Young Baby Young

The other day, Emily declared that she was old enough to forgo her naps.  “I’m a big girl now and I don’t want to sleep.  You can’t make me.”  This is a democracy in this house, so we went with it.  The days were long and the momma was more than a little irritable.  No-nap Squeaky was true to her word: she did not nap. 

Then we had a moment of clarity: why is a 5-month-old baby making the decisions in this house?!  Bring back the dictatorship!  No-nap Squeaky is gone; well-rested Stickymitts is back.  Better yet, the momma had a few minutes to herself here and there today.  The guest room renovation continues to make slow progress during Emily’s naptime.

We had a bat visit us last week.  How did he get in?  It was very exciting.  He swooped around the guest room for a while.  I tried to usher him towards the window, to which Chris kept shouting, “What are you doing?!”  (Apparently, he wasn’t impressed by my sheperding skills.)  Chris eventually caught him in a Tupperware container and let him outside.

We had an expensive courtship with the vet recently.  Natalie had gastrointestinal issues (let’s sing my favorite refrain of “all I do is clean poop and pee!”), then Nathan had a growth on his nose that had to be removed — and we may as well have their teeth cleaned while under anesthesia….  So, $1000 later, the pets are healthy again.  Sigh.

Emily has new four new friends: her left hand, her right hand, her left foot, and — you guessed it — her right foot.  We’ll lay her down on her changing table to do some diapering and she’ll suddenly be enthralled with her hand.  She’ll twist it back and forth, looking at it with total amazement.  She also takes every opportunity imaginable to grab her feet.  It won’t be long before those bad boys reach her mouth — assuming her rotund belly doesn’t get in the way!

We continue to train for our 5k road race.  The weather here has been crappy and we haven’t gone out in the stroller as much as we’d like; we go to the Y on those days instead.  Progress is sloooow, but that’s alright.  We’ll get there.

Emily met the ladies of book club last week.  She was fascinated by everything one woman, Mary, had to say.  She would be kicking and cooing and having a grand time until Mary started to voice her opinion, at which time she would instantly stop moving, whip her head around in Mary’s direction, and gaze intently at her.  Mary’s used to this — she said her nickname used to be phenobarbital because she put all of the children to sleep.

Egads, this week is flying by and I’m still trying to do an entry about the weekend!  Must focus.

Emily is such a rockstar.  This past weekend, we took our first family trip to somewhere that was more than an hour away.  We fretted about what to bring, how long the car ride would be, how she would sleep at night — and it was all for naught.  Emily did such a good job!

We went to MA to visit Uncle Joe and Aunt Arlene.  We got in the car Saturday morning and Emily settled in for multiple hours of sleep.  We stopped a couple of times to nurse and stretch, but otherwise, she slept for hours on end.  We were impressed!  And she was still in a good mood by the time we arrived.

On Sunday, Claire, Sean, and the boys came down to visit and have a cookout for Claire’s birthday.  The place was total chaos.  There was so much food, so much activity, so much fun!  And an impressive hailstorm to boot.  Better yet, Jane and Caroline arrived in the early evening after driving up from Florida — the more, the merrier!  The pictures tell the story:

The following sequence of pictures is funny primarily because of Max in the background.  He’s playing with his father, insisting on climbing him and then being flipped over.  Repeat.

Auntie Caroline got to do the bathing honors:

The hat in the next picture has a story.  Aunt Jackie bought it and each of her girls wore it when they were around 1 year old.  Jackie passed it on to Arlene for Claire to wear.  Claire wore it, then they saved it for Claire’s children.  Since Claire only had boys, it wasn’t worn again — until now!  Stickymitts likes all of the heirloom items she’s worn in the past five months.

Even though everyone groaned and grumbled, I insisted on having a group picture taken.  How often do you get all of these family members in the same room?  The flash didn’t do well with the windows behind us, but such is life.  I like them anyway.

Today is a big day for Emily: she’s 5 months old!  To celebrate, we bought the momma some new jeans that actually fit (for a mere $10 per, thank you Marden’s) and then Emmy took an unexpected 2-hour nap, during which time the momma did massive chores.  Now, while I type one-handed, she’s gnawing on her frozen teething ring without fear of getting smacked in the face.  Next on our list of fun and excitement: a snack of mashed bananas and then perhaps a stroll through town.  (You know, that’s starting to feel like it’s uphill both ways…and always a balmy 98°…with shoes that give festering blisters…and packs of rabid dogs chasing us…with that darn himmering oasis always off in the distance…along with that allusive pot of gold….)

Here she is in all of her glory from yesterday’s adventures:

Things to expect from our big girl:

• Teething
• Rolling (ahem, when we’re nearby preferably)
• Crying when we leave the room
• Getting excited when we return
• Laughing at jokes (obviously, mine more than Chris’s)
• Making her own ha-ha funnies
• Sitting on her own (probably with pillow buffers)
• Recognizing her name
• Eating more big-girl foods (ideally not crackers or shrimp!)

Sometimes, you work really hard to make sure everything is “just so” and it totally backfires.  We’ve got a schedule for Emily’s eating.  She was on breastmilk only for the first four months, then we introduced rice cereal, and now we’re slowly introducing fruits and vegetables from the “no one has ever had an allergy to these in the history of mankind” category.  We’ve been very by-the-book in our approach.  The last things you’re supposed to introduce are milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, etc. because of their higher potential for allergic reactions. 

Yeah, great, blah blah blah.  I walked into the babysitting room at the Y today to pick Emily up after my workout and found Miss Sheila happily feeding her some wheat crackers.  Wheat crackers?!  Those do not fall anywhere on my approved list.  Not only are they wheat, but they’re processed — and they’re a choking hazard.  Sigh. 

The best-laid plans of mice and men

often go awry

In other news.  I seem to have a pimple on the inside of my eyelid.  Have you ever heard of such tomfoolery?  I woke up this morning trying to get that speck of dust out of my eye to no avail.  I flushed it a million times and finally noticed that the irritant was not in my eye, but on my eyelid.  How does that happen?  And when will it go away?  Good thing I see equally poorly with my contacts as without them now….

I knew I shouldn’t have jinxed myself a few weeks ago by bragging about how well Emily was sleeping.  Immediately thereafter, her sleep patterns regressed.  I’m struggling to adjust to her new schedule.  Why the change?  Good segue to my next topic…

It seems that Emmy is sprouting some teeth.  There is one to the right of where her two bottom center teeth will come in, and there’s one to the left of where her two top center teeth will come in.  This development is making her most cross.  As a result, she loves having things –anything – in her mouth.  This has lead to her overeating a lot (and casually spitting the excess all over me (mmm, I love smelling like sour bananas)).  To remedy this, we’ve introduced many frozen things to help numb her gums.

Yesterday at playgroup, I brought her chilled teething ring out.  She lounged contentedly munching on it.  Apparently, every other child in playgroup used the same ring because numerous kids came over and wanted it.  Each was told firmly by his mother that he couldn’t have it.  This seems to have pissed one little boy off because he came back a while later and smacked Emily on the head.  She was a bit startled by this development, but didn’t cry, so we just continued on.  Who knows, maybe it distracted her from her teething woes for a few minutes!

The weather today was magnificent.  Earlier this week, the furnace was still running; today, I was rushing around to find fans because the upstairs was too hot.  Emily and I spent some time outside, enjoying the beautifulness.  It was one of those times where I was very conscious of not working…and loving every minute of it.  (Of course, at 2am when Emily wanted to eat again, I was not loving every minute of it, so it does even out.)

Our baby girl is turning into a very happy child.  She spends a lot of time smiling and cooing these days.  Gone are the days of me being petrified that she’d wake up screaming in the grocery store; now she stays awake the whole time, smiling on cue when strangers say the words “pretty” or “beautiful”, and batting her toys around while she goes through the store.  She continues to travel well in the car and adjusts to wherever we take her. 

This weekend, we’re taking our first trip with her.  We’re off to visit Uncle Joe and Aunt Arlene in the Boston area.  We’re already making mental lists of all of the stuff we’ll need and we’re hoping — praying, really — that Emily does well.  That will give us the willingness to try something more challenging next time!

Surprisingly, none of the following efforts worked as plan, but I give her credit for trying.

“Ha! they’ll never recognize me in this hat with ears.”

“Ha! they’ll never recognize me if I cover myself — including my eyebrows — with sweet potatoes.”

“Ha! they’ll never recognize me if I keep my hoodie up.”

“Ha! they’ll never recognize me if I nestle myself in clean laundry.”

“Ha! they’ll never recognize me if I’m camoflauged with my quilt.”

On Friday, Emily and I went to the Y, met up with Chris to see drawings for our new garage (more on that endeavor in a future entry), then returned home to get some lunch.  Much to our pleasure, we had a voicemail from Amelia and Lucie inviting us to The Fishnet at 3pm for steel drum music and ice cream (a likely combination at a seafood shack in Maine, don’t you think?).  Lucie’s daddy heads up all of the pan bands, and the youngest group was playing at this drive-up restaurant for a little extra exposure, so Lucie and Amelia decided to scope it out.  And why not make a playdate out of it?  Splendid idea!  As far as Lucie is concerned, the steel drum players are her entourage.  It was hilarious to see the players shriek “Lucie!” as they made a beeline for her.  Lucie rewarded them with her six-tooth grin and crinkly nose (as seen above).  Emily made mental note to work on her own entourage.

By 3pm, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees and the wind had picked up.  Bad momma here did not have the Emmycakes appropriately dressed; luckily for us, good momma Amelia had an extra coat for Emily to borrow.  (Emily felt it did nothing for her figure, but after icicles started to form on her eyelashes, she re-thought her earlier hastiness and decided to don said coat.)  Good momma also had a quilt for the girls to lie on while they enjoyed the Caribbean beat, mon.

The kids don’t perform for nothing.  As Minister of Publicity and Performance, Lucie’s daddy negotiated free ice cream for providing live music.  Since Lucie is three months older than Emily and much more experienced with eating real food (i.e. she’s had more than rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and green beans), she was allowed to try some ice cream:

Lucie enjoyed that very much until bad momma (errr, the woman formerly known as good momma — these titles change on a dime — we may yet decide to follow in Prince’s footsteps and just use a symbol) wiped the ice cream off her face.  If Lucie could talk, I’m pretty sure we would have heard her bemoaning, “the horror, the horror.”  Or perhaps “get your own ice cream!”  Better yet: “you’re trying to kill me!”

Next, the girls spent some time being fascinated with each other.  Babies are SO CUTE when they notice other babies. 

Emily was very jealous of Lucie’s ability to hold herself up using her arms, her ability to creep (the precursor to crawling, in case you’re not up on your baby lingo), and her ability to have an entourage (as previously mentioned).  Let’s not forget that Lucie was allowed to eat ice cream, too.

I want you to know that good momma – no, wait, is she bad momma now? I can’t keep track — umm, other momma also had her camera out and ready.  It’s not just me who has a camera in my back pocket at all times!  She snapped the following photograph and entitled it “Sunbathing in Maine (note fluffy coat and hat!)”.

How does time pass so quickly?  There are so many blog entries that I seem to have missed.  I’ll do a brief catch-up now.

Emily and I are continuing our 5k training.  Running with a stroller is very awkward — keeping your arms in front of you is a strange sensation.  I’ll use that as my excuse for why things aren’t going overly well.  It couldn’t possibly be that I’m out of shape.  Nah!  She enjoys her time in the stroller and usually falls asleep.  I love getting out of the house and enjoying the beautiful weather. 

We continue to go to the Y a few days a week and Emily hangs out with Miss Sheila in the babysitting room.  For the most part, Emily does a good job now.  She’s ready to go after 40 minutes or so because she’s been so stimulated in that time.  There are usually other kids there, and Sheila amuses her; by the time we leave, Emily crashes hard in the car.

Emily is still trying to master rolling.  As I mentioned earlier, she seemed to perfect the art when we weren’t looking, but she’s made no such strides since then.  I’ve got my camera ready for when she does:

Emily’s new friend Annika, who’s nearly 9 months old, has a delightful fashion sense and a cool mom who’s willing to pass some clothes on to us.  The above outfit was one find, as were my favorite Osh Kosh B’Gosh overalls, and this adorable monkey outfit below:

We invited ourselves over to my friend Lorraine’s house last week so that Emily could get to know Lorraine’s triplet daughters.  Chantal got the visit off to a good start by handing Emily a card she made to welcome Emily to their house.  (Of course, Emily can’t read quite yet, so the momma interceded on her behalf.)  The girls were VERY excited to meet Emily and were highly entertained by her antics.  She, in turn, was highly entertained by their antics. 

She also couldn’t believe her good fortune — all of these people with long hair for her to grab!  The girls thought that was just hilarious.

We find Emily’s chubbiness very entertaining; it seems like we’re always stripping her down in front of people.  We can’t help ourselves.  Everyone loves a fat baby…right?

Lastly (for now), I took some adorable pictures of her in her Mother’s Day dress, which arrived in a bundle of awesome stuff passed on from my coworker Kelly.

Strike 1: Earlier this week, Emily had such a voluminous deluge of spit-up rushing at my face that I shrieked in terror. Heck, I thought I was going to drown! My reaction startled her so badly that her eyes welled up with tears and she cried lustily. Bad momma.

Strike 2: Emily was happily sleeping in the middle of my bed this morning. She was so cute — her chubby arms were sticking out from under her blanket and her angelic face was peaceful. I went downstairs to get the laundry out of the dryer only to hear Chris screaming my name frantically and Emily crying hysterically. What the–? I rushed upstairs to Chris screaming, “SHE WAS ON THE FLOOR!” Huh. I guess Emily has learned how to roll over from back to front to back again…. Bad momma.

Emily is so angelic when she sleeps.  I can’t stand it — I want to kiss her and squeeze her whenever I see her sleeping peacefully.  I get so overwhelmed that it makes me grit my teeth.  To work through these fits of pinching and squeezing, I take pictures of her instead.  As I look at these pictures, I realize that she no longer keeps her hands above her head in that “touchdown” pose.  When did she stop doing that?  How did I not notice?  How did she become old enough so that I now I have to start sentences with “I remember when she used to…”? 

(Note the adorable Osh Kosh B’Gosh overalls passed down by her friend Annika, the hoodie from Auntie Sarah, and her 69¢ shoes from one of the consignment shops that we now love.)

(Note the beloved homemade baby blankets — one quilted by Grandma Charlene, the other crocheted by Auntie Carrie.)

(Note, umm, I dunno…there were things to note on the prior two pictures; I got caught up in noting things.  So, uh, note how cute she is!)

As any new parent can tell you, the first thing people ask when they see your baby is “how old is she?”  Sometimes they ask about the name, but not always.  After those pleasantries are out of the way, the favorite topic of conversation is “and how does she sleep?”  Emily has been totally and completely normal in her sleep patterns.  Eerily by-the-book, in fact.  When she was a newborn, she woke every 2-3 hours around the clock to eat.  When she was a few months old, she stretched that to about 5 hours at night, then 2-3 hours the rest of the time.  When she reached four months, she was able to sleep six or seven hours at night, then 3-4 hours the rest of the time.  She’s nearing 5 months now (again, how did that happen?!) and she’s slept from 9pm to 7am once (so we know she can do it), but prefers to get up between three and 4am for a feeding still.  That’s cool — we can totally handle that.  It could be better, but it could be a lot worse.  I think we have her weight to thank for this.

She’s made the big transition to sleeping in her own room without any issues.  I had the monitor on the first few nights, but every time I heard her stir, I leapt out of bed and rushed to her aid, my invisible super-hero cape flapping in my wake.  I think I’ll turn the monitor off going forward; I end up waking her up sometimes with my vigiliance.  It would be like if every time Chris rolled over, I’d ask, “Are you okay?”  Yeah, I was okay until you woke me up!

Emmy still can’t remember how to roll over.  She’s good at getting her body twisted correctly, but her arms keeping getting in the way.  We’re secretly happy about this — once she’s mobile, our lives will totally change.  She’ll be crawling in the wake of the dogs soon.  She’s already discovered that Nathan has a “handle.”  How great for him!

Miss Monkeytoes can sit on her own a little.  She’s very top-heavy and she ends up toppling over, but I’m amazed that she can do it at all!  She looks very independent all by herself.  My little girl is all grown up.  Sniffle, sniffle.

Milkfed is getting ready to try some real food this week.  She’s been on rice cereal so far without any issues.  She’s getting pretty good at eating!  She anticipates the spoon coming and opens her mouth wide.  She guides my right hand with her left stickymitt and tries to grab my other hand, too (the one with the bowl of food in it).  More food goes into her mouth than her bib now — a considerable improvement from her earlier efforts.  Her first “real” food will be sweet potatoes.  I’m going to try making my own baby food; we’re going to the grocery store this afternoon.  Chris and I must prepare ourselves for a totally different — and even less pleasant — diaper changing experience from now on, now that she’s actually digesting food.

Emmycakes is very interested in the world around her now.  Jane and I went to Bangor yesterday to pick up Chris’s car after it had been serviced.  Emily was great in the car, she didn’t mind when we stopped at a few shops, she thoroughly enjoyed our visit to The Olive Garden for lunch (a stellar waitress may be to thank for that), and she was great on the drive home.  We were SO impressed!  She was flinging her toys around in her carseat, kicking her legs until her socks came off for the 49th time that day, and handing out smiles like it was going out of style.