RIP Breastfeeding

Well, it's official. The bond that LM and I share over my sweater meat is over. I am actually more sad about it than I thought I would be. I will miss the morning cuddling while she has a snack and the instant need to be with me (and my boobs) when she hurts herself.

However, I will not miss her evil little teeth.

Now before I get hate mail about weaning my baby before she was 1, let me just let you all know that none of this was my doing. First I had a plugged milk duct which my milk supply never really recovered from. But did that deter us? Of course not! Then we stopped nursing to sleep (OK that was my doing mostly to keep my sanity because you can only have someone sucking on your tit for hours on end for so long...8 months was enough). After that we were still going strong during the day, nursing at least 4 or 5 times a day. Then LM just stopped asking for it as much. And pretty soon we were down to only nursing when she would wake up in the morning (and if she had caused herself to bleed). But at least we had the mornings....

The true death of the nursing came recently when the biting became unbearable (she has been biting me ever since she got teeth at 5 months, but that was tolerable). Anytime I try to nurse her she can't make it more than 5 seconds without biting the shit out of my nipples with her 8 teeth...yeah, 8! I tell her to stop and she laughs (I am aware that she is a little evil). then the cycle just starts over again, until I give up an go make her a bottle (go ahead bite the shit out of that!).

The last two days have been nothing but biting so I am putting my foot down and ending our lovely booby relationship. I think I would have put up with it longer if she was actually even nursing when she did it, but she really just starts right in on the biting and I just don't have time (or nipple toughness) to do it if she's not even going to focus.

Guess I get to reclaim the fun bags!

Creepy must run in the family...

I have always known that I am what I call a "sensitive". Now, I am not Psychic, I do not see the future, but I am ridiculously observant and good at reading people and situations. Husband is not so good at this and therefore lucky that he is married to me or he would be beating the crazies off with a stick. Here are some examples:

1. I will generally know within 10 minutes of talking to someone whether or not we can be friends/if they are nut-jobs. That's not to say that some people don't grow on you and others can't make you think they are relatively normal for a short time when they are actually totally insane, but for the most part I am very accurate at this. and just so you know.

2. After meeting someone once or twice I can usually tell what you are likely to do in a given scenario.

3. I can very easily read relationship dynamics and tell whether people are going to last or go down in a fiery crash/break-up.

4. If it's a bad idea....I can tell you it's a bad idea.

I know what you are thinking. C'mon. Give me a break. But seriously it is true. I don't have ESP I am just really good at taking variable and analyzing them and coming up with the most likely scenario or reading body language, voice cues, and general demeanor to determine compatibility and overall personality. It's just that I do it without having to think about it. Friends and family have also noticed this and I am regularly requested to meet new boyfriends, or what I think about something or other. For example: I always know my sister's new boyfriend is going to be a loser when she will bring him over to dinner at my parents house, but when I ask to meet him she says, "Uh...no!"

Anyway, this post isn't really about me, except to say that I now have even more proof of my super-human powers ;).
There have been two instances in the last month that have both totally freaked me out and shown me that I am not alone in my creepy ability. My family is creepy too.

Evidence #1: My mother is way creepier than I am.
A few weeks ago she was visiting us in Portland. We left LM with Husband and went out for some lunch. We were mostly through with our food when my mom suddenly stopped.

"That was weird"

"What"

"I just got a feeling like LM was bleeding or hurt or something."

"Great Mom, thanks for making the rest of my lunch super relaxing."

Laughs. "Sorry, I'm sure it was just me being silly"

"Well I hope so."

We finished our lunch and drove the 5 minutes or so home where Husband and LM were waiting for us on the porch both smiling.

"See, she's fine."

We reach the stairs.

Husband: "Well, we had a little scare there while you were gone."

I give my mom one of those looks like, you are totally creeping me out and if he says that LM hurt herself and was bleeding I will run inside and lock the door and you can sleep in the Jeep with your Ouija board.

"What happened?"

"Well she was eating some blueberries and she started choking. I had to put her over my shoulder and really whack her back to get her to stop."

"Holy shit! Are you serious"

"Why? Why are you giving me that look? Were you expecting something bad to happen because she was with me? Hey just because I am not the mommy doesn't mean the baby is automatically in danger!"

"Well, that's debatable, but no that's not why I am looking at you like you just told me the baby flew off the roof. How long ago was this?"

"I don't know, 10 minutes or so."

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!! See, my mom is way creepier than I am.
Later she recounts to us that this has happened to her before. Once she had a dream about a friend she hadn't talked to in about a year. He was floating outside of his body and my mom had until midnight to get him back in or he would be stuck like that forever. She thought nothing of it, but when she talked to him months later she asked,

"What were you doing last Thanksgiving?"

"I was in Arizona"

"Yeah, but what were you doing?"

"Oh, I was in the desert doing paeodi."

"Keep out of my subconscious, dammit!"

Evidence #2: LM sees dead people...I think!
So when LM a little baby she used to just stare off into space or at the wall/ceiling sometimes. I always figured that's just what babies do, but I wondered what exactly she could be looking at on the blank white wall or ceiling. My mom insisted that she was staring into the astral plane.
Yeah, ok, whatever creepy lady.

But last week something happened and no I am concerned that I have passed on the creepy gene via my offspring.
LM was sitting on my lap in the rocking chair drinking a bottle and staring at the ceiling (yeah, I know we are back to staring at the ceiling). All of a sudden she gets this little happy smirk on her face and waves....at the ceiling.

Holy balls. My baby sees dead people. And they live on her bedroom ceiling....or they are incredibly tall.

Cause you know you wanna hear all the random shit that goes on in my life....

Here's a quick update on things here in the "belly blogs" household:

1. My belly is still larger than I would like, but I have managed to lose 2 pounds so far since the move.

2. The little monster is now attempting to stand on her own which means a lot more falling down, smacking her face and then crying

3. LM is still basically sleeping through the night....although the waking up at 6am has continued to my dismay

4. I am working on my photography and shot a wedding yesterday. The pictures turned out pretty well and I am happy with the results.

5. Today I cast a set of chess pieces in plaster which turned out very nicely.....yes, I am crafty. Just call be Martha Stewart minus the fraud...and about 30 years.

6. I unfortunately have started smoking again (don't ask why, I can't tell you) but at least I can get outside away from LM. Now I just have to start doing lots of cocaine and drinking and I can really show off my superb parenting skills.

7. Husband is leaving Friday to start the long drive to OR. LM and I will be flying over and joining him on the 1st of October.

8. *Random Tangent* Why is it that as soon as you have a baby people start asking about when you will have more? Slow down people. We are still trying to keep this one from killing herself on a daily basis, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

9. *Random tangent #2* My parents' neighbors have about 5 dogs that they have in an outdoor kennel at all times and the fuckers bark incessantly. WTF shitty neighbors. Don't have dogs if they aren't allowed to come int he house.

10. LM has learned to say "Doggie" (although it comes out more like "dogga"), unfortunately now anything with 4 legs and fur is a "dogga" whether it is canine or not.

11. I still have yet to find a job in Portland....yeah, we are being real responsible about this whole moving across the country thing.

12. We are missing Supernanny and are tyring to find her yet another new job since woman we found before we left turned out to be an insane nanny Nazi who walks around her house with the baby in high heels. Who does shit like that. Apparently she didn't really want a nanny, she wanted a maid and she rarely even lets Supernanny hold the baby let alone take care of her. So if anyone knows of some nice people who are looking for a nanny let me know.

13. On Tuesday I am taking Lm to her first mommy and me play group. I am both excited and nervous about this. On the one hand I think that LM will LOVE it. She adores other children and I think has been missing all her friends from the NYC playgrounds. On the other hand, I am not that huge a fan of people in general and the thought of socially interacting with people who I might very well dislike simply because we have spawn disturbs me. I am not your typical mother. Usually I am younger than everyone else at these things and I have a much more laid back approach to parenting (read letting baby chew on batteries....please don't send me nasty emails about this, it's a joke people!) Ahhh, the sacrifices we make for our crotch fruit.

14. *Random tangent #3* Why is health insurance so damn expensive? I mean seriously folks! Who's a girl gotta sleep with to get some coverage around here?

15. My grandmother is slowly descending into madness (well I guess it's more like falling really fast). Apparently now her big problem is that her shoes won't stay one her feet. But no one else seems to see the shoes magically leaping from her feet. Although I suppose this is better than the time she thought there were little children living in the nursing home that walked through walls (My grandmother does not have dementia or Alzheimer's. She is, however, 95 and completely off her rocker).

16. I am enjoying my time so far away from the city. At times I am already nostalgic for the lights and sounds of NYC, but then there are times like these where I sit in front of the fire pit out under the stars and can type and listen to the crickets. At times like these, I know I'm not missing a thing.

Who are you and that have you done with my Little Monster?

I know it has been a long time since I last posted and I apologize.....sorry Pesce.

We arrived safely in the cheese state late on Friday. I spent a little over 24 hours away from LM and apparently while we were apart the body snatchers came and replaced her with a good baby that sleeps and everything. Now, this is a little disconcerting, but you will never hear this sleep-deprived mama complaining. Apparently the sleep gods took pity on me and switched my adorable but perpetually awake baby with one that takes consistent naps and can sleep through the night....WTF?

Ok, so I have to admit the change wasn't overnight, but it kinda felt like it. Since we got here she has been taking good long naps twice a day which in itself if AWESOME! But miracle of miracles there is more. Monday night we decided that we should start the sleep training in earnest. I must say that I was dreading it. I had full faith in LM's ability to cry us all into a mental institution. So the first night we all made a plan and vowed to stick with it.

Rule 1: We would let her cry for 5 minutes and then go comfort her for 5 minutes (Do this a
few times and then increase time interval she cries by 5 minutes but do not increase
the comfort interval.
Rule 2: We will not pick her up except in extreme freak-out situations.
Rule 3: If this goes one for 1.5 hours the mission will be abandoned for the night (I made this
rule based on the fact that I didn't think I could stand any more than that).

Night One:
So we put her down and half an hour later she was up crying. Husband went in to comfort her and she was back to sleep in less than the 5 minutes allotted....super. That wasn't so bad.

the second time she was back down after 2.5 minutes....even better.

After that she slept for 8 hours straight...wooohoooooo!

Night Two:
Because he had done so well the night before we decided to start with 10 minute crying intervals. She woke up. She cried. She fell back to sleep...sans comforting. HOLY CRAP THIS IS AWESOME!!

She did this a dew more times and every time was able to comfort herself back to sleep.

This is night 3 and so far she has been asleep for about 3.5 hours and hasn't woken up (knock on wood). Maybe she can make it all night.

So here are somethings that I think helped.
1. She is now in a dull sized crib with comfy mattress
2. She no longer lives in Manhattan with all the noise.
3. It actually gets dark here
4. Husband did all the comforting that first night. I think if I had gone in with the precious mammary glands she would have fought harder.

I really am amazed at how easy this all was. I really expected the worst. Everyone always told me how horrible the first sleep training is.....guess we got lucky.

There is only 1 downside to this whole thing. Since we moved, LM has decided that her wake-up time in 6am (about when the sun rises). this is not so great for me. I am not a morning person. This means that even though I am getting more continuous sleep I am still tired all day. One of two things will happen: 1. I will eventually come to terms with the fact that my baby is an evil spawn of the early morning devil and make my stubborn as go to sleep earlier; or 2. I will continue to suffer in a state of perpetual sleeplessness.....probably number 2, because I am stupid.

a ray of light in the darkness that is sleep deprivation.

So yesterday we made the journey to the evil children's superstore that shall not be named and picked up this little gem that has restored my faith in the world....or maybe just in LM's ability to sleep. So far so good. I think that when she attempts to wake herself up every half hour the vibrator lulls back into a sense of security that tells her little baby brain "no need to waaaake upppp....you looooove the crib.....mommy will kill herself if you wake uppppp..." and so on. As on right now she has been asleep for an hour and a half and hasn't really stirred. I know that this is not something to get too excited about, but it's a good start. My goal is to get her to midnight before she wakes up the first time.

There's only one problem with "the best invention ever", it's set on a timer and turns itself off every 20-30 minutes. Ugh! don't they know I need it to run indefinitely? The creators thought they were very clever adding a sound activation feature. When the baby cries it starts vibrating again. That would be great except that by the time LM starts making noise like that...it's all over. If she's crying she's awake and my ass is back in the f-ing rocking chair.

It's not such a big deal when we are awake, I just carry the receiver around with me and make sure to push the on button every time it goes off, but what about when I want to sleep? What am I supposed to do then? Bastards. They put sleep so close within reach and then yank it away with their stupid battery saving features.

Strike 2

Gotta type fast before you know who (the evil sleepless baby tyrant) wakes up (for the 50th time), so forgive any typos. A pediatric nurse practitioner suggested that we give LM a low dose of melatonin (available at whole foods) before bed. For those of you not inclined to nerdy scientific knowledge melatonin is a naturally occurring chemical in the brain that regulates sleep cycles among other things. So the theory is that for children with sleep disorders the melatonin will help them regulate their sleeping better. I hoped and prayed and hoped and prayed, but alas, it seems that there is no change.

LM - 2
Sleep tactics - 0

Tomorrow we are going to the evil baby empire super store that must not be named to get a vibrator to put under her mattress. It's all very sex in the city when Samantha puts her "back massager" in the baby bouncy seat. Trust me if I still had a vibrator I would use that, but no, I couldn't muster up the energy to masturbate if I tried. So, tomorrow we go to unnecessary baby product land to buy something that I hope will help. You have to keep hope or I might never recover.

In other news....
*I only have 9 more days of work before we move and I am soooooo excited. Now if I can manage to stay awake through them I'll be golden.

*I had a donut for breakfast this morning. It was awesome!

*I lost a few pounds (.....and then I had that donut)

*The grandparents are coming soon so we can sleep a little. YAY!

Sleep Damnit....please!!!

So Operation Sleep Damnit has been almost a complete failure. We did succeed in getting LM to not nurse to sleep and it is now relatively easy to get her down at nigh. Plus Husband and I can now take turns which is AWESOME for me.
Unfortunately, after some early success, LM has decided that she will wake herself up every 45minutes - 2 hours and cry unless we pat/rock her back to sleep. I'm tellin' you this is almost more annoying then where we were at before. I can't figure out why she wakes up so fucking much....it is starting to make mommy CRAZY. I don't think I have any choice but to try the "cry it out" method once we have moved and have at least one door in our house that doesn't lead to the bathroom. I hate to do it, but I don't know what else to do. Nothing is working and I haven't slept even a half night in almost 8 months....now I know how sleep deprivation torture works. I would do just about anything right now for that baby to let me sleep.....Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!!

Beside my own sanity I know that it is not good for LM to be disturbing her sleep that much and given that she is the queen of nap refusal the girl needs all the sleep she can get. Let me give you an example just do you don't think I am exaggerating.
Yesterday super nanny informed that LM had only napped for a total of 40minutes all day. She still wouldn't nap when I got home from work and so passed out very tired around 7pm. Now you would think, exhausted, non-napping baby, no problem she is probably out for a while.....yeah, well, you'd be wrong. My unconscious baby was conscious again in about 45 minutes. After some patting back to sleep I had about another hour of peace before the next waking. This continued until about midnight. At 12 I put her down and went to bed myself. this time she actually slept until 2am and then I couldn't take it anymore and I brought her into the bed with me where she proceeded to toss and turn all night making mommy a tired, cranky, insane person!

Why sleep gods? Why are you punishing me? It's all those days I wasted sleeping until 2pm isn't it?

The evil eye

MIL's husband is from Mexico. He is a really great guy and is totally getting into this being LM's grandpa thing even though he married MIL when Husband was in his 30's. Husband does not speak to his father so MIL's husband is the closest thing LM's got to a paternal grandfather....and trust me, he is a much better candidate for that role than Husband's father. anyway, he and LM quite enjoy each other's company so hopefully either she will learn Spanish or he will learn English better by the time she is old enough to talk.

Sorry, back to the point of the story. When we went to visit SIL, MIL, BIL, and GMIL (that would be grandma in law) in July LM was not having a good week. She got sick and was teething and was altogether not always a happy-camper. So one afternoon when she was having a particularly crabby period (complete with uncontrollable whining and mommy-clinging) MIL's husband walked by muttering something about "the evil eye" and how the baby must have it. The what? I asked.

"the mal ojo," he said..."Bad vibes" MIL explained.

ok. Apparently, in Mexico it is widely thought that a cranky baby is often suffering from the evil eye. The evil eye are bad vibes transmitted to the baby from the adults around it. Parents who are angry, unhappy people, jealous admirers, etc (after a little research I found that Turkish women often keep their babies under wraps for 40 days after their birth to keep them safe from jealous eyes). He continued to explain hat in Mexico they do a little ritual with an egg and some alcohol to cure it.

"Ok," I said. "It will make her stop this whining?....Do it!" Hey I'm an open-minded kinda person and who am I to say that a folk ritual done with an egg can't make my sick/teething/cranky baby feel better.

MIL's husband agreed that he would do it and sent us off to fetch an egg, some rubbing alcohol and a glass. We did as we were told. Once he had all the ingredients, he rubbed some alcohol on the egg (still not sure what that part is for) and then rubbed the egg over LM's forehead, chest, arms, and legs making crosses and circles. Then he acted as if he was brushing something off her body and.....that was it, done. We waited to see if this magic would work. MIL's husband cracked the egg in the glass and proclaimed that the evil eye LM was suffering from wasn't that severe. I asked why and he said that in extreme cases when the egg is cracked into the glass it will be a funny color, sometimes black.

Now I don't know if I believe in magic and the like, but I swear 5 minutes later LM was happy as a clam. I don't know who put the evil eye on my baby....but I have my suspicions.

Old people crack me up.

Old man in Rite Aid: "Oh, look how cute. What a face (those of you from NYC will recognize this as elderly New Yorker-ese). Look at that smile."

Me: Smile and be polite even though I just want to buy my toilet paper and go home....thanks LM for being so damn personable.

O.M.I.R.A: "They are so cute at this age."

Me: "Yep"

O.M.I.R.A: "Then they grow up to be such bastards!" "Trust me I know, I'm a grandfather."

Me: stunned silence.

Scarred for life: the rubber ducky chronicles.

Last night Husband was giving LM her bath and all was well as she played with her rubber ducky. Eventually the rubber ducky (which she had been chewing on) floated close enough to Huband's head that he pretended try and grab it with his mouth which amused LM to no end. Wanting to entertain LM further Husband sucked the ducky's head into his mouth and pretended to eat it. Never before have I heard a baby scream out of sheer terror. Frustration - yes, pain - yes, but true horror....no.

LM let out the most ear piercing, blood-curdling scream I have ever heard and then proceeded to cry uncontrollably. Snatched her out of the bath trying to console her while laughing. Husband looking confused proceeded to almost piss himself laughing and LM just kept going back and forth between hugging my neck and looking back to see the carnage that was her deceased rubber ducky.

Later after she was dried off and we had stopped peeing our pants, we were trying to figure out the psychology behind LM's reaction. The only way to figure this out, we decided, was to recreate the scenario outside of the bath. So, because we are awesome parents, Husband set off to the bathroom for the ducky so that we could attempt to traumatize our infant yet again.

And what do you know.....it worked. We felt a little bad about it later, but not bad enough to wish we had gotten it on tape. Would be just horrible people if we did it again in order to record it? Probably. Will that stop us? Probably not.

Holy Brain Development Batman!!!

Over the last 4 days or so Little Monster decided to become the smartest baby in the world....just kidding, but she did suddenly start doing about 20 new things.

1. She sits up on her own
2. She has that crawling thing down
3. She gives high-fives
4. She waves hello and goodbye
5. She said "hi kitty" to Naughty Little Kitty (I did not make this up even if Husband doesn't
believe me)
6. While she was dealing with that crawling thing she decided to go ahead and start pulling herself into a standing position and standing with support.
7. Also, we got her a walker and she totally cruises in that sucker. I'm telling you, we may have created a big monster.

The best part about LM's new found mobility is that it makes my job oh so much more fun.

"Oh look how cute she is walking in the walker"
"Oh look she can reach the desk now..."
"Oh look she is tugging on the cord to the monitor that could fall over and crush her-
skull....isn't that sweet?!"

"She's walking to me......she's so cute....she's...STICKING HER FINGERS IN THE FAN!"

This parenting thing just got much more troublesome. That baby has a death wish.

I keep trying to remember what we fed her last week to prompt this amazing turn of events.....gotta remember not to give her anymore of that!

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!

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.