Quirks of Parenthood #1

1. Wanting to run out of your house and murder the garbage man for picking up the trash during OBVIOUS NAP TIME.



Obvious nap time!


2. Learning how to eat dinner in two minutes flat.

3. While holding a baby.

4. And feeding her at the same time.

5. And what you're eating for dinner is Chinese food with chopsticks.

6. Wanting to run out of your house and murder the dog for barking at a bird during OBVIOUS NAP TIME.




"I didn't nap because of the dog and I'm going to be cute for about two minutes before I FREAK THE F OUT ON YOU!"

7. Only changing your clothes when they have three or more spit-ups on them. Three or less and I can still meet my friends for drinks in that shirt and pretend I don't notice that I vaguely smell of regurgitated mashed peas.

7. Nodding to other mom's in the store even though you don't them, but just nodding because - hey, I have one of those too.

8. (Maybe other people don't do that one, maybe that's only me just nodding around town like a weirdo at people with kids who go home and are like, "Have you seen that girl, the nodder..." and her friend is all, "The tall one with the little daughter? Yes! She nods at me all the time. I think she has turrets.")

9. Eating a Reese's peanut butter egg the last bite of baby food in the jar and considering it a good enough breakfast. After all is combo of spinach and apples, and peanut butter. Peanut butter is protein. Spinach is like nature's miracle food according to scientist. Am totally ignoring the fact that the last bit is really just all the backwash-y stuff the baby lets dribble out of her mouth because her teeny tiny tongue doesn't know how to keep things inside yet. Surely baby saliva has nutritious properties too!

10. Wanting to run out of the house and murder the wind for being too loud during OBVIOUS NAP TIME.



OBVIOUS NAP TIME!

Six Months Old!

Six months and this is what I feel like all the time:







Hi Honey I want to LICK YOUR FACE OFF!


Yeah I'm gonna do the annoying thing I do every month where I say, "Oh my gosh how has it been blank months already? I feel like I just had her yesterday!" even though I know I shouldn't, but you guys. . .

Oh my gosh how has it been six months already?! I feel like I just had her yesterday!!

Ha ha! I can do it because no one edits me! YAY BLOGS

Anyway, we took her to the doctor for her check up yesterday and she's still in the bottom of the percentiles for weight, but the 90th percentile for height. And you know what that means? Someone is headed for some super awkward pre-teen years. Have I mentioned that I was six feet tall when I was twelve. TWELVE. Do you know what it's like to tower over everyone, including your teachers and your father before you have boobs? I do. For my own sanity I'm leaving out the head gear, acne, shaved back of the head, and stupid love of Christian Slater in Pump Up The Volume. It was very weird is what I'm trying to say. When I put my hands on my hips I'd often hit my friends in the head with my elbows.





She's tall and skinny, but she can kick her legs like it's nobody's business so maybe she'll be athletic and that'll make up for it.

Adeline is also squealing with delight at things. Like when we go get her from her crib she squeals. Or when she sees the cat walking up to her she squeals. Or just when she's getting a fun walk down the hallway - Squeally McSqueals A Lot.

Oh and now that she is eating solid foods things are a little more solid, uhm, coming out. And I only mention this because the first time she had this kind of . . . situation she screamed bloody murder. Like, "Oh my god Mom I'm trying to poop but SOMETHING FEELS DIFFERENT!" And then the second time she went, same dang thing. I'm hoping this will pass because I just can't see her going off to college, shutting the bathroom door and the suddenly crying as loud as she can until she's finished her business. Girlfriend will not be invited to any roofie-ing frat parties if she acts like that.

She's 13 pounds 10 ounces now and is still in a size 1 diaper. She can wear most of her 6 month old clothes now, but can still totally wear her 3 month old clothes too. I wish I could still fit into clothes half my age size. Something tells me I would not be rocking that belly sweater as well right now. (Remember when sweaters were cut just below the boobs to show the entire stomach?)





Uggo.

She also loves her dad playing guitar and spitting up on anyone who has just put on clean clothes. The lady has talents.

And I hate to cut it off so abruptly but such a spit up has happened, and I don't even have clean clothes on. I've learned, I don't put clean clothes on until I'm ready to go to bed. The rest of my clothes are just there for target practice.



"Yeah I spit up in her dinner. Is that bad?"



"Could you please scoot closet to me so I can get this spit up on you, not just near you."




"Thanks! I love you. And that lovely shade of regurgitated peas you have on."

Micro Chips Here And There

I'm not saying my baby is weird. I'm just saying she is most likely part robot.

Or an alien.

Turns out she's in love with our thermostat. Like, she like-likes it, she doesn't just like it. First thing in the morning when we bring her into the living room, she turns her whole body to where the thermostat is and then starts flailing her limbs like she's trying to fly over to the wall. Once her demands are met she gets right up close to it and smiles and giggles, like they're telling each other jokes. (are they? are they telling each other jokes?) And then she headbutts it. Repeatedly. She slams her forehead into it and then looks back at us smiling, as if to say, Hey guys did you see what just happened here? CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! And then goes back to her giggling and headbutting.

And we just look at each other because OMG are we gonna have to start supporting heater-human marriage now?

Vicki's parents knew she was a robot right? It wasn't like Mrs. Vicki gave birth and came home with that little whacko was it? I can't remember the actual premise of that show.







*sigh*

I'm not sure what's going on with her thermo-love, but for now it's sorta cute. A litte creepy. But more cute.









If she starts talking to the microwave I'm going to start seriously checking her back for hidden screws.

Winter

So it's finally winter here!








We have had the weirdest weather (along with the rest of the country) but it's been super nice for me because I'm not what you would call "savvy" when it comes to driving in the snow. I tend to wind up straddling the median, or crying in a ditch somewhere so I was sort of grateful for the warmth. My boyfriend actually saved the message I left him the first time I tried to drive (a stick shift!) in the icy snow, because it induced such laughter in him, and anyone in a five feet radius that he wanted to listen to it seven hundreds times. It went something like this:

"Hi. It's me. **mannish voice kicks in due to uncontrollable sobbing** I'M ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. *sobbing* EVERYTHING IS FINE. *more manly sobbing* Your mom is coming. *switch to upbeat voice, as is like my body takes over when I'm on a phone call and I have to end it like I'm a teenager who just got hired at Bath and Body Works and is so excited about myfirstrealjobohmahgosh* Ok, call me Byeeeee!"


I'm on the side of the road? What does that even mean? Not once did I mention that I was stuck in a ditch, or that I spun off a major road into oncoming traffic and then ultimately down into farmland. Nor did I mention that because I had the dog with me none of the kind citizens, firemen included, who stopped to help me could actually help me because said dog was all riled up due to my crying and therefore wanted to try to kill anyone who got close to the car. No, I do the girl thing and cry while denying there's anything wrong. LIKE A TOTAL CRAY-CRAY.

Anyway, to celebrate winter someone has decided to start sitting in her bumbo like an adorable little darling.





I mean, shut up with that nonsense!

Cute. Town. U.S. Motherf*&%ingA.

Sleeping Babies

I started writing this post a few weeks ago, but couldn't finish it because the wound was too raw. Now it's healed, scab free, and glowing! It's the best wound ever! I decided to post it now a) because I have results (wonderful results!) and b) because my cousins and some of my other friends are going through this now and I want them to have some support and know they are not alone in the Sleep Battle With Your Baby 2012: There Will Only Be One Winner - To The Pain!


Weeks ago:

As I'm typing this my baby is screaming her head off and I just stopped bawling long enough to pull myself together so I could blow my nose and distract myself with a Felicity episode. Or seven.

Nobody is hurt, everything is ok, we're just both crying because, well, because I'm a monster. At least that's what Adeline and some sort of uber-mom percentage of the population thinks.

That's right folks - we're sleep training our little sucker. Sleep training the snot out of her.


Now, I live in a very hippie-ish small town where no one (except me and my faux mother-in-law) wears make up, you can choose to cover up your breast feeding in public if you want but you don't have to, and kids are raised on soy beans and weird pastes made out of soy beans - so as you can imagine, there be some opinions up in this business. And everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have my own. And they're geared toward what I do with MY child, not what other people do with THEIR children. I have friends who do things I wouldn't do but that's because it's me, not because I think they're wrong, just because I like doing something different.

I could go on and on about equality and the right to parent how you want and blah, blah, blah but you get the point. No matter what you do they'll be talking about you in therapy in a few years anyway, may as well make the most of it!

Anyway, we made the decision to let our little chops learn to fall asleep on her own because sometimes it would take me an hour to get her down for a nap that only lasted twenty minutes. She wasn't happy and neither was I. But also, during the night she would wake up and put herself back to sleep so I knew she was already capable of doing it, so I didn't feel like I was throwing her to the wolves with no skills. She has mad skills.

Except that sometimes it feels like I'm throwing her to the wolves. And that's why I was crying. Because it hurts everything inside of me to hear her cry for even a second. But then right when I'm about to throw in the towel, give up and go get her and rock her to sleep for the next twenty years she stops crying, starts looking around her crib, and then gradually falls asleep, and (here's the best part) wakes up happy! Is totally thrilled to see me, and does not remember that an hour ago she was ready to ask to be adopted!



I still love you mama!

Another reason we decided to do it was because I couldn't really leave her with anyone except me and her dad because she's a demanding little napper-putter-downer. Like, she'll start to cry if you're rocking her wrong. That's right, ROCKING HER WRONG. Oh my gosh is she ever my daughter. I guess this is what I deserve for doing things like yelling at my mom for buttering my toast wrong.

Last week.






Did I obsess about the sleep training? Uh, did Felicity ruin the show when she cut her hair?

Yeah I obsessed, and then I obsessed some more, so much so that I felt better by the time the night came because that's what I do - I OCD my ass off and then it's all good, but my neroses apparently doesn't go unnoticed, because my baby daddy was High Strung the whole night. Yes this could be because every two minutes I would say, "Ok, here's the plan. . . " and then reiterate the plan we'd had in place for months. I guess by time 907 he was sick of it.

(Seriously though. It's like an animal is on her head. Like a skunk. A skunk shaped like a curly mullet.)





So anyway, I'll let you all know how it goes, but so far despite the one bad crying sesh things have been totally great and worth it. And just so you know, I don't abandon her, I pretty much hold and rock her and smother her with kisses all day long, I just lay her down when her eyes get all droopy and sleepy cute. So far she seems relieved to be in her bed, like "Finally mom, I'm tired. Stop singing to me and put me to sleep already. Swing Low Sweet Chariot doesn't have a leprechaun in it either. Learn the words lady." I'm the one who seems to be having a harder time with it. For instance, she just went down for a nap with no protest and I'm tempted to go pick her up and hold her. Like a lunatic.


*End previously written post*



So, things are great. Really great. I'm so glad we sleep trained, she goes down no problem now for bed, like magic. So now I have time to actually talk to my boyfriend at night instead of whisper-shouting, "Quick she's asleep, get in bed and pass out now before she wakes up, EVERY SECOND COUNTS!"

There's hope all you other parents out there! Yes it's painful, but worth it. Just like how you made them babies.

(Not gonna erase it!)

(even though it's totally gonna embarrass my baby daddy)

(High School jokes FOR EVER)

Five And A Half Months Going on Nineteen

So this week my baby decided to get all busy with herself. Normally she'll make changes and such in a timely manner like, sleeping through the night, or giggling at things, or figuring out she has a tongue - these all happen slowly, over a few days, but definitely not all at once. But this week. Oh, this week is like she got Rosetta Stone for developing and is almost ready to start tying her own shoes.

New things that have happened JUST THIS WEEK:



1. She stopped being swaddled for sleep. Or anything really.






2. She no longer takes a pacifier, because she prefers to soothe herself with her ADORABLE thumb sucking.





3. Holds her own bottle.






4. Rolled over!








5. Tried solid foods.







What? Oh what's that? I can't hear you over ALL OF MY SOBBING.

Why doesn't she just pack her bags and go off to college, just make this official.

Hiding

I'm currently hiding from the baby, the dog, and the cat. I grabbed my laptop and ran into my closet and shut the door a) because the cat can open the bathroom door which is where I really wanted to be because I have to pee more than I've ever had to pee in my life, and b) because THEY'RE ALL AFTER ME.

The dog apparently likes the way I did my hair this morning because he has never been so humpy. And he's not a humpy dog. Usually if he's feeling frisky it's aimed at his father which we've repeatedly told him is NOT OK, and then if he continues we remind him this behavior is all in his head because he has no balls (balls, as we all know, being the epicenter from which said behavior arises) (they don't just dangle there for looks people).

And the cat - the cat has decided its play time and that means attacking my butt through the back of the chair. And when I get up to move away from him he bounces after me like, "Oh fun, I get to attack from somewhere else?"

Then comes the baby. The real reason I'm hiding.

She is currently screaming her head off because she wants me to come read Good Night Moon to her for the four hundredth time. And to those of you who think an almost six month old baby can't possibly be requesting the same book over and over again, YOU DON'T KNOW MY BABY. She likes her crazy nightynight babble and she likes it on repeat.






She'll fall asleep within the next minute, but until then I have to hide. Because even though I know it's fake crying, I still don't like to hear it. It kills me. I don't like to hear her cry unless it's because she just realized Grey's Anatomy is a repeat, and then that's only to muffle my own sobs. So no matter what kind of crying she's doing I still want to run in there and pick her up and rock her to sleep until she's TWENTY NINE YEARS OLD. That's the trouble with being a mom. Like, right now, she's asleep - honestly she was asleep before I finished the first sentence of this post. And you know what that makes me want to do? It makes me want to run in there and pick her up and bring her into the closet with me where we can both hide from the animals.

But I won't because I don't want to risk the inevitable clawing and sexual harassment that's waiting for me outside this door.

It's like living in a frat house over here.