Looking at the pictures of herself on the wall above her changing table
Playing with Bunny while wearing bunny slippers from Great Grandpa Charles
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Calista's morning on the changing table
Classic morning smile
Looking at the pictures of herself on the wall above her changing table
Playing with Bunny while wearing bunny slippers from Great Grandpa Charles
Looking at the pictures of herself on the wall above her changing table
Playing with Bunny while wearing bunny slippers from Great Grandpa Charles
Mike and Audrey visit
Mike (who used to work with me) takes a break from Harvard Business School to stop by with Audrey to say hello to the little munchkin.
Cute turtle shirt from Nonni
A classic Calista expression. She's learning to sit up propped up against the pillows on the couch. Doing a good job!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Pediatrician Update
Calista went to see Dr. Kelly on Thursday. She now weighs 13 pounds 3 ounces, and is 24 1/2" long, putting her in the 75th percentile for both height and weight. So she is a healthy, strong girl! Dr. Kelly also said to say that she is 95th percentile in personality! :-) At the doctor's office she rolled right over for Dr. Kelly -- I couldn't believe it since we try every day (I kid you not) to film her doing this. She was a brave little girl too since she had to get several vaccinations on this visit. Although she certainly cried, she calmed right down when I picked her up, sang to her, and nursed her. I was so proud of her.
Calista is definitely getting more social and interactive. We have fun singing and moving to "The Wheels on the Bus," patty-cake, how-big-is-baby, and the hokey pokey. She likes to lift up her arms to have me pull her up to a sitting position, and in anticipation she starts to lift up her head for me!
We also smile and laugh together reciting my new favorite poem:
"I love all of you
Your eyes, your cheeks,
Your cute little nose
Your knees, your feet,
Your stubby pink toes
"I love all of you
Your dimple, your grin,
Your tummy, your chin
Your eyes, your hair,
Your lips, your skin
"Now, how did we get started?
How did this begin?
Oh yes, I love all of you
From beginning to end!"
Calista is definitely getting more social and interactive. We have fun singing and moving to "The Wheels on the Bus," patty-cake, how-big-is-baby, and the hokey pokey. She likes to lift up her arms to have me pull her up to a sitting position, and in anticipation she starts to lift up her head for me!
We also smile and laugh together reciting my new favorite poem:
"I love all of you
Your eyes, your cheeks,
Your cute little nose
Your knees, your feet,
Your stubby pink toes
"I love all of you
Your dimple, your grin,
Your tummy, your chin
Your eyes, your hair,
Your lips, your skin
"Now, how did we get started?
How did this begin?
Oh yes, I love all of you
From beginning to end!"
Sunday, April 22, 2007
A Message from Mommy
We thought it might be nice to include a new series, Messages from Mommy, to Calista’s blog for an additional perspective and narrative. Hope you enjoy reading the first entry!
Calista is growing more and more every day. In fact, she graduated to a size 2 diaper today! Very exciting. Her cheeks have filled out and she has adorable pudgy legs and arms, and a very kissable tummy. She is much stronger now, and can hold up her neck for quite a long time. When we hold her hands and help her do sit-ups, she can really hold her head steady. She’s building all this strength to help her sit by herself some day!
She loves to be kissed and cuddled. A typical day has lots of nursing, diaper changes, napping and playing. She is a pretty good sleeper, although she likes to go to bed a little later than we would like (anywhere between 9-11). But once she is in bed, she stays asleep until 3 am, goes back to bed, nurses again at 7 am, and then cuddles in bed until 8:30 or sometimes as late as 10! When I go back to work in June, we’ll start adjusting our sleep schedules to be earlier, but for now, there’s not much we can do other than let her sleep when she wants to and wake up when she’s ready.
Calista smiles a lot now, and her disposition is really sweet and gentle. (Except today when she decided she no longer liked drinking from a bottle and cried and cried. Uh oh! I’ll be asking our pediatrician about this on Thursday.) She gets very thoughtful looks with her penetrating and wise blue eyes (we keep wondering when they will change to hazel like ours!) and has a funny side-ways look that we characterize as her “suspicious” look. She also has a funny look she gets that says “that wasn’t me!” when she has a particularly messy diaper.
Nowadays she likes to be held so she can sit supported on our laps and look around at the world, rather than always facing us. She likes her baths and is very quiet while she gets clean and soapy – just looks intently at me while I sing “Rub a Dub Ducky.” She also likes getting dressed, which I am hoping means she will be a fashionista when she grows up – ha!
Scott taught her how to stick out her tongue, and she thinks it is fun when they do it together! At first I didn’t think sticking out one’s tongue was very polite, but I read that it’s very validating for the baby to have their looks and sounds be imitated by the parents. So score 1 for parent intuition! She rarely cries, but I’m getting to be fairly good at differentiating her tired cry from her hungry cry. She’s also vocal with grunts, ahhs and ehhs. We think she’ll be quite social and talkative – like her parents!
Since we spend a lot of time nursing, I’ve noticed several cute things she does. First, sometimes when she’s hungry she’ll make a look that says “feed me” by opening up her mouth and thrusting out her tongue. Once she gets started, her favorite position is to cross her ankles and grip my shirt tight with her fist. (She’s always been a dainty girl, even in utero I remember she was crossing her legs so the nurses couldn’t tell if she was a boy or a girl – but we wanted it to be a surprise anyway!) Speaking of her grip, she is gaining more hand-eye coordination and can hit her parrot and monkey on her activity gym. Sometimes she can figure out how to put her thumb in her mouth, but it’s not 100% accurate. She also figured out how to grip my hair (and spit up in it!) so I decided it was time for a trim. You’ll see my new haircut when Scott updates the blog next…stay tuned!
Calista is growing more and more every day. In fact, she graduated to a size 2 diaper today! Very exciting. Her cheeks have filled out and she has adorable pudgy legs and arms, and a very kissable tummy. She is much stronger now, and can hold up her neck for quite a long time. When we hold her hands and help her do sit-ups, she can really hold her head steady. She’s building all this strength to help her sit by herself some day!
She loves to be kissed and cuddled. A typical day has lots of nursing, diaper changes, napping and playing. She is a pretty good sleeper, although she likes to go to bed a little later than we would like (anywhere between 9-11). But once she is in bed, she stays asleep until 3 am, goes back to bed, nurses again at 7 am, and then cuddles in bed until 8:30 or sometimes as late as 10! When I go back to work in June, we’ll start adjusting our sleep schedules to be earlier, but for now, there’s not much we can do other than let her sleep when she wants to and wake up when she’s ready.
Calista smiles a lot now, and her disposition is really sweet and gentle. (Except today when she decided she no longer liked drinking from a bottle and cried and cried. Uh oh! I’ll be asking our pediatrician about this on Thursday.) She gets very thoughtful looks with her penetrating and wise blue eyes (we keep wondering when they will change to hazel like ours!) and has a funny side-ways look that we characterize as her “suspicious” look. She also has a funny look she gets that says “that wasn’t me!” when she has a particularly messy diaper.
Nowadays she likes to be held so she can sit supported on our laps and look around at the world, rather than always facing us. She likes her baths and is very quiet while she gets clean and soapy – just looks intently at me while I sing “Rub a Dub Ducky.” She also likes getting dressed, which I am hoping means she will be a fashionista when she grows up – ha!
Scott taught her how to stick out her tongue, and she thinks it is fun when they do it together! At first I didn’t think sticking out one’s tongue was very polite, but I read that it’s very validating for the baby to have their looks and sounds be imitated by the parents. So score 1 for parent intuition! She rarely cries, but I’m getting to be fairly good at differentiating her tired cry from her hungry cry. She’s also vocal with grunts, ahhs and ehhs. We think she’ll be quite social and talkative – like her parents!
Since we spend a lot of time nursing, I’ve noticed several cute things she does. First, sometimes when she’s hungry she’ll make a look that says “feed me” by opening up her mouth and thrusting out her tongue. Once she gets started, her favorite position is to cross her ankles and grip my shirt tight with her fist. (She’s always been a dainty girl, even in utero I remember she was crossing her legs so the nurses couldn’t tell if she was a boy or a girl – but we wanted it to be a surprise anyway!) Speaking of her grip, she is gaining more hand-eye coordination and can hit her parrot and monkey on her activity gym. Sometimes she can figure out how to put her thumb in her mouth, but it’s not 100% accurate. She also figured out how to grip my hair (and spit up in it!) so I decided it was time for a trim. You’ll see my new haircut when Scott updates the blog next…stay tuned!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Brisen's Birthday II
Here's the birthday girl with a napping Calista. We're really appreciating how she can be portable and quiet (sometimes!)
Brisen's Birthday I
Yes, you can tell we're running about a month behind on updating the blog as Brisen's birthday is March 29. We went out to Foreign Cinema in the Mission, and Calista was very well behaved!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Begin panic over college savings now...
Here's a little digression from cute pictures to talk about saving for college- skip if not your thing. Thought it might be helpful to other new parents who check this out, and maybe a starting point for sharing ideas.
Four years at my alma mater, Dartmouth College, for Calista in 18 years will cost from $350,000 - $500,000 just for Tuition and Fees - not counting room and board, books and supplies, personal expenses etc. The low end of the range is assuming 5% increase in cost per year, the higher end 7%. Prices went up 5.9% this year on average for four year private colleges. Ouch.
I've spent a lot of time slogging around in info on 529 plans and the like. 529 plans are for saving for higher education - the old ones were prepaid tuition only, but now there are lots of plans that you can use for any school and are just investments. The great thing about 529s is that your investment grows tax free, which can make a huge difference. Lots of other perks to, like being able to use for a different family memeber's education. For some bizarre reason, they are offered by individual states, with different fees, underlying investments and the like. Check out the overview at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/529_plan
Here's what I've figured out so far, I'd love to any feedback from anyone else looking into this. Check things out on http://www.savingforcollege.com which I found helpful. They will not, however, recommend an actual plan or state which is annoying.
If you live somewhere with a state income tax and your state fund offers a state income tax deduction, then it makes a lot of sense to go that path. However, here in California we don't have that. So, what to do? There are multiple options offered by all states. Here's what I'm doing - I don't have SEC licenses so don't take this as official advice, just my thoughts on what we did.
The basic parts I went through were: First, avoid Advisor sold. No reason to pay additional fees. Second, make sure fees are reasonable. Losing a percentage point to fees is absurd. Third, what are the underlying fund comapnies you can invest in? There are a range of fund companies including Fidelity, Vanguard, Putnam TIA-CREF and others. Finally, what are the investment options? There are all sorts of things ranging from index funds to age based plans that automatically reallocate as the child gets older.
I wanted to be able to do all equity, with the lowest-fee index funds possible. Just to compare, Fidelity's Arizona 529 can max out at 1.09% (min 0.72%). Ohio's Vanguard plan is 0.33%. These numbers combine the state program management fee along with the underlying fund fees. You have to be pretty confident that your Fidelity picks can outperform your Vanguard index options by 0.76% per year for 18 years...given that less than 20% of actively managed funds beat the index over the past 10 years at all, let alone by a percentage point, I'll go with the index. I also have an irrational dislike of TIA-CREF, which I think comes from helping Brisen invest her 403B (the non-profit 401k) in a bunch of bizarre options.
Now, as I'm narrowing in on states with Vanguard funds, which one? Comparing Nevada to Ohio for example...Nevada program fees are between .50% to .70%. Compared to Ohio's .33% that is a no-brainer. The annoying thing about these is that there doesn't seem to be a way to link it directly to your regular Vanguard account, at least not yet. Perhaps it will change?
Anyway, you can compare plans at the site I mention above. Keep in mind too that if you are putting lots of cash into 529s that it counts as a gift, so you need to keep in mind the $12,000 per person gift tax exemption limit ($24,000 per couple, but then you need to fill out a gift tax form).
After comparing lots of plans along the dimensions I mentioned above, we went with Ohio's plan. I went with an all-equity option - I plan on reallocating manually as I get closer, and with an 18 year time horizon I'm comfortable with more risk to get all equity returns.
We went with:
Vanguard 500 Index Option
Vanguard Developed Markets International Stock Index Option for some international flavor
Let me know if you have any other ideas, thoughts, arguments and so forth!
Check it out at:
http://www.collegeadvantage.com/
Four years at my alma mater, Dartmouth College, for Calista in 18 years will cost from $350,000 - $500,000 just for Tuition and Fees - not counting room and board, books and supplies, personal expenses etc. The low end of the range is assuming 5% increase in cost per year, the higher end 7%. Prices went up 5.9% this year on average for four year private colleges. Ouch.
I've spent a lot of time slogging around in info on 529 plans and the like. 529 plans are for saving for higher education - the old ones were prepaid tuition only, but now there are lots of plans that you can use for any school and are just investments. The great thing about 529s is that your investment grows tax free, which can make a huge difference. Lots of other perks to, like being able to use for a different family memeber's education. For some bizarre reason, they are offered by individual states, with different fees, underlying investments and the like. Check out the overview at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/529_plan
Here's what I've figured out so far, I'd love to any feedback from anyone else looking into this. Check things out on http://www.savingforcollege.com which I found helpful. They will not, however, recommend an actual plan or state which is annoying.
If you live somewhere with a state income tax and your state fund offers a state income tax deduction, then it makes a lot of sense to go that path. However, here in California we don't have that. So, what to do? There are multiple options offered by all states. Here's what I'm doing - I don't have SEC licenses so don't take this as official advice, just my thoughts on what we did.
The basic parts I went through were: First, avoid Advisor sold. No reason to pay additional fees. Second, make sure fees are reasonable. Losing a percentage point to fees is absurd. Third, what are the underlying fund comapnies you can invest in? There are a range of fund companies including Fidelity, Vanguard, Putnam TIA-CREF and others. Finally, what are the investment options? There are all sorts of things ranging from index funds to age based plans that automatically reallocate as the child gets older.
I wanted to be able to do all equity, with the lowest-fee index funds possible. Just to compare, Fidelity's Arizona 529 can max out at 1.09% (min 0.72%). Ohio's Vanguard plan is 0.33%. These numbers combine the state program management fee along with the underlying fund fees. You have to be pretty confident that your Fidelity picks can outperform your Vanguard index options by 0.76% per year for 18 years...given that less than 20% of actively managed funds beat the index over the past 10 years at all, let alone by a percentage point, I'll go with the index. I also have an irrational dislike of TIA-CREF, which I think comes from helping Brisen invest her 403B (the non-profit 401k) in a bunch of bizarre options.
Now, as I'm narrowing in on states with Vanguard funds, which one? Comparing Nevada to Ohio for example...Nevada program fees are between .50% to .70%. Compared to Ohio's .33% that is a no-brainer. The annoying thing about these is that there doesn't seem to be a way to link it directly to your regular Vanguard account, at least not yet. Perhaps it will change?
Anyway, you can compare plans at the site I mention above. Keep in mind too that if you are putting lots of cash into 529s that it counts as a gift, so you need to keep in mind the $12,000 per person gift tax exemption limit ($24,000 per couple, but then you need to fill out a gift tax form).
After comparing lots of plans along the dimensions I mentioned above, we went with Ohio's plan. I went with an all-equity option - I plan on reallocating manually as I get closer, and with an 18 year time horizon I'm comfortable with more risk to get all equity returns.
We went with:
Vanguard 500 Index Option
Vanguard Developed Markets International Stock Index Option for some international flavor
Let me know if you have any other ideas, thoughts, arguments and so forth!
Check it out at:
http://www.collegeadvantage.com/
Happy Baby!
Cute onesie that Debbie made for Calista at Heidi's Baby Shower in a Box party. This was back when everyone called her Baby Brady before she was born and we didn't know her gender or have a name!
We're getting cute smiles out of Calista now - not bad for 8 weeks old! She smiles a lot when we put her on the changing table which is pretty funny. She has also rolled over a few times!
Brisen goes out for the evening
Cute grandparents...
Good influences...while Brisen is watching
Ok I can see Brisen's car pulling out of the driveway...
...it's Party Time!
Good influences...while Brisen is watching
Ok I can see Brisen's car pulling out of the driveway...
...it's Party Time!
Go Sox!!!
Here's Calista in the awesome Red Sox outfit she got from my friend Jeff Francer. Note the matching red socks.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Grandma Eloise Arrives!
Wait a minute, who are you?
Hmm, you're wearing a funny pink outfit like me, could you be related?
Oh wait! You're my Grandma! This is great! You're fun and silly and look too young to be a grandma!
Let's make funny faces! It is a really fun game. Here's my smile.
Ok here's my best effort!
Oooooo...that's a good one Grandma. I can't do that one yet.
Happy Baby
The adults will do anything to keep me from crying! They dance like monkeys! This is great. The power!
exhausted
after a hard day of napping, getting cuddled and being fed, poor Calista is just wiped out!
Calista visiting with Stephanie and Theo
"I know you! You're Theo's mom! I like coming here. You're fun, and I get to play with Theo, and you have extra diapers and wipes when my dad forgets them."
"Hey, by the way, where is Theo? You didn't forget about him because I'm so cute, did you?"
<-------- see Theo here
"Good job honey! Now ask her to Prom just like I told you"
Nice job Brisen on the Art shot with the Mirror!
Here's a story...
...of a baby named Brady
Yes, that's right...a Brady bunch outfit. Isn't that cute?
if you think I'm cute you should see my Aunt!
Calista becomes a small billboard for Aunt Kirsten. :)
Bored now...
Really, mother, this is coffee house chit chat is just tedious. Yawn. Where is my copy of the Economist?
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