The little monster is 5 months old....

She recently had a check-up and weighed in at 14lb 10 oz. Plus she is 25 whole inches long. Crazy to think that she has doubled her weight from when she was born, although I guess I shouldn't be surprised since she has been draining me nutrients every chance she gets.

In honor of her fifth month, I thought I would give everyone a little glimpse into a day in little monster land.

New favorite activities:

1. Jumping in the Jumperoo...man she could at this all day
2. Checking herself out in the mirror and giving herself kisses
3. making fart noises with her mouth (aka raspberies or sherberts and spitting in everyone's face).
4. chewing on her new chew-toy (some people call them teethers, but I call them chew toys)Dalton the gay pride lion (he has a rainbow mane).

Least favorite activities:

1. Getting shots at the doctor's office....damn that man and his needles.
2. watching mommy pump breast milk - she looks at me like I have totally betrayed her..."where are you going with all my food mommy? Those are mine damnit!"



Newest Achievments:

1. Rolling over -the little monster is rolling over pretty well by herself these days (this of course spells disaster for my leaving her alone on the bed for hours at a time - I kid, I kid).

2. Eating real food - while little monster still eats only breast milk we have begun introduction little tastes of food to her to see what she is interested in. She seems to be totally intrigues by anything we put in our months, especially if it is shiny (like a pop can). So far she has tasted watermelon, which she sucked the juice out of (since she is still toothless) and seemed to enjoy it.

3.Standing - LM can now stand with very little assitance. I am concerned that she may skip crawling all together since she doesn't care for being one her tummy too much and is making very little crawling progress, but she might just bust out crwling one day (or walking I guess).

4. Feet Rock! The L to the M has officially discovered her feet and she thinks they are pretty nifty. See picture attached.


Family news in general:

1. We have made 2 very failed attempts at letting her "cry it out" when she wakes up at night. Man has she got us pegged. That girl can cry for way longer than I thought possible for someone that tired...you'd think she would just give it up and fall asleep, but nooooooooo. For now we are going to just see if you gets better as she gets older. That, or we will sleep when she goes away to collge.

2. We are making plans to leave NYC. We are traveling first to WI (for a short stay) and then to Portland, OR. Not sure exactly when we will be putting this plan into action (either August 2007 or Jan 2008 - we change our minds every day), but we will keep everyone informed.

3. We are unfortunately in babysitter flux. We are in the process of negotiating full-time terms with our current sitter. Watchin' babies is quite a racket, especially here in NYC. They want paid vacation and sick days and on and on and on....craziness, but we love her (and so does LM) so we will do what we can to keep her.


Now for everyone's favorite segment....What I think is going through LM's mind!

Setting the scene: I'm eating/drinking (anything really) and being stared at intensely - she will often stop jumping to just stare at me while I eat my cereal. Honestly it's creeping me out.
-----"Hey, what are you eating? Can I have some of that....hey, hey, come and give me
some woman! "------

Setting the scene: We are out eating at a restaurant (on this particular occassion we are eating on an outforr patio where people are walking by).
------"Watch this. If I smile at passersby and look extra cute then they will stop and hover over mommy and daddy while they try to stuff their faces full of whatever that stuff is they're eating...it's hilarious. Ahhhh yes, come over here old lady and tell me how cute I am...that's it, c'mon everyone I am awaiting my praise! " --------
Meanwhile husband and I are trying not to feel completely weirded out by the people hanging around our table while we try to eat lunch...Always a good time.

Things I have learned from being a mother:

1.Having a baby is apparently a free pass for all people (no matter how strange) to come up and talk to you....anyone who knows me knows I generally prefer to be invisible - NYC used to be good for that - my friend says the same thing happens to her when she has her little dog with her...good to know! Note to self: do not get a dog while we have a baby.

2. Drool feels really gross when it goes into your ear.

3. Getting someone else's vomit on your face is the only thing worse than having your own vomit on your face.

4. You can only take so much before any person with 2 arms (I suppose this is optional too) and no criminal record sounds like a super babysitter.

5. All that extra special baby stuff you thought you needed before she was born...yeah, you didn't need that. Most of the time she just wants to play with her socks...or your face - the claw my eyes out with you dagger-like talons is an awesome game.

6. Do not stop in front of the Gristedes (grocery store for those of you not in NYC) with the baby and wait for Husband to run inside! Within minutes you will be surrounded by very odd people all wanting to smile at, play with , and touch your baby while telling you their life story about how they have to turn in "paperwork" (still not sure why I needed to know this about the sweet little old black lady) and telling you that you wiill have to "lock her up" because she is so pretty (this is actually a very common statement and usually comes from men which I find creepy for some reason).


So, that's what I have for you for now...the little monster is growing bigger by the minute and she cracks me up constantly.