Polka Dots and Pearls

Glitter hippiefication.

2012-02-01T11:59:00.004-05:00

I've mentioned before that my friend Betsy has dubbed me a "glitter hippie" -- one who you would not expect from looking at her to be all "cloth diapers and all-natural stuff, yay!" but who totally is.

I don't know when I got to be this person. Ask anyone who's known me for any length of time and they will tell you I am one of the last people they'd have expected to cloth diaper her kids. A friend from high school actually just stared at me when I was at her house and pulled out a prefold and Snappi to change Lorelai, and said, "Wait ... you use cloth diapers? Really? You?"

I'm not really an all-natural kind of girl, is what I'm saying. I recently went through my makeup and threw out half a trash can's worth of makeup that was either expired, turn out to be a bad color on me, or has been in my overflow makeup case (yes, I have an OVERFLOW makeup case) for so long that it had turned to dust or stone. I need to do the same with my hair products.

I don't remember the last time I left the house without makeup, or with my hair unwashed (except to go to the salon, because why wash your hair before you go to have your hair washed?). I've had oily, acne-prone skin my whole life. I was on Accutane in high school because my back acne was so bad I was unable to wear tank tops or bathing suits, and it hurt to lean back in a chair -- gross, I know. My hair has always been so oily that it really begs to be washed not just once, but twice a day.

So when I first heard about people using oil to clean their faces, I was all, "What? Why? Why would you do that?" But I kept hearing about it, and so I decided to give it a shot. This was ... well over a year ago. Maybe even before I was pregnant.

It ... didn't go well. I got oilier, I broke out more, and I stopped after about a week.

But recently, I started hearing more and more about it. Erica started doing it, and after she kept raving about it all over her blog and Twitter, I decided to try it.

I tried it for two weeks around Thanksgiving, enough to get past the changing-up-my-routine breakout period (during which I did break out, but not horribly), and then, out of curiosity, went back to my Clinique Acne Solutions products for a few days. In just those few days -- less than a week, I think it was maybe three or four days -- I noticed my skin was feeling tight, I was having dry patches around my mouth and eyebrows, and the blackheads on my nose (I've got largish pores, they're not terrible blackheads but if you get up close you can see them) were back after having disappeared substantially during the OCM.

So. I went back to the OCM, and I won't go back to commercial products. Erica recommended mixing up the oils in thirds -- I initially used 1/3 grapeseed oil (supposedly good for oily skin) to 2/3 castor oil, but noticed that my cheeks and forehead were getting tight and dry, so I added a bit of olive oil to make it about half castor oil, hoping the olive oil would help with the dry areas more than the grapeseed oil. A few weeks ago I added a few drops of tea tree oil to combat hormonal breakouts. I use this mixture at night, and afterwards I rub a drop or two of almond oil (which a friend had given us, along with a book on infant massage, after Lorelai was born, but she didn't seem to like the massage so I've got this giant bottle of oil just sitting around) into my face before bed. I dab a bit of tea tree oil onto pimples as the crop up (I've found it clears them up almost overnight if they're small and if the pore is already opened up when I put the oil on -- I'm a habitual pimple-popper, I just can't leave them alone once they come to a head). In the mornings, I use honey on my face, then wipe it off in the shower with a washcloth. I use a drop or two of the almond oil again after the shower. (Next time I mix up my cleanser I'm going to mess with the proportions to see if I can get my skin to where I can skip the morning moisturizer, but the air is so dry now I don't have high hopes it'll work till spring.)

Because this worked so well, when I saw another blogger mention using baking soda as shampoo, I thought, "Why not?" So I tried it. A tablespoon of baking soda in a cup of water, rub it really well into the scalp, then rinse. Follow with a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a cup of water, and rinse.

The idea behind this "no-poo" (no shampoo) method is that eventually, your scalp will stop being used to being stripped of its natural oils by the chemicals in normal shampoo, and you'll be able to go days (or even weeks) between full washings (using just water on your hair in the meantime). This appealed to me because if I shower in the morning, by the end of the night I need to wash my hair again. The time I was in the hospital having Lorelai, I was so. effing. disgusting. I'd showered Saturday morning, ended up being induced Saturday evening, had the C-section Sunday morning, and wasn't allowed to shower until Monday evening. That was two and a half days of no shampoo, and it was the grossest I've ever felt in my life. So the idea of getting my hair used to going a day or two between washings, and then being washed with something natural, appeals to me.

I started this two weeks ago, and you guys, I'm not sure I can keep it up. The first couple of days, it was pretty awesome. My hair was clean, shiny, didn't smell like vinegar (if it does, you're not rinsing well enough). But then it started getting really, really oily, and the ends were crazy staticky. I upped the baking soda, rubbed some baby powder into my roots, threw it in a ponytail, and hoped it would equalize soon.

It hasn't. I'd read that there's usually a two-ish week period of greasies before your scalp gets used to the change, but it doesn't look like this is going to clear up anytime soon. To make it worse, my scalp is flaking like it's got a healing sunburn.

Some Googling has led me to believe that the baking soda is what's drying out my scalp, and the apple cider vinegar may be creating excess oil (it apparently is more conditioning than white vinegar). I'm going to give it a few more days, tweaking my methods some, but if it's not on the upswing by next Wednesday when I'm getting my hair cut, I'm going to scrap it (for a while, at least). Next weekend is PJs at TJ's, and I don't want to be gross and oily when I meet 17 new people. So, we'll see. I'll report back.

I bet any of you who've known me for a while are reading this and wondering what the hell has gotten into me, and if you need to have me committed. Maybe. If I ever start making my own deodorant, feel free. Some of this is to see if I can save money, and my Degree for Women is only a couple of dollars a stick and lasts me for months, so if I cross that line, you're allowed to have me checked out.

And now, I'm going to go paint my toenails. Because I am, after all, a *glitter* hippie.

Chicken.

2012-01-24T15:16:00.002-05:00

I chickened out and deleted my last blog post. Something I don't often do, and something that probably is a big fat blogger fail. It may still show up in your Google Reader, or it may not, I don't know.

I just started thinking about bullies and being bullied and I guess my real point was that I hope my children have the strength of character to not pick on other kids, but even more than that I hope they don't GET picked on. I feel like it's a lot easier to come back and say "I'm so sorry I was mean to you in school, I recognize now that my behavior was uncalled for and I truly feel awful about it" than it is to get over being bullied or picked on.

Because when I see girls who were mean to me in school, I do hope they don't recognize me, so I don't have to interact lest they not have gotten over their mean girl-ness. When I run into one who has turned out to be a lovely person, I still can't help but wait for the mean comment that I got so used to in middle school. (By the time I was in high school I'd pretty much outgrown my awkwardness and fallen off the mean girls' radars. But middle school, man. Seventh grade is its own special level of hell.)

At any rate, I am a chicken and deleted my own post because I decided that people may misinterpret it. So sue me.

Fat Bet update

2012-01-23T18:39:00.001-05:00

Dude. I love Fat Bet. I really, really do.

We are three weeks in, and I have missed zero days. Even the week I had the stomach bug, I got my five days in because I got sick at the end of the week, after I had met my quota.

I do really well with this sort of challenge. I need to be held accountable, and I need the incentive of creating a competition with myself to see how long I can keep it up.

The only problem is that so far I am the only one in my Fat Bet group who doesn't owe any money, and I feel bad about that. I created the group and if I'm the only one not missing days I feel like it looks bad. But I'm not going to throw a day just so it doesn't look like I'm fudging my days. Because then I'd be missing a day.

Probably I'm overthinking this.

I haven't seen much weight loss so far, but I am losing inches and I'm hoping that soon I'll have built up enough muscle to start burning fat. Because I can see my long-lost six-pack, under the layer of jiggle. I miss that six-pack. I haven't seen it in about six years. It would be really nice to catch up with it, see what it's been up to and if it plans on coming home for good.

Just in time for me to start trying to get pregnant again, but whatever. I'll start the next pregnancy in better shape than I did the first one, and maybe have a slightly more reasonable weight gain. And a slightly more reasonably-sized baby. I'd rather not do another 10-pounder. Not sure I can avoid stretch marks two giant babies in a row.

10 Months.

2012-01-19T11:16:00.003-05:00

Hard to believe this little girl is already 10 months old. (Ten months and change, even! Because her mother is a slacker and can't seem to write her posts on time!)

The tenth month was somewhat better than the ninth. (Kevin had pointed out that my nine-month letter was a bit less loving than the other letters had been. Well, Lorelai was a bit more difficult than she'd been in the previous months.)

Lorelai is ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE. Into everything. Still not walking, but who needs to walk when you can crawl everywhere so quickly, amirite? She's standing unassisted for periods of time, though (till she realizes she's unassisted, at which point she sits down), so I'm sure walking isn't too far off.

10-month stats: Around 22 pounds? Ish? She was like 21 pounds, 8 ounces last Monday, so I'm betting she's somewhere between that and 22 now. No idea how tall she is, but her hair is getting seriously mullet-y in the back. It's all curly at the nape, mostly on the sides just behind her ears. The middle back is pretty straight, and it's not as long as the side-back, so she's got this bald spot right in the middle of the nape of her neck, but Kevin won't let me even it out. (This from the man who wanted to trim the hair around her ears, boy-style, so it wouldn't stick out.)

Most adorable qualities: Belly laughs! She makes this squinchy face that we just call "the face", where she just screws her eyes and nose up as tight as she can and grins really big. We have yet to capture it on film. She will give her animals kisses, complete with puckered lips (up till recently, "give a kiss" really meant "nom on"). She gets SO! EXCITED! when I put on The Backyardigans. Pablo is her favorite. She still calls all animals "cat" even though she's smart enough that I'm sure she understands that cats and dogs are not the same thing. (She calls pretty much anything with a heartbeat "cat", and I KNOW she knows cats and people are not the same.) Her most favorite thing in the whole world right now is ball pits. There's one at baby gym and she thinks it's the greatest thing ever, so I got her some balls at Target and poured them into her blow-up pool and she will entertain herself for ages.

Least adorable qualities: She's got this tooth that is taking forever to come in (the pairs usually pop up a few days apart, but the first half of this pair -- second tooth from the right on the bottom -- came in around Christmas and the left one still isn't in). It keeps showing up and then disappearing, and I know it hurts her, because it's making her super cranky. She still dropping food and flinging her sippy cup, but at least her eating is back on track for the most part. She still hates diaper changes, and clothing changes, and pretty much anything involving being laid on her back (unless you lay her on her back on your lap and let her hang her head off your knees -- that, she loves, and will stay that way for a good half hour). She also still loves pulling books off the shelves and eating pieces of them (however, we did get her an Indestructible Book that she really enjoys [affiliate link]). Perhaps her least adorable quality is this screeching sounds she's started making if you aren't paying 100% attention to her. It really is reminiscent of a howler monkey, and I do not enjoy it. Particularly in the car. And finally, while she has started saying "mama", it mostly seems to mean "I want a cracker", and if you ask her to say it, she almost always says "dada" instead.

But this last month has been a big improvement over the previous month. The belly laughs alone are worth every irksome thing she has ever done.

Happy 10-month birthday 12 days late, Nugget. Mama loves you.

Slacker.

2012-01-17T22:09:00.003-05:00

I know, I know, I haven't posted in ages. And now it's time for bed. But I finished season 4 of Sons of Anarchy a few minutes ago, so you can all rest assured that without that to distract me, we'll be back to our regularly-scheduled (read: once a week, twice if you're lucky, so still intermittent) posting.

I WILL post Lorelai's 10-month post soon. I got her 10-month pictures today. Well, as much as one can get a picture when the subject is busy alternately trying to hurl herself off the sofa and ripping the 10-month sticker off her chest. One of these days I'll get smart and put it on the onesie before I put the onesie on her, so she doesn't notice it being stuck on her.

But for now, bedtime. 'Night, all. A proper post will come to you soon, I promise.

Follow-up.

2012-01-11T21:57:00.003-05:00

Ugh, I have been trying to write this post for the past two days, but haven't had time. Well, I have, but I've chosen to spend it sleeping and watching season 4 of Sons of Anarchy. (Theo Rossi, man. I know everyone else is about about Jax, and he's hot too, but I have a total crush on Juice, with his mohawk and his head tattoos.)

Anyway, I ended up taking Lorelai to the doctor on Monday. She was pulling at her ears Sunday night, and I remembered that I was supposed to take her in for a weight check Monday anyway (to make sure she was still gaining, i.e., getting enough milk from me -- I'd totally forgotten about it till Sunday night, or I'd have cancelled it when I stopped nursing), so I switched the weight check to a regular appointment and by some miracle I managed to get in with our favorite doctor, Dr. Pierce.

Lorelai has never been great about being weighed -- for some reason she really hates being laid on her back on the scale. Some of the nurses let her sit up, but this one didn't, so she was already upset by the time Dr. P came in. She asked me what was up, and I said, "Well, she hasn't been eating, which could be teeth but I don't think so because she's just ... off. A scientific explanation, I know. But she was pulling on her ears last night, so maybe an ear infection, or a sore throat? She had a cold before Christmas."

As soon as Dr. P sat down and wheeled her stool over to us, Lorelai just lost it -- screaming, twisting, giant crocodile tears. "Yeah," Dr. P said, "this is not normal for her. I've only seen her a handful of times but she's always so happy, this isn't right."

Her ears were fine, her throat was fine -- just as I'd suspected, there's nothing visibly wrong with her, physically. Dr. P suggested we put karo syrup in her bottles for the mild constipating she's been having, and if that doesn't improve her mood, to give her Maalox as it could be a bit of reflux/heartburn.

And then, yesterday, Kevin started feeling sick. And now Lorelai is back to being basically herself, and eating more than she was -- still not the full amount she used to, but I'd also gotten used to her nursing AND getting bottles AND eating a ton of solids, so this is probably close to what it used to be, I just couldn't tell because I had no idea what she was getting from me.

I think maybe she had a touch of the stomach bug I had last week, and it just didn't manifest the same in her as it did in me, and now she's passed it to Kevin but it's pretty much gone from her system.

I have been trying some of your suggestions, though -- the thing that seems to be working the best is to feed her directly off my plate with a normal spoon. I guess it makes her feel like a big girl, or like she's more a part of the process if we're sharing, or something.

And in the past few days, we've found some new things she likes -- apple cinnamon yogurt, Panera's black bean soup, and the chicken-apple meatloaf I made tonight (I mushed it up and mixed in some applesauce, and she thouht it was the best thing she'd ever eaten).

The dream feeds were short-lived -- I only did them two, maybe three nights, because I needed to get SOMETHING in her and it was the only way to get her to not wake up at 1 a.m. starving. We're now working on weaning her off the 4:30-5:30 snack -- a task I've been working on for months, and she keeps relapsing and I'm just not going to fight her all that hard in the middle of the night (that window from 4-6 a.m. is my absolute worst time to be awake. I mind the 2 a.m. wakings less than the 5 a.m. ones). We're down to an ounce and a half at that feeding, which tells me she really doesn't need it, but I'll play the drop-it-by-half-an-ounce-every-few-nights game if that's what it takes. It worked to get rid of the 2 a.m. snack, anyway.

So, that's where we are. She's eating again, I think she had a stomach bug, and now Kevin is sick. (Which is honestly not that bad for me because it's an excuse to sleep in the guest room, which is a much more comfortable bed -- I think our pillow top mattress has run its course, it's got an Erin-shaped rut in it that totally jacks up my back and hips.) It's just business as usual over here.

In other news, I have so far not missed a day of Fat Bet, and I have booked not only my plane tickets but also my hotel and rental car for PJs at TJ's, which is in one month and I am SO. EXCITED. There will be a longer post on that closer to time. I also need to do Lorelai's 10-month post. And, um, take her 10-month picture. (I finally got around to getting the 9-month picture about 2 days before she hit 10 months, so with that track record, she may end up having her 10- and 11-months pictures taken on the same day.)

But for now, I'm going to go unwind with Theo Rossi and a bowl of ice cream. Not going to lie, it's going to be the best part of the day today.

When babies won't eat.

2012-01-08T10:01:00.004-05:00

All right, other moms (and dads, though I'm fairly certain only one guy reads this blog) (hi James!), I need some advice. Because my kid is not eating much and I don't really know what to do about it. If y'all don't have any advice, I'll take her to the pediatrician, but I don't want to pay them to tell me what I'm fairly certain I can get for free from other parents.

Towards the end of my nursing days -- right around the 8.5-9.5-month mark -- Lorelai had pretty much lost interest in nursing. She would latch on fine, but wouldn't nurse for very long. (In hindsight, this is a giant "DUH", but at the time I didn't realize it's because she was pretty much over the whole process.) She got really excited about bottles, but only for a short time -- it would take her hours to finish six ounces, because she was SO. EXCITED. TO. BE. MOBILE! that she wouldn't focus for very long. Really, all she was interested in was solids. Finger foods, purees, whatever. If it wasn't liquid, she was all about it.

I was concerned that she wasn't getting the nutrients she needed since most of her intake was "real" food, but at her 9-month appointment the doctor said, "No, that's good! It means she'll wean easily, and she'll drink as much milk or formula as her body needs and will supplement the rest with the solids. Don't worry about it. She's growing just fine."

Then, after I stopped nursing, we went through a brief spurt where all she wanted was BOTTLES. ALL THE TIME BOTTLES. GIVE ME ALL THE BOTTLES. She didn't want her oatmeal, she didn't want puffs, she didn't want fruits or veggies or meats or cheese. She just wanted THE BOTTLES. (And THE MUM-MUMS.) I took this as a sign that, um, maybe she had not been getting nearly enough from me and was actually very hungry. She would take about 4 ounces down like she had never eaten before, and then the last 2 ounces she would snack on over the course of the next hour, whenever she crawled past her bottle and remembered there was something in it.

Now, though. Now she won't eat ANYTHING. If we give her a 6-ounce bottle, she'll drink 2 ounces, then push the bottle away and start to cry and writhe to get down. She no longer picks up the bottle on her own and finishes it off slowly. She won't eat solids; if you try to spoon-feed her, she pushes it away and wails. If you offer her finger foods, they end up being dropped piece by piece on the floor (this "learning about gravity" phase is fun, y'all). Even Mum-Mums, previously the one thing that would get her to stop fussing and light up like a kid on Christmas morning, hold no interest (she still lights up when you hold up the packet, but she tosses the cracker aside as soon as you give it to her).

We're trying to stick to a regular feeding schedule for her, rather than giving her snacks in between meals, but even with a regular schedule she's not interested in food or formula. She gets really stoked when you hold up a freshly made bottle, but either loses interest after half an ounce or cries and pushes it away as soon as you give it to her.

It's at the point where she's eating so little during the day that she's waking up STARVING in the middle of the night, taking 6 ounces at 1 a.m. and another 4 at 4:30. At first I thought maybe it was a growth spurt, so I fed her, but now I'm pretty sure it's just that she's not eating during the day, so she's hungry at night. Which, I mean, I only have so much patience at 1 a.m., so I'm not going to listen to her scream for food all night long, but she's only getting 2 ounces. Enough to take the edge off, but not enough to replace a daytime meal (which it seems to be doing anyway, because she's still not eating during the day).

I am fairly certain that she's got another tooth coming in (the first of the pair came in last week, and they're usually fairly close together), but that's never affected her eating like this before (and it's one of the little bottom next-to-the-front ones, not a major big tooth). She's still got some residual stuffiness from her Christmas cold, but nothing that should be upsetting her eating.

So, that was a very long-winded way of saying, is it normal for a 10-month-old to suddenly up and decide she's not going to eat during the day? What do I do about these middle-of-the-night wakeups? (EVERY. TIME. we get rid of these damn wakeups, it lasts a few days, and then something sets her back. I am OVER THEM, you guys. I WANT SOME SLEEP.) Last night she was fussy and cranky and refused to take more than 2 ounces at bedtime (which was early, 7 pm, because she was being such a pill), so I actually woke her up at 10 when we went to bed and got 6 ounces (with a tablespoon and a half of oatmeal in it) into her, and she slept through till 5:30, which was GLORIOUS. But I can't keep doing that -- we haven't had to do a dream feed since she was like 4 months old. I mean, I don't MIND doing it, if it gets me 7 uninterrupted hours of sleep, but soon she's going to be off formula and I can't dream-feed her green beans.

I really don't think she's sick; if I did, I'd obviously have gone to the doctor instead of the internet. She doesn't have any signs of being sick other than the mildly stuffy nose (which, as I said, is probably leftover from her cold, but if not then I'm blaming the tooth), there doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with her, she just doesn't want to eat. Is this normal? How long does it last? Should I keep dream-feeding her until she gets over it or is that going to reestablish a pattern we broke 6 months ago?

(And, on a side note, when will she stop throwing EVERYTHING ON THE FLOOR? Someone please tell me the fascination with gravity doesn't last long. I'm really tired of apologizing to waitstaff and our friends for the mess our child has made -- almost as tired as I am of crawling around on the floor cleaning up pieces of mashed carrot while being pelted in the head with bits of chicken.)

Paragraphs.

2012-01-06T22:24:00.002-05:00

Kevin just pointed out to me that when I post from my phone, there are no paragraph breaks. I will try putting extra breaks in to try to compensate for that. Does this problem show up for those of you who see these posts in Google Reader, or just on the actual blog?

This was perhaps the dullest post ever, but I figured I should let it be known that I'm aware of the formatting issue and am working on it.

For your trouble, have a cute baby:

"What is this on my head? And on my hands? Winter sucks."

**Edited to add: Apparently extra returns does not fix the issue. I may need to find a new blogging app. Any recommendations?**

Fat Bet.

2012-01-02T22:43:00.002-05:00

I mentioned Fat Bet the other day and promised to elaborate. I still have 10 pounds of baby weight to lose, and that's to get me to a weight that is still 10 pounds above where I'd LIKE to be, and five pounds above what I think I can realistically get back to. So when my friend Hayley told me about Fat Bet, I thought, "Yes. This is what I need to make me lose the weight."

With Fat Bet, you bet money that you will work out a certain number of times a week, and if you don't, you have to pay up. Hayley's group does $5 and six days a week; my group (which is so far just me and Betsy, but whatever) does $5 and five days a week. So if one of us fails to work out for at least 30 minutes five days a week, she owes the other $5 for every day she skipped.

Hayley's group is more hardcore than us. They don't get sick days (I'm allowing one a month, and they carry over if you don't use them), and they do six days a week. While I do want to drop 10 pounds by Lorelai's birthday and another 5-10 by Hayley's wedding in mid-August, I know myself and I just can't do six days a week. I need to set easier goals for myself or I'm just setting myself up for failure. So far my workout plans consist of resuming the three-mile daily walks my friend Shanna and I had been doing before the holidays, crawling around with Lorelai at baby gym class, and the 30 Day Shred. That Jillian Michaels does NOT mess around. I did the shred last night and walked today and my quads are not happy with me (which I realize is probably not a reflection on my poor physical fitness then on Jillian's abilities to make me want to melt into a sobbing, sweaty pile of defeat, but still).

We track our missed days on a spreadsheet on Google Docs. The plan for now is to try it out for two months and reassess at the end of February to see if we like it/if it's working for us/if we want to continue. The $5 fee isn't going to break the bank if we miss a few days, but it will add up, and knowing that I have to pay my friends at the end of the two months is going to keep me motivated to work out (and will keep me honest -- if I owe money to someone I see regularly as opposed to a general pool that will be donated to charity or go towards a celebration of our success at the end, I'm a lot less likely to lie about missing days because I will have to look that person in the eye and tell them I don't owe them money, and I'd feel really shitty about lying to a friend's face).

So that's Fat Bet. I'm excited about it and I think it'll be good for me. Anyone else want in? There's plenty of room on the spreadsheet and Betsy and I would love to have company in our misery!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2011 Wrap-up

2011-12-30T13:43:00.007-05:00

Everyone -- and I mean EVERY.ONE. (I was going to link to them but there are just too damn many. Check out my blogroll over on the right if you want, that's a lot of them right there) -- seems to be doing this wrap-up, so I guess I'll join the herd. I've never done one before, but I like it.

Warning: Half of the answers to this are "I had a baby" or "My baby". Sorry. It was a babyful year.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
I had a baby!

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't really make New Year's resolutions. I do have a few for this year (see end of last post) and I'm going to add a couple more to that list: Get better about doing weekly meal plans, and be better about making Kevin's lunches for work so we can save some money by him not eating lunch out every day. Also, Fat Bet. (Expect a more comprehensive post on this later.)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Lots of people! Me, for one; Betsy; Meghan; Kristen. Shannon and Emma got pregnant, but won't have their babies till next year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thankfully, no.

5. What countries did you visit?
I did not visit any other countries. The farthest I traveled this year was Maryland.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you didn't have in 2011?
A second pregnancy. (I haven't really WANTED a second pregnancy in 2011, though I wouldn't have been sad to find out I was pregnant after Lorelai hit the six-month mark, but it's something I'd like to have in 2012 that I did not have in 2011.)

7. What dates from 2011 will be etched upon your memory, and why?
February 27, the day that Lorelai was supposed to arrive and did not. March 6, the day she actually did arrive.

8. What was your biggest achievement of this year?
This:

9. What was your biggest failure?
Well, we all know how I felt about having to have a C-section, so I won't detail that again here. But, that.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing major. There was that whole having-a-baby thing, and the falling-on-my-face-at-41-weeks-pregnant thing, and various baby colds (including the one that turned into bleeding-tonsil-strep-throat), but there was nothing that had me rushing to the ER or ending up in a cast.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Well, we've been pretty good about not spending a ton of extra money this year (that whole single-income thing, you know), but I will say that every time I buy a new cloth diaper, I get super happy. (NERD!)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Kevin has been positively wonderful (and, in many cases, saintly) this year as I've adjusted to my new role, and to all the hormonal mood swings that come with new motherhood. Although Lorelai gets an honorable mention because when she's not being a pain in the rear, she's positively the most delightful child ever to grace the planet.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
There's one acquaintance who's been epically manipulative and bitchy, and I find her behavior pretty appalling. It doesn't impact me in the slightest, as she hasn't been manipulative or bitchy to ME, but the fact that any human being can be as backstabby as she is just blows my mind.

14. Where did most of your money go?
To the mortgage. Although if we didn't have insurance, the hospital would have gotten a lovely chunk, too.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Well, we all know the answer to that one. But aside from that, I'm pretty stoked about PJs at TJ's.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
"Soft Kitty", Sheldon's sick-song on The Big Bang Theory. I sing it to Lorelai when she's sick or being epically crabby. And sometimes I sing it to myself just because I like it.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: A) happier or sadder? B) thinner or fatter? C) richer or poorer?
A) Happier. Also, significantly more comfortable, as I can now eat a normal-sized meal without feeling my stomach sitting up in my ribcage.

B) You would think I'd say thinner as I am no longer pregnant, but the answer is actually fatter. Because last year I had an excuse for why I weighed what I weighed; this year, it's just because I'm too lazy to work out and I haven't adjusted my cookie intake accordingly.

C) Poorer. That whole single-income+kid thing, you know.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
There are a few specific instances in which I wish I'd asserted myself a bit more with certain people. Because I didn't, I now have to figure out how to assert myself in similar situations with them in the future without having it seem like it's coming totally out of the blue.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
I wish I'd spent less time wanting Lorelai to let me put her down in the early days. I didn't realize that those "all I want to do is sleep on your chest, Mama" days are short-lived, and I should have relished them more because now, I will actually sit up in the middle of the night for an extra 10-15 minutes just because that's the only time she will sleep on me anymore and I cherish those moments more than sleep (which should tell you something, because I LOVE sleep).

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Christmas Eve at our house with Kevin's family, Christmas morning just the three of us, Christmas afternoon at our house with my family.

21. Did you fall in love with 2011?
I'm ... not really sure what that means. So, I guess no?

22. What was your favorite TV program?
Sons of Anarchy. I know it wasn't the first season, but I didn't discover it till this year. SO GOOD.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Tiny Prints.

24. What was the best book you read?
Ready Player One was really good. (Affiliate link, because why not?)

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Savage Garden Pandora station. It's like high school all over again.

26. What did you want and get?

(The baby, not the jumperoo.)

27. What did you want and not get?

Twenty pounds lighter.

28. What was your favorite film of 2011?
I really don't know that I saw any really good movies. The Winnie the Pooh movie was cute. I don't know that it's my favorite, but it's the only one I can think of that I actually liked. (Was it 2011 or 2010? I don't even know.) Oh, I didn't hate The Hangover Part II. I did, however, dislike Bridesmaids.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 29 on Thanksgiving, so we went to my aunt and uncle's house for turkey and other assorted yummies.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Sleep. If Lorelai was one of those babies who started sleeping 12 straight hours by two months and never deviated from that, I would have truly been the happiest woman alive this past year.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept of 2011?
If it wasn't yoga pants, I considered it "dressing up". Bonus points if it was the first time I'd worn it that week.

32. What kept you sane?
Kevin letting me sleep in on the weekends. Also, black and white cookies and pedicures.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?
Ha. Politics? Do you people know me at all?

34. Who did you miss?
I missed my friend Steven, who died a few years ago and I randomly think of from time to time. I missed Lorelai when I spent the night away from her those two times. I missed Kevin when he was on business trips. I missed my cats (one of whom died years ago, the other of whom lives with my parents because Kevin is allergic to her). I missed my grandmothers (and my grandfathers, but I was much, much closer to my grandmothers and their absence at family gatherings always hits me, and I really missed them when Lorelai was born and I though about the fact that they'd never meet her, because they would have ADORED her.)

35. Who was the best new person you met?
Three guesses.36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
We parents are all doing the best we know how to do. Sometimes we screw up, and sometimes we're pleasantly surprised by how well something works, but we're all doing the best we can.

37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"From your head to your toes,
You're not much, goodness knows;
But you're so precious to me,
Cute as can be, baby of mine."

Calling it.

2011-12-26T18:36:00.002-05:00

(Sorry if anyone sees like three blank posts by this name in your reader. I was trying to blog from Kevin's iPad, which proved to be impossible -- the iPad's Safari browser doesn't recognize that the area in which you type your post is an area in which it should bring up a keyboard, and I managed to publish a few blank posts while trying to make it cooperate.)

(On that note, is there a good blogging app for the iPad? I like Blogpress for my iPhone, and have also used Blogwriter, but neither of those exist for the iPad.)

I've officially quit nursing. I'm feeling an odd mix of sadness and relief about it. The past two months have been rough, what with losing my supply and then getting it (mostly) back, only to have Lorelai develop the unfortunate habits of biting down hard to signal she's done (what's wrong with just letting go, kid?) and thrashing about any time I try to use a nursing cover, which means I can't nurse in public/around others anymore (so she's been getting more and more bottles because I'm not going to go hide in another room every time she needs to eat when we're out, and if I want to keep my supply I have to then pump as soon as we get home to make up for the missed feeding, so blarg to that). I'm having to supplement each feeding with a couple ounces of formula anyway, so really I was hanging on to nursing out of a combination of stubbornness and a desire to maintain that snuggly bond. But the snuggling doesn't happen anymore (see above, RE: thrashing) and I'm sick of being bitten. (The past couple of days she's decided that the left side is good for biting only -- she won't even try to nurse, she just chomps down and then grins at me. Brat.)

So today, I told Kevin I was done. He'd suggested the last time I mentioned this that maybe I should take it to the end of the year, get a clean break on January 1 just because why not make it an even end-of-month thing, but I honestly think that would be harder for me. This way, the last time I nursed her, I didn't know it was the last time, so I wasn't trying to make it into a beautiful, magical, take-a-snapshot-with-my-mind moment (which it inevitably wouldn't have been, what with the thrashing and biting), so there's no frustration about that.

I just put her to bed without nursing her first for the first time ever. I gave her a bottle, read her a book, put her in her crib. I did cry a little, I'll admit. I am sad that there will be no more snuggly nursing sessions, with her little hand gripping the edge of my tank top while I kiss the top of her head and breathe in the smell of baby shampoo, but the fact is, it hasn't been like that in months. Lately, instead of holding my shirt, she's been pinching and smacking my boob if my letdown doesn't come as fast as she'd like it to. I haven't been able to kiss the top of her head while she nurses because if I don't hold her just so, she gets distracted and pops off and then I drip milk all over both of us while I try to get her back on.

So, no more breastfeeding. I miss the way it used to be, but I am mostly relieved to be throwing in the towel on the pain in the ass that it's been the past couple of months. And I'm proud of myself for being able to admit that it's time to be done, instead of trying to force something that wasn't making anyone happy. I'm a stubborn person, so to be able to say, "You know what? It's not worth it" is a big step for me.

Anyway, enough about my boobs.

Obviously I failed at my goal of blogging daily this month. Even though at the beginning of the month I said, "Oh, if I don't have time or don't feel like posting, I can just put up a cute picture of the baby!", I learned that sometimes I would forget to post, and other times I did not have the time or energy for even a picture-only post. (This past week was one of those times. Gads, it was a busy week.)

But, you know, whatever. I still managed to blog more often than I have since Lorelai came into the picture, so that's something. Something I'm going to try to keep up in 2012.

Probably everyone is going to be doing resolution posts in the next week or so. I'm not going to do an official one; partly because I don't really do resolutions and partly because the few I do have are not enough to create an entire post about. So I'll do a resolution paragraph(s) instead:

1) Kevin and I have decided to each lost 10 pounds by Lorelai's birthday. That will put me back at my pre-baby weight, and if I can get there, I plan to go another five to seven pounds, because my pre-baby weight was the heaviest I'd been to that point and I really miss being a size six. (I know, boo-freaking-hoo, I'm complaining about being an eight now, but you know, for someone who's used to being 10 or more pounds UNDER the recommended weight for her height [5'7"], because that's just how my body used to be no matter what I did, being AT the recommended weight for my height is jarring. And if I lose 15-17 pounds, it'll put me at or just slightly below the recommended weight for my height, and I'll be thrilled.)

2) I want to blog at roughly the rate I've been blogging this month -- I won't aim for daily, but a few times a week will be good.

3) I want to slow down. I need to stop and smell the proverbial roses more, to focus on the present rather than the future, and I'm really going to try to focus on that this year. I'm going to try to stop taking on more than I can handle and then forcing myself to do it all even though there's no way I can do it and stay sane. It's not fair to me or to my family for me to be a burned-out bundle of frayed nerves half the time, so I'm not going to be. Or at least, I'm going to try not to bed. We'll see how that works out.

What about you all? What are your resolutions, and do you think you'll actually keep them?

Merry Christmas and thank you.

2011-12-25T09:25:00.001-05:00

On Thursday, I delivered 10 night-night bags to our local abused women's shelter.

On Friday ...

... I delivered 40 bags ...

... to our local homeless shelter. The bags took up the trunk of my Murano, the passenger seat, and the seat next to the car seat. There are currently at least 36 children in those two shelters. Thanks to the generosity of my family, friends, and the blog community, I was able to give each of those children a Christmas present, with some left over for the next wave of kids who arrive at those shelters. Thank you to everyone who donated to this project. I could not have done this without you. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and a Joyous Festivus and New Year to you and yours.

How Snapfish saved Christmas.

2011-12-19T16:47:00.004-05:00

Okay, I know you're all sick of hearing about how mad I am at Tiny Prints, but this is a whole separate issue that needs to be shared.

Despite my dislike of them, I ordered our Christmas cards through them because I got 50 cards free for having blogged about their cards, back before any of the shit hit the fan with the photo contest. Kevin and I decided it was better to use the code and just put a sticker over their logo on the back, thus not advertising them but still getting free cards, than to pay Shutterfly or another site for cards.

I ordered them on Sunday the 11th and paid for expedited printing/shipping to have them arrive last Friday, the 16th.

Shocker, they did not arrive. So Saturday we stayed on hold with their live chat for over 30 minutes, got down to being number nine in the queue, and got booted out of the system. So we called, and after being on hold for 45 minutes (at this point it was more about the principal of it than anything), we were told that there was a delay in printing, the cards would arrive Monday (today), and they'd refund the shipping costs.

Guess what didn't arrive today? Guess what didn't even SHIP till today, per the live chat agent I just spoke to? Guess what was sent 2-day mail instead of overnight, even though they knew this order was already three days late?

Guess what I'm refusing and having sent back to them when it does get here? I have no use for 50 cards that won't get sent out. Let THEM deal with recycling the cards.

Luckily, Snapfish allows you to place a photo card order to be printed at a Walgreens one-hour photo (only on glossy photo paper, which I don't prefer, but whatever), so I will be able to pick the cards up tonight. So there is still hope for us to get our cards out in time to arrive on, like, December 24th.

(Oh, hey, I just now got the shipment confirmation email for my cards. Way to be on the ball, Tiny Prints!)

So, if you have been expecting a card from me and haven't gotten it yet, it's Tiny Prints' fault. Tiny Prints tried to ruin your Christmas. But Snapfish saved Christmas! Yay Snapfish!

And if you haven't figured it out already from my previous situation with them, Tiny Prints sucks. Don't order from them.

Walking with the push-toy. Oy vey.

2011-12-18T21:24:00.003-05:00

Guess who pulled up onto one of the push-toys today and started pushing it? And then walked behind it? Only for a second, but still.

Her new favorite thing in the whole wide world is standing up, but she's getting bored with pulling up on the sofa and ottomans, so I'm glad she has something else to pull up on, but this is WAY too busy a week for her to be doing stuff that is going to require constant supervision!

Still, it's pretty awesome. And sad, because she's still a baby, but she's not a BABY anymore. She's turning into a little girl and it's happening too fast and someone make it stop!

I know. I know.

2011-12-17T22:32:00.001-05:00

It's been three days since I blogged. So much for blogging daily. It's just been a very busy few days and I completely forgot.

But someone learned that she can pull up on things besides the ottoman and Mommy and Daddy's legs. I set her down where the bottle is in the picture and went to rinse the queso dip out of my scarf (am such a hot mess) and when I came back a minute or so later, I found this.

And then she started cruising back and forth from one end of the crib to the other. She just figured out crawling a week ago, I do not think it is time for cruising on furniture yet.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Day 14: Nine months.

2011-12-14T10:24:00.003-05:00

Lorelai turned nine months old last Tuesday. I'm a week late on posting this, and still haven't gotten her 9-month picture because she won't sit still enough for me to take it without a second set of hands to distract her, but at least I'm finally getting this post up.

I have to say, overall, I haven't been overly impressed with nine months. She's suddenly stopped sleeping again (we'd gotten her to go from 8-5:30 consistently for like a week and a half and now all of a sudden she's back to waking at 3 and 4:30 before she's finally up for the day between 6:30 and 7:30), and she's been really clingy and fussy the past week.

Of course, she's an absolutely delight in public, or when there's someone else (anyone else) around, but when it's just us at home, she's a brat.

Oh, and then there's the "throw everything on the floor" stage. She will daintily pick up whatever is on her high chair tray, hang her hand over the side, and drop it. It's delightful. (The only thing she's not dainty about is her sippy cup -- that, she flings with all her might. I don't understand it.)

But nine months has brought some cool things too. She says hi, cat ("at"), does a dance party on command, high fives, claps, has gotten really good at feeding herself (and will eat just about anything we put in front of her, which means we can feed her whatever we're eating), is taking naps at relatively consistent times, and has extended her bedtime to 8 instead of 7 (so not only do we get more time with her in the evenings, she also sleeps later -- no more 5:30 wakeups, thank GOD) (although now that I said that, I've doomed myself to three weeks of 5:30 wakeups, I'm sure). She's crawling, pulling up, climbing all over us and everything else, and is really just an absolute delight when she's in a good mood.

I find her in the most random places if I turn my back for
a moment, now that she's mobile.

Knock on wood, she's been relatively uninterested in the Christmas tree and the presents underneath it. She did beeline for them once yesterday, but I distracted her with a toy and she hasn't tried to get to them again. She likes to look at the tree when it's lit up, but she sits calmly on my hip to do that.

Current favorite things include "The Backyardigans", her purple zebra, her hippo and frog loveys (she's going to take those things to college with her, I swear), being outside, being inside but out in public, trying new foods, squealing with glee at the top of her lungs when we're out in public, and yogurt melts.

Current least favorite things are having her diaper changed, having her clothes changed, being told she can't chew on my computer cord, being put down for naps, waking up from naps, and being told she can't pull all the books off the bookshelf and eat them.

I may have posted this picture here already. But I really love it.

Day 13: In which I am once again a day late.

2011-12-14T10:22:00.002-05:00

I spent yesterday in Target. (I was there for like two and a half hours, though it felt like MUCH longer.) By the time I left, I'd pretty much lost the will to live, and thus forgot to blog.

The worst part? I STILL don't have all my Christmas shopping done. I'm at the point where it's stressing me out too much and everyone left on my list is probably getting Starbucks gift cards.

Inappropriate Elf contest link

2011-12-12T21:08:00.002-05:00

Oh, and the list of Inappropriate Elf photos has gone live. Go check it out, there are a lot of entertaining ones. Vote for your favorites. Vote for me. Don't vote at all. Whatever you feel like. But check it out because it's funny.

Day 12: In which I join Pinterest.

2011-12-12T20:56:00.002-05:00

I held off for SO.LONG. but Betsy finally managed to get me on Pinterest.

(For anyone who's been living under a rock or just doesn't spend all that much time online [Mom], Pinterest is essentially an online corkboard[s] that you can "pin" stuff to. I have a board for clothes, a board for diaper stuff [NERD!], a board for recipes [that I will probably never, ever use], etc.)

I have refrained from joining up til now because I know that it's just one more thing for me to get sucked into online. And quite frankly, I've got plenty of online things sucking me in without Pinterest. But Betsy talked me into it, and I will admit that it's handy to pin stuff instead of bookmarking it, because I like that I can assign a picture to it instead of having to rely on the text to help me remember what the link is.

It confuses me, though. People keep showing up in my feed, or whatever it's called on Pinterest, even though I've unfollowed them or was never following them to begin with -- I don't like that it automatically followed everyone on Pinterest who is also my Facebook friend, because quite frnakly, I just don't care about most of those people's pins. I can't figure out why, if you look at who I follow, it says I'm still following all 37 of those random Facebook people even though I unfollowed all but like 4 of them immediately. Or why not all of my Facebook friends were auto-followed. Or why there are people I don't follow showing up in my feed.

But, in general, I think I'm probably going to like having a visual bookmark list.

(If someone can tell me how to put a "Follow me on Pinterest" button on here, I will do it, though I'll warn you that most of my pins are going to be about cloth diapers.)

***

Kevin has been asking all our friends, "If your life was a reality show, what would it be called?" We've gotten some pretty entertaining responses. My answer is "The Glitter Hippie", which is a term Betsy and I coined for me because I am a strange breed of hippie -- I'm all "Let me use cloth diapers and make my own cloth diapers and make my own baby food and breastfeed my kid for a full year and blah blah blah hippiecakes", but at the same time I'm all "Eyebrow waxes, mani-pedis, anything with sparkles in it whee!" So we decided that I'm not a regular hippie, I am a glitter hippie.

At any rate, that's a digression from the actual point of that paragraph which was: If your life was a reality show, what would it be called?

Day 11: In which Inappropriate Elf takes to the pole.

2011-12-11T18:04:00.004-05:00

Baby Rabies is having an Inappropriate Elf on a Shelf contest. Users are invited to submit their photos of their Elf on a Shelf doing things that are perhaps more amusing to the adults in the family than the kids (see: Elf on a Bender, Hoarder Elf, Arsonist Elf), for the chance to win an iPad 2.

When I told Kevin I wanted to enter this contest he said, "Oh, God, please don't." Because, as we all know, my last contest entry didn't really go so well, and I may have been a bit obsessive. The thing with this contest, though, is that while people CAN vote for their favorite entry, Jill at Baby Rabies and the sponsors of the contest are really the deciding factor in choosing the top 10, so I'm not going to bug you for votes. But I will link back to the contest when it goes live because I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of really, really funny photos.

Longtime readers (or those who know me offline) know that I work at a pole fitness studio. So of course I had to get a photo of Inappropriate Elf on a pole.

Why yes, those ARE tiny nip tassels. And yes, that pole IS my daughter's Jumperoo. What of it?

(And while I want to be very clear that my pole studio is a pole FITNESS studio, and we do not get dollar bills thrown at us while we work out, Inappropriate Elf isn't a client of ours, and apparently pole dances for more than just to burn calories.)

Day 10: In which I watch a Christmas movie.

2011-12-10T22:09:00.002-05:00

There are a lot of "what are your favorite Christmas movies?" posts floating around Twitter and Facebook. My official answer to this question is While You Were Sleeping and The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Unofficially, my answer is Die Hard.

I just realized that Bonnie Bedelia, who plays Camille Braverman (the grandmother) on Parenthood, also plays Holly Genarro (Bruce Willis' wife in the movie). Huh. (Kevin actually called that one. He recognized her voice. He's very good at that sort of thing.)

I hadn't even seen this movie until a few years ago. I thought it was a dumb action movie that didn't have much of a plot. I forgot that the '80s knew how to do movies. I now consider Die Hard one of my favorite Christmas movies, because I'm weird.

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

Day 9: In which I used up everything I was going to post about on my late day 8 post.

2011-12-09T21:31:00.003-05:00

Yep. I got nothin'. I really should have split that last post in half.

Oh, James left me a prompt the other day for just such an occasion: "Funny thoughts you've had about future-Lorelai".

I haven't really had any funny thoughts about her, though I do sort of picture her high school years being like Gilmore Girls. Which, let's be honest, it won't be. I am too old to be that awesome a mom by the time Lorelai hits high school, and there will (hopefully) be younger siblings that will keep us from having that only-child mother-daughter bond the way Lorelai Gilmore and Rory did. I do hope I remain fashion-conscious enough that she will want to borrow my clothes (not that I'm fashion-conscious now, but I have a few good outfits) but not so fashion-conscious that I'm one of those 43-going-on-16 moms.

If I'm being honest with myself, my relationship with my children is going to be more Kristina Braverman than Lorelai Gilmore. (Please tell me you all watch Parenthood. It is so brilliant.) Possibly, if I'm very lucky and play my cards right, my relationship with Lorelai will be a little bit Tami-and-Julie-Taylor. (RIP, Friday Night Lights.) But probably I will be Kristina Braverman.

Which is really unfortunate, because while I like her character for what she does for the show, I don't really like her as a person. I think I would avoid her in real life. Like, at all costs.

But, it could be worse. I could be Amber from Teen Mom. Or, God forbid, Janelle from Teen Mom 2.

(I don't like to judge other peoples' parenting, because that's really not fair, but I think we can all agree that Amber and Janelle are not exactly parenting role models. It may not be their fault, but it is what it is.)

Who are your parenting role models?

Day 8: In which I am a day late.

2011-12-09T20:54:00.003-05:00

I know, a week in and I've already skipped a day. In my head, I wrote a post. I just forgot to actually, you know, WRITE that post.

But I wrote two the day before, so that counts for something, right?

I'm so, so excited about this Project Night Night thing. It's looking like we're going to need to put together at least 75 bags, which means my new goal is $260. If you have money earmarked for donations this season and haven't doled it out yet, please consider donating even a few dollars to this drive. Seventy-five bags means 75 homeless kids in a 10-miles-each-way triangle around my house. That is just mind-boggling to me. I am really having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that there are that many children in my area who don't have homes right now.

I have a lot to post about, including Lorelai's 9-month (!!!) post, but I don't have the energy or brainpower for that post right now. Also, I haven't taken her 9-month picture yet, because Kevin was out of town and she refuses to sit still long enough to take a picture, so I need a second set of hands to distract her while I take it.

I also have another contest I'm entering that I need to tell you guys about (don't worry, it's not a cute baby thing, and it's not something that really even requires votes, though you certainly can vote if you like; after that Tiny Prints mess I'm done with cute baby contests). (Oh, I know I said I'm moving on, but I do have to share that Tiny Prints finally did respond to me ... to tell me that Lorelai's photo was never posted as a finalist, she never received any votes, here's a $25 off your next purchase code, GARSMASHROAR *HEADDESK*. The end.)

(Oh, wait. They also started following me on Twitter. Probably to make sure I don't post another "Don't use Tiny Prints, they have terrible QA and customer service" tweet.)

And finally, I do have this to share:

("Look at that very exciting thing that is nowhere near the camera!!!")

Project Night Night

2011-12-07T11:56:00.008-05:00

(This is NOT a sponsored post. I learned about this organization and I want to help. Everything in the post is my own thoughts and words, and I am not being compensated by Project Night Night in any way for writing this.)

The Bloggess posted the other day about an organization called Project Night Night, which puts together tote bags filled with a security blanket, a book, and a stuffed animal for children aged 0-10 in homeless shelters across the country. I did a bit of research, and here in Northern Virginia, we have FOUR homeless shelters -- three of which are within a 30-minute drive from my own house.

You guys, this boggles my mind. I live in a fairly well-to-do area. The idea that there is a need for this many homeless shelters practically in my backyard breaks my heart. I can't think about this without my eyes welling up at how incredibly fortunate my family is to have what we have, and how the mothers of these children must feel at not even being able to provide a proper home for their children during the holidays. It just ... it breaks my heart into a million tiny little pieces.

So, here's what I'm doing. I've organized a drive at my dance studio to collect toys, blankets, and books to put together night night packages for the children in those shelters this Christmas (well, during the holidays -- I selected the week before Christmas as my drop-off time because it's a hard deadline that also coincides with Hannukah, which begins December 20th).

And here's how you can help. See that yellow "Donate" button over on the right? That button will take you to PayPal. Please consider donating even just a few dollars to this cause, to help provide a simple but much-appreciated comfort for a homeless child. The totes bags themselves are $3.50, and must be purchased by the volunteers putting together the packages (to offset costs of making and shipping the bags for the organization). If you can donate even $3.50, that will ensure that a homeless child gets a toy, and blanket, and a book for the holidays. All the money collected through that link will be used by me to purchase tote bags and the items to go in them. If, between PayPal and the drive at the studios, we raise more money than we need to make the bags, then all the extra money will go directly to Project Night Night.

If you are in the Northern Virginia area and would like to volunteer to help put the packages together, or would like to drop off a toy, book, or blanket, please tell me and I will let you know how you can do that.

Please take a moment and help make a homeless child's holiday season just a little bit happier. Emily recently raised over $2,000 to purchase diapers for families in our area who can't afford them. I have no idea how many more/fewer readers she has than I do, but if she can raise $2,000, I am hoping I can raise at least $175, which would be enough to buy the tote bags for 50 children.

(Emily offered to run a 5K in a diaper if she raised her goal amount [she didn't quite hit her goal, but she ran in a diaper anyway]. What would you all like me to do? Wear a pair of ridiculous footie pajamas out somewhere in public? Because I will do that. In a heartbeat. You pick the place, it just has to be in the DC area.)

**EDITED TO ADD: I just realized that PayPal takes 2.9% + 30 cents out of each donation, so in order to donate the $3.50 needed for a bag, you'd really have to donate $3.91 (thanks Jessica, for correcting my shoddy math!). Also, I'll update the total amount underneath the button daily so you can see where we are.

Day 7: In which I move on.

2011-12-07T11:38:00.003-05:00

Tiny Prints never responded to the email I sent on Monday, and they just received a second email, which basically said Shame on you, Tiny Prints, for never bothering to apologize or acknowledge that a mistake was made. I hope you at least apologized to the parents of the baby who lost half a day's votes because of your screw-up.

It's not about whether she was a finalist; it's about the fact that no one will admit that they made a mistake and apologize for it. So, they got this email and an unhappy (but professionally-worded, I think) note on their Facebook wall, and now I'm done with them. I'm not even going to use them for my Christmas cards, despite the fact that since I blogged about the promotion I get 50 free cards. I'd rather pay Shutterfly for cards than advertise for them by letting them put their logo on the back of my cards.

I've got another post coming in a moment, but it's on a totally different topic and deserves its own space. I just wanted to update everyone and suggest that you take your cards-and-photos business to Shutterfly instead of Tiny Prints, because Shutterfly has always been wonderful to me.

Day 6: In which I am possibly a little more indignant than I should be.

2011-12-06T15:28:00.002-05:00

Tiny Prints has still not responded to any of my inquiries with anything other than, "The finalists were notified by email."

I get it. I didn't get an email, Lorelai's not a finalist, whatever. That's not the issue. Yeah, I'm disappointed that she's not a finalist, but that's really not why I'm upset. The issue is that a mistake was made wherein in appeared that she WAS a finalist, and no one over there is acknowledging that the error happened, and no one has said, "I'm so sorry for the mistake, let me see if I can find out how that happened". Every job I've hear held has been in customer service or quality assurance, and they've dropped the ball on both counts here. The first rule of customer service is that the customer is always right, and thus you apologize for the error and try to make it better. The first rule of QA is that you do a check before you send things live so that stuff like the wrong person being listed as a finalist doesn't happen.

And poor baby Rudy, who SHOULD have been listed from the beginning, got cheated out of half a day's worth of votes because his picture wasn't showing up. (Unless they transferred all of Lorelai's votes to him, which still doesn't really fix the problem because the competition is still compromised. But at least he got some votes that morning.) If you haven't already unliked Tiny Prints on Facebook, I suggest you go show your support for Rudy (who is a cutie, in his little duck towel) and vote for him.

Tiny Prints has until tomorrow morning to respond to my email from last night before I rain internet hellfire and brimstone down upon them. For their own sake, they'd better give me some answers and an apology (and I hope they apologized profusely to Rudy's parents!), or else my little corner of the interwebz is gonna be raging. Because I think they think that if they ignore me, I'll go away. They obviously do not know the tenacity that is a scorned Erin.

Please hold; system processing.

2011-12-05T19:55:00.002-05:00

So, it looks like Lorelai may not have been a finalist after all.

I'm still waiting on confirmation from Tiny Prints as to whether a glitch allowed her photo to show up when it shouldn't have, or if her photo has been replaced with someone else's when it shouldn't have been. Needless to say, I'm a bit on edge and annoyed that there was a glitch, regardless of what the glitch is. Whichever baby is actually a finalist lost out on half a day's votes due to his/her photo not being available to be voted on (although if the other baby is the true finalist, I wonder if he got all the votes meant for Lorelai from before the issue was fixed).

I'll report back when I know more. If they got my hopes up for nothing, I'm gonna be pissed.

Day 5: In which I am so excited that Lorelai and I just had a squealing contest and I actually won.

2011-12-05T08:18:00.002-05:00

Look who made the finals!!!!!

Which means you have to hear about it again until December 16. Sorry guys.

I may come back and do a more thorough post later today, but for the moment I have a top-10 cutest baby who needs snuggling.

Day 4: In which I almost head upstairs to bed without posting.

2011-12-04T21:42:00.002-05:00

Leave it to me to almost forget to post four days into my daily posting month.

Oh, speaking of things I almost forgot, I have to go move the Elf on the Shelf. Not that Lorelai notices now, but one year she will, and I need to take advantage of her being too young to notice right now to get in the habit of moving it nightly.

Okay, it's not sitting on top of the speaker by the TV, where it can totally creep me out all day long tomorrow. (I'm just moving it counter-clockwise around the main level. Every day it goes to the next most perch-able spot to its right. I'm not being very creative this year.)

(Also, we named our elf Elfaba. If you know why this is funny to us, you and I are clearly meant to be friends.)

Anyway. James left me a prompt last night to discuss pirates. I don't really have much to say about pirates, though if you say the word to me the first thing I think of is the one-act James wrote our ... junior? ... year of high school, in which I played Zeke the (female) pirate captain and our friend Bru was a crazy clown. That's really all I remember of it, but I know James still has the script somewhere so I should probably reread it and refresh my memory about why it was so hilarious to us at the time.

He also left a prompt to recount my favorite high school memory, and while I don't know that I can narrow it down to just one, talking about the Zeke pirate one-act reminded me of the time we turned Matt Groening's "King of Monster Island" cartoon into a scene for drama class (senior year? or junior? I don't remember). I played the older kid and James played the younger one, and it was hands-down one of my favorite scenes I did in class. I'm reasonably sure no one else found it half as amusing as we did.

And James? I just decided that if you and K have another daughter, you should name her Tina. (Except I'd probably laugh every time I said her name, and she'd get a lot of monster presents from me, so then again maybe you shouldn't do that.)

All right, now that I've waxed poetic about pirates, Tina, and that stupid Elf that is probably going to cause a lot of heartburn for me in the future when I forget to move it, it is time for me to go to bed. Day 4 down.

(Oh, and also, Tiny Prints has not emailed me that Lorelai is a finalist. Which either means she isn't, or they haven't finished tallying yet. They're on west coast time, though, so they get an extra three hours. I guess I'll know in the morning.)

Day 3, in which I can't seem to stay on topic.

2011-12-03T17:57:00.006-05:00

I don't really have a topic, is the problem. I have a bunch of mini-topics. So this post will probably be pretty annoying to read. I apologize in advance.

The Harmony pump is pretty awesome. I mean, it makes my hand hurt, and I don't get a ton of milk, but it doesn't hurt! And I get suction! It's a whole different world from my electric pump, which has me really wondering if my electric pump had something wrong with it from the beginning. Everyone told me pumping isn't supposed to hurt, but it was never a pleasant experience for me. Now, I can see the milk squirting out but it's not uncomfortable at all. WIN.

We still haven't heard from Tiny Prints, which means either Lorelai is not a finalist, or they haven't contacted the finalists yet. I'm dying over here.

Yesterday I learned about this thing called Swagbucks, that lets you earn points for using their search engine. You can redeem the points for Amazon gift cards and the like. Sounded like a great plan, so I downloaded the toolbar. And Firefox has not worked since. And I can't get the toolbar to uninstall because Firefox freezes up before I can get it uninstalled. And when I try to uninstall Firefox and reinstall, figuring that would get rid of the toolbar, it reinstalls with the damn toolbar. Sigh. So I'm stuck using Safari, which is fine, but it's irksome. I want Firefox back.

*EDIT: Just kidding. Not three seconds after I posted that I tried Firefox again, and it's working fine and allowed me to remove the toolbar. Go figure.

If you actually read this far, you deserve a cookie. I promise tomorrow I will find some sort of prompt of something to help me out if I can't think of a decent topic.

(Baby on the move! This is a lousy picture because it was taken on Kevin's cell phone. But in this photo she is a good 15 feet from where he put her down in the middle of the living room. She's still not crawling-crawling, but the weird sit-and-roll thing she does is pretty effective.)

Day 2: In which I am somewhat less frantic than yesterday.

2011-12-02T20:44:00.003-05:00

To those of you who have emailed, tweeted, or commented about my breastfeeding drama, thank you. Jessica linked to a few posts she'd written when going through the same thing with her daughter; my friend Vanessa sent me a very, very sweet email; a lot of my Twitter friends have commented that they've gone through similar things. I know yesterday's post may have been a tad dramatic. But it wasn't NEARLY as dramatic as it could have been. (Seriously, ask anyone who's known me in real life and they will tell you that yesterday's post was positively tame compared to the state I am capable of working myself into over much less important things.)

I bought a manual pump today. (The Medela Harmony, if anyone cares.) Lorelai was being squirmy and not in the mood to nurse, so she got a bottle and I hooked up to my electric pump (Medela Pump In Style, bought used off Craigslist [yes, I replaced all the "personal" parts, I just bought the actual bag and motor part used]) and realized that I was getting almost no suction at all. Kevin came downstairs while I was fiddling with it, trying to get it to work, and I said, "I think the lactation chick I talked to on the phone was right. This pump's motor is shot. I'm going to Target to get a manual pump."

We went back and forth for a few bit about whether I should get a manual one or buy another electric one, since I'll need it for the next baby anyway, but decided that for now, the manual one would be fine. It will never be a bad thing to have a smaller, more portable pump on hand, and with the holidays coming, a $300 pump just isn't in the budget (I may try another used one, but I'd get a newer used one, and that'll still be pricey and you can't use a credit card on Craigslist!). Plus, since I'm only pumping to trick my body into making more milk (or to make up for missed feedings), I don't really need something hardcore right now.

I haven't had a chance to use the Harmony yet, but I'll report back when I do.

In the meantime, here's a baby picture:

FaNaBloPoMo: Day 1

2011-12-01T13:17:00.002-05:00

(That would be Fake National Blog Posting Month. Because the real thing ended yesterday, but I'm doing my own in December. Because I did not get on the November bandwagon in time.)

So. That whole "vote for Lorelai" thing is done for the time being. They're supposed to email the finalists sometime tomorrow, and then voting for them will commence on Monday. Enjoy your respite from my haranguing!

I called the lactation specialist at Lorelai's pediatrician today, figuring that if she didn't have any other advice for me, then it may be time to concede defeat and admit that I'm not going to get my supply back. She didn't have any other advice. She said, and I quote, "It really sounds like you've done everything you can do. But since you are still producing SOME milk, you can keep nursing, you'll just have to supplement."

Which I guess I have to be okay with. I mean, like she said, I've done EVERYTHING I can do, and it's just not enough. At least I can still nurse some. I'm just bummed that I couldn't make it to a year nursing full-time. That arbitrary goal I set for myself seemed within reach for so long, and I'm annoyed that I didn't make it.

Kevin told me the other night not to be stubborn for the sake of being stubborn -- that if my body is really telling me to give it up, then I should just listen to it, instead of doing all these ridiculous things (like ordering these specific antacids from New Zealand because sometimes they boost your milk supply -- the lady at the hospital actually suggested that) to try and force it to do what I want.

But here's the thing. Anyone who's known me for any length of time can vouch that I have a long, long history of being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.

But, after talking to the woman today, I am in a much better place emotionally than I was after my appointment last week. I feel like my supply is back to about 65-70%, which is enough that I don't feel it's time to call it quits completely. I'll keep supplementing, but she's still getting a lot from me, and since she loves to nurse, there's no real reason for me to stop altogether.

I told Kevin last night that part of my not wanting to quit is my fear of judgment. He thinks I'm crazy, and I know this is not one of my more rational thought processes, but I can't help it.

I think there are three kinds of moms out there (this applies to all aspects of parenting but let's focus specifically on breastfeeding here): 1) The ones who recognize that every other mom is doing the best she can for her kid, whether that means nursing, formula, or a combination (I and all my close friends fall into this category, and I think most people do); 2) the ones who judge you for nursing your baby in public because OMG BOOBS GROSS; and 3) the ones who judge you for giving your baby formula because don't you know that breast is best? Do you not love your child enough to give her the best possible thing for her?

And this is where the fear of judgment comes in. (Maybe "fear" is too strong a word. "Awareness" might be better.) I am always aware that someone who doesn't know me is judging me on something, and it drives me crazy. I know that no one who actually knows me judges me for my parenting choices, but the idea that some woman sees me give Lorelai a bottle of formula and assumes I didn't try hard enough or I don't care about my daughter enough to breastfeed really bugs me, because I don't get to explain to that woman WHY I've made the choice I've made.

This same fear/awareness is what turns perfectly sane women into bridezillas. Someone, somewhere, will judge you for not doing XYZ, and we can't have that.

It's what turns parenting into a competition. (Don't give me that crap about it not being a competition. If you say it's not, you're probably the biggest competitor. It may not be a "my kid is better than yours" type of competition, but we can't help but weigh how our kids hit milestones, etc., against other kids. And when our kid walks sooner, or says more words and a younger age, we're a little smug, even if only in our heads. Don't say you don't do it too. You tell me that and I tell you that you are a liar.)

I think especially in my little cloth diapering, baby food making, baby wearing, hippie corner of the parenting world (God, I never thought I'd identify myself as a hippie parent, but there you go) I feel like I will be judged. If I use a disposable diaper, if I give her a jar of store-bought food, if I mix up a bottle of formula. One of those other hippie moms will think less of me, and I won't know who she is or have the chance to defend my choices, which should mean she doesn't matter but in reality it matters that much MORE because I am weird.

I know. I'm damaged. I know that even if some mythical hippie mom IS judging me, it doesn't matter. I do the best I can, as do we all, and if someone else doesn't like it, too damn bad. Especially if it's someone I will likely never meet and thus will never know they don't like it. But we all have our neuroses and this is mine.

(This isn't a new-since-becoming-a-mother thing, either. I've always feared the judgment of imaginary people, just like I fear imaginary authority figures.)

(By which I mean I will go out of my way to put something back on the shelf I got it from rather than leave it on the closest shelf, because if I just leave it wherever some imaginary authority figure will pop out from a corner and yell at me.)

(I SAID I know I'm broken. I can't help it. At least I acknowledge it.)

So. Now that I've laid bare all my weird mental hangups, how about y'all share some of yours to make me feel better about how weird I am?

Last one, I promise.

2011-11-30T09:34:00.004-05:00

Well, last one unless Lorelai's a finalist. But today is the final day of voting for the Tiny Prints contest. So if she's NOT a finalist, this is the last time I'll ask you to go vote. (Please don't use that as incentive to not vote. I post about it to make it easy for you to do it without having to go back and find the link in a previous post, not to be obnoxious.) (Even though I know I am obnoxious.)

And if anyone out there is trying to figure out the best way to get a squirming baby to let you cut her fingernails (and toenails), I have a solution. Put on "The Backyardigans". It's streaming on Netflix instant, and Lorelai is MESMERIZED. It's kind of amazing.

Oh, hey, did anyone do NaNoWriMo this month? How'd you do? I made it to a whopping 3,000 words or so. I like to pretend I'd have succeeded in hitting 50K had everyone in the house not been sick for the bulk of the month, but I know that's a lie. Even if we'd all been healthy, I would not have made it to 50K. I just had too much other stuff to do during Lorelai's naps to be able to sit down and write that much.

Oh well. Maybe another year.

Grabby.

2011-11-28T10:19:00.001-05:00

I took Lorelai to run errands yesterday and discovered that we have reached the age where it's fun to reach out and grab EVERYTHING. And then put it all into her mouth.

Related to this, I need to start vacuuming my floors multiple times a day. Who knew lint tastes so good?

She's also started using her toys as floor cushions. At first I thought it was accidental, but now I see that she is going out of her way to roll/flop so her butt is planted squarely on the nearest toy. Is this a thing? Do other babies do this? Or is mine just kinda weird?

And in non-baby news, my parents and in-laws came over Saturday to watch VT wipe the floor with UVA and they left all the baked goods they brought. Cookies, brownies, peppermint bark. And I am very hormonal right now (Aunt Flo has returned from her lovely vacation during my pregnancy and 8 months of postpartumness, and has decided that one visit this month wasn't enough so I'm hosting her for the second time in two weeks) (I know) and I am eating ALL THE THINGS. So thanks, moms, for all the food. It's your fault if I don't wear any pants at Christmas because they don't fit.

To offset some of the sweets, I made kale chips yesterday. I've never had kale before. It tastes kind of like broccoli. I keep hearing that kale chips are as good as potato chips. This is a lie. However, they are addictive and I ate almost an entire bunch of kale yesterday. In chip form.

Finally, my mom told me I've been going overboard in reminding people to vote. Sorry if I've been annoying; I was just trying to make it easy, so you didn't have to go back to previous posts to find the link. But voting ends Wednesday (unless she's a finalist) so you'll be free of my obnoxiousness soon. And I did give you a day or two of reprieve there. You're welcome!

Self portrait!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

It's hard to wrangle two babies, two dogs, and a Christmas tree.

2011-11-25T22:21:00.001-05:00

We went today to get Nick and Betsy's Christmas tree, at one of those cut-your-own places. (Kevin and I do an artificial tree because of his allergies. I'm okay with this. Real trees are messy.)

We couldn't remember the place we went last year, so we had to go to a new place this time. Which was a shame, as last year was a much less chaotic experience.

We did our Christmas card photos last year on our tree-hunting expedition, and decided to do the same this year. Nick and Betsy have two greyhounds they like to include in the pictures, and she called ahead to make sure we could bring them to this place.

As soon as we got there, every worker in the place ran over to tell us there's a no dogs rule. And every time we had to explain that we'd called ahead and were told that we could have them in the tree-cutting area, just not the area that had the hayrides and kiddie attractions.

Finally we got to go pick out a tree and take pictures. The kids weren't overly cooperative, and getting dogs to look anywhere is next to impossible too, so I have no idea if Nick and Betsy got a single decent photo. We got a few, at least.

Then the boys had to wrestle with the tree, and finally decided that the saw was too dull ad the tree was too stubborn, so we ended up going back to the front where they had precut trees and getting one of those instead.

But if nothing else, we got a few cute pictures of the kids together. And some of Lorelai wearing a silly elf hat Betsy had brought for the dogs to wear.

***
The only way you can see how many votes a picture has in the Tiny Prints contest is to vote for it. As I don't want to give anyone else in our category a vote, I decided to vote in the other categories to see what the vote range is.

You guys. Lorelai is WIPING the FLOOR with those other babies, if the other categories are any indication. I tried to find pictures that I thought would have a lot of votes, and either I picked wrong or not many people are voting, because some of the pictures I voted for only had like five votes. I think the most I saw was 14. Lorelai has ... substantially more than that.

So thanks to everyone who's voted so far. If you haven't voted today, here's the link!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thankful. Also, older.

2011-11-24T21:54:00.005-05:00

Today, I am thankful for my family. I spent the day with my husband and daughter, my parents, my in-laws, my brother and his girlfriend, my aunt and uncle and cousins, and my aunt's mother and aunt. I was surrounded with the people I love, and it was perfect. (I even got a phone call from James, who is basically my brother even though we're not technically related, so I got extra familial love today.)

I am thankful for the incredible meal my aunt and uncle cooked.

I am thankful for the four pies my mother baked, three of which I tasted (I've never been big on cherry pie), and for the birthday cake my mom kept frozen for me because she knows that Pepperidge Farm coconut cake, fresh fro the freezer, is one of my favorite things.

I am thankful for the past 29 years, and for the next 29 years, and all the years after that. Although I'll admit, 29 doesn't look like it's going to be overly exciting, so I may decide to stay 28 for a while. 28 was a good year.
I am thankful for all my friends. The happy Thanksgiving and happy birthday messages flooding my Facebook wall and my text message inbox are overwhelming. I have some truly wonderful friends, and I'm blessed to know them all.

I am thankful that my milk supply seems to be slowly rebounding, so maybe I won't have to give up nursing just yet after all.

And finally, I am thankful for each and every vote Lorelai has gotten in the Tiny Prints contest. (You guys didn't think I'd let you go a day without being reminded to vote, did you? I am nothing if not diligently obsessive.) The contest goes till November 30, unless she's a finalist, in which case it goes till December 5. So there are only a few more days of me hounding you to vote. Please vote! If she wins, that prize money is going into her college fund -- don't you want to help my baby go to college?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

That lactation appointment was a bust (BAH!)

2011-11-23T16:21:00.003-05:00

Get it? The appointment for my bust was a bust? It's a pun!

Whatever. *I* think I'm funny.

Anyway, the appointment I mentioned this morning was with a lactation consultant at the hospital where Lorelai was born. If you follow me on Twitter, you know I've been having some issues with my milk supply since I got sick a few weeks ago, and have been doing everything I can think of to boost it back up. Fenugreek, Mother's Milk tea, pumping after each feeding, skin-to-skin nursing, nursing every 45 minutes. But it hasn't really been working. I was pretty much convinced that my illness combined with Lorelai's teething (causing her to bite me a LOT, which meant she didn't nurse very long before I gave her a bottle instead because OW) had tanked my supply to the point of no return.

I spoke with one of the lactation consultants on the phone yesterday and she suggested I try More Milk Plus, a supplement that has some other herbs in addition to the fenugreek, and that I make an appointment to see someone. They'd weigh Lorelai before and after she nursed to see how much she's getting, they'd look at my pump to make sure it still works okay (as I bought it used and only replaced the accessories, there's a good chance the motor is giving out since it's not a new pump -- she also was concerned that I might be using the wrong size flanges as pumping has always been really uncomfortable for me), they'd see if they could offer any more advice. She was confident that my supply wasn't gone for good, and said if all else fails, there's an antacid that apparently increases your milk supply, and while you need a prescription to get it in the U.S., you can order it direct from the manufacturer in New Zealand and it's cheaper (and you don't have to find a doctor to write you a prescription).

So I made the appointment. And the woman I saw must have been new, because she offered absolutely nothing of use. All she wanted to do was talk about how cute Lorelai is and how cloth diapers have come a long way since she used them 20 years ago. As I was packing up to leave, thoroughly disappointed in the experience, she said, "Oh ... do you want me to look at your pump?" I said sure, and handed it over. She looked at it, and asked if I've tried a different size flange to see if it would be less painful. I said I had, and this one fit best -- the next size up barely gave me any suction at all. "All right, well, I guess everything's okay with the pump, then. Just keep taking the More Milk Plus and nursing as often as you can."

Awesome advice. So glad I gave up an hour of my day for that.

Oh, and the thing that (perhaps irrationally) annoyed me the most was that she told me when Lorelai bites, to remove her form the breast and tell her not to bite. (You think I haven't DONE that, lady?) But it was her word choice that bugged me the most. "Detach her and put her in her Bumbo or her bouncy seat, and tell her, 'No bite Mommy.'"

"No bite Mommy"? Why not "DON'T bite Mommy"?

I dunno, that one really rubbed me the wrong way. It's not like she'll understand one better than the other.

So, yeah, that whole appointment ended up being sort of a waste of time - which was a shame, because it was my free followup (the hospital Lorelai was born at offers one free followup lactation appointment, and I hadn't used mine, so this was it). On the one hand, at least I didn't pay $75 for that. But on the other, I'm annoyed that I wasted my free visit. But there is a free class (or, I guess, help session would be a better name, but they call it a class) once a week where you can go and talk to a consultant, so if the supplements don't help I can always go to that and hope a different person is running it.

In the meantime, I'm going to continue to supplement, and pump a few times a day to bump my supply up, and of course keep nursing (skin-to-skin whenever possible). Man, it's like the early days of nursing all over again!

Anybody else had any issues with supply? Were you able to boost it, and if so, what did you do?

(PS: Vote for Lorelai!)

Vote vote vote!

2011-11-23T08:49:00.002-05:00

I've got an actual post planned for today but will have to write it up later after the appointment it's about. In the meantime ...

Vote for Lorelai!

Day one of voting, day one of my incessant pleas for votes!

2011-11-22T09:32:00.002-05:00

The Tiny Prints Talent Search is open for voting, and you can vote for Lorelai here!

(At least, I think you can. If that link doesn't work, let me know. It looked like it worked for me, but I'd already voted so I'm not positive.)

You can vote once per day, although if you have access to more than one computer you can probably vote once from each computer.

Did any of you guys enter the contest? If you did, leave me a link and I will go and vote for you (as long as you're not in Lorelai's category. I'd love to vote for your baby, but not at the expense of my own. I'm sure you understand as I imagine you won't be voting for Lorelai either!)

***

I promise soon I will get back to blogging regularly. I was planning to do NaNoWriMo this year, and then got really sick and didn't have the energy. But because I was planning on doing NaNo, I didn't plan to do NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), because I knew I couldn't do both. I think I picked the wrong one, because I totally could have done NaBlo. Even if you phone it in and just post a picture, it counts.

So, I've decided I'm doing my OWN NaBloPoMo in December. I will post every day, and I will even include a picture with each post, just to show what an overachiever I am. I'll even try to make most of the pictures of Lorelai, because I'm not fooling myself that you guys come here to read my rambling -- I know you all show up every day looking for new baby pictures. But I won't guarantee they'll all be of Lorelai. There may be a day or two when I have to dig through the dregs of iPhoto and pull out a picture of, like, a chair I sold on Craigslist, or something. Just to keep you on your toes.

Anyway, if you've read this far and haven't voted yet, GO VOTE. Please?

Tiny Prints Talent Search -- Vote for Lorelai!

2011-11-16T16:19:00.005-05:00

Two posts in one day! I know!

But this one is important. This one is about my cute baby, and how everyone should go vote for her because I entered her in the Tiny Prints Talent Search.

Voting will commence on November 22, and you'd better believe I'll be reminding you daily during the voting period. There are a bunch of babies and toddlers entered, but Lorelai is easily the cutest. I'm not just saying that, either. Go look. I mean, there are some cute kids there, but none are as cute as mine.

And just to prove that I'm not totally biased against all the other babies, if Lorelai doesn't win, I want little Cohen, age 1, to win. He is SO STINKIN' CUTE. (Actually, he reminds me a lot of my brother at that age. My brother was a freaking adorable toddler.) He's a few entries behind (ahead of? I guess ahead of, but he's farther back on the list because it updates with most recently entered first) Lorelai. And there are so many entries at this point that by the time you read this, probably neither of them will be on the first page. I'll try to link to him once voting opens up so you can see him. He really is a cutie.

So. Cute baby contest. Tiny Prints. November 22. I guess you guys could go enter your own babies, too (or your older kids, or your pets, or yourselves -- there are other categories). But just know that Lorelai's going to kick all the other babies' butts. You've been warned!

***I'm being compensated for posting about this contest with 25 free thank you notes from Tiny Prints. But that's really not why I'm posting about it. I'm posting about it because I want you all to vote for Lorelai when voting opens up. Because she's the cutest.

The Little Mermaid

2011-11-16T11:06:00.003-05:00

Lorelai LOVES music on TV. The theme song to "The Big Bang Theory" is pretty much her favorite thing ever. So I thought she'd really enjoy "The Little Mermaid", because there's lots of bright colors and songs.

Wrong. She got super-stoked about Ursula's creepy eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, but "Under the Sea" was far less exciting than the piece of lint on the blanket and the yellow plug that holds the rings on her ring stacker. Go figure.

But I noticed something in this viewing of the movie, and James thinks I'm imagining things, but I swear when the sisters are all, "Ariel's in love!", Triton thinks she's in love with HIM and is really happy about it. Even though he's her DAD. My thing is, he's so protective of her, his youngest daughter, it seems weird that he'd be getting all mooneyed over the idea of her being in love with some random boy. James says he's only protective of her with regard to her going to the surface, and that he's glad she's in love because he can marry her off. (I assume the appeal here is that once she's married, her shenanigans aren't his problem anymore, right, James?)

I don't usually put a whole lot of stock in the hidden sexual innuendo in Disney movies. Yeah, once it was pointed out to me, I saw the "S-E-X" in the dandelion fluff in "The Lion King". Yeah, if you're looking for it, there's a questionable protrusion under the priest's robes in "The Little Mermaid". But I don't totally believe that those things are there on purpose.

Take a look at 2:20 and 7:00 in this clip and tell me, am I totally making things up, or does he seem a little too schmoopy about the whole thing?

(My mom is going to read this and tell me there's something wrong with me. Maybe there is. It just seems WEIRD to me, is all I'm saying.)

Snuggles vs. sleep

2011-11-14T22:03:00.001-05:00

We're weaning Lorelai off of her middle-of-the-night feeding and I'm having mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it's about damn time, I am so tired of getting up at 3:30 a.m. On the other hand, now that half her meals are solids instead of milk and she's constantly moving, I get limited snuggle time. Those nursing sessions are all I've got left in terms of cuddle time, and I do love sitting with her asleep on my shoulder when she's done nursing at night.

But on that first hand again, blessed sleep ZOMG.

I know it's time -- she's over 8 months, she doesn't NEED that feeding, it's just for comfort (for both of us). But shes got three teeth and two mire coming in, she's about to crawl, she's starting to pull up in things -- all of this means she's growing up and I am not ready for that. Not at all. At least that 3:30 feeding is one last thing to hold onto, to keep her in this baby phase as long as possible.

But. Sleep. It wins. (But just barely.)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Dance party!

2011-11-13T14:56:00.001-05:00

If you haven't been to my tumblr, you haven't seen Lorelai's latest trick. Check it out:

It's Christmas card time again, Charlie Brown.

2011-11-09T13:10:00.005-05:00

Even though you wouldn't know it to look at the temperature outside, the holidays are fast approaching, and that means it's time for me to hunt down the perfect Christmas card.

First, we must look to Swistle's Christmas Card Scoring System to ensure that our Christmas card does not accidentally border on the ridiculous. And keeping that rating system in mind, off I go to Tiny Prints.

I like to keep my Christmas cards traditional, with a more "winter wonderland" than "jingle bells" feel. Last year's card was powder blue and white; I'm not sure what I'm going to do this year but it will probably be along those same lines.

There's this card ...
... which I like, but I would like to have more than one photo on the card so that may not work.

Or there's this one ...
... but I know my husband and he'll say it's not Christmassy enough.

I really like this one too:

Of course, the truly difficult part of this whole thing is going to be getting Lorelai to look at the camera and not make a weird face. Maybe I'll end up going with a one-photo card after all, if she's not cooperative!

***

Are you a blogger? Join the Tiny Prints Christmas card campaign and you, too, can get 50 free Christmas cards from Tiny Prints! If you sign up before midnight on November 11, let me know -- for each blogger I refer, I get 10 free address labels (which, I very much need, as I am an idiot and put the wrong address on last year's labels so I can't reuse any of those!).

8 months.

2011-11-08T14:56:00.003-05:00

There is no 8 month picture yet, because poor Lorelai is sick (double ear infection and copious amounts of green goo leaking out the nose, whee!), so she's not really being cooperative enough for me to take one. She's actually in pretty good spirits all things considered, but the happy smiling and squealing turns into ropes of snot and wailing (mostly because I try to wipe away said snot) at the drop of a hat, so I figure I'll wait till she's in a slightly more cooperative and less boogery state. (She was actually 8 months on Sunday, but I've been too busy taking care of her poor sick self to write this post.)

Lorelai's stats at 8 months: Current weight as of this morning's doctor appointment is 19 pounds two ounces (clothed and cloth diapered, but whatever). She has three teeth (well, two teeth and a tooth sliver) and it looks like a few more are on their way in. The hair at the nape of her neck curls, she has a small mole next to her right eye, and her eyes are still blue, though often are shot through with brown right around the pupils.

Lorelai's most adorable qualities at 8 months: She gives kisses that are just the cutest thing ever. She says "Dada", though it doesn't seem to mean Dada most of the time (she said "Mama" once, looking point-blank at me, but has refused to say it again). She gives high fives with relative consistency. She's overall an incredibly happy baby. An excellent eater, she's mostly over purees and instead wants whatever we're eating, even if that's spicy sausage stew or chips and salsa (she'll still eat the purees but if you offer her applesauce or whatever I'm eating, she wants what I'm eating). She is so, SO close to crawling, but hasn't quite figured it out yet (I give it a couple more weeks, max).

Lorelai's least adorable qualities at 8 months: She's still not great at sleeping, averaging three wakeups a night (2, 4, and 6 a.m.). She's started making this weird wookie noise when she's displeased, which I find grating, but it's certainly better than screaming. She still demands my undivided attention when she's awake, which makes getting anything done around the house difficult, but I will admit I love that she likes having me around. Perhaps the most annoying thing is her hatred of bedtime -- she's started screaming at bath time, continues to scream as we put her diaper and pajamas on, and pretty much doesn't stop till we turn out the light and leave the room. Oh, she's also decided that she hates having any clothes put on or taken off. That's pretty annoying.

But overall, she's a relatively easy baby, who really does make it worth getting up at 6:00 every morning. Even when I was also up at 2 and 4, and spent most of the night "sleeping" sitting propped up on pillows in bed because her nose is too stuffed up to breathe when she's lying down, and can only sleep lying on my chest. Poor thing. (Though I have to admit, I like that she's so snuggly when she's sick. I don't get cuddles like that very often anymore.)

This next month is going to be interesting and busy -- I'm fairly certain she's going to start crawling, she's going to have her first overnight at her grandparents' (at Kevin's insistence; I'd be perfectly fine never spending another night away from her after how much I missed her this weekend), and she'll be testing out lots of new foods (or at least, non-pureed forms of her current foods) at Thanksgiving. I'm hoping if we load her up with turkey maybe she'll sleep straight through the night for once!

On the upside, I learned that the Backstreet Boys Pandora station is pretty awesome.

2011-11-06T14:02:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I went to Richmond for a friend's baby shower, and I stayed the night. Without Lorelai. For the first time. And I had fun with my friends, I really did. And the whole trip was so much better/easier than it would have been if I'd had her with me. But oh, did I miss her.

I knew she would be fine, and that Kevin would be fine. I micromanaged as much as I could by prepping all her meals and diapers and his diaper bag and everything else I could possibly do, and luckily he is a wonderful, understanding man and knew that I wasn't doing it because I didn't trust him to be able to do it, but because I needed to do it for my own sanity. And he didn't give me grief about being such a control freak.

He sent me lots of pictures, and they went over to his parents' house to hang out and got back a little later than her normal bedtime, which was actually good because of the time change, and they had a very normal night in terms of wakeups and feedings.

I never sleep too well away from home anyway, and my hyperawareness at being away from Lorelai kept me awake even more than normal. When I did fall asleep, I had trouble staying asleep for very long. Around 4:45 a.m., I heard a noise downstairs that I think was Hayley's boyfriend coming home and locking the front door, but somehow I became convinced that it was 30-weeks-pregnant Shannon (who was sleeping on the couch downstairs because she said it was more comfortable than the guest bed -- and she was right) falling while trying to come upstairs to go to the bathroom. I climbed out of bed, went into the hall, reassured myself that Shannon was not, in fact, lying at the bottom of the steps in a heap of preterm labor, figured I may as well pee since I was up anyway, and then had such a hard time getting back to sleep that I almost just packed up and came home at 5 a.m. (I didn't mostly because I knew that getting all my crap together to leave would wake Shannon up, and I wasn't about to stand between a pregnant woman and her sleep because I've been there and you just don't do that).

So I didn't sleep much (which is fine, because, you know, I'm used to it after eight months of motherhood). And I flew home, making the trip in record time (because, um, there was no traffic at all and, uh, because the time change messed with the space-time continuum and made time move slower or faster or something -- not because I was speeding or anything, HI MOM) and met up with Kevin at Wendy's before his theatre board meeting so I could pick up Lorelai.

He pulled up right as I was about to head inside to go to the bathroom, because I REALLY had to pee, but I threw that idea aside and ran to get my baby girl out of her car seat and was greeted with a giant grin, a great big baby kiss (unprompted! She gives kisses if I ask for them but I've never gotten one without asking), and lots of squeals and cute baby noises.

That smile and kiss and those squeals of delight were almost enough to make me want to do another overnight soon just so I can have a repeat reunion.

Almost. But not quite.

Autumn.

2011-11-03T15:46:00.001-04:00

My town is pretty awesome in the fall.

And this little girl? Is pretty awesome all the time.

Good day. Very good day today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Halloween Things (literally), and yet another of my insane plans

2011-10-30T12:52:00.003-04:00

On Friday, Betsy and I decided to take Blake and Lorelai to a local petting zoo (even though it was COLD, ZOMG) so we could snap pictures of them in their costumes. Back when we were pregnant (Blake is 11 days older than Lorelai) we had decided that they should be Thing 1 and Thing 2 from "The Cat in the Hat" for their first Halloween, and we bought the costumes when we were in Orlando last November.

The kids were underwhelmed with the animals (even when a buffalo licked Blake's mitten, which we actually got a picture of. On Betsy's camera, so I don't have it to post here, but did you know that buffalo tongues are purple?), but I think when we take them back in the spring they'll be a little more excited about them. The park closed before we had a chance to take them over to the pony ride area (we discovered at the pumpkin patch last weekend that Lorelai is a big fan of horses -- she's her mother's daughter -- and I'd wanted to take her over so she could pet one, but we didn't have time.

Becasue we spent too much time doing this:

Are they not the CUTEST?

When we planned these costumes we hadn't thought about the fact that Halloween is on a Monday, so they wouldn't be able to go trick-or-treating together (Nick and Betsy live just far enough away that it would have been tough for us to get together and still get the kids in bed on time). So of course we had to get them together in costume so we could get pictures. Which we did. For like 20 straight minutes.

(I know, I said it was cold. And it was. But in this little hay nook there was no wind and it was actually rather pleasant. Nobody call CPS on us, they were fine.)

I hadn't planned on Lorelai wearing this for actual trick or treating tomorrow night, since Thing 2 without Thing 1 is sort of silly, but she looked so cute on Friday that I just might have to do it anyway. Her backup costume is her Hokie cheerleader outfit, which is also cute, but which she's got plenty more opportunity to wear as the season's not yet over.

***

Unrelated, I decided to do NaNoWriMo again this year, because I am a masochist and thought that trying to write a novel while simulatneously caring for an infant (a teething infant, no less) would be an interesting challenge. I talked Meika into doing it with me, and we decided we'd be happy if we each got 30,000 words instead of the official 50,000 (as I'm caring for the aforemention teething -- four at once, it appears -- demon child and Meika is working and going to school), but honestly, given everything else we have on our plates, if we get 30,000 words between us I'll be impressed.

I realized last night that NaNo starts Tuesday. TUESDAY. As in, two days from now. As in, tomorrow is the last not-completely-insane day I will have for a month.

When I initially decided to do it, I was excited. Now, I just think I'm nuts, and if I hadn't talked Meika into doing it I'd totally bail because I am lousy with follow-through. But I promised her I'd do it if she did, so I'm going to.

Unless she bails first. Then, I'm totally not going to feel bad if I quit. Because, baby. Cutting four teeth at once. Agh.

C-section angst. Still.

2011-10-25T20:00:00.004-04:00

A very dear friend gave birth yesterday. Baby Davy looks just like his father except for the red hair that could only have come from his mom. Which is funny because I kept telling her I would think pointy-headed baby thoughts (as the not-pointy heads are somewhat more difficult to birth) and she joked that with my continually wishing her a carrot-headed baby, "Just watch him be a ginger!"

She had an easy delivery. She went to the hospital for the Prostaglandin gel Monday night, was started on Pitocin yesterday morning, and six hours later popped out a not-quite-nine-pound baby after an hour of pushing.

I'm very glad she had an easy delivery because she was really afraid that the induction would result in a C-section, like so many do *raises hand*. And I certainly do not begrudge her the easy vaginal delivery. But I am jealous. So very, very jealous.

It's been almost eight months and I still have a very hard time listening to detailed accounts of successful non-C-section births. I still feel overwhelmingly, irrationally jealous when I hear these stories. (Sarah told me it's not at all irrational. That's because I initially said I was jealous because I didn't get to hold my baby right away. I'm also jealous that I did not get to push the baby out of my hoo-ha. THAT is irrational, especially given that Lorelai was ginormous. My ladybits should be grateful for that C-section.)

But I still feel gypped. I am still angry that I wasn't induced earlier, despite my best attempts to convince the midwives that I should be. Giant baby, polyhydramnios, feet too big to wear any shoes at all (I had to force my feet into three-sizes-too-big flats to go to my appointments, which were the only time I was leaving the house if I could help it because wearing shoes was so uncomfortable), hysterical sobbing every damn day because OMG I was so uncomfortable and just DONE. Had I been with a traditional OB practice, I have no doubt that I'd have been induced at least on my due date, if not sooner (I was induced a week late, and would have had to wait another five days had I not tripped and bellyplanted). Now, that said, that is my only complaint about the midwives, that they were so low-intervention that an earlier induction was never a real option. But I do believe very firmly that had they induced me sooner, I could have avoided the C-section.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, I had a great delivery. Lorelai didn't end up in the NICU. It wasn't a scheduled C-section, but it wasn't a true emergency one, either. I recovered quickly and easily. But still. It wasn't what I wanted, and while I'm grateful that it went as well as it did, I can't help but be angry that it had to go that way when I feel very strongly that it could have been avoided if someone had just listened to me when I begged to be induced earlier.

I have a lot of friends who've told me that a vaginal delivery is nothing spectacular and I shouldn't feel cheated. Some of those friends had such unpleasant experiences, with tearing and episiotomies and lengthy recoveries, that they are planning elective C-sections with their doctors' support for baby #2. And I'm sure they're right -- I'm sure a vaginal delivery isn't all sunshine and puppies (hello, BABY coming out of your HOO-HA), and I know the damage that a baby Lorelai's size would have done and had I had some of my friends' experiences, I too might choose an elective C next time. But that's the thing -- I'd be able to make the choice, which I didn't get to do the first time, and that's why I feel like I missed out.

I feel that I was cheated out of an experience that I deserved, as a woman and a mother, to have. I don't feel like I can say that I have "given birth", because that implies an active participation in the event and I don't feel that I was an active participant, lying on a table sobbing as a doctor I'd met ten minutes earlier cut me open to pull my baby out (not to say that a C-section in and of itself means you haven't "given birth" -- but, for me, I don't feel like I did, because I did not want it and thus sort of shut down and refused to participate at all, something I am now very sad that I did. I wish I'd been able to focus on the delivery I WAS getting instead of the one I WASN'T getting.). I still sort of feel like a failure as a woman that I wasn't able to "give birth" in the traditional sense.

Maybe this angst I'm still feeling, after all this time, is totally normal. I don't know. What I do know is, I still feel revulsion when I look at my scar in the mirror and I still can't read birth stories or watch birthing TV shows, and I still sometimes cry when I think about the experience I missed out on.

But in spite of all that, I'm really, really happy for my friends and their new little boy, and I wish them all the best. And I wish them a lot of sleep. A LOT of sleep.

Sick. Again. coughs

2011-10-25T08:50:00.001-04:00

I think it's my fall allergies, but I feel like death. Sore throat, postnatal drip, chest congestion and cough, achy (but no fever yet, thank goodness). Luckily Lorelai is in a very good mood, because if she was as awful as she was yesterday (she napped for 23 minutes at 1 pm -- 23 MINUTES. THAT'S ALL I GOT ALL DAY) I would be ready to put my head through a wall.

Granted, she was up at 6, which isn't ideal, but at least she's happy. She's stopped going back to sleep after I nurse her in bed so when she's up, she's up. Unfortunately.

And now I have to go change a diaper. Motherhood is so glamorous.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The only thing I don't like about fall ...

2011-10-24T08:14:00.002-04:00

... is that it's horror movie season. Which means that even though I skip through the commercials on all my DVRed TV, the skip function will inevitably stop right at the freakiest part of a commercial for either "American Horror Story" or "Paranormal Activity 3". And then I will have to avoid windows at night and mirrors all the time for the foreseeable future.

Here's the thing -- the majority of "Paranormal Activity" doesn't freak me out, because from what I can tell (not having seen any of them myself)you don't actually see the ghosts. You see stuff flying around and other SIGNS of the ghosts, but you don't see the ghosts themselves. It's seeing the ghosts that makes me almost wet myself.

I've been afraid of the dark since I was little, which is funny because I need it to be DARK to fall asleep. Nights when Kevin's away or gets home late, I have to have the bedroom lights on, and I wear my sleep mask. I know it makes no sense, especially given that I am almost 29 years old, but there it is. You'd think I'd have outgrown it, but if anything, it's gotten worse over the years because I've seen more scary movies to add to the library of terrifying images in my mind.

To date, the scariest movie I have seen is "Thirteen Ghosts". It's a terrible movie with a stupid premise, but the makeup is really well-done. The only two ghosts that really freak me out are "The Princess" (the girl with the knife who appears in the mirror while Shannon Elizabeth is washing her face and OMG I'm getting goosebumps sitting here typing about it) and "The Torso" -- a disembodied head and legless torso that gets around on its hands, gorilla-like (fun fact: that ghost was actually played by an actor with no legs [the headless part was green-screened]). The Princess freaks me out not because she's scary-looking (she's really not) but because she appears out of nowhere in the mirror like she does, and The Torso scares me because, come on. Headless, legless torso that can still chase you.

The second-scariest movie is "The Sixth Sense". Every ghost in this -- except little puking Mischa Barton -- was terrifying. The hanging people in the school? The slave trapped in the whatever-it-was at the birthday party? The kid with half his head blown off ZOMG!!!1!?

*Shudders*

So, yes. That is the only thing I don't like about fall, is the scary movie previews. Well, okay, that and the leaf mold that takes up residence in my lungs round about now (I've already got the dry cough, I'm just waiting for it to turn into a full-blown respiratory thing) and sticks around till January or so. But mostly, it's the scary movies.

What's the scariest movie you've seen?

I don't even know what our schedule is anymore.

2011-10-20T17:45:00.003-04:00

Lorelai's at the age where she's dropping down to one nap, I think. Or she's just screwing with me again. I don't know anymore.

Up till last weekish, this was her nap schedule:

~10 a.m.: nap for ~45 minutes
~1 p.m.: nap for 45-60 minutes
~4 p.m.: nap for ~45 minutes

Then, all of a sudden, she up and changed things on me, so now her nap schedule looks like this:

11 a.m. on the dot: nap for 1.5-2.5 hours
3:30-4 p.m.: nap for 30-60 minutes, depending how long the earlier nap was.

Yesterday she napped for an hour and a half at 11, then another hour and 15 at 3:30. Today she napped at 10:30 (she woke up early, yesterday screwed up her schedule) for 2.5 hours, and then conked out in the car on the way home from the pumpkin patch for about 15 minutes.

And she's still going down for bed at 7.

This child's sleep habits continue to mystify me.

Three years.

2011-10-19T21:44:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was my and Kevin's third wedding anniversary.

My plan had been to post a sappy "Three years ago I made good on the best decision I ever made, and tied my life to that of an amazing and loving man" type post. But I have, you know, a baby. Who apparently does not give a rat's ass about her mother's love for her father, as she was not in the mood to let me post anything at all, much less a long-winded love letter. So. No gooey love posts this year. I know you're all heartbroken.

Even when we say we're not going to get each other gifts, he still gets me flowers. This particular arrangement is possibly my favorite to date -- I love the fall colors, and he requested three rises for each of our three years of marriage.

I, of course, felt like a giant ass when I saw them, because a certain pint-sized someone (see above) has not been in the mood to even let me go to the store for a card.

And then he was at work all day and I had to work in the evening and by the time I got home all either of us wanted to do was watch "Castle" and a random DVRed episode of "The Big Bang Theory" and go to bed.

Oh, and eat cupcakes, once we realized that the gift bag his parents had dropped off for us contained cupcakes. (Really good cupcakes. Truly amazing cupcakes with incredible frosting. I could eat nothing but these cupcakes for the rest of my life and die a happy woman. A fat woman, probably suffering from scurvy and all other manner of nutritional deficiencies, but a happy woman nonetheless.)

So we'll celebrate later, by continuing our tradition of going back to the restaurant where we had our rehearsal dinner. I figure if we celebrate later, I have until then to get Kevin a card.

Until then, he gets this not-sappy blog post. (Even if I were to write something sappy, I'm pretty sure the fact that I've already mentioned scurvy would negate any saccharine I could toss up here, right?)

Kevin, I love you. Thanks for three wonderful years of marriage, preceded by three wonderful years of not-marriage. Thanks for supporting me, for getting flowers even when we say "no gifts", for letting me have the last of your frosting last night. But mostly, thanks for this:

(Taken during a brief pause from chewing on my knee.)

This is the best gift you've ever given me. Even if her teeth are very, very sharp.

Social networking and me.

2011-10-14T09:11:00.000-04:00

I've become disillusioned with Facebook (or, as I typed it earlier on Twitter, "Faceboob". Which will never cease to be funny to me.). I'm just ... over it. I hardly ever log on, and when I do it's typically for a specific purpose -- to look up an address that was sent to me via direct message, or ... well, no. That's really the main reason I've been on lately.

I used to forget I had Twitter (until James reminded me often enough for me to get back into it). Now I'm on Twitter multiple times a day, and the people I follow on there crack me up. I don't follow a ton of people (38 at last count, and many don't post often) but there are a bunch of other bloggers I follow who just always make me laugh. And I'm got a sort of rapport going with some of them -- the first time another, bigger blogger followed me back I squeeed out loud.

Now that I'm on Twitter more often than Facebook, I've seriously contemplated quitting Facebook. I mean, I probably won't, because if I did I'd have to go in and get all my pictures off it first, and that would take forever, and that's how the student council is getting in touch with everyone about the 10-year reunion that was supposed to be this summer but is going to be next summer instead. Although that's a lame excuse to stay on, because James will pass along any relevant information. I'll probably stay on but will likely spend less and less time on it.

And Pinterest. I've avoided joining for two reasons -- 1) I don't think I need something else to get addicted to, and 2) Number 1 may be a moot point as I somehow feel like I'd get totally overwhelmed and stop paying attention to it about 4 seconds in. Everyone is always shocked to learn that my crafty self isn't on Pinterest. And I'll admit that it certainly SEEMS like the sort of thing I'd be into. But I just can't get myself excited about it.

Twitter, though. Twitter is where it's at for me right now.

What about you? What are your favorite social networking sites?

Accent Vlog

2011-10-13T20:44:00.006-04:00

Many of the bloggers I read have done these accent vlogs -- I think it started with the group who are going to The Blathering and even though I'm not going, I decided to do a vlog anyway.

(Okay, so Technically Kelly at Temerity Jane hasn't done one, but she swears she's doing it tomorrow, and Noemi isn't going to The Blathering either, but whatever.)

Anyway. I think I did a decent job of keeping myself (and all my chins -- ugh, is there any way to do a self-video without looking like you have four or five chins?) in the frame -- I was taking this on my iPhone because even though I've had this computer for five years I still have no idea how to make it take a video (and there's no microphone on it so I'd have had to wear a dorky headset mic). I tried to hold it up high enough to NOT give me multiple chins (I am very self-conscious of my chin area, as it has gone way soft in recent years) but no dice. Oh well. Also, my nose doesn't look this big in real life. I don't think.

And I wish my hair looked better, but it was rainy today and I had it in a ponytail earlier because Lorelai kept pulling on it.

Untitled from Erin K. on Vimeo.

(Lovely screen capture there, Vimeo. Thanks bundles.)

It's a stellar ending, if I say so myself. I couldn't get my finger to hit the off button, and I didn't want to make y'all (ha! see, I do use it in writing!) dizzy by trying to turn the camera around while it was still on.

Anyway, do I have an accent? And if you want to play along, then:

Say these words:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

And answer these questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel?

Moonlight Lullabies, Spell-checked and Photographed

2011-10-12T20:41:00.004-04:00

I found the case for the Moonlight Lullabies CD in my car. (And realized that it's "Lullabies", not "Lullabyes". Oops.)

(Please to ignore my nasty chipped nail polish. And the fact that I was clearly on the road when I took this. I was sitting at a stoplight, I promise.)

It's a Parents Magazine CD. I still can't find a link to it online, but seriously, if you are trying to find a way to get your kid to sleep better, go buy piano/guitar versions of these songs and stick them on a playlist or CD. Or, heck, email me your address (polkadotsandpearlsblog at gmail) and I'll mail you a copy of it. If having a total stranger know your address doesn't totally wig you out, that is. I'll only stalk you a little bit, I promise.

Moonlight Lullabyes

2011-10-11T11:56:00.003-04:00

We have started playing a "Moonlight Lullabyes" CD for Lorelai when we put her down to sleep, and I am kicking myself for not thinking of this sooner. She's still not sleeping fully through the night, but she's at least not waking up at 3 a.m. screaming her fool head off for an hour or more. (Tonight, she will. Because I posted that she hasn't done that since we started playing the CD.)

I've been playing it at nap time, too, because there is construction going on a few houses down that's loud and because she's never been great about napping past the 45-minute mark. The only problem is that it seems to work TOO WELL. I had to wake her up after two hours yesterday because it was 5:30 and that's only an hour and a half before bedtime. I think she would have just stayed asleep for the night if I'd let her (and then woken up at 1 a.m. all, "Party time?").

She's currently been down for about an hour and a half, which is very rare for her first nap of the day. And I can't decide if I should wake her up so as not to jack up her sleep for the rest of the day and/or night, or let her sleep and hope it helps catch her up on the sleep she's been missing out on for, oh, seven months now.

I mean, at some point I'll have to wake her up because I need to run errands. But when? I'm relishing the fact that she is SLEEPING for once, but I can't help but feel like this is going to backfire on me somehow.

*EDITED TO ADD: She woke up about 10 minutes after I posted that, an hour and 45 minutes into that nap. AND she was in a good mood when she woke up, even though her diaper had leaked because I didn't put a nap time diaper on her because usually she doesn't need a heavier-duty one for that morning nap. My baby sleeping that long, waking up happy, and not caring that her clothes were damp is UN.HEARD.OF. That CD is my new favorite parenting tool.

(It came from Target, but I can't find a link to it online. It's just 12 tracks of classical piano/guitar/flute music.)*

The nursing strike is over!

2011-10-08T12:24:00.001-04:00

I knew the nurse was wrong. This kid likes boobs too much to self-wean at seven months. Though her bottles (when I'm not home to feed her) are being switched back to Level 1 nipples for a while, just in case.

Unrelated, at what age do things like moles and freckles start appearing? She's got what appears to be a tiny mole showing up near her eye. I'm pretty sure it's not a pimple. But I feel like she's too young for moles and freckles. Right? Maybe? I have no idea.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Seven months.

2011-10-06T14:29:00.005-04:00

Dear Lorelai,

I haven't taken your seven month picture yet. I'll do that. But then I'll probably forget to post it here. Oops in advance.

I just called the nurses' line at the pediatrician to ask about this nursing strike, and they said if it's been two and a half days and you're still refusing it, you've up and weaned yourself.
I thought I would be relieved to stop nursing, but (all jokes about the cost of formula aside) , I am SO SAD. I'm not ready to accept that the nurse is right. When it's been a week we'll talk, but not yet. The Internet says nursing strikes because of teething or a "you bit me and I yelled and it scared you" situation typically last from two to five days, so I'm giving you seven. You've always made me wait for things longer than I'd have liked (see: your birth, sleeping through the night).

Speaking of sleeping through the night, what happened with that? You had it down. you were going till 4:30 or 5 every night for almost two weeks. Why'd you revert? Let's re-revert, shall we? Mommy's tired.
This month has brought about quite a few changes in you. For one thing, you've started laughing -- like, actually laughing. No big belly laughs yet, but I've managed to consistently get some definitely giggles out of you.

You really love solid foods, and will try anything we offer. You don't really like vegetables, and I don't blame you, but if I mix them with fruit you're okay with it. The things you do like, you will sit there like a little bird with your mouth open, waiting for the spoon, and if I don't get it to you fast enough you ball up your fists, sick your arms out to the side, lean forward, and screech at me. you also love drinking water out of either your sippy cup or a straw. We're still working on getting you to drink out of a regular cup -- you'll do it, but it's not a pretty or dry picture.

You are sitting in shopping carts and high chairs when we go out and are so, so proud of yourself when we put you in one.

You still love being outside more than anything on the planet, even in really hot/rainy/cold weather. Now that it's cooling off finally, I see many, many walks in our future.

Let's sum up Lorelai at 7 Months (format stolen from Temerity Jane):
Nicknames: Nugget, Stinky, Stinky Baby, Stinky Nugget, Stink Bug (sorry for all those; you've had some gas issues), Bug, Pumpkin, L-Dawg (I don't think your father knows I call you this sometimes, and when he finds out he will shake his head and walk away, I'm sure)

Special Skills: Sitting up, waking up at all hours of the night, talking very loudly and to anyone who will listen (or not) regardless of the time of day, spinning toys that have wheels or the like on them, Jumperoo-ing, eating (but, apparently, not breastfeeding anymore), holding your own bottle, kicking your feet, turning yourself in a multitude of directions in your crib so we never know where you will be when we go to get you, and trying to roll off the changing table.

Most annoying features: The not sleeping thing is pretty annoying. The whining too. The rolling over while chewing on your foot makes diaper changes REALLY hard. And I'm not sure when clothing started to burn like fire, but if you could stop shrieking like a crazed banshee every time I attempt to put a shirt on you, that'd be great.

Most desirable features: The cheeks. The smiles. The giggles. The way you look so delighted with yourself when you pull your sock off and stuff it in your mouth. The full-body wiggle and grin we get when we go to get you out of your crib when you wake up from a nap.

Likes: Being naked. Being outside. Grabbing people's noses. the tiger puppet on your Baby Einstein Numbers DVD. Sitting in high chairs and shopping carts.

Dislikes: Having a dirty diaper. Having a dirty diaper changed. Having a clean diaper. Sleeping. Waking up, most of the time. Boobs, apparently.

I love you, Bug. You're the reason I get up every morning. (You can take that however you want.)

Love,
Mommy

Nursing strike.

2011-10-05T22:12:00.003-04:00

I don't know if it's related to teething, or if it's related to the fact that I yelled, "Ow! Fuck!" louder than I probably should have when she bit me REALLY EFFING HARD (and on purpose, she just stopped sucking, opened her mouth, looked me in the eye, and clamped down with her teeth) the other day, but Lorelai is on a nursing strike.

From what I have read this is not uncommon in teething babies, or when your reaction to a bite scares them (I apologized profusely to her but it HURT and I didn't yell AT her, I just yelled), and it typically lasts two to five days. We're on day two now (though I did, after much cajoling, get her to nurse at her middle-of-the-night and mornings feedings). Anyone have any personal experience with this? Because I really hate pumping and formula is expensive, so I'm not entirely ready to wean yet. I'd hoped to make it to a year so we can switch her to regular milk and not have to worry about the pumping or the cost of the formula (I'm cheap, and don't want to cough up $15-18 a can if I don't have to, but I hate pain more than I hate spending money on formula and pumping is supremely uncomfortable for me so if she quits the boob, she's getting formula once our frozen milk stash is gone). But she's seven months tomorrow (oh, guess I need to do that post too, huh?) and that's five months away from my goal of a year.

And yes, I realize that my original goal was "until she bites me three times". And then she bit me three times, and I decided I wasn't ready to give up the nursing cuddle time, nor was I ready to shell out for the formula, so I decided to go till she can have regular cow's milk.

And then she up and went on strike. I swear. Babies. Always throwing a wrench in your plans.

It's fall!

2011-10-02T13:16:00.004-04:00

I know it's technically been fall for a couple weeks now, but it finally FEELS like fall. Even if it's rainy. Somehow I don't mind rain in the fall. I don't mind much of anything about fall, except that I always get sick because I'm allergic to leaf mold. But I'm committed to staying on top of taking my Claritin this year, because I can't really afford to get sick again. I used to be able to take a week off and stay in bed all day if I needed to, but I can't do that anymore. My new boss is somewhat more demanding of my undivided attention than any of my previous bosses ;)

Speaking of my new boss, Lorelai is 30 weeks old today and officially 7 months this Thursday. Where does the time GO? She's so close to crawling (though I know she could stay in this holding pattern of rocking and scooting backward for months yet), and my mother watched her last night while we went to a wedding and swears she was trying to sing along with her Sing-a-ma-jig. Whether or not that's entirely true, I will say that she definitely loves music, and is really trying to talk to us. I just wish I had any idea what she was saying.

Anyway, back to fall. Fall is my favorite season, and October is my favorite month, and I'm going to honor them with a list of my favorite things about them. Because making lists is also my favorite.

Fall 2011: A List of Awesome

Leaves
Sweatshirts and flip-flops
Not sweating so much when I go for walks that my hands struggle to grip the stroller handle
My new stroller (which is not this color, it's pale blue with orange piping and I think it's discontinued -- I got it at a consignment sale yesterday for dirt cheap, and it's in superb condition)! (I had bought a Jeep one on Craigslist a while back but the front wheel doesn't swivel, so it's annoying if you're walking through a neighborhood with lots of corners like I do, so I'll be re-selling that one)
Consignment sale season
Baby track suits
Halloween
Salted caramel mochas (if you have not had this yet, run -- do not walk -- to your nearest Starbucks and order a venti)
S'mores (not that these are a strictly-fall thing, but fall just seems more like s'mores season than any other time of year)
My and Kevin's wedding anniversary
My birthday
Thanksgiving food
Pumpkins
Football
Chili
Beer
Woodchuck Fall Blend cider
Baby shoes (She's never had to wear shoes before because it's been so hot out, and I just got her some and they are SO CUTE ZOMG!)

This is just a smattering of things I love about fall. It's a busy season for us, but I'm okay with that. I'm very much looking forward to this cooler weather so I can get outside with Lorelai more without having to worry that we'll melt.

All I need is for Caribou Coffee to get a salted caramel mocha and we're set. There's a Caribou int he shopping center by my house but no Starbucks. I could justify a daily mocha if I had to walk three miles there and back to get it. Not so much if I have to drive to get it.

My first blogger meetup

2011-09-28T21:43:00.006-04:00

Yesterday Lorelai and I ventured into Old Town Alexandria for my very first real-life-meeting-of-an-online-friend. Becky and her husband and super-cute little boy Ethan just moved to the area, and since I was wanting to go to Pink and Brown in Old Town to get Lorelai a backup hippo lovey so that I can wash her current one without hampering naptime, we decided to get lunch and check out the boutique.

But first, there was the obligatory wardrobe freakout:

And the "how do I greet her" freakout:

(I did not tell her about these tweets, and she is totally going to laugh at me when she reads this post.)

I ended up being late because I'm always late, and also because finding parking in Old Town is a pain. We had lunch and chatted and there were no awkward silences (one of my biggest fears in meeting new people, because I tend to ramble when there are silences, and I ramble enough when there AREN'T silences), and then we walked down to the boutique where they did NOT have another hippo, but they did have a frog by the same designer and she put it in her mouth so I bought it (she doesn't seem to mind that it's not the hippo, she slept with it last night and for her naps today with no problem).

The shop was super cute but the clothes were WAAAAY overpriced. I found a cute dress on the clearance rack that was $77. ON CLEARANCE. It was originally $142. I put it back.

I had a lot of fun. The kids didn't really know what to do with each other -- Lorelai kept trying to hold his hand and pulling on his shirt, and Ethan was all, "What are you doing? Why are you touching me?". Ethan is adorable, and Becky is just super sweet and we have a lot in common (cloth diapers, babies, blogs, theatre), and we plan to meet up again soon. Possibly for shopping, because mama needs a new wardrobe.

Pictures I promised.

2011-09-27T22:51:00.004-04:00

I'm working on a post about my lunch date with Becky, but I wanted to share two pictures I promised to post.

First: the shopping cart cover I made for Lorelai (who was so fascinated by it that she wouldn't look at the camera). I put a pocket with a velcro flap on the inside for my wallet, keys, and phone (that's what she's playing with, she's recently decided that my wallet is a great thing to chew on) and a couple of toy loops on the front. There's also a strap on it that can thread around the cart and through a couple of slits to go around her waist, so I don't have to use the ones the cart comes with. All that stuff is the reason this thing was a pain. The cover itself was really quite easy.

And because I know you are all DYING to see this, here is Kevin in a kilt (and me in costume as well, but who cares about that when there's KEVIN in a KILT?):

Lorelai looks bored to tears, doesn't she?

Totally called it.

2011-09-27T08:45:00.003-04:00

She woke up at 1 a.m., just like I predicted. Kevin got her back to sleep pretty quickly though.

Also, check out my new button over on the right! The fabulous Erin over at Designer Blogs made it to match the rest of the blog. Seriously, if you ever need a blog redesign, the Designer Blogs team is fantastic and their rates are extremely reasonable.

And now, off to shower because I'm meeting Becky for lunch! My very first blogger meet-up, I am very excited.

4:12

2011-09-26T22:13:00.001-04:00

Because of course, the night I post about how she's waking up at 3 a.m. screaming, Lorelai decides to sleep through till after 4, then fuss mildly, nurse well, and conk back out till almost 7. Because of course.

And because I posted this, she's going to wake up at 1 a.m. and yell for three solid hours. Just watch.

Kids. Sigh.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

3 a.m.

2011-09-25T22:58:00.001-04:00

That is the time my darling daughter has now decided it is acceptable to wake up. Sigh.

Granted, she does eventually go back to sleep. After screaming at us for an hour, until I give in and feed her. She's not yelling because she hungry; she nurses for a few minutes then just stares at me, boob in mouth. We have no idea what is casing the wake-ups but I have a suspicion that she is about to start crawling (or figuring out how to try to crawl, anyway). Usually when we go in during the yelling she is on her tummy, legs scrabbling for purchase while she tries to push herself up with her arms. So far she can't support her weight on her arms and also move her legs, but it's coming. I can tell. And I think that's why she's waking up -- she's practicing her almost-learned new skill. Trying to master it. At 3 a.m.

The weird thing is, she only really does it in her crib. Nighttime and naps. Something about the extra give of the mattress vs. the floor perhaps?

It's only really troublesome because she WAS sleeping straight till 7 or 7:30 for about two weeks, waking once around 4:30 for a quick feeding. So we thought we were out of the woods with the pesky sleep problems. But now she's up at 3 (or 2, the other night), and I finally cave and feed her around 4 because it's the only way anyone is going to get any sleep, and the she's up at 6:30 or 7. Though typically after that 4:00 feeding, she wakes up and talks to herself for 15 minutes about two seconds after I climb into bed. It's better than the screaming, but she has no concept of "inside voice" (he gets that from me so I can't really be but so annoyed by it) so even with the monitor off, she may as well be in the room with us.

But it's better than when she was waking up every 45 minutes for half an hour at a time. I NEVER want to relive those days ever again.

***

I feel like all I ever were about anymore is Lorelai's sleeping habits, so here's something new: I need a wardrobe makeover.

I currently have nothing that really fits except yoga pants and T-shirts, so that's what I wear. If I want to get fancy, I'll squeeze into a pair of jeans, but even though they zip just fine, there's a lot more muffin-topping than I care to admit. I have to go to a wedding this weekend and I'm refusing to buy something new because no matter what I wear, I have to invest in Spanx, so I'm not going to spend money on a dress too. I've got a couple things that will work, I think, but only with Spanx underneath.

In addition to the Spanx, I have made a decision to return to my pole classes, and to purchase (nerd alert) Dance Dance Revolution. Kevin has a credit at Gamestop and they have it in stock. (We actually bought it the other day but we got the cheaper option of a pre-owned game and universal mat, which turned out to be compatible with every console EXCEPT Xbox360 [including the Wii]. So we have to exchange.) I'm pretty excited about it even thought it's super nerdy. I can do it during the day while Lorelai naps, which is a real plus.

And now it is (way past) bedtime, so off I go. Ooh, remind me later to share pictures of the shopping cart cover I made. It was a pain in the ass and I'm never doing it again (at least not one with a toy loop, wallet pocket, and waist strap), but it looks pretty awesome. I'm actually tempted to go to the grocery store tomorrow just so I can use it. And get pictures for my blog, of course. Because, duh.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This may be a new record for length of time between posts.

2011-09-21T21:14:00.004-04:00

The only excuse I have is that I spent all last week sewing my costume for the Maryland Renaissance Festival, and didn't have time to blog. And the sad part is that I don't even have a picture to show you. (Yet. My friend Meg got some and has promised to send them to me soon.) But I do have this:

Why, yes, that IS my husband in a kilt. With his bonny wee Hokie lass on his knee. (There were no good Renaissance-y baby costume patterns.) Meg got better pictures of the kilt, I think, because you can't really tell it's a kilt in this picture. But it's still a pretty good picture, I think.

I'm a pretty lucky woman to have a husband who's such a good sport that he would wear a kilt in public just because I have a thing for them ever since I read Outlander.

The Internet hates me.

2011-09-09T15:21:00.002-04:00

Not, like, the people ON the Internet (I don't know, maybe they do too), but the Internet itself. Lately I have had pages freeze my computer, pages refuse to load, pages that refuses to load pictures, pages that refuse to load anything the way it's supposed to look, you name it. The latest is that my blog email address somehow disabled forwarding so I wasn't getting any comments in my regular inbox. (Maybe it's silly to have a special blog email address if I'm just going to forward it to my real email address, but this way I can reply to things as my blog-self and not my self-self, and it makes my life feel more compartmentalized. Or something. I don't know, don't judge me!) So if you've commented on anything in the past week, I didn't see it till about five minutes ago and I'm sorry if I didn't respond right away. Stupid, hateful Internet.

On the other hand, the people on the Internet obviously don't hate me (or at least, not all of them) because this here blog was added to the Top Mommy Blogs registry! Click on the Top Mommy Blogs button over there on the right and help boost my ranking. I don't completely understand their ranking system yet, but I do know that if you click through from my blog to their site, I get points, or something.

I also created a button for Polka Dots and Pearls -- if you're so inclined, feel free to stick it on your blog and if you want me to put yours on here, let me know.

Finally, Lorelai had her six-month appointment today. She is 27 inches long (called it!), has a head circumference of 16 1/4 inches (still in the 10-25th percentile -- apparently, she's "smack in the middle of it", according to the nurse, so why they feel the need to give a range instead of just saying "Her head is in the 17th percentile", I have no idea. Can anyone explain that to me?), and is 17 pounds, 1 ounce. Although she was really wiggling on the scale and it jumped around, landing anywhere from 17 pounds flat to 17 pounds, 4.2 ounces, so I'm going to go ahead and say that my guess (okay, James's guess) of 17 pounds, 3 ounces totally counts. She's now in the 90th percentile for height but only the 75th for weight, a reversal from when she was first born. (I still consider it not only lucky, but downright miraculous that I carried a 10-pound baby and did not get a single stretch mark. Well, not on my stomach. Explain to me how my stomach stretched to the size of a Chevy Suburban and got no stretch marks AT ALL, but my butt only stretched two sizes and looks like a road map.)

At any rate, there are the stats. Right about where we thought they'd be. My baby girl is getting so BIG. (Except her head. She still has a peanut head, poor thing.)

Six months (a.k.a., the post full of Amazon links and pictures other people took)

2011-09-06T15:33:00.016-04:00

Dear Lorelai,

You are six months old (as of yesterday, but the Internet was being stupid and would not let me post this yesterday). Rather than the usual sappy letter that pretty much says the same things all the previous sappy letters said, I thought I'd do this one as a bullet list of things you do and do not like right now.

Likes:

The Hokies (obvi)

(photo courtesy of my friend Shannon)

Pretty much anything Bright Starts has ever made; specifically, Alfred the crinkly puppy (we're on our second one) and The Bug (which we inherited from family friends, and I'm willing to bet it did not cost $46 when they bought it -- it must not be being made anymore)

Apples, pears, peaches, mangoes, sweet potatoes, squash, puffs, Mum-Mums

Your Jumperoo

Baby Einstein is still a big win

Your hippo lovey from Aunt Vanessa (which you love so much that you will not nap without it, so Becky and I are going to meet up next week so I can get a backup because you chew on it so much it needs to be washed every other day)

Being naked

Being tossed up in the air

Beer bottles (not that we ever let you have the beer, but you are fascinated by beer bottles and try to suck on them every chance you get)

(photo courtesy of my friend Betsy)

Dislikes:

Diaper changes

Clothing changes

Sleep (you're getting better about doing it, but you still don't like it)

Broccoli

Being on your tummy for extended periods of time (you know how to roll to your back -- I've seen you do it countless times -- but you prefer to whine until we flip you)

Laughing (you've done it a handful of times, but just one or two giggles -- no big belly laughs, unfortunately)

When someone is paying attention to anything other than you

Bibs

Yo Gabba Gabba (I don't blame you, this show is scary)

Indifferent to:

Other babies

Avocado and oatmeal (though both were big wins at first)

Walks (either in the stroller or any of the assorted baby carriers we have)

Disney movies

Cameras

Having colds (though every time you get one, I get sicker than you, so I am not a fan)

Speaking of colds, you are currently rocking your second one, and the only thing that bugs you about it is when I suck the snot out of your nose with the snotsucker thing. Which I totally don't get, because I am rocking the same cold and I would LOVE it if someone would suck the snot out of my sinuses.

You have two teeth. They are very sharp. You bit me once already while I was nursing you, and you only get two more strikes before it's all bottles, all the time, so you think long and hard about how much you enjoy the biting.

You have your six-month appointment on Friday, so I will have to post your stats then. My guess is that you are 27 inches long, 17 pounds 3 ounces, and that you still have a >25th percentile head circumference.

And when the OTHER computer stops being stupid perhaps I will be able to post your six-month photo.

Mommy loves you, pumpkin. You're so smart and such a big girl.

Love,
Mommy

Thanks for rubbing it in, Dove Promises.

2011-09-02T07:58:00.001-04:00

(I do not like the new Blogger interface.)

Liz over at Seriously has a series where she posts the stupid Dove Promises "inspirational words of wisdom" or whatever you want to call them. This week, I have a few of my own:

"Sleep late tomorrow."
"Take a moment for yourself."
"You're invited to relax today."

All right, Dove. Clearly you do not have any full-time parents on your staff. How about a new line of Dove Promises just for stay at home moms?

"Don't worry about vacuuming today."
"Let the kids watch an extra half hour of TV so you can paint your nails."
"Here's a coupon for some free earplugs."

I mean, I don't appreciate my dessert to be telling me to sleep late tomorrow when I have a baby who thinks 4 a.m. is a fine time to start the day. (Spoiler: 4 a.m. is a LOUSY time to start the day.)

At least she's finally stopped waking up every 45 minutes all night long. 4 a.m. was an even lousier time to start the day then.

Me, on music.

2011-08-29T06:27:00.003-04:00

My very, very dear friend James, who is one of my favorite people in the world (I was going to say he was one of my best friends in the entire world, but he said that about me, so I don't want to look like I'm plagiarizing him), has a music blog, and for reasons I will never, ever understand, he actually agreed to let me do a music review for it. And he didn't send the review back and say, "I'm sorry, no. This is crap. Rewrite." So I have come to the following conclusions. Either:

The prose that flowed from my fingertips was so well-written that it disguised the fact that I have no idea what I'm talking about;
James was so desperate to get the post up he didn't even read it first (this can't be true, as he sprinkled his own comments throughout [and somehow none of them said, "This is crap, what was I thinking asking you to write a review for me?"], but I'll admit it was one of the first thoughts I had); or
He was willing to overlook the fact that I clearly know nothing about music except that I have questionable taste in it because he loves me just that much.

At any rate, if you feel like laughing at me, head over to Appetite for Distraction and check it out. Tell James I sent you, maybe I'll get a referral bonus!

We have two teeth.

2011-08-28T20:08:00.002-04:00

I feel like my baby girl has grown up so much in the past few days. She has two teeth (the second one came through yesterday -- there's a picture on tumblr), she puts herself to sleep with little to no crying, she sits up unassisted and routinely rolls onto her belly (though seems to have forgotten how to roll back), and she's now able to get herself into a comfortable position in her crib, which minimizes the number of times we have to go in to help her get comfortable and fall asleep again (thank God).

So far, out of all the foods we've offered her, the only one she's rejected is bananas. She loves sweet potatoes and squash, goes absolutely apeshit for apples and peaches, and was all over the pears I gave her this morning.

She's figured out how to actually jump in her jumperoo instead of just going from foot to foot.

And ... we got a real laugh out of her. She only did it the one time so unfortunately I didn't get it on video, but we keep tossing her up in the air like we were doing at the time in hopes that she will laugh for us again.

Before I know it, she's going to be going off to college, getting married, and having babies of her own. *Sob*

Show me your teeth!

2011-08-26T08:14:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure how long Lorelai will stay napping and I need to get a shower in, but I miss my blog and figured I'd come post a quick update while I can.

Tooth #1 popped through on Wednesday (Kevin insists it's still not through enough to be considered "through", but I say that when there's a sliver of white that you can feel with your finger and it's definitely showing above the gum, even the tiniest bit, it's through). Tooth #2 is on its way, I'm betting by the end of the weekend. That little bubble-looking thing that shows up just before it pushes through is there as of this morning, so here's hoping we'll have this whole mess out of the way in the next few days and that she never cuts two teeth at the same time again.

The one upside is that she's totally lost interest in the pacifier. We haven't used it in two days now, and I stuck them all in a bag to put away till baby #2 comes along (you can reuse pacifiers if you boil them first, right? I don't have to buy a whole new batch next time?). We'd planned on still letting her have one in the car seat if she got cranky in public, but I offered it to her the other day and she pushed it away and put her hands in front of her mouth. I'm better having that thing right on her gums probably hurts. So if she's going to refuse it, it's going in a bag in the closet -- I figure by the time the teething is over she'll have forgotten about it.

Also, and I am loathe to admit this because I was so against it for so long, but we're going to try cry-it-out. After she's done teething, of course, we're not monsters. Probably next weekend, when we've got the extra holiday Monday to catch up on the sleep we'll be missing (ha, like we're getting any now anyway).

As I've mentioned before, I'm not opposed to CIO in theory, but it wasn't something I wanted to do. I thought Lorelai was a tension escalator -- that is, she got madder when we let her cry -- so I didn't think it would be fair or even work. But Kevin got fed up with her the other day when she was fighting a nap and told her, "Fine, you can just scream your head off if that's what you want to do. I'm going to go sit outside." So he sat on the steps outside her room for a few minutes, then went in and patted her, and a few minutes after he left she just suddenly stopped crying and fell asleep. We tried it again at the next nap, and the same thing happened. I've tried it at a few naps since (she usually goes down easily for bed, it's the naps and the night wakings that are a pain), and every time, after about 5 or 6 minutes, she's out.

So what I've decided is that it wasn't the crying that was escalating her tension, it was my holding her and patting her and trying to calm her down. I have noticed that often, she'll tolerate rocking and snuggling for a minute or two but then she'll start crying and flailing, and if you put her in her crib she calms down -- it's counter to all my instincts as a mother (I need to snuggle mah baybee and make her not sad!!!), but it's what she wants, to I go with it.

We haven't started full-blown CIO (well, Ferber-ized CIO; we agreed that we will never do actual hardcore CIO where you say goodnight and don't go back in, letting her scream herself to sleep no matter how long it takes -- THAT, to me, is mean. I'm okay-ish with the Ferber method, going in every few minutes to let her know we're still there, we haven't abandoned her) yet, we're just experimenting with it at naptime. And even that I feel a bit guilty about, given that she is teething and all, but when she's up-to-date on her Tylenol dosage and I KNOW she's sleepy, I feel pretty confident that the crying isn't related to the teething, so I'm more okay with letting her cry. It still feels wrong, like I'm abandoning her, but it seems to work and she generally sleeps longer and wakes up happier, so I think I need to just get over it.

I'm so not looking forward to starting middle-of-the-night CIO though. But I AM looking forward to not waking up every 90 minutes anymore, and to not having to fight for an hour to get her back down. That shit's got to STOP. I am too old to exist on four hours of sleep, accrued in 45-minute increments. Hell, Lorelai can't do it anymore either. Poor kid's got dark circles and bags under her eyes. It's really sad when your 6-month-old has eye-bags.

I'll report back after next weekend (well, I'm sure I'll post again before that, but it won't be about middle-of-the-night CIO). Wish us all luck. (I'll try to get a picture of a toothy baby grin too, but she's not being very cooperative about showing her teeth.)

Shutterfly photo books FTW!

2011-08-20T21:34:00.004-04:00

Do you guys remember back in December, or November, or okay, fine, I'll go back and find it and link to it when Shutterfly was having a promotion where if I blogged about their promotion, they would give me 50 free holiday cards? And I ended up with really, really cute holiday cards?
They're doing it again, this time with photo books!

I really dig Shutterfly. I've used them for various things over the years, and I've always been incredibly impressed with their products. I got so many compliments on our Christmas cards (I ordered matching address labels, too, which made the whole card look very put together), and I definitely plan to use them for this year's cards as well.

When Lorelai was about 10 weeks old, I decided that I was going to put together a photo book of her first year. A weekly shot of her, plus pictures from all the big events during that year -- holidays, her first road trip, her first time in the pool, that sort of thing. It's obviously going to take a year to put it together, but I'm doing it a few photos at a time, and I'm really pleased with how it's come together so far. I'm using the "custom path" feature that allows me to basically build the whole book however I want, and it's actually really easy, though I'll admit it was daunting at first.

I wish I'd thought of this sooner, so I could have gotten the "close-up on a different patterned background" shot every week from the beginning, but I didn't, so the first 10 weeks aren't really very consistent. I'll fix that for any subsequent babies.

(That picture on the right is one of my favorites of her, ever.)

I also plan to take all of the blankets she's on in each of the weekly shots and eventually cut them up and make her a quilt. So when she goes off to college, she'll have a quilt made of all the backgrounds from her weekly photos during this first year, and I'll have a custom photo book with her whole first year right there in chronological order.

It really is so much easier than I would have thought (in the past I've only done the preset templates, but the custom one is fun because I can add embellishments and change the layouts), and I also want to do photo books for her for things like big trips and future holidays. Alicia over at Simply Alicia did one for her daughter of their trip to Sea World, written like a children's picture book but with pictures and a story all about her daughter. I love that idea, and definitely plan to use it once Lorelai reaches an age where she won't rip the pages when she flips through it. (Well, I may use it before then, but she won't get the books till I know she won't damage them.)

I'm really excited about my "Lorelai's First Year" photo book. I had already started it before I found out that Shutterfly was looking for bloggers to spread the love, and I was so pleased with how it's looking so far that I'm really glad to be able to review it and rave about how cute it is.

Have a blog? Want to review a Shutterfly photo book? Sign up: http://goo.gl/K5hUC

Those ads on the sidebar and in the posts.

2011-08-20T16:13:00.002-04:00

You may have noticed the ads that are now appearing in the left-hand sidebar and at the bottom of each post.

Annoying, I know. But I'm trying it out. When I logged into Blogger today I had a note saying "Your blog is popular! Sign up for AdSense and start making money off your blog!"

My first thought was, "My blog is popular?" I should probably go check out my Google Analytics, because I had no idea I got enough traffic to count me as "popular". "Popular" is, like, Bye Bye, Pie or Amalah. I was under the impression that only about 25 people read this blog, and that most of them are related to me or have known me in real life for many years. If you read this and you're not related to me, and/or have never commented before, say hi! I love comments, and I try to reply to them, when Lorelai is feeling like napping or being entertained by her jumperoo long enough for me to do something more than filling a glass of water.

At any rate, the ads. I've heard other bloggers talk about making money off ads on their blogs, and as I am no longer working full-time, I have no problem selling out and letting advertisers use space on my blog to make me a few extra bucks. It will either go into Lorelai's college fund, or it will buy me lattes. We'll see. (Probably lattes. I'm tired.)

But the thing is, under the terms of the AdSense contract, I'm not allowed to ask people to click on those ads. So, I'm not asking you to. I'm just letting you know that, should you feel in the mood to click on them from time to time, Lorelai will be one step closer to the Ivy League. (Or I'll be one step closer to feeling awake enough to write something coherent. One or the other.) (Probably the other.)

I have no idea how much revenue I even get from each click. Probably just a couple cents. But still, every little bit, and all that. If it ends up seriously annoying people, or doesn't make me any money after a decent chunk of time, I'll remove it. Mostly I'm just trying it out to see what happens.

But I need to make this VERY CLEAR: I am not asking you to click. Merely telling you that if the ad strikes your fancy and you want to click on it, it's legit and your computer won't explode or anything.

However, I AM soliciting comments form anyone who has never commented before. Say hi, let me know you're there! I feel like being popular doesn't really count if you have no idea who's reading you.

That whole sleep thing.

2011-08-18T09:22:00.001-04:00

It's getting better. Sometimes. Other times it's worse. Some nights we have a really great first stretch but then she's awake every hour after 2:30. Some nights, like last night, we're prepared for the worst because she's up at 9 and again at 11, and it takes an hour to get her back down, but then she miraculously sleeps till 4:30. I have no idea what to expect in any given night.

However. I keep having the same conversation with various other moms, usually strangers like the girl who did my nails or the cashier at the grocery store, but it always goes like this:

Person: How's she sleeping?
Me: Not good, usually. (One day I'll learn to say, "Fine" so I can stop having this damn conversation over and over again.)
Person: Does she get you up early, or something?
Me: Yes, but mostly she just wakes up every two hours all night long.
Person: Oh wow. MY kid slept twelve hours starting at two weeks old and never woke up once.
My brain: Bully for you. Why would you tell me that when I just told you I'm only sleeping in two-hour increments? Don't you know that sleep deprivation makes people violent? I want to punch you in the face right now.
Me: Wow, you're very lucky.
Person: This is what you have to do to get her to sleep: .

Sigh. One day I will learn not to fall into the trap, to just say she's sleeping fine and leave it.

Or maybe one day she actually WILL start sleeping fine and I can stop spending her college fund on under-eye concealer and coffee.

There's no Ivy League in your future, kid, sorry. Marry rich and buy your mom her own Starbucks.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Five months (six days late).

2011-08-12T09:57:00.002-04:00

Dear Lorelai,

Five months old. You're such a big girl.

Let's get the bad out of the way first, shall we, so we can end on a high note?

Your sleeping. It sucks. Mostly because it isn't happening. Sure, on a good night, you sleep 7:30-2:30 before starting to wake up every hour or two, but on a bad night (like last night) I see every.clock.hour. starting at 11 pm. Mommy's not a fan.

And your napping isn't much better. Seems like no matter what I do, you won't sleep past 50 minutes. I'm hoping that the next time you take a nap I will be able to write the "dear blog readers, please fix my child's naps" post (with video of a cranky, sleep-crying baby!) that I keep meaning to write but can't because, you know, you don't believe in naps.

Okay, that's really all the bad there is. Please start sleeping. Love, Mommy.

On to the good!

You are SO STRONG. You pull up to standing with very little assistance. If you don't want something, you push it away with a force that surprises me, coming from a tiny baby. (Well, tiny, relatively speaking, you little chunker.)

Solid foods have become part of our daily routine as of this week. You like avocado a lot, but it appears to maybe be disagreeing with you (lots and lots of burping), so we're tabling that one for a bit. Today we tried banana and that too was a hit, although it was jarred banana I bought at the store so I can reuse the jar when I make your food myself, so we'll see how you like real banana tomorrow. (I also learned today, when you didn't finish your jar of banana because that's a lot of banana for a little baby to eat, that I like jarred banana. Who knew?)

Last week you started rolling onto your belly, and you seem to be maybe even preferring to sleep on your belly. Sometimes. As with all your sleep habits, there's no consistency to it, but sometimes that is how you want to sleep. You sleep face-down on the mattress, which makes your dad and me a little nervous, and then you wake up with a big old red patch on your forehead from having it pressed into the mattress. It's very attractive.

The past week or so you have been even happier than usual, smiling pretty much nonstop (except for when you have just woken up from a nap or are trying to poop). It just melts my heart when you grin at me like you do, and it's really hard not to give in and snuggle you when you're wide awake and smiling at me at 3 am.

I've taken you out a few times in the new mei tai carrier, which you seem to prefer over the Ergo. We met some friends for pizza in it, and you sat and played happily with your toys the whole time. Today we went to the grocery store in it and you were so, so good. I'm glad I finally found a carrier that you like to sit in, because you're getting too heavy to keep lugging around the car seat (and you don't like sitting in that much, anyway).

Month 5 looks like it's going to be a good one, pumpkin. Keep smiling at Mommy and she will forgive almost anything, even every-45-minute wakeups. If you could throw in a giggle, too, that would be stellar. That's the one thing we haven't gotten out of you yet (besides a decent night's sleep!).

Happy belated 5-month birthday, Nugget!

Love,
Mommy

Vacation, time to get away...

2011-08-06T21:12:00.001-04:00

It's the last day of our first vacation with Lorelai. We went up to the Eastern Shore, and she has handled the whole thing with remarkable aplomb. Fromm being kept up waaaay past her bedtime every night to sleeping in the pack n play that, at home, may as well be a fate worse than death for all the screaming it produces when I put her in it to pee, she has been a total rockstar.

She is also five months old today. But the five-month letter will have to wait till we return, because typing one-handed on my phone will not do it justice.

In other baby news, I created a tumblr for all the cute baby pics that aren't enough to make a full post but are still fun enough to share. You can find it at lorelaielizabeth.tumblr.com. I'll make it pretty later, but there are a few pictures up already.

I have the best kid ever. Her dad's all right, too.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What a week!

2011-08-02T11:49:00.002-04:00

And it's only Tuesday.

The week began with a trip to urgent care on Sunday, after I woke up to find that not only was my fever STILL there, but I could feel my tonsils sitting on the back of my tongue, they were so swollen. And they were PURPLE. The diagnosis was "It's not strep, it's probably viral, but who knows. Here's an antibiotic just in case. Take Tylenol too." Either it was viral and had about run its course anyway, or it was bacterial and the drugs worked, because yesterday morning I woke up feeling LOADS better.

Which brings me to yesterday morning. Lorelai woke us up at 5 per her usual routine, and while we were lying there trying to decide if she was going to go back to sleep or if she was really going to commit to the awakeness, we heard this weird pounding noise. I thought it was the next-door neighbors pounding on our shared wall to get us to shut the baby up (which makes no sense, there's no way they could hear her on the monitor through the wall ... plus, they're nice people and wouldn't do that). We looked out the window and saw one of the neighbors banging on the door of the house on the other side of us (we're in an end unit, so it was the end unit of the next row). Then we saw the smoke.

Turns out, the second house in on that row had caught fire. Mike had seen the smoke when he took his dogs out, called 911, and then started banging on doors and grabbed someone's hose to try to put it out (spoiler: it didn't work). There was a LOT of smoke, so Kevin went outside to investigate (and move his car so the fire trucks wouldn't block him in, in case he ended up having to go into work) while I got Lorelai changed and started to pack some stuff up. It wasn't looking like it was going to spread across the gap between the rows, but just in case, I figured I should at least have a diaper bag packed.

The fire fighters did come tell us to get out just in case, so we did. What we learned from this is that our emergency response plan sucks, and we should probably have a bag stashed in the hall closet with some diapers and clean underwear just in case this ever happens again.

It took quite some time to get the fire out. Oh, I should probably mention that no people or pets were hurt. Two houses are uninhabitable and it could be months before they're fixed, and two houses have smoke and water damage in the attics but nothing major. The fire was started by a cigarette -- apparently, you should not put your cigarettes out in potting soil, because the chemicals in it are flammable. I guess my neighbor had stubbed it out before she went to bed and it smoldered all night before it finally caught at 4:30 or something.

So that was an exciting morning. And needless to say, I was totally distracted for the rest of the day, but had to stay inside and do work (my company is working on a proposal and I got pulled in to help). Which is also what I'm doing today.

But! We leave for vacation on Thursday, so as of 5 pm today I am done with work. I've got a couple of appointments tomorrow, plus I have to figure out what I need to pack for four days away with a baby, so I told them I'm not working after five today. Given that I'm a big overpacker anyway, I anticipate we will need to rent a U-Haul.

I'm sure I'll have great stories to report back from vacation. Kevin and I are pretty bad at vacationing, because really all we want to do is hole up in the hotel and sleep and read and watch bad TV, but this time we're renting a house with his parents so there's not really any touristy stuff that we "should" be doing instead of holing up. Though I'm not really sure how much you can hole up with a five-month-old in tow. We'll see how it goes -- I'm just hoping that I can actually relax, instead of spending the whole weekend stressing out about what I did and did not remember to bring. Too bad they don't sell Xanax over the counter ...

Sick. Sicky sick sick.

2011-07-30T09:12:00.001-04:00

I caught Lorelai's cold. So did Kevin. The difference is, he's got a stuffy nose and sore throat, and I've got an over-100 fever. But seeing as we're both rarely sick, it's got to be the cold, hitting us both differently.

Which has me feeling like a lousy mom, as the first day L was sick I took her out shopping with her grandmothers. If she was feeling the way I feel right now, I am, like, the worst mother in the world for making her leave the house.

But she didn't feel feverish, just stuffy. So I'm trying to make myself feel better by telling myself she got the cold the way Kevin did.

The terrible-mom thing segues into another topic. I just read a blog post about a child in Arizona who was found dead in a footlocker. At first the police thought she had died from the heat after falling asleep during a game of hide-and-seek, but then the real story came out. I won't go into all the horrible sad details of this poor 10-year-old girl's death and life, but the short of it is that her caregivers -- aunt and uncle, I believe -- locked her in there as punishment for getting a popsicle out of the freezer on a hot day. There were other terrible punishments that came out during the investigation too but I'll spare you, because it makes me sick to think of it.

That sort of thing would have bothered me before I had a kid, but now that I'm a mom? It makes me sick to my core, and makes me want to grab Lorelai up and hug her with everything I've got.

We went to see Harry Potter yesterday, despite the fact that I was already feeling sort of gross. And I thought I'd bawl my eyes out at all the deaths, but I didn't. The only part that got me crying was when Harry's mom kept saying to baby Harry right before Voldemort killed her, "You are so loved, Harry. Mummy and Daddy love you so much."

It wasn't even a new scene -- we've seen it countless times in the other films. But I guess it resonated more now.

I am a sap. A sick, fevery sap. But I love my kid even though she gave me this nasty cold. And I would absolutely take an Avada Kedavra curse for her. In a heartbeat.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Stuffy baby.

2011-07-27T08:58:00.001-04:00

To look at that face, you would never know that she has her first cold and couldn't sleep for the stuffiness (I KNEW if I said we had her sleep issues fixed, even temporarily, karma would bitchslap me).

Although I don't think she minds the stuffy nose as much as she minds us using that bulb thing to try to suck all the snot out. There's got to be a better way to do that. One that actually DOES suck the snot out would be really nice. That bulb is almost useless.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sleep. Glorious sleep.

2011-07-25T21:07:00.004-04:00

In case you haven't been following my sleep woes over at the place I am when I'm not here, we've been having some issues with the sleeping of the nugget lately. Namely, the issue is that she hasn't been sleeping. During the day or night. We're talking three one-hour-or-less naps a day (usually 45-minute in the morning, and two 30- to 45-minute naps later, but soooooometimes the middle one would be an hour), and up every two hours or less at night. Two hours would be a good night.

But, thank God, we've had a few good nights. I'm not going to be so naive as to say that the problem is gone, because I know that now that I've put this out here on the interwebz, karma is going to deliver a swift kick in the pants and curse me with three more months of being up every 45 minutes every night. But for the past few nights the problem was gone, and even if it comes back, the universe cannot take away the past few nights of BLESSED, GLORIOUS SLEEP.

I never in a million years thought I'd be glad to see the clock say 3:30 a.m. But when it had previously been saying 12:30, 1:30, and 2:30 before it said 3:30, I can't help but be overjoyed. For at least a few nights, we've gotten to sleep from 10-3:30. That's five and a half hours, y'all. And then Kevin brings the baby to me in bed so I can sort of sleep while I nurse her (that is our new deal, after my sobbing-on-the-floor breakdown the other day, because he can go back to sleep pretty easily after fetching her and it means that I don't wake myself up by running into walls and things on my way down the hall to get her [please, someone else tell me their ankles don't work right after pregnancy either ... I end up stumbling down the hall like a gimped-out zombie orangutan, running into things left and right, because my ankles are all sorts of jacked after carrying around an extra 54 pounds of baby-and-water weight]). And then when she's done eating, he takes he back to her room, and we go back to sleep until she wakes up again around 5:30.

Our new experiment is not making her go back to sleep after 6:30 or so. We're going to see if it makes her nap better. We were all up at 5:45 today so I could take Kevin to pick up his car from the shop on his way to work, and she took a two-hour nap this afternoon, and may have slept longer but I had to wake her up so I could get to my chiropractor appointment. We'll see what happens tomorrow. If it gets me better sleep at night and more time to get stuff done around the house without feeling like I'm ignoring my kid during the day, I will gladly (well, okay, less-grudgingly) get up at 6:30-ish every day. Besides, it gives me a reason to make coffee in my new coffee cup (which I bought because it has a lid, so I can drink while nursing and not worry about spilling on the baby, and I love it).

Do other people's kids do stuff like this?

2011-07-22T17:43:00.001-04:00

What is that, with the foot on the tray? Ever since she found her feet a week or so ago they are AlWAYS up by her face or in her hands. Which I'm sure is normal when she's on her back, but when she's in a chair?

YouTube Video

Also, the hiccups. Poor kid. Hasn't changed since she was in utero.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I got a new coffee cup.

2011-07-20T16:46:00.001-04:00

These are the things that excite me these days.

(Baby included for cuteness, not scale.)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My other blog is on Facebook.

2011-07-18T14:36:00.002-04:00

You guys remember when I started blogging over at WhatToExpect.com, right? Well, they're asking us to get more social-media-y with those blogs, so it's now on Facebook! Head over and like it (you can also click the "like" button over on the right) and you can get new posts right to your Facebook news feed.

(For those of you who are not super-Facebook-savvy [*coughs* Mom *coughs* ;) ], this won't ask for any of your profile information or anything like the games and other apps do. It's not an app -- it's basically just adding my blog as a friend so whenever I post, you get notified in your news feed that I posted.)

One day I may put this blog on Facebook too. I'm undecided.

And now I have to wake up my quietly-sleeping baby so we can go to the chiropractor. I hate to do it, but she has been super gassy the past couple days, so we really need this appointment (if only to see if once again she stops being gassy after the adjustment, to determine if the last time was a coincidence or not!).

Snuggles.

2011-07-14T09:39:00.002-04:00

The past few weeks, when Lorelai was doing her wake-up-every-hour-and-a-half thing, I got in the habit of bringing her into bed with me in the mornings because I knew if I nursed her in bed she'd fall asleep and I'd get a guaranteed hour and a half to two hours of uninterrupted sleep.

I never would have thought I'd be cosleeping with my baby to any extent -- the thought made me nervous. What if I rolled over on her? What if she liked my bed so much that she wouldn't go in the crib anymore? What if she became dependent on the warmth of our bodies to fall asleep? We'd been given one of those cosleeping baskets as a shower gift, but I returned it because that wasn't a road I wanted to go down. (Plus, she was so big at birth we wouldn't have been able to use it for long anyway.) (I got a bouncy chair instead. We get far more use out of that.)

Anyway, now morning snuggle time is my favorite time of day. She's sleeping better since her gas issues have calmed down, so I don't really need that time in the morning to get sleep, but I just really enjoy snuggling. (And I like the extra sleep. I'm not gonna lie.) I enjoy it so much, in fact, that I suggested to Kevin the other day that when we go on vacation next month, we should leave the pack 'n play at home and just let her sleep with us.
He was not a fan of that idea. He likes in-the-big-bed snuggle time too, but only when he's already pretty much awake for the day. I'm not sure if he's afraid he'll roll over on her, if he just doesn't sleep because of all her baby noises, or if he's afraid of establishing a habit of cosleeping at night that we have to fight against when we get home.

He's got a valid point no matter which concern is the biggest. And I'll tell you, Lorelai picks up on new patterns very quickly. When she wakes up around 6:30 now and I bring her into my room, she starts trying to latch on through my shirt before I've even gotten us settled in bed. She's learned that the big bed means boobs.

I know there's really no harm in it, but I feel like I should stop bringing her into our room anyway. Mostly because I'm doing it for selfish reasons -- because I like snuggling and sleep. We've been sleeping till 8:30 or 9:00 every weekday morning, which is great for me but I can't help but wonder if maybe she'd take better naps if she didn't sleep so late in the morning. In which case, I can't really say there's no harm being done. Because even though she sleeps better at night now, naps are still a battle, and they only last 45 minutes.

But she's just so snuggly. Would you be able to stop snuggling this baby?

Cereal and chiropractors.

2011-07-13T09:52:00.001-04:00

We started cereal. Rice cereal was a bust no matter the consistency; she only wanted it super liquidy in a bottle. But oatmeal cereal she actually likes in a spoon! Or, well, on my finger, but she'll do the spoon sometimes.

YouTube Video

I have no idea if that video is going to work.

I also took her to a chiropractor for her gas issues. I threw out my own neck last week ( one of the perils of being a stomach sleeper) and had to bring her to one of my appointments, and I'd heard about chiropractic adjustments helping babies with all sorts of things so I asked him about it. And he did an adjustment and I swear it worked. My happy, talkative, non-screamy baby is back. And sleeping better! She gives us a six-hour stretch again (it's from 7:30-2:30, so I'm not getting much more sleep because I just can't go to bed at 7:30, but at least she's rested again).

And we took our first road trip on Sunday. Lorelai and I went down to Richmond to visit some friends and she did really well. Slept most of the way down there, and would have slept most of the way back but traffic was terrible so after her two-hour nap she was awake and mad about being in the car. I don't blame her; by the time we got home four hours after we left I was mad about being in the car too. (Richmond is only two hours away, for the record.)

So it's been a busy time over here. Which is why I suck at posting.

Oh but I do think I figured out how to get pictures off the camera so Lorelai's four month picture should be added into that post sometime today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Four months.

2011-07-06T21:43:00.005-04:00

Dear Lorelai,

I cannot believe you are four months old already. In a way it feels like you have been with us forever, but it also feels like you're still brand-new.

Once again, I will be late posting the photo to this letter, but that is for once not because I'm techno-illiterate. I finally got your dad to teach me how to work the camera-computer connection. But you got your shots this afternoon and were not in the mood to have your picture taken after, so I will have to take it tomorrow.
You are so, so strong, baby girl. You stand up ALL the time. You would rather be standing on my lap (or on the counter in the bathroom, looking at yourself in the mirror) than doing anything else in the world. You can even pull yourself from sitting to standing with very little assistance from me. Your head control is amazing, and when you are fighting a gas bubble, I am no match for your arching and flailing.

Oh, the gas bubbles. You poor, poor baby. They come on with a vengeance, and they hurt you so much that it often takes us 30 minutes or more after you've gotten rid of it to calm you down. The doctor did give us some tips today for how to help you, so I'm hoping that they'll make things a little better for you (and for us, as these things seem to strike you the worst in the wee hours of the night). She also said that most babies outgrow the gassy phase by six months, so hopefully you won't have to hurt too much longer.
You were so good about getting your shots today, too. You only cried a little bit, and by the time we left the office you were smiling at us again. We dosed you with Tylenol as soon as we got home to avoid a repeat of last time's sore leg fiasco, and you slept a good portion of the day. When you weren't sleeping, you weren't exactly in a bad mood, but you were still super sleepy.

You seem to really like the rice cereal we've started you on, thought you won't take it from a spoon. I've tried various consistencies, but every spoonful comes right back out. You'd think that once it's in your mouth you'd know to swallow it, but I guess not. We'll work on that.
You're not rolling over or laughing yet, but you're so close to both that I'm pretty sure you CAN do it, you just won't. I'm hoping that changes this month, because I really, really want to hear your giggle.

I know that there are times when I get frustrated with you, such as when it's three a.m. and you're screaming even though the gas was passed an hour ago, but that's just the exhaustion talking. I'm not really frustrated with you as much as I'm frustrated that I am awake at three a.m. Even when you're cranky and my ear hurts from you screaming into it, I still love you more than anything on this Earth. One smile from you is enough to make anything wrong with my day instantly better, and there are no words to describe the joy I feel when you look at me and break into a full-body-wiggle type of grin. I love that when I walk into a room and you hear my voice, your head whips around and you just beam from ear to ear when you see me. It's exactly how I feel when I walk into a room and see you, pumpkin.

I truly did not realize until four months ago today just how much love the human heart can hold. My heart gets bigger and fuller every day that I get to be your mommy. You are the most amazing little person in the world, Lorelai, and I love you so much.

Love,

Mommy("I'mma eat your face, Snuffleupagus!")

I say "butt crack" far too many times in this post.

2011-07-05T06:40:00.002-04:00

It is 6:40 a.m. My child is sleeping. I am not.

*Sigh*

I did something to my neck on Sunday (I think I slept funny) and it's been killing me ever since. Regular ibuprofen wasn't doing any good, so early this morning after I fed Lorelai I decided to bust out the rice bag (which, if you don't have one, they are the best heating pads EVER -- take a dish towel, fold it in half, stitch around the edges, fill with rice, stick in microwave. HEAVEN.) and pop one of the Percocets I have leftover from my C-section. I figured the heat would make my neck feel better till the meds kicked in and knocked me out.

The meds did not knock me out. I'm WIRED, you guys. WIDE AWAKE. Contemplating painting the foyer, I am that awake. (But also lazy, so probably I will watch bad TV till Lorelai wakes up and then I will wonder why I never get anything productive done around the house.)

On the upside, my neck feels great. Oh, and did I mention that my daughter is sleeping??? Hallefrickinlujah.

We've been struggling in the sleep department lately, which is part of why I have barely blogged at all. I haven't been able to because the 15 minutes here and there of nap time are not enough for me to do things like eat AND pee AND blog. She's started screaming at nap time in a way that is like nothing I've experienced so far -- full-body flailing, scratching at my face, hollering like her toenails are being plucked out one by one while her hair is being set on fire -- but after about 10 minutes of this, she conks out and will actually sleep. I'm sure it's just an energy-burning thing, she's got to wear herself out so she can fall asleep, and if she'll sleep for two hours I don't care how scratched up my face is or how perforated my eardrums are.

We've also decided to try cutting out the dream feed. Up till now I've been feeding her before bed, then waking her up before we go to bed to feed her again, but I think this has been screwing her up. She's been waking every hour starting at 2:38 a.m. (why 2:38, I have no idea), so she and I are both exhausted. So last night we decided to try not waking her up and see what happened. And she did wake up a little before two, but it had been six hours so I got up and fed her, and she slept another three hours after that. So for the first time in I don't remember how long, I got two stretches of three hours of sleep (since I did not go to bed at 7:30 like she did, I sadly did not get to enjoy a six-hour stretch). Which may be why I'm awake now. My body doesn't know what to do with all this rest it got last night.

We'll try cutting the dream feed a few more nights and see what happens. Personally, I'd rather wake up once at two than every hour from two till whenever I drag myself out of bed for the full day. Kevin's also decided he wants to wean her off the white noise machine (even though I sort of like having the sounds of the ocean coming through all the monitors so it sounds like we live at the beach, without having to deal with the bad parts of actually living at the beach -- namely tourists and sand in your butt crack [to clarify -- tourists, pause, and sand in your butt crack ... I am not implying that living at the beach involves having tourists in your butt crack. Typically.]) (That last sentence is the reason I should not blog on Percocet.) But after we get the white noise phased out (which shouldn't be too hard) it's time to move on to the pacifier. I am not looking forward to that one. Any advice on how to make weaning off the pacifier easier for all involved would be much appreciated.

The things my husband says ...

2011-07-03T10:19:00.001-04:00

Last night at about 4:30 a.m. I return from feeding Lorelai to find Kevin diagonal in the bed, scooted down so his feet are in my corner and his head is a good two feet from the headboard.

Me: Um.
Kevin: (waking slightly) Wow, I'm totally diagonal.
Me: Yeah. How'd you manage that?
Kevin: I was being a clock.
Me: (laughs) What?
Kevin: I don't know. (pause) It makes sense!
Me: No, it really doesn't. And this is totally going on Facebook.
Kevin: No!

He was right. It was too long for Facebook. He never said anything about my blog though!

"My dad is a clock? That's just crazy talk."

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Oh. My. Word.

2011-07-01T20:30:00.003-04:00

My child napped for a total of an hour and a half today (for you non-parents out there, that's, like, a third of what she should be napping). And she did it in about 10-minute increments, with the exception of one about-30-minute nap that her saint of a father managed to get her down for while I was running errands. I still sort of can't believe he let me leave him alone with her and her yelling.

Oh, the yelling. Darling Lorelai has a set of lungs on her, and when she is mad, she lets you know it. We don't even know what she was mad about, but damn was she pissed.

She got some rice cereal in a bottle before bed just now, and she's getting the rest of that bottle during her dream feed tonight, so let's hope and pray that it tanks her up enough that she DOESN'T wake up at 2 a.m. screaming bloody murder for an hour straight like last night. Or enough that she doesn't wake up every 45 minutes starting at 1 a.m. and continuing until 7, like the night before.

I love my child, but all this unprovoked yelling is enough to make a woman understand why some species eat their young.

Bad blogger.

2011-06-20T16:25:00.004-04:00

I have been remiss in my posting, and I apologize. Last week was a wee bit hectic. My boss was out of town so I was on call for the whole week, and of course it would be the week where we get totally slammed. Which I was not anticipating, seeing as there have been maybe three documents a week for the past few months, so I didn't have anyone to watch Lorelai while I was working until my mom came out on Wednesday (and then again on Thursday, when I got yet another same-day-turnaround document).

Speaking of Lorelai ... my poor kid. She was back at the doctor again today, because she started screaming for no discernible reason Saturday evening and barely stopped (or slept) until about 4:00 this morning. I was pretty sure it was early signs of teething, but I wanted to rule out an ear infection.

The good news -- no ear infection. The bad news -- she's probably started teething, but the teeth are nowhere near ready to bust through, so we likely have a few more months of this. It's likely that the screaming will go in three- or four-day waves, with a week or so in between.

The doctor (who was one I hadn't seen, and who told me that I'm absolutely right in not doing CIO with a baby this young, and that my theory that the screaming when being put in the crib started because of an association with the pain of her shots and then sort of snowballed into "I've been crying when I go in the crib and I don't remember why but there has to be a reason so I'm going to keep it up" is probably pretty accurate) did want to rule out a UTI, which meant collecting a urine sample. And since babies won't pee on command, they had to insert a catheter. Without any painkillers. Which, if you'll recall, is how my catheter happened when I was in labor, because the damn epidural worked everywhere but between my legs (the main place I wanted it to work, just my luck!), so I know exactly how much that had to have hurt her. She cried, but it was just crying, not screaming. I cried on her behalf more than she did. She was a trooper, and they got the sample, and the initial culture showed it was clean so chances are the screaming was just teething-related.

So that's what's been going on over here. Kevin had as rough a week as I did last week, unfortunately, so the weekend included some much-needed downtime. Friday night he and our friends Nick and Jesse watched Lorelai and Nick's son Blake so that Nick's wife Betsy, Jesse's wife Meg, and I could all go out to dinner and a movie (The Hangover II, which I thought was WAY better than Bridesmaids), which was a wonderful evening out and just what I needed (and the kids went to bed at like 7:30, so the boys played video games and got plenty of their own relaxation time in, so don't feel sorry for them having to babysit!). Saturday we did Father's Day-slash-Kevin's birthday over at his parents' house, where we seared steaks in a cast-iron skillet (OMG SO GOOD) and then Sunday Kevin had to spend his first Father's Day at the theatre for a while, so Lorelai and I ran some errands. Errands which were interspersed with random fits of screaming. Better me than Kevin, I guess, seeing as it was Father's Day and all and he shouldn't have to hear his kid shrieking herself hoarse on his day.

Three months.

2011-06-09T13:55:00.004-04:00

Dear Lorelai,

I'm sorry I'm late in posting this. Someone has been too cranky lately for me to have the time. I'm also sorry that there isn't a picture to go with it yet. I took them, but I haven't figured out how to get them off the camera yet so I need to get your dad to show me. I'll add a picture once I get them onto the computer.

At any rate, you were three months old on Monday! You've had a very busy third month, little girl. You got your two-month shots (ow!) and then promptly forgot how to go to sleep without yelling at me for an hour beforehand. Then you forgot how to stay asleep for more than 30 minutes during the day. Your dad says you're just too excited to sleep because you've found out that you have hands. I say you're starting your teen years early.

Speaking of those hands, you are fascinated by them. Who knew that fingers could provide hours of entertainment? You just sit and stare at your hands all day long. You're getting your thumb into your mouth pretty consistently (except at sleeping time, when it would be really nice -- we're still having to run in to plug the pacifier back in more often than I'd prefer), and you check it more than suck it, with your other fingers splayed out in front of your face.

You love your Baby Einstein DVDs and squeal with delight whenever the cat or the dragon puppet comes onscreen.

You've had a rough couple of weeks with some gas and possible acid reflux issues that have been interfering with your sleep, but it looks like we've got that sorted out because you're back to being the happiest baby I've ever seen. You just smile all the time, at everyone you meet.

I'm still waiting for your first giggle. Right now, when you want to laugh, you do this sort of cough thing and then squeal. I'm really hoping that's just a precursor to the real thing, because if that's your actual laugh elementary school is going to be hell for you.

At your doctor's appointment yesterday you weighed 13 pounds, 10 ounces. You're eating like a champ and you've even figured out the whole bottle thing -- not only have you stopped leaking half the milk out the sides of your mouth, you will also accept a bottle from me if you have to (which you did for a few days while I was trying to get some gripe water in you to see if it would make your poor tummy feel better).

You still love bath time, but you've decided that you hate the baby massage afterward. (Or perhaps it's that you know it's bedtime, and you don't want to go to sleep and miss out on all the very fun stuff your dad and I do after you go to bed, so that's why you fuss? I'll tell you, you're not missing much, kiddo. Old Sports Night episodes on Netflix and the occasional Oreo cookie binge.) (Okay, fine, the more-than-occasional Oreo cookie binge. Whatever, you're too young for cookies so you're still not missing out.) But in the bath, man, you just kick and splash and smile. Come to think of it, maybe the reason you fuss after bath time is that bath time is over. Maybe I should start leaving you in there longer?

You love fabric -- my shirt, your dress, burp cloths, you name it. Any piece of fabric you will grab onto and pull up over your face. (Very ladylike when it's your dress; very scary for Mommy and Daddy when it's something in your crib.) Your favorite thing, though, is your hippo lovey from your aunt Vanessa. I'm not sure if you could fall asleep without it now. You grab onto it, snuggle it up against (or over) your face, and pass out.

While this last month has certainly been the most challenging so far because of your tummy and sleep troubles, it's still been a pretty good month. Any month that I get to hang out with you is a good one. You're pretty cute.

I love you, Nugget.

Love,
Mommy

The diagnosis.

2011-06-08T16:27:00.003-04:00

It may or may not be reflux. It also may or may not be that I am coddling her. I am, understandably, I think, not overly thrilled with this diagnosis.
It came from one of the doctors I hadn't yet met (our practice has, like, nine doctors in it), and I think I will be requesting not to see her again. I mean, she was pleasant enough, but when I explained what was going on (the sleep issues, the gas, the screaming whenever she's lying on her back, the crying right after feedings, the really weird diapers that were my main concern), and said that we were thinking maybe reflux but I'm not really convinced, especially as it's sort of out of the blue, she said, "Well, we'll get to the reflux thing in a minute," and started asking me all these questions about the sleep trouble. And then told me that I need to just let her scream.

Now, I have pretty strong feelings on the Cry It Out (CIO) method of sleep training. I do not judge others who use it, because I know it works for a lot of families, but it's not for me. I tried it a few times, and within two minutes she was screaming so hard that she was turning purple. I'm not going to make my baby scream herself to sleep if she's turning blue in the face. Letting her fuss is one thing; letting her cry, even, I can deal with. But she escalates to the screaming so quickly that I think for us, it's cruel to just leave her be. Only once did we have a successful CIO session, and that really doesn't count because she just fussed a little. Like I said, I don't mind letting her fuss it out, but I'm not going to let her make herself sick with the crying.

I explained this to the doctor, who said, "Well, babies escalate quickly, you just have to wait them out. If you know there's no physical reason for the screaming, it won't hurt her to cry."

I take issue with someone telling me that they hear me saying that I don't like this approach and don't want to use it, but telling me to do it anyway. There are plenty of no-crying sleep approaches out there, CIO is an approach that Kevin and I have discussed and chosen not to use. The doctor asked if I pick her up when she starts screaming. I said, "If I can tell she's physically uncomfortable, or if the pacifier doesn't work, and patting her back and shushing her doesn't work, and I can tell she's working herself into a state where she's going to start choking because she's crying so hard, yes." To which she replied that I've taught her that if she screams loud enough and long enough, she'll get picked up, and I need to just let her scream. At which point I repeated that I can only let the screaming escalate so far before I'm going to calm her down, but that I do use other soothing techniques to try to keep it from getting to that point (techniques that typically work). And she basically said, "Well, it's your funeral, but CIO works."

So after she pushed the CIO thing and I said, "No, I'm not doing it, how about we talk about the physical symptoms, like these weird, smelly, liquidy poops she's having? That concerns me a lot more than the sleep thing", we discussed reflux.

I didn't want to assume that's what it was, because it's a really hard thing to diagnose in a baby who can't tell you that she's having heartburn, especially when she also isn't spitting up. Basically, she screams when she's lying on her back, even propped with a Boppy, but she's not spitting up. That combined with the weird poops and gas had me thinking it was some sort of digestive issue, but I was open to discussing non-reflux possibilities.

She gave me a prescription for Zantac and said to give it to her twice a day for two weeks, and see if things improve. If they do, it's likely a reflux-esque issue and we can discuss keeping her on it. If they don't, well, I should consider just letting her scream.

These sleep troubles may be annoying and they may be exhausting, but as I explained to the nurse and to the doctor (repeatedly), they are not my primary concern. But apparently they are the doctor's primary concern, and I was really afraid she was going to give me a prescription for CIO and refuse to even discuss the physical symptoms. So I'm glad she did give us the Zantac, even though I was not and am still not sold on the reflux thing. We'll see how it goes. Maybe it was just a phase and she's coming out of it on her own. At any rate, I'm just glad she's seemingly feeling better, and getting some rest. Now if we can only get the weird poops taken care of ...

"Mom, please stop discussing my poop with the Internet. And take this stupid-ass thing off my head."

Disjointed, but there's a picture.

2011-06-08T09:27:00.001-04:00

Lorelai finally napped yesterday. For two and a half hours. She slept through a feeding but I was not about to wake her up.

She's still crying a lot though, and after extensive and highly scientific research (Kevin opened a single book and took a quiz) we think it may not be gas so much as acid reflux. A diagnosis I've resisted, though I have considered it, because I feel like it's the new trendy thing for doctors to say your baby has if they don't know what's wrong with her. Like how for a long time every kid who had trouble in school was ADD, when really a third of them were probably just bored and 98% of the remaining two-thirds were probably just bratty attention whores.

But I'm calling the pediatrician today so we'll see what she says.

Unrelated, the damn anti-SIDS monitor went off again last night and this time we don't have a clue why. Lorelai seemed fine, just annoyed that she'd been woken up, so I'm pretty sure it was another false alarm. And again, I lost years off my life. I'm not gonna make it to 30 if this keeps up.

Finally, I know I am late on Lorelai's three month post (for the maybe one of you who actually keeps track enough to know she was three months on Monday -- not that I expect anyone to but in case someone noticed, yes, I am aware I have been remiss). I will do it soon, and there will be a cute picture. I've just been a bit preoccupied what with the crying baby and my heart stopping and all.

I haven't slept properly in days.

2011-06-05T10:47:00.004-04:00

Lorelai has had raging, crazy gas the past few days. The kind that has her screaming for hours on end, alternately pulling her knees to her chest and stretching her whole body to its full length, holding herself rigid as her cries reach a fever pitch, and I don't know what to do for her. I give her those simethicone gas drops at every feeding, I've tried gripe water, I've tried bicycling her legs. Sometimes picking her feet up like I'm changing her diaper, or pressing her knees into her chest, will work, but not if she's doing the rigid-body thing, and it always makes her cry harder. The only thing that seems to be doing any good with any reliability is laying her tummy-down on a heating pad set on low, but again, it makes her scream louder because I don't doubt that when you've got a giant gas bubble, being on your stomach probably makes it hurt worse, till it finally breaks up.

It began last Wednesday evening, continued all day (literally ALL day) Thursday, and we've had at least one bout of gas-related hysteria every day this weekend. One was at 3:00 this morning, and ended in an explosive poop all over the heating pad, her legs, and the blanket she was lying on. Today, it's interrupted all her naps, so she's crying from overtiredness on top of the gas. We're having a blast over here in the King house.

If anyone has any miracle cures for gas that I haven't already tried, please speak up. We're so tired, we'll try anything.

***

Speaking of last Wednesday evening, Kevin was in New Jersey on business, and I never sleep well when he's gone. After fighting the gas for forty minutes, Lorelai finally passed it and fell asleep again, but I tossed and turned. I finally fell asleep around 12:15 or so, and was awakened at 1 by the anti-SIDS monitor going off. Pretty sure I lost about 15 years off my life there. I've never moved that fast in my life -- I don't even remember running down the hall to her room.

It was a false alarm, thank God. I restarted my heart, cuddled her for a minute (when I got in there, she was all, "What is this racket, Mom? I'm trying to sleep in here!"), and put her back in the crib. We'd gotten the monitor from a family friend who warned us that sometimes the ceiling fan would set it off, but we hadn't had a problem with it up till then. Still, I turned off the fan, then went back to bed.

Ten minutes later, the damn thing went off again, at which point I had to assess what was different from every other night over the past three months that could be setting it off.

She'd peed on her Halo sleep sack earlier in the night during a diaper change, so I had her in a Cloud B brand sleep sack we'd never used before. It's a lot heavier than the light cotton Halo one, and that was seriously the only thing that was at all different from every other night. So I took the sleep sack off of her, put her in long-pants pajamas and socks, and went back to my room again.

The sleep sack must have been the culprit, because we didn't have any more false alarms, but I think it's probably not surprising that I didn't sleep the rest of the night because I was lying there waiting for the alarm again. Best I can figure is that the sack was too heavy for the monitor to properly detect the movement of her chest when she breathed, so it thought that she must not actually be breathing. Needless to say, we won't be using that sack anymore. (Shame, too, it's very comfy-looking.)

***

Finally, to wrap up the reasons I am more exhausted than I've been in years, I went to the NKOTBSB concert on Friday night and didn't get home till 2 in the morning. While I admit that I prefer BSB's solo concerts, partly because I never listed to the New Kids so I had no idea what any of their songs were and partly because I think the venue they normally play up here (an outdoor, smaller venue) is better than the Verizon Center (LOUD. SO LOUD.), I did enjoy the concert.

AND!
AND AND AND!!

THIS:

Yes, I was three feet away from Nick Carter. He and Brian came through the audience right by our seats (AJ and Howie were across the way on the opposite side of the stadium). I was SO CLOSE to shaking his hand, but as I reached out some girl threw her hand up and knocked mine out of the way (I don't think it was on purpose, she was just doing an excited flail, but still, I hope her car gets keyed). But still, it was pretty cool to be that close to my first-ever celebrity crush. (Also cool that it was Nick and Brian who came down our side -- Nick being my favorite and Brian being the favorite of my friend Emma, who was at the concert with me. What're the odds we'd both get that close to our favorite Backstreet Boys?)

(Yes, I know I sound like a raging, squealy fangirl right now, and yes, I'm aware that I am almost 30, married, and a mother. Whatever, it's freaking NICK CARTER, I've had a crush on him since I was 11, I'm allowed to revert. You should have heard the high note I hit when I realized that the reason everyone around me was screaming was that Nick was right there. Pretty sure Mariah Carey herself can't hit that note.)

But yeah, the concert was good, even though I didn't know a single NKOTB song and thus half the show was lost on me. (Seriously, before Friday night, the only song of theirs I could name was "The Right Stuff", and I couldn't have sung you the chorus of it if my life had depended on it. Even though I now realize that the chorus goes, "The right stuff.") I'm hoping that next year BSB tours alone again, and comes back to Wolftrap instead of the Verizon Center, thought who knows. Wolftrap is a much smaller venue, so depending on how well this year's tour boosts their popularity, they may be in the running for the big venue again. Either way, I will be there.

2011-05-29T11:36:00.002-04:00

Remember how I got my ears pierced last weekend? Well, the girl screwed up the right one, as I realized that evening when I went to clean them. The second earring was next to the first hole instead of being higher than it, and it was also way far away from the first hole compared to the left ear.

I waited a few days to see if it was still really bugging me (it totally was, I don't know why I thought it wouldn't), so I called the store Thursday morning and asked the manager to fix it for me. She told me to come in, so I did ... at which point she told me that my first hole was actually crooked, not the second one, and that she would fix it but I'd have to pay for it. When I said I have no problem where the first hole is, but I wanted the botched second one fixed, she said that she'd fix it for me but since the first one was the real issue, she would have to charge me. And that they don't have single earrings that match the ones I had put in the second holes, so I'd have to buy a double set.

I said, "Okay, so assume the first piercing is screwed up and I need to have that one redone. What are my options for single earrings and where would you put the new hole for the first piercing?" and she showed me the single earrings and I said "Well the only one I'd use is the CZ stud even though it doesn't really match any of the other earrings I have, it's the closest to what I'm currently wearing", and she put the dot on my ear and as I was looking at it in the mirror, she opened up one of the CZ studs. The dot was really low, so I said I wasn't going to do it, and she said, "But I already opened the earring."

"So you're going to try to make me pay for an earring for a piercing I don't want and hadn't officially agreed to before you opened it?"

She said that she'd "make an exception" this time, and I left.

When I got home, I called the Claire's store at the other mall near me and talked to the manager there, who said she had absolutely no problem fixing the piercing, that even if my first hole was crooked they should have gone off of that hole, so there shouldn't have been an issue, and that customer service at that other store is a regular problem.

So yesterday I went over to the second store to get my piercing fixed. The first one she put in was still too far away, so she did it again, no problem. No flack for wasting an earring, no grief for being anal about where I wanted the earring. And she said that the first one was definitely screwed up, it wasn't just me -- not only was it put in the wrong spot, it was also put in at an odd angle, which is why it looked so far away form the first hole.

So I now have three second piercings in my right ear, the first two of which will close up and disappear within a few weeks. The new piercing looks so much better than the old one (I still sort of think it's a little too close to my first hole, but I didn't want to be even more difficult, and it's something that no one besides my anal retentive, obsessive self will ever notice).

And what I learned from this is that if I ever need to go to Claire's again, I am driving the extra 15 minutes to the second mall.

I've been re-memorizing lullaby lyrics lately.

2011-05-25T17:29:00.001-04:00

"Puff the Magic Dragon"? Is a really, really sad song.

Almost as sad as "The Land Before Time", which I watched again recently and bawled my eyes out over.

Why are there so many kids' stories about losing your friends and/or parents? "Puff" may have to be removed from my daily rotation, except that now it's pretty much burned into my brain.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

In which Lorelai and I both have traumatic experiences with being poked full of holes.

2011-05-23T08:43:00.007-04:00

I just couldn't wait. I decided that since the pediatrician wouldn't do it until we resolved the insurance billing issue (which we did that afternoon, but I'm not going back to the pediatrician just for the ear piercing, and I'm not waiting two months till Lorelai's next appointment when I've waited over a year to begin with [I'd wanted to get this done for a while but when I finally got around to deciding I was actually going to do it, I found out I was pregnant, so I couldn't]), I'd just go ahead and go to the mall to get the second holes. I think if I don't use the Claire's cleaner solution, and use the saltwater-and-Bactine combo my friend Rachel used on her ears when she got them pierced, I can probably avoid the infection issues I had the first time around (I really think I'm sensitive to Claire's cleaner stuff). It's been two days and so far, so good.
Kevin was doing lights at the theatre Saturday afternoon, so Lorelai and I brought him lunch on our way to the mall. I told him I was having second thoughts, because I couldn't remember from the first time I'd gotten my ears pierced how much it hurt, and what if it was really bad? I was like eight when I got them done before, so after 20 years I've sort of forgotten the specifics of how an ear piercing feels (I do, however, remember how my navel piercing felt, and let me tell you, the C-section was nothing compared to that pain because the guy got halfway through the piercing, decided he didn't like the angle, and started over. So I essentially got my navel pierced one and a half times, and it was not the quick three seconds of sharp pain he promised me it would be, the jerk). So, yeah, I was pretty much convinced that I was going to need to come home and dive into my leftover Percocet after this ear piercing thing. He told me to call him if I needed him to hold my hand over the phone while they did it, and I laughed and said I'd be fine but secretly I was wondering how I was going to be able to hold my phone to the first ear while they pierced the second one, and would it be really annoying to everyone else in the store if I had him on speakerphone?

Anyway, I got to the mall, and there was a little girl (who told the piercer she was nine, and do you know that they are making nine-year-olds much older-looking than they used to now? I totally thought she was at least 12) in the chair already, and she asked the piercer what it would feel like, and the woman said, "Oh, it's just a quick pinch." Of course, she has to say that, I thought, trying to tamp down the queasy feeling that was starting in my gut. She did the first ear on the girl, who said, "Wow, I barely even felt that," and I turned around and left the store.

That's right, I got so freaked out that I left the store.

Then I thought to myself, If a nine-year-old said she barely felt it, you need to grow a pair and go back in there, you wuss. So I went back, and told the woman I wanted second holes, and then told the girl, "I almost chickened out, but you said you barely felt it so I decided if you could do it, so could I." Her mother laughed and pointed to Lorelai and said, "If you can do that, this should be no problem." I told her she was right, that this ought to be nothing compared to a C-section, and at least I have leftover Percocet if it was worse than I thought.

I almost threw up on the woman when she came at me with the ear gun. But I didn't. And it barely hurt at all.

***

And because what would a post on this blog be without my talking incessantly about my daughter, I'm pretty sure the doctor's visit on Friday has given her nightmares. I mean, I can't think what else it could be, seeing as she hasn't really had any other traumatic experiences in her 11 weeks on this Earth (other than, you know, being born) to give her nightmares, and I'm positive that's what's happening. She keeps waking up screaming -- not just crying, but screaming-crying, with no escalation, just immediately starts in with the screams -- and as soon as I pick her up she burrows her face into my neck and goes right back to sleep, until I put her back down. Then she starts wailing again. So where she used to not even wake up before naptime was over, or after we put her down for the night, and when she did she would go right back to sleep with a pacifier and/or white noise, now she's taking 20 minutes of cuddling, pacifier, white noise, patting the mattress, and a whole host of other assorted baby-calming/distracting elements to get her back down. It started when she woke up from her nap after the doctor's appointment, and I though she was just having a reaction the the shot, so I gave her some baby Tylenol and got her back down. But it's continued, every single time she goes to sleep almost, since then. There's no fever, her injection sites look fine, she's just screaming for no apparent reason. I really do think she's having bad dreams about getting shots. And I'm seriously hoping they stop soon because I can't stand seeing her so upset, and she's exhausted from all the crying and the short-changing herself on her naps. I miss my smiley, happy baby.

Teething is going to be so much fun.

What is this crap? Get these things off my face, Mom. And you wonder why I'm having nightmares.

Shots.

2011-05-20T14:23:00.003-04:00

Lorelai had her two-month appointment today, which came with vaccinations. She did amazingly well -- the first vaccine was actually an oral one, and she downed that like a champ (considering most anything I try to give her via oral syringe, be it gas drops, Vitamin D, or gripe water, ends up on her shirt and in the creases of her neck because as soon as it's in her mouth she sticks her tongue out and it all dribbles out, I was astounded that ANY of this stuff made it into her stomach, much less all of it), but the shots were the part I was particularly proud of her for. I told Kevin he was going to have to hold her because I was afraid I would cry, which was sort of a lie -- I didn't really think I would cry, because I know that the shots are good for her and she'll forget the needle stick shortly, and I'm not really one of those moms who starts to bawl at the thought of my baby crying (unless I'm super-exhausted and hormonal, like in the first couple of weeks after she was born, but that's a whole separate issue). But I still didn't want to be the one holding her. I don't really know why.

Turns out, neither of us held her -- the nurse had us lay her on the table and just hold her hands while she got the shots, so we each took a hand. The first shot she didn't even react to at first, and we were both watching her and thinking, "No way. No way she's going to not cry. Just ... no way."

Yeah, she cried. It just took a few seconds for the needle stick to register. But she didn't go into full-on meltdown mode like I'd expected, and she didn't even cry for very long -- two minutes, tops. I was so proud of her.

***

While we were at the pediatrician, I was supposed to get my ears pierced. I've wanted second holes for ages, but when I got my ears pierced the first time(s -- I had to have my single holes redone because they kept getting infected and closing up) I went to Claire's at the mall and it turns out I do not react well to their cleaning solution (hence the infections). So I figured it would maybe be better to get it done at the doctor, and since my doctor doesn't do it, I got the pediatrician's office to agree to it even though I'm not technically a patient.

But we had a billing issue, wherein we thought our deductible was met but the insurance wasn't paying for Lorelai's hospital care or her first few office visits, and they told me they won't pierce my ears till that balance is taken care of (turns out we hadn't met our deductible yet, oops) so I still only have one hole in each ear. Boo.

I was planning on both of us being stuck with sharp things today, but only poor Lorelai was. And yet I'm the one who got ice cream after the appointment. Score for me.

Polka Dots and Pearls

Glitter hippiefication.

Chicken.

Fat Bet update

10 Months.

Slacker.

Follow-up.

When babies won't eat.

Paragraphs.

Fat Bet.

2011 Wrap-up

Calling it.

Merry Christmas and thank you.

How Snapfish saved Christmas.

Walking with the push-toy. Oy vey.

I know. I know.

Day 14: Nine months.

Day 13: In which I am once again a day late.

Inappropriate Elf contest link

Day 12: In which I join Pinterest.

Day 11: In which Inappropriate Elf takes to the pole.

Day 10: In which I watch a Christmas movie.

Day 9: In which I used up everything I was going to post about on my late day 8 post.

Day 8: In which I am a day late.

Project Night Night

Day 7: In which I move on.

Day 6: In which I am possibly a little more indignant than I should be.

Please hold; system processing.

Day 5: In which I am so excited that Lorelai and I just had a squealing contest and I actually won.

Day 4: In which I almost head upstairs to bed without posting.

Day 3, in which I can't seem to stay on topic.

Day 2: In which I am somewhat less frantic than yesterday.

FaNaBloPoMo: Day 1

Last one, I promise.

Grabby.

It's hard to wrangle two babies, two dogs, and a Christmas tree.

Thankful. Also, older.

That lactation appointment was a bust (BAH!)

Vote vote vote!

Day one of voting, day one of my incessant pleas for votes!

Tiny Prints Talent Search -- Vote for Lorelai!

The Little Mermaid

Snuggles vs. sleep

Dance party!

It's Christmas card time again, Charlie Brown.

8 months.

On the upside, I learned that the Backstreet Boys Pandora station is pretty awesome.

Autumn.

Halloween Things (literally), and yet another of my insane plans

C-section angst. Still.

Sick. Again. *coughs*

The only thing I don't like about fall ...

I don't even know what our schedule is anymore.

Three years.

Social networking and me.

Accent Vlog

Moonlight Lullabies, Spell-checked and Photographed

Moonlight Lullabyes

The nursing strike is over!

Seven months.

Nursing strike.

It's fall!

My first blogger meetup

Pictures I promised.

Totally called it.

4:12

3 a.m.

This may be a new record for length of time between posts.

The Internet hates me.

Six months (a.k.a., the post full of Amazon links and pictures other people took)

Thanks for rubbing it in, Dove Promises.

Me, on music.

We have two teeth.

Show me your teeth!

Shutterfly photo books FTW!

Those ads on the sidebar and in the posts.

That whole sleep thing.

Five months (six days late).

Vacation, time to get away...

What a week!

Sick. Again. coughs