Steve: Hello, today I have a special guest; we're really excited. In fact, we have two special guests. And who are our two special guests?
Jill: Jill and Clara.
Steve: Jill and Clara. Jill dropped by. This is what, the third time you've come by? Jill: Yes.
Steve: And how old is Clara?
Jill: Clara is six and a half months.
Steve: For those of you who are new at LingQ, Jill is one of our stalwart long-time employees who left us for the silly reason of wanting to have a baby. Now she has Baby Clara and Baby Clara has a beautiful outfit on.
Jill: Thank you.
Steve: So what is it like Jill? This, of course, is your first child?
Jill: Yes.
Steve: How are you finding it?
Jill: Ah, good, overall.
Steve: Okay.
Jill: It's fun. She's a good baby, so I'm lucky. I've been around kids a lot my whole life, but you can't quite be prepared for having your own full-time; it's a lot of work. Steve: Right.
Jill: But I'm really enjoying it; I'm lucky that I can be with her and stay with her. Lots of moms can't and, at an early age, they have to go back to work or whatever, so. Steve: Do you get a lot of help from your mom or Chris' mom? Jill: Well, my mom works full-time still, so for sure on the weekends or after work she'll come over and look after her for a couple of hours if Chris and I want to go out for dinner. She's done that a few times, but not regularly. And Chris' mom is a big help, but she doesn't live in Vancouver. Steve: Right.
Jill: So we go up to visit her.
Steve: Right.
And that's a plane ride away; that's just not that close. Jill: Yeah.
Actually, we're going this Friday up there and when we're there she pretty much does everything. Steve: Right.
Jill: She holds her all the time, the baby sleeps in the room with them. If she wakes up in the night she tries to get her back to sleep before she even will bring her in to me.
Steve: It's a big holiday for you. Jill: Oh, it's a big holiday for me, yeah. So I've gone up there probably I guess maybe four times already since Clara's been born. It's only an hour plane ride, so it's really not a big deal. She's good on the plane so far. Steve: Well that's good too. Jill: She has been good, yeah.
Steve: Is she a good eater?
Jill: Yeah.
Steve: She looks like a good eater, yes.
Jill: Yeah, she's pleasantly plump! She's a good eater this one, yeah. Steve: I see. And what kinds of things does she eat? Like what is the progression?
Jill: Well I nurse her, so up until, basically, about three or four weeks ago that was all she had was just breast milk. Then at about five and a half months I started her slowly on things like banana…all puréed foods, so banana, applesauce, peas, squash, cereal, all that kind of stuff, so she's had a lot of that. She hasn't had any meats yet or, of course, no dairy products yet or anything like that. Steve: Does she have her favorite things, things that she likes?
Jill: Peas and applesauce seem to be her favorite.
Steve: Oh, very good.
Jill: And mixed together as well.
Steve: Peas and applesauce, that's a new dish. Jill: Yeah, she loves it!
Steve: A combination of fruit and vegetables.
Jill: Yeah, yeah.
Steve: Okay.
She's pretty active then when she's up? Does she do a lot of pushing and shoving and crawling?
Jill: Yeah, she's active in the sense that she's always moving her feet and her arms and talking and picking up toys and winging them across the room or doing different things like that. But she's not active in the sense that she's not a big roller. She can roll over, but rarely does roll over. She certainly… Clara: (Clara cries). Jill: Oops, she just dropped her toy. She's certainly not interested in crawling yet; hasn't made any attempts to crawl. Steve: Right, okay.
Jill: She is quite a chubby baby, so I think often with the chubbier babies they don't move quite as much as the skinnier ones; skinnier babies. Steve: Are there activities? I mean are there, you know…it's been a while for me. I mean are there places you go and meet other moms who have little babies?
Jill: Yeah, there are. We go to a music class at the community center that's by my house every Monday and it's great. It's about an hour and a half and for 45 minutes we sing songs and do actions and look really ridiculous, but the babies love it. Steve: Right.
Jill: Then for the last… Steve: How many moms and how many babies? Clara: (Clara cries).
Jill: I think there's 11 or 12 in the class. She's a little bit cranky right now. Steve: Right.
Jill: Then after that we can stay in there for half an hour and have a coffee and just keep chatting if we want. I go out with her walking a lot; that's what we do most days. Steve: Right, in a stroller.
Jill: In a stroller and we… Steve: Do you go jogging with her? Do you jog?
Jill: I do. I go jogging with her a little bit and we walk all over the city. We're usually out for about five hours a day walking around, so I get lots of exercise. Steve: Do you think that she will…obviously, it's a great honor for her to be on an EnglishLingQ podcast at this early age. Jill: Yeah.
Steve: She's our youngest performer ever. Jill: Yes!
Steve: So that's quite something; we're really pleased. Jill: She's going to have to pick up a language pretty quick; a second language. Steve: Well, you haven't started yet. Clara: (Clara cries).
Jill: Yeah, not quite.
Steve: I think she's kind of getting a little bit cranky. Jill: Yeah.
So, yeah, I'll come back another time and we can do another one. Steve: I think so. We're very happy to have this, even if it's a short discussion here. Good-bye Clara.
Jill: Say good-bye.
Steve: Oh, now she's quiet. Alright, okay.
Jill: Oh, you never know with kids.
Steve: Well, I'm sure many of your fans out there are hoping that one day, in the not too distant future, you might have a discussion once a week. Jill: I would love to do that.
Steve: Great.
Jill: Yes, for sure; bye-bye.
Steve: Okay, bye for now, bye.
Jill: Bye-bye.
