Grandma Time and Corinne's Silly Ears

After Corinne came home, my mom was able to stay another week to help out.  It was great, and she and the kids spent a lot of time in the pool.  Evan learned to kick, Elise learned to do the "backstrobe", and Connor learned to dive.
  

Elise is showing off how deep she can stand in the water.

On the Monday after Corinne was born, our air conditioner suddenly gave up the ghost.  We had been warned that this would happen due to problems in our ductwork, but we didn't listen.  Too bad for us, because the house got up to 90 degrees for the next week and a half.  It's been two weeks now, and we still don't even have anything scheduled - all the AC companies are swamped due to the heat wave.  The funny thing is that you do get used to it, to a point.  80 degrees seems great to me right now, whereas two months ago I'd have been on the verge of tears.  Oh, plus we put our old window box unit in the living room, so there was always one comfortable place to go.  Well, two, if you count the pool.
  

Napping by the A/C
  

"Air!"

 
Corinne is just so tender.  We love her.  She seems to be taking after her sister in terms of temperament - she's what we'd call a "sensitive" baby.  That means she's bad.  The first picture I sent out to people was pretty accurate.  
  

Corinne's First Facebook Photo

She loves to be held and to eat and to be carried, and she's pretty strict about that.  Happily, though, I love holding and feeding and carrying her, so it all works out!
  

Connor took this picture.

First Tub Bath

When Corinne was born, one of her ears looked like she had been sleeping on it funny - it was squished and/or pinched at the top.  Basically, the cartilage hadn't fused properly.  The pediatrician said that this is pretty common, and that they used to have to wait until the child was older to either grow out of it or do surgery.  Now, though, they have ways of splinting the ear to correct it early.  So, we took her to an ear, nose, & throat doctor when she was a week old, and he used a combination of wax and tape to hold her ear in place (you can see it in her bath photo.)  It didn't look very effective, though, and it kept falling off, so we took her all the way to Santa Monica to see a specialist (who the pediatrician recommended in the first place.)  She used these high tech (expensive) devices called Ear Wells, which basically glue to the baby's head and hold the ear in the correct position with a variety of molds and plastic pieces.  Whether or not it works, at least it looks really impressive. The doctor recommended doing both ears just to make sure they match at the end.  We think she looks like a water polo player.  Or a Russian Cosmonaut.  She has to wear them for six weeks, after which her cartilage should have hardened and her ears will stay straight.  Well, they might.  If not, oh well - she's cute anyway!
  

This looks worse than it is.  They shaved her hair and covered her with glue, then some hair stuck to the glue.

She was actually really quiet and well-behaved while they were doing all this.

  
After her appointment, we went out for breakfast, wandered around REI, and drove up the coast until we stopped at a roadside beach (Ryan had the day off and came with us.)  I told the kids not to get wet, so they soaked themselves and had to ride home in pajamas.