to get around better. We've been out to lunch and shopping a few times and that's enough to wear me out. I see the doctor next week. I still have to be careful what I eat and drink, because it may get to Aliyah through the milk, but it's not as restrictive as when I was pregnant. Al's been GREAT! He's a proud Papa and is taking an active roll in care taking, not to mention keeping us fed. He's also been the laundry specialist and as he puts it, we must have tripled our carbon footprint with all the laundry we're doing and disposable goods we go through. Last night he took the late night/early morning feeding shift, so mommy could get some sleep. I woke up to her cries at 6am and found out she had another sleepless night, so I took over and now Al's trying to get some well needed sleep. We have a few friends that are pregnant, so we're sharing our stories with them as well. Some colleagues of Al just had their baby yesterday...Congratulations to Paul and Catherine (aka: Cat). Next is Joanie, Laura and then Peggy. We're going to bring Aliyah down to the boat tonight to meet her friends there. You'll see us when we pull in, the Escalade will be riding low, due to all the extra stuff we're bringing. Thank you for all your generosity, support and well wishes. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends. Have a great day, S
August 21, 2007 - Have not written a story in a few days because we frankly fell into a similar pattern. Aliyah would sleep, we wake her or she wakes herself up, she gets fed, I usually change her, she gets fed 'till 'milk drunk', and the pattern starts all over again. A couple of times in between we may have gone out for a ride, like yesterday, or we may get a visitor or two. She is a good 'driving around' baby. No fussing too much yesterday during a break from the house while we went to Target, Panera for lunch, and then looking at houses in Farmington. Tracy came over today and spent some time with us. She had not seen Aliyah since day two. Today is the day that we were originally scheduled to go to the hospital before complications. Aliyah will be 'two weeks old' tomorrow. One thing I have noticed in the last few days, she remains more and more alert after the late night feeding. This could be at midnight or 3am, but then she seems to be up much longer. She's a night baby, even though we try to set the stage for sleep time by making sure lights are off. It does seem like her patterns are changing and she seems to be able to focus her sight on things more. Once asleep, she is the 'girl of a 1000 sounds'.... -- Al
August 16, 2007 - Lots of visitors came by today. Bonnie came by and dropped off some pizza for us for lunch. What a big help that was not to have to worry about lunch. The Viall family; my dad, Doreen and Kaylene came over next, followed by Susan's brother Bruce. Angel came over later in the day to have gourmet burgers and fries. We are into a regular routine of the 3 hour feedings, diaper change in the middle, and then sleep if we can. Its tough, because I am not a power napper, I need contiguous time to sleep and this is not conducive to those sleep patterns. We have noticed many cool things about Aliyah these days. The little monkey face she makes when we try to wake her for a feeding, the wailing cry when shes REALLY hungry (okay, thats not so neat), the 1000 looks and poses she makes, and how alert and wide-eyed she can be during the feedings. I've already noticed how much bigger she is getting. The day she was born, her foot was as big as my thumb, now its about 1 1/2 times the size. -- Al
August 15, 2007 - Aliyah's grandma maloney came over yesterday and stayed with us for the night to learn about taking care of the baby, changing, fussiness, etc. Aliyah was an angel the whole day. We are still on a 3 hour schedule, feed for a while, then a hour or two sleep, then up to feed again. She gets more alert everyday, and we are finally getting dialed-in. This staying home thing is actually kind of neat since I can get back to my whole cooking routine again. First night home, I made Susan and I some T-Bones with a Smokey Jack Daniels relish and sauteed green beans. Second night, Three-cheese ravioli with my signature Moscarpone Cream Sauce. And this night, Pork Chops Gremolata with my special Risotto ala Spinachi. The Regenhard family (Charlie, Kim and Andrew) came over to the house to see the baby in the evening. Andrew got to hold Aliyah and was very good with her, and finally got to meet the other part of the family, the cats. Thanks guys, we are glad you could come over. Today was Aliyah's first doctor's appt, and another milestone, she is 'one week' old today. Whoo Hoo. She got to take another ride in the truck. and what a good girl to take a ride with. Lets see how long that lasts. She is now 5lbs 10ozs, and 19 1/2 inches, so she has gained all the weight she had at birth and then some and already getting bigger. Susan is finally getting some needed rest upstairs, phones turned off ...... 3pm's another feeding. -- Al
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