Dear Little Monster....

Dear Little Monster,

There are a few things that I wanted to discuss with you, but since you don't necessarily understand what I'm saying I thought I would write it down and make you read it when you are older to see how you have tormented me.

1. Please refrain from trying to crawl while nursing. This is quite uncomfortable for me and nipple aren't supposed to stretch that far. Also, diaper changing is a bad time to practice this.

2. Question. Do you have to make those weird grunts every time I feed you solids? Just wondering.

3. Please for the love of God could you sleep for more than 2 hours at a time (actually at this point I would take for more than an hour). You probably don't know this, but mommy is slowing going completely insane due to lack of sleep and frustration over not knowing what to do to convince you that sleep is....awesome. Seriously, I am really starting to lose it!

4. I know you want to play with Naughty Little Kitty, but I am sick of finding clumps of his hair in your fists....plus I think he's on to you. The fear of you has started to win against his pathetic need to be near me and he has started running away from you.

5. I know that you are really excited to walk, but maybe we should work on making this crawling thing happen first....what do you think?

6. When I am trying to get you to sleep why can I not sit down. I mean really, I don't see the difference. Either way you are draped over my shoulder and I am moving so do we have to stay in the position that is giving mommy scoliosis?

7. Why is your poo a different color ever day? And while we are on the topic, could you not stick your fingers in it when I am trying to change your diaper...thanks.

8. Could you let daddy know that when you are crying in the middle of the night and I say "it's your turn" and hit him, that doesn't mean "Please pick the baby up and put her in bed with me".

9. Just for good measure, please see #3 again.

Blah!

LM was up half of the night with a fever. I am exhausted. LM is finally sleeping and Husband and I are going to watch "The Number 23". Sorry I am not more entertaining tonight.

Yesterday was check-up with pediatrician. LM got shots again (hence the fever - fuckers!) and she weighs 16lbs 14oz and is 27inches long. Of course the pediatrician had to look at the averages chart to check her percentiles for weight and length to be able to state the obvious - "She's tall and thin"....Uh , yeah like her father, you could have just looked at her to figure that one out.

Doctors....

They want me to bring her back at 9 months (although we won't be in the state anymore so that's not gonna happen) to do some blood work - apparently they check for anemia. Why would LM be anemic. Does she exhibit anemic symptoms....no, then why should I come back and pay you money so you can stick her with more needles and then charge me for the lab costs just so you can tell me she isn't anemic....gee thanks for not fucking me big time there Doc. I was hoping to shell out a bunch a money so you can tell me there's nothing wrong with my kid. Oh and when I want a copy of the chart please charge me $25 and tell me it will take a week....awesome! Must be on some damn fine paper to cost $25 and you must send it out special just for me to make it take a week to photocopy something....ugh!


Sorry, I am cranky today!

Pimpin'

Ok, so my friend runs a theater company here in NYC and they are starting a new show in about a week. Therefore I am trying to help him promote the show (although he doesn't know it) and I hope that if you live in NYC you will check it out. You can get information and buy tickets here....who knows, you might see me there...if you can figure out which one I am.

Little Bath Monster

It's always hard to tell what your children will like. For instance. LM LOVES the bath/shower, but HATES the baby bath that we bought before she was born...you know, to give her a bath in. When she takes a bath with us she is happy as a clam, splashing and playing with her toys and she will even put her face under the water. But the few times that we have tried to put her in the baby bath she acts like we are trying to kill her. So we are selling the stupid baby bath which we have basically never used (and is quite cute) on craigslist. So if you live in NYC and want a baby bath let me know.

In other news I am sick of being fat and have decided that there is no more Nutella allowed in the house even though I really really like it.

Sex-dar

Twice this weekend husband and I have tried to have sex only to be interrupted by LM waking from a deep sleep to kill all sexual desires. How does she know??? It's like she has sex-dar or something.

Update on Operation Sleep Dammit: 1. Implementation of an 8:30 bedtime has been successful.
2. LM will now allow Husband to put her to bed which is a great relief for me because it allows us to take turns instead of being the only person who can deal with the baby.
3. Unfortunately our attempt to make LM sleep through the night are still struggling. She wakes up every 2 hours like clockwork and while we can get her back to sleep without eating I am starting to wonder if it is worth it. Was I getting more sleep when we were co-sleeping? Wasn't the whole point of this to make a better sleeping environment for myself? Ugh!!

My mother is coming on Friday and hopefully she can help us with the evil sleep demon. LM is also becoming less enamored with her stroller (which she used to love) and therefore we end up carrying her in the sling a lot more. Also, she has become more whiny and.....a, uh, what's the word for it....oh yeah, she's a pain in the ass. Good thing she is cute otherwise I would return her (that and we lost the receipt). Her new favorite toys are empty plastic water bottles and crumpled up pieces of paper. Why do we spend money on toys again?

Sometime I wonder why people have children and then LM does something f-ing adorable and I remember. Although the sex-dar thing has got to stop. If she is going to wake me up every 2 hours the least she could do is let me get laid ever now and then.

My response...

Below is my response to this article:

"My mother once told me that as a mother she could not be pro-choice...I didn't understand that at the time and after having my daughter I still don't. I am continue to be pro-choice and as a mother I think it is even more important that this right remains intact. Motherhood is life-altering and should not be forced onto women who are not willing/able to take it on. But more importantly I think about the children. I think about the thousands of unwanted babies that would be born and then neglected, resented, abandoned, or abused and I find a type of mercy in allowing to go peacefully from this earth without knowing those evils."

The JumperPOO

So in case you were not aware one of the fun parts about being a mom is that you child can routinely make you feel like a horrible parent even when you have no real control over a situation. Example:

This morning I put LM in her jumperoo while I went to get her stuff ready for Supernanny. I returned a few minutes later and saw that she was still jumping contentedly in the roo with naughty little kitty standing watch next to her. I had not yet put on my glasses so at first I didn't notice, but as I was smiling at LM I noticed that NLK was staring at something under her feet.

Holy Crap LM!!!! You're jumping in.....crap!

That's right folk, LM had pooped so much that it had come out of her diaper (through the leg holes) and covered the floor under her feet. Not only was there shit on the floor, but LM was still jumping and spreading the poo around with her feet.....ugh! I run and turn on the shower. get naked. Grab LM out of the jumperPOO and jump into the shower. On the way poo falls on my foot and gets on my legs and I am just having a super morning! I wash her off trying to make sure there is no poop left between her toes (since she loves to put them in her mouth). I finally get her clean and re-dressed (this is not as easy as it sounds given that I only have two hands I have to dry myself off as well) and into her bouncy chair to hang out while mommy cleans your feces up off the floor.....yup, motherhood is soooo much fun.

I am an awesome mom!!! Maybe next time we can finger-paint with it.

If husband had a parasite this big he'd be in the hospital!

Today LM is 7 months old. It's amazing how they grow so fast and you don't even notice (except the crippling back arthritis that has set in) until you look back at old pictures.

Anyway, We have been working on LM's sleeping lately (As in she doesn't and I would like her to) and it is wearing me out man! We were co-sleeping and it was fine except I wasn't sleeping much (which was the point of the co-sleeping). LM was still waking up 3-4 times per night to eat, etc. So I decided something had to be done. The wee one has too much control of this situation and I have to take back the night as it were.

We aren't doing the cry-it-out thing for 2 reasons: 1. I don't know that agree with allowing children to cry like that (but if it works for you go for it-not going to start a sleep-training war here) and 2. We live in a 550ft. studio so we can't just shut the door and walk away pretending we don't hear her....she's like 8 feet from us. plus she knows we are there and she is not fooled into thinking that she is alone.

So we have begun Operation "sleep dammit!"

Phase one - Ritual behavior: Every night we do the same things to get ready for sleepy time. We eat, then we take a bath, then we read a story, sometimes she breastfeeds to relax, and then we sit quietly until LM gives up and goes to sleep on my shoulder. So far so good on this front!

Phase two - remove multiple night feedings. Now when she wakes up (and she still does every 2-4 hours because she thinks it's fun to kill me slowly from sleep deprivation) I rock her back to sleep. I have left in 1 night time feeding around 2am that will eventually be removed....baby steps people, baby steps.

So Phase one is a success. Phase two still has yet to really work, but I am hoping that soon she will only wake up once and then not at all. But knowing LM (she's awful persistent) it could be a while.

When you have kids it is all of a sudden perfectly ok for other people to criticize everything you do because they know everything because they also had a kid......yay for you!

SO the consensus around guru's office was again that LM wasn't eating enough and if I would just give her cereal (which is heavier, which we don't give her - I just don't, deal!) she would sleep through the night. I told them that they underestimate LM's resolve, but they insisted on pretending that I was not only the first mother in the world to not give their baby cereal(because "it's really healthy for them"), but also the stupidest person ever. Trust me, you can only take so much beating with the pushy advice stick before you cave.

"Fine!" I said. I will mix some cereal into her food and we will see.

Suffice to say...uh, she still woke up 3 times that night. Proving my point that not only am I not starving my baby, but she wakes up for comfort and not necessarily food....but what do I know, I am only her mother right!

Reduce This - Week 5 (?)

I'm losing track of my weeks here, but whatever.

So this week I am trying to get rid of all the caustic chemicals in my daily life. One of the big one, one that often scares me is the drain de-clogger. That stuff seems like it could burn the skin off your face and snack on your muscles.

So in order to get rid of such things I need to find a replacement. And here you have a potential winner.....baking soda! We haven't tried it yet, but we plan on it. Look at all the things you can do with baking soda....who knew. Method and Mrs. Meyers Clean Day (and they smell nice) also offer biodegradable products to clean the house if you aren't down with the whole baking soda thing.

So the process for drain-o replacement is pouring a water/baking soda mixture down the drain followed by white vinegar. Sounds fine and much less horrible for the environment.

Plus when we are done we can make an elementary school science fair volcano.....awesome!

My baby the goat!

LM will eat pretty much anything. For a baby she is ridiculously varied in her tastes. The "experts" (like my subtle anger and disregard for people who claim to know what all babies do/need/etc.) say that you should slowly introduce foods to babies and see what foods they dislike....well LM dislikes, hmmmmm....nothing so far. She also is 7 months (almost) going on 10 and wants whatever mommy and daddy have. God forbid she miss out on the experience of coleslaw (we didn't let her have any of that...mayo and all).

Sunday we ate lunch at a diner where the food was close to inedible, but LM was happy as a clam. Pickles (whole) came with the meals and man was she interested in the strange green things that she could put in her mouth. So we let her have the pickle waiting for the hilarity that ensues when you give kids something sour/bitter/etc......and we waited, and LM scraped away at the inside of the pickle with her little fangs and....she loved it! She dropped one on the floor and immediately launched herself towards the plate for another.

Hmmm, we thought, well the girl like pickles I guess (FYI, I don't actually care for pickles so she wasn't exposed to them in the womb). Next up, a lemon wedge. I readied the camera to get the face that would follow the taste of this pucker fruit and....YES! awesome! Wait! She's eating more.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, my baby made the "what the fuck did I put in my mouth" face (yes she uses profanity in her baby thoughts) and then pushed on. I guess she wasn't going to let a lemon break her. Way to go baby (FYI- I do like to suck on lemons and she was exposed to those in the womb so go figure).

Next I am going to try coffee, beer, and tin cans.

Trained Baby

The little monster has been working on her object permanence this past week. Her self-teaching includes throwing things (toys, clothing, etc.) on the ground and seeing if they come back (uh, if mommy or daddy will pick them up). This happen most frequently in her chariot stroller. Generally the do come back (er, we pick them up), but sometimes we don't notice their plunge overboard. So far this week we have lost 2 hats (I don’t even know how she gets them off without us noticing)….and it is annoying me to no end.

An aside: I have a fetish about making her look cute. We don’t spend a lot of money on clothes (uh, because she’s a baby and I am not going to spend my hard earned cash on something that she is going to puke and shit on for 3 months and then is worthless), but people give us things and you can find nice stuff at the kids resale shops so I make an effort to have her look cute….which includes hats that look good with whatever outfit she is wearing. So I don’t like it when she loses the hats I buy her (especially when I generally have to sew them all so that they fit her head).

However, sometimes it is almost comical (not when it’s hats though) to watch what a kick she gets out of launching something over the side of her chariot stroller. The other day we went to blockbuster to get some movies to watch (because our lives are so f-ing interesting that we have nothing better to do then watch horrible marvel comics movies with Nick Cage – that’s a rant for later). We were standing at the counter paying and I hear, “Ow!” I look over and there are a little girl and boy sitting in front of the candy (I guess in awe of the selection of sugar-infused goodness that was in front of them). I notice that next to the little girl there is one of LM’s toys.

The girl looks up at me and very matter of factly says, “She threw her toy at me.”

“I’m sorry, she didn’t mean to hit you (ok maybe she did).”

“It’s ok,” she says. And hands the toy back to me.

They go back to ogling the candy and the little boy says to her, “My sister has that toy.”

Girl: “Really? Does she throw it at you? (Let it go kid!)

Boy: “No she’s a trained baby!”

Girl: “Oh.”

Boy: “I mean….she’s 10 months old, what do you think!?! She’s trained!”

Awesome! I can’t wait till LM’s training is complete!

And Supernanny is going to see it all first.....Damn!!

LM is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. She has been stuck in this pseudo-crawling rut for a couple of weeks now. I guess she got bored with that and moved on because now she is onto the standing. She never really mastered the sitting up by herself (although she is pretty good at it). Ahhh, the little one is more and more like me everyday....skip the lame stuff, let's get straight to the walking and talking people!

I keep trying to get her to crawl, but in the end she just kinda inchworms her way to whatever she is trying to get to. She can't get the arms and legs going at the same time I guess....damn appendages, always having a mind of their own!

We'll see how this all plays out. Only thing I know for sure...LM's gonna do it all for Supenanny first...double damn!

Little Zombie Monster

So LM has decided that it is a good idea to bite my face when she sees me. At first I was concerned that maybe she had turned into a zombie and after her taste of human flesh was going to eat me in my sleep, but I soon realized that she only bites me. She doesn't bite Husband or Supernanny or grandparents....what the hell is up with that. Is my flesh just the sweetest or is this a new "hungry" or "tired" signal that I am supposed to know?

In addition we have had nipple biting incidents. This (as you can guess) is very painful. I tried the loud stern "No LM, THAT HURTS MOMMY" approach only to be returned by a smile (evil baby - obviously my offspring). This is rather distressing because I wasn't planning on weaning LM for at least another 6 months or so, but I like my nipples the way they are and would not like them partially digested by an infant!

Husband suggested I bite her back - Not sure this would work and how would I explain that to Social Services when they come by for their weekly visit (just kidding).

I called my mom to ask her what she did when this happened to her (Whadya know, I did the same thing to her and would laugh about it - but I was 11 months old). She suggested something her friend did that made her baby stop biting her. When he bit her she used the loud voice and at the same time flicked his cheek....I guess the idea is to startle them so that they make a connection. Apparently he never bit her again.

So last night there I am breastfeeding LM and out come the teeth so I think to myself...."self, let's give this a try". The next time LM bit me I flicked her on the cheek....and she started to cry. Oh no! I'm sorry sweetie, I...uh...just wanted.....damn! She calmed down quickly and she went back to nursing.

So far so good. She started to bite me once after that, but I said her name in "stern voice" and she let go.

If this works I'm sending that woman a nipple cake!

Would you rather??

Reading a new Blog HoboCamp and ran across these questions she posed to her readers (and answered herself) at Burt Renyold's Mustache. So I thought I would give it a go. If anyone actually reads this blog and would like to answer in the comments be my guest. Also if you have more questions for me to answer...stick 'em up there.

Would you rather snort half a shaker of pepper OR a live bee?
I think I would have to choose the pepper. I would be nervous putting something with a stinger that close to my brain. I know there is bone in between, but I also know how thin that bone is since I have jammed tools through it (gross anatomy people...geez, nice to know you all think I am a psycho).

Would you rather eat someone's tumor right after it has been extracted by surgery OR chew and swallow someone's eyeballs?
TUMOR! No Contest. Again, I have squished eyeballs before and the texture is revolting. The middle is filled with viscous liquid that is kind of like lubricant....ek! Don't get me wrong, I certainly wouldn't enjoy eating the tumor, but I have a thing with eyes so I like them to stay intact.

Would you rather have to steal from a blind man OR a Girl Scout?
Oh, definitely girl scout...no contest. At least the GS could chase you and try to get her shit back. Plus if they were cookies it would be worth the guilt of stealing from a little girl (even if they are annoyingly good and aggressively sell their devil treats that make me fat. Mmmmmm...thin mints and samoas!)

Would you rather wear on a first date a shirt that says "I'm With Stupid" OR one that says "Who Cut The Cheese?"
Hobo's answer was just unbeatable

Would you rather, as a woman, breastfeed a seventy year old man OR a chimp?
Ok, this depends. Granted the 70 year old man would be much more creepy, but no one said whether this was a baby chimp or an adult one. Baby chimp, no problem. Adult chimps have um...very large teeth (including canine fangs) and are very large. As a mother whose baby is starting to bite. I might have to go with the old man simply because there is a better chance he won't have any choppers.

Would you rather wake up nude and unharmed on a park bench and have no idea of how you got there OR expecting a costume party, dress as a giant banana for a black tie affair and have to stay the whole night?
Banana suit! Why would anyone want to wake up naked on a park bench without the knowledge of how they got there....uh, creepy! Although being in NYC I probably could be naked on a park bench and no one would really notice (I've overlooked worse)...so at least there's that.

Would you rather have your breath smell like a bad fart OR have your laugh sound like a fart?
Ok, this is just a weird question. I guess I would want my laugh to wound like a fart. I wouldn't want to smell my own fart breath anymore than I would want other people sniffing it.

So there you have it. I like this game. I have a real post coming soon, don't fret.

A lesson about the immune system from Supernanny!

As you know LM has had a cold for the last few days. Monday when vacation was over and Supernanny came to watch LM I informed her that LM was getting over he cold so she could give her some Tylenol if she thought she needed it. We also talked about the fact that it was going to be 98 f-ing degrees outside that day and that they should play in the sprinklers if she and/or LM were overheating.

"But, she has a cold. She shouldn't get wet."

"Um, ok, well you can put her feet in then." - there's no use arguing with Supernanny about things that don't matter.

After this I told her that I would leave the air conditioner on low for her so that when they came back from playing outside it wouldn't be stifling in the apartment.

"Ok, but don't turn it on too high...she is sick, don't want her to get too cold"

Oh Supernanny, it's sooo cute that you think our air conditioner is capable of even cooling off the whole 1 room studio.....

"Oh don't worry, it doesn't work that well."

As a scientists I can assure you of this folks: Getting wet and/or hanging out in air conditioning will not make you sick, nor prolong sickness....I promise.
extreme or prolonged exposure to cold can lower your immune system slightly and make you more susceptible to germs, but I swear you will never get sick by going out in the rain.

If staying warm and dry kept you from getting sick, then how come Africa has so many nasty ass evil viruses? Hope my air conditioner isn't transmitting Ebola.

Reduce this - step 3

Ok so because I am sick (and so is LM) and that means that I hate my life right now this installment of Reduce This is going to be short and sweet. This week I am giving up shaving. This will save water, disposable razors, etc. I have a recyclable razor which are awesome, but you still have to throw away/replace the blade so I have decided to just let the leg hair (and arm pits) grow wild and free.... I guess if it grows there it belongs there right!?!

I will still be using the electric trimmer to tidy up the private areas since that gets uncomfortable when it is overgrown.

So that's it. I will think of something better for next time, promise!

????

Over Educated Nympho has a great site and I love reading about her antics, but she posted this recently and I found it hard to swallow. This is list of some of the most famous people in the world who all supposedly have ADD/ADHD. Now if this was a contemporary list I might not have as much problem with it, but you're going to tell me that they can prove that many of the worlds greatest minds from centuries past were stricken with a condition that until approximately 1990 almost no one was diagnosing...c'mon people. Lewis Carroll was kinda crazy, but I don't know if I buy that he had ADD.

Here's a sample of who they include (if you don't feel like looking):
Galileo
Eisenhower
Einstein
Edison
Benjamin Franklin
Hans Christian Anderson
Ansel Adams
Winston Churchill
Andre Carnegie
F Scott Fitzgerald
Hemingway
Kennedy (actually John and Bobby)
Tolstoy
Meriweather Lewis (of Lewis and Clarke)
Socrates
Stephen Hawking
Da Vinci
The Wright Brothers
and my personal favorite....Nostradamus!

it's like the took a list of the most influential people in the worlds history and just went....yup, yup, that one, him, him, oh yeah...him too. Just because people do poorly in school doesn't mean they have ADD (this is what they write below their names..."failed grammer school", "didn't speak until 4").

Now I'm not trying to get down on people with ADD/ADHD. Both my sister and father have it and I feel for them daily. They both struggle to function in normal ways that other people take for granted. However, one of the main problems with ADD is that you have trouble finishing projects. So it is a little hard to believe that Edison and Einstein and other brilliant inventors all had a disease that makes it hard for them to focus...

Maybe I'm wrong, but at least I wouldn't include people who died prior to 1950 unless there is substantial health records describing symptoms that could be used by today's clinicians to diagnose them.

Holy crap! I think I killed my baby!

After a difficult plane ride to WI and an exhausting week of car trips filled with screaming, I decided that something had to be done for the plane ride back to NY. MIL is a pediatric nurse so she suggested we give LM some benadryl to make her sleepy for the trip. That sounded fine since she had a cold anyway, maybe the meds would make her feel better as well as make her easier to deal with. MIL calculated the dosage based on LM's weight and we were good to go.

We had given her the Benadryl on Tuesday's car ride back from MN and it was a little better. She slept a lot of the car ride and there wasn't nearly as much fussing. So fast forward to Sat morning and we are waiting at the gate for our plane to board.

"Ok," Husband said,"we should give it to her now since it takes a bit to kick in."

And so we gave her the amount recommended by the medical professional and hoped that her cold wouldn't make this an even worse experience than the last time. We got on the plane and it took off. Everything was going smoothly, LM was getting sleepy, she hadn't cried during take-off and I was feeling optomistic!

Then, things took a turn for the worse. LM was asleep and she started coughing. The coughing led to gagging and soon I was covered in vomit. She had been eating during take-off to keep her ears from hurting so this wasn't that strange, but was certainly annoying given that I had to change my shirt. Luckily I had packed a little zippy sweatshirt. I left LM with Husband and walked down the aisle trying to hold my sweatshirt over my now puke covered right side when I encountered the dreaded beverage cart. Damn! I have to get through. The flight attendants were nice about it and tried to move over as much as possible to let my butt by. I finally got to the bathroom and changed my shirt. I went back to my seat (once again squeezing back between the beverage cart and other passengers' seats) and was happy to see LM sleeping peacefully on Husbands shoulder.

A few minutes later there was some more coughing, and gagging, and more vomit, which I luckily caught with a burp cloth since Husband did not have an extra shirt. LM was really out. each time she would throw up she wasn't really waking up and would pass back out right afterwards. I started to worry a little. Was she really sick? was the plane making her nauseaus? Then again! Cough, cough, and woosh...out came the larger gush of puke that has ever escaped the lips of a creature weighing 16 pounds!!! Holy crap! Husband and I both jumped back a little while Husband held a limp little monster in the air. I wiped furiously at the puke that was everywhere (even on the woman behind us - which I felt a little bad about, but at that moment, I just couldn't care).

My baby had just vomited enough to fill at least a pint glass (without even eating that much) and to top it off, we couldn't wake her up. we shook her gently, we called her name, we put ice on her lips and while she would react slightly (to the ice anyway) she would not open her eyes. I pulled up her eyelids an seeing that he eyes weren't rolling back in her head made me feel a teeny bit better, but not much. Her breathing seemed ok, but I didn't know what to do. I felt so helpless. We were on a plane, if she stopped breathing we couldn't even take her to the hospital. Oh God! I was panicking. It must be the Benadryl, what if I've killed her. I was freaking out. tears were starting to form at the corners of my eyes and I just sat there watching her, making sure that her little chest was still going up and down. That was all I could do.

She didn't vomit again and after about 1/2 and hour - 45 minutes LM slowly opened her eyes an looked at me sleepily. I was so happy I can't even explain to you the feeling of relief that washed over me. I didn't kill my baby! Thanks to a God I don't really even believe in!!!

30 minutes later we were on the ground and LM was pretty much back to normal, although a little cranky because now she was hungry after puking shards of her pelvis onto mommy, daddy, and the lady in seat 5C (sorry again!)

It was quite an adventure. One that I hope to never repeat. I don't know if I have ever been that scared in my whole life.

Baby food Ninja!!

Feeding a baby solid foods requires ninja like precision and speed. In -up - out -catch - refill...and begin again. I have almost perfected the process, but of course this all depends on how SUPER EXCITED LM is about any particular food. For example, sweet potatoes are somewhat more challenging since LM insists on shoving them up her nose as she fights me for the spoon.

Husband is getting pretty good at it, but for the most part we just go with the flow and resign ourselves to the bath afterwards. LM, however, loves everything about eating and would probably bathe in the food if she could.

Quickie

Here is a quick update:

I am sick and feel like I am going to die.

LM is getting better, but is still having trouble breathing through her nose.

The tattoos turned out great and I will post pictures when I stop feeling like there's a vice in my sinuses.

The plane ride back was very scary and stressful.

We move in less than 2 months and I am starting to freak out a little but.

I got a new camera and it is fancy and I love it.

Husband got a new cell phone....this will make his third this year. It's a sickness.

I realized the other day that I am 45 lbs heavier than when I met husband and I aim to remedy that.

I have given up shaving.

I will elaborate as I start feeling like a normal human being again!

INKED!

LM has her first cold and I feel so bad that I can't help her feel better. We have been giving her tylenol to keep her little fever down and wiping the snot off her face whenever she sneezes. Poor baby.....I hope she feels better soon.

In other news, Husband and I are getting new tattoos today. I am getting LM's name in a scroll with stars (sailor jerry-esque) and Husband is getting her footprint....so cute. I might get her footprint too but I haven't decided. This will be tatoo #8 for me and I can always have more. I love tattoos. I will post pictures when I get back to NYC.

And we're back folks!!!

Well here we are vacationing in the Midwest and we are doing our best to relax. Unfortunately, it is difficult to travel with a baby and I am trying to chill out as much as possible. Given that I haven't really had internet for the last few days this may be a long one.

We flew in Friday evening. LM was ok on the plane, but was restless and didn't want to go to sleep. We finally made it back to my parents house after about 2 hours of driving and listening to baby screams for a good 1/2 hour.


Saturday Morning we had brunch with family and friends at the restaurant where Husband and I used to work/met. The food was good and it was nice to be in the old neighborhood again. We saw lots of old friends/co-workers and it felt weird to be around people who are still doing the same thing and existing in a life that you left behind so long ago. It made m happy that my life has changed so much....like I'm on the right track and not just doing what's easy and comfortable. I am getting more and more excited about the move to Portland and I think both Husband and I are in need of a new chapter.

Later Saturday we left for Minneapolis to visit Husband's family at SIL's house. The trip was trying and LM was not having the car seat. She hasn't been in cars much in her 6 months of life, but still I was a little surprised at her fits. We finally arrived in Midwestern suburbia around 6pm and said our hellos to the whole fam. In the past SIL and I have had our issues, but for some reason she is much easier to deal with when her husband is around....he and I get along great and he is hilarious. How he deals with her, but as guru says, every pot has its lid.

Now that SIL is finally pregnant she is a little easier to be around (and I can stop feeling guilty that my ovaries work better than hers), but at the same time she is somewhat annoying with her pregnancy perfection. She is one of those people who follows every pregnancy warning religiously no matter how minuscule the risk and you have to know all about her sacrifice. I guess it is partly because it took her 2 years to get pregnant, but still....when added to her judgemental, OCD personality it gets a little overwhelming.

Conversation we had during her last visit to NYC:
SIL: "I'm hungry"

Husband: "There's a hot dog stand. You want a hotdog?"

SIL: "I can't eat hot dogs!"

Me: "Really? Why?

SIL: "My midwife told me not to eat them because of the risk of _____(some very rare condition/disease related to eating bad pork).

Me: "Really?! I never heard that. I ate many hot dogs when I was pregnant."

SIL (in snotty voice): "Well, I'm older than you are and it took me two years to get pregnant, so I do what my doctor tells me!!!"

ok! jesus! Now I'm supposed to feel bad that I was born after you (and decided to start my family before 30 while you spent your 20's drinking yourself into oblivion) and that I have super ovaries? And I especially like the insinuation that I don't do what my doctor tells me because I am such a reckless mother....maybe I should have my baby drink some hand sanitizer to keep her germ free!

Sorry about that little outburst.....as you can tell, I have a little pent up aggression about the situation.

Anyway, the visit in Minneapolis was fun overall and it was nice to have LM spend time with MIL and GMIL (who was meeting her for the first time). We left Minneapolis on Tuesday afternoon trying to outrun a large storm coming in. We didn't quite beat it and had to pull over at one point until the rain let up a little. Eventually we got back on road just in time for LM to wake up and scream for the next 30 minutes. We arrived back at my parents house in time for dinner and have been relaxing and eating our way through my home town....I know that it seems weird that living in NYC, I miss the food from a city with 250,000 people in it.

More to come...