Positive reinforcement

Confirmation that for a fleeting moment, we had this parenting thing down.

 

Another paparazzi visit

As if one photo shoot wasn't enough, Maya had another visit from the paparazzi when she was just 6 days old.  A friend of a friend is a photographer who wants to start shooting more infant photos.  As such, she was looking for babies born in February to practice some of her new photography techniques on.  Maya agreed to be her muse.  Here are the results of the shoot:

Now for the best photos of the day--the ones that capture MJ pooping and peeing in her dad's hand and all over the floor.  Note Maya's mischievous face in the first picture and the stream of "muck" captured in the second shot.  Classic.

The Grandmother Hypothesis

There is an anthropological theory that posits that grandmothers exist because of evolution.  The theory goes something like this: Women stop being useful from a biological perspective once they are not able to have any more children.  Because of this, there has to be an evolutionary reason that women's lifespans continue on past menopause.  Thus, older women's role (from an evolutionary perspective) must be to raise their grandchildren.  This allows younger women to devote more time to securing resources for their kids (think hunter/gatherer times).  Having the grandmothers raise the kids also allows the younger women to have more kids, hence passing on the "grandmother" longevity gene.

Although I learned about this theory in college, I didn't truly buy-in to how much sense it made until we had a kid and saw the grandmother hypothesis at work.  Grandma Bettles came to stay for the first 2 weeks of Maya's life.  She clearly was better versed in this whole child rearing thing than the first time parents.  She could calm the babe in minutes and also think of ridiculous songs to sing to the munchkin on the spot.

As soon as Grandma had to leave, Grandma Gigi stepped right in.  She has come over to give us breaks from constantly being "on" with Maya and MJ has thoroughly enjoyed her "grunting" conversations with Gigi.



As if having two grandmothers wasn't enough, Maya also gets the benefit of a 21st century construct--the Bonus Grandma.  MJ clearly took to BG on their first visit.

Thank you to the Grandmas for all their help.  We're so glad evolution let you stick around until MJ showed up :)

A captive audience...

Within Maya's first hours of arriving home, Ryan realized the best part of having kids: He now has a captive audience for his impromptu concerts.  MJ doesn't seem to mind...

Maya's First Photo Shoot

Maya's first photo shoot occurred when she was about 32 hours old.  Here are some of highlights.

They finally took off my hat since my cone head had died down:

This is the basket the Stork delivered her in:

Our first family photo: 

Being born is so exhausting:

 

Never say never...

No, the title of this inaugural blog entry is not a homage to the great Justin Beiber.  Rather, it is reference to the fact that we did not think we were the blogging kind.  However, now that Maya has arrived and all kinds of folks are clamoring for pictures of the babe, this seemed like the easiest way to transmit snapshots of MJ to the masses (especially to those masses that are more technologically challenged...ahem Bettles grandparents...).  We can't promise that this blog will be witty, well written or even contain that much text.  However, we can promise that we will post new photos of Maya periodically.  So, let's get started...

Even though Maya didn't arrive that early (only 5 days), dare I say that we were not quite ready for her.  That was due mostly to the speed with which she showed up (about 6 hours from start to finish).  Hopefully, her desire to hurry up and "get born" isn't indicative of a desire to hurry up and grow up since we love having such a little peanut of a child.  So, as of now, we are chalking her quick debut to Alison's Italian genes.  What can we say?  History tells us that Italian women are born to breed.

Since she showed up so quickly, the hours leading up to her arrival are not well documented.  However, we did manage to snap this one shot of Alison pre-Maya.

About an hour after this picture was taken, Maya made her grand entrance.  Blue really is her color, don't you think?

MJ was born at 4:04 a.m., measuring 18.5 inches and weighing 6 lbs. 12 oz.

Maya was popular right off the bat.  She had a steady stream of visitors in her first hours of life.  Maya's first visitor was an elated Uncle Craig.

Aunt Meghan showed up with the Feb. 2nd NY Times so we could always remember the important happenings in the world the day Maya was born.

Uncle Nick, Aunt Elaine and cousin Ella were excited to welcome Maya Jane (or Maya James as Ella renamed her...)

We had been out to dinner with Jo and Colin just a few short hours before Maya was born.

Other visitors to the hospital that we sadly didn't get pictures of were Aunt Wendy and John, Jeremy, Connie and Madeline, Adam Glant, and Doug, Jake and Josh.  After all those visitors, Maya got her first bath and relaxed with her excited (but still stunned) parental units

When we arrived back in Bryant to show Maya her new home, we were greeted by lovely "It's a Girl" balloons that Jen and Aric Jarrett had put up for Maya's arrival:

We are so excited Maya's finally here!