The Other Side: A Final Note For the First Year

Posted on March 31, 2013 by The Waiting

Dear Miss C,

Hello, my girl. It’s been one heck of a year, eh? I will never forget the moment I awoke at 6:15 one year ago today and knew that you were coming. Just the day before I had been at Target doing some mundane shopping and thinking about how I still had to wait one more week to meet you. Just like your mom, though, you were a little early. That’s a good habit to get into.

I knew you were mine, but I still had to get to know-know you. There is no orientation weekend for babies and moms; you just have to dive in headfirst and hold your breathe. I was dumbstruck that nothing in my life could have prepared me for the mix of emotions I felt when I looked at you and attempted to give you what you needed. I often thought about how ludicrous it was that only a few days before, you were still baking inside me. And now, you were out. Just out. I was as new to being a mom as you were to being a human, and we both cried a lot and slept very little in those days.

OK, so maybe you slept. Sometimes.

Looking all happy with the world at 2MO.

But we learned. You taught me to practice a brand of patience I never dreamed existed. This was a special kind of patience that I couldn’t acquire while waiting at the DMV or even teaching ESL kindergarten. This patience wasn’t forced; it just existed within and without me at the same time. You broke my heart with your sweetness and delicateness. I had no desire but to love you and give you the best of the world. All of a sudden, those long, long weeks of not sleeping and just struggling to get through the day are a distant memory, even though they were less than a year ago. This is because you are magical and somehow found a way to contort time itself. Um, maybe not. But I’m your mom so to me you’ll always be magical.

“Highchairs are AWESOME!!!! ZOMG!”

You have been an easy baby. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it. You slept through the night when you were seven weeks old and weren’t collicky. You loved being held and curling up on our tummies while you slept. You’ve never much liked it when I put you in you playpen or your scooter when I took a shower, but day by day you’re learning that you can occupy and entertain yourself. The world is your oyster and as much as I cringe when you dart towards the dishwasher whenever you notice that it’s open, I am glad that you care. I’m reluctantly happy that you would rather tear pages out of books than watch TV. You are my special little mess and I relish the fits you throw because then I know that you’re feeling. I have made a little breathing feeler. If you ever have children yourself, you’ll understand why that’s such a big deal to me.

I have made a human, and that human is you. You were the one I waited for all along.

Vote early and vote often. Let your voice be heard.

Let your voice be heard. And go ahead and rip your socks off if you don’t want to wear them, too. Do what you gotta do.

The other day, we were taking a bath and you looked straight at me and babbled a sentence-length series of syllables. Your sentence was full of meaning and intent. The words weren’t there, but you had basically taken off the training wheels of language. I stared back in your eyes and marveled that you had something to say. And not only that, but it was to me that your words were directed. Please always, always know that your words are valuable and strong. Take care of them and own them. When you use them, be kind and smart, both to others and yourself.

Knowing you has easily been the most incredible honor of my life. The word “amazing” springs to mind, but I hear that word too often and so it surely cannot describe the uniqueness of watching you interact with the world and knowing that you are mine in a way that no one else is. I adore you, my Sweetbabybuney. Thank you for being you and loving me in a way that no one else ever has or ever will. Thank you for existing and for making me be a better me. Know that Daddy and I love you more than we could ever possibly tell you in a letter or a poem. Our hearts keep growing with every breath you take. Keep inhaling and soak in this big world at your feet.

Happy birthday,

Mommy

The Other Side: Notes on the Eleventh Month

Posted on March 7, 2013 by The Waiting

This is the second to last first-year post I will be writing about Wee Cee. When I named this series “The Other Side”, I was referencing the fact that she was no long in utero. Now the title seems totally outmoded. Of course she’s no longer in my belly. She belongs out in the world and has basically found her place here. I almost don’t know what I’ll do with myself once her first year is over and I won’t be writing these Other Side posts anymore. Don’t be fooled: it’s not about writing the posts; it’s about raising a child who is way more toddler than defenseless baby. That’s scary. I’ve been thinking more and more about her impending childhood and teenagehood recently and it makes me feel overwhelmed because if I’ve learned anything during her first year of life, it’s that it goes fast and the older she gets the more complicated things will be. Stressing over whether she has gotten enough to eat will be replaced with stressing over fractions, not-so-nice kids at school, first dates, and driving a car.

So let’s focus on her babyhood while we still can, shall we?

The one where she has giant squid eyes

Her days are now made up of struggles to get words out. She sticks her little tongue out and flutters it around in an effort to say what she needs. She gets frustrated at first, but I try to take her seriously and hide my amusement at her funny talking faces. We think she said “bottle” this morning. When all else fails, we ask her what a cow says and she answers with a tone of “mmmmmm”. It doesn’t matter that she makes the same sound when we ask her about the sounds of cats, horses, and sheep. She’s got the cow down so we’re good.

She can stand unassisted. She hasn’t made that first unassisted step yet, but she can hold off for awhile as far as I’m concerned because she’s difficult enough to keep up with as it is. Sometimes I feel like she gets frustrated that our apartment is small and she doesn’t have a lot of space to roam, but when I think about it, it’s really probably me who is frustrated. She doesn’t know anything else so as far as she is concerned, the place is fine. It’s just that a lot of places are off-limits to her. She is obsessed with rooting around in the fridge and the dishwasher, and we recently had to just make them unavailable to her because she was tossing everything on the floor really loud and it got to be too annoying to constantly clean up. Incidentally, pulling her away from the dishwasher when she’s already spotted that it’s open is a surefire way to make her Angry with a capital A. Stiff torso, rigid body, blood-curdling screams. Eeee-gah.

*UPDATE: Not three hours after I wrote this, she took three consecutive steps towards me. They weren’t repeated for the rest of the day. BUT STILL. :D

Standin’ queen!

Her motor skills are blossoming. She loves clapping, and she tries to snap her fingers with pretty impressive precision. She likes to make the motions to wash her hands. The one thing she hasn’t gotten entirely is blowing a kiss. Instead of holding her hand up to her mouth, she holds it up to her forehead so it looks like she’s doffing a make-believe hat. She also understands the purpose of her comb and likes to run it across her head after her bath.

The couch makes a good impromptu teething ring.

She is not a fan of TV. Seriously, I could not pay her with a million Cheerios to watch TV for 5 minutes. I realize that this is a relative problem that many people would love to have because their kid cries if they don’t get to watch TV, but I need to get stuff done around the apartment without having to worry that C is going to dump all her toys in the toilet in the meantime or scream at me to let her out of her play pen. I worry that I make myself too available to her because when I try to get her to play alone or amuse herself for a little while, she has a hard time settling herself down and detaching herself from me. I don’t want her to think that the world revolves around her and that she can always have my attention whenever she wants it, but she’s being pretty resistant to playing by herself for any substantial period of time. I keep telling myself that she will grow out of it. After all, she is still a baby. Also, her fussiness seems to be magnified to me a lot more when she’s going through a cluster of milestones all at once, so that is probably also making my anxiety a bit more intense.

We are gearing up her her first birthday at the end of the month. Her actual birthday is on Easter Sunday, so we will likely do big fun birthday activities on the Saturday before and then have a special family party on her actual birthday. She is a big fan of ham so she will be in hog heaven with her Easter ham! To help us celebrate her bloggy b-day, remember to send in your baby picture to thewaitingblog(at)gmail(dot)com by March 27 so you can be entered to win a prize pack filled with delicious North Carolina goodies!

Opening up an early birthday present from Kendra and Chris

Now, to take a nap. That little gal has got me tired. ;D

The world is neat.

The Other Side: Notes on the Tenth Month

Posted on February 4, 2013 by The Waiting

Something happened over the course of the last month that I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around. I think it must have been around the second week of January that I looked at Wee Cee and noticed that she was turning into a little girl. She is just as much child now as she is baby, which is cool and terrifying. I woke up one morning and in the crib sat a kid who resembles a person and not just a human hamburger. Her little limbs are getting longer and her head isn’t the perfect circle it used to be. Her bright little eyes say things and she’s not just a prop in our parental charade. I call her my daughter and the word doesn’t seem forced. She is a daughter, my daughter. She’s not just a human with girl parts anymore.

For one, she can communicate. Her babbles mean things and aren’t arbitrary, although they are a lot of fun. A couple weeks ago, B and I were lazing around one Saturday morning in bed when we heard a loud MA-MA come from her room. Normally, she wakes up and babbles around for awhile just for practice, but that Mama had force around it. It meant something. We got up and peeked into her room, where we found her proudly standing up in her crib. Standing in the crib while holding onto the rail was a new feat for her. She knew she had accomplished something and she just wanted us to see! Of course she called my name! She was hitting milestones all over the place that morning. And I cried, obvs. My standing up baby had called me.

And just like that, I’m welling up again.

Source http://www.tovekjellmark.com/otherness/2011/09/animal_human/

Yep. Source

Moving on. Let’s talk about crawling. Get it? Nevermind. Crawling is transitioning into what will soon be walking. She recently started elevating her entire body off the ground when she crawls, placing her weight on her feet instead of her knees. She looks a lot like Mowgli from The Jungle Book when she’s doing it, especially since her dipe covers are very Mowgli-esque. Disney didn’t even pay me to say that.

Side note: Those covers are expensive, so should you actually want to pay me to say something, gimme a holla.

Redecorating.

Her toys are her friends. She’s got so much personality that she had to give some of it to her stuffed toys, which she loves the most. She nuzzles them and hugs them with an amorous “mmmmmm!”

What else? Oh yes, for those of you who were keeping score, breastfeeding is over. Done and done. I was reluctant to wean her since breastfeeding is highly encouraged for their entire first year and also because it would mark the end of a special, intimate part of our relationship, but she had shown pretty much no interest in it since she was five months old. I had been pumping 100% of her milk for months and I still wasn’t making enough where we could avoid supplementing with formula. So we fought the good fight and when my pump broke three weeks ago, I took it as a sign that we could just stop. Even though I feared the end of breastfeeding, I couldn’t be happier that it’s now over. Not being hooked up to that pump is really freeing.

Sharing is caring. Notice the Totoro in the left corner. We had to move it into our room because it is apparently the scariest thing in her life right now.

All of a sudden, C is someone who I actually want to be around. She’s my little buddy. It’s like the guesswork is over in her life, at least for now. This is probably more of a reflection on me as a mom and not necessarily her as a baby, but now we can take her out in public and completely relax because we are pretty certain she won’t implode. Even if she did, we’d handle it. She usually eats when we give her food, and if she doesn’t then it’s no big deal because we’ll just try again later. Now was the time everyone was referring to super early in her life when they told me it would get easier. At this very instant, she’s hanging out in her crib. She’s supposed to be napping, but instead she’s just lying there chatting with her stuffed lion. And do you know what? It’s OK if she skips her nap. I’m all for setting boundaries for her and coaxing her in the right direction when she does dangerous and impractical things, but when it comes to things like naps and the amount of food she eats, she largely knows what’s best for herself.

Our daily life is changing. Gone are the nights when she’d fall asleep in my arms and then I’d carefully carry her to her swing or crib while trying not to rouse her. But I’m not crying, at least, not anymore. Now, instead, I hold her close and sing her lullabies. She snuggles back and nuzzles me with the same fervor that she used to nurse. We still have that touch. That touch that makes me her Mama and her my sweet Bebe.

The Other Side: Notes on the Ninth Month

Posted on January 2, 2013 by The Waiting

A girl with a curl(ish).

Even though we all know that 40 weeks actually equals ten months rather than nine (or at least those of us who have actually been pregnant know this, as that last month is probably the most miserable making us acutely aware of the passage of time), I can’t help but think that Miss C has now been out for roughly the same amount of time that she was in. She’s been in the world for 2012 and 2013, which makes her quite a woman of the world. It’s funny to me how much I groaned and moaned and felt sorry for myself during the more vomit-y moments of my pregnancy. Now that she’s here, I wish I could indulge myself and take a moment to nap or watch TV all day when I’m not feeling my best, but a crawling exploring baby doesn’t really afford me those moments.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A cabbage leaf makes a good hat. (As does a tissue box. Bonus points for the reference.)

These last nine months have been rich and scary and wonderful. This small girl has transformed from a wiggling ball of sugar to a person who likes things, who knows me, and who dances and yells when she needs me. She has preferences and is hinting at the possibility of eventually forming opinions. I am so proud. Nothing she does goes unnoticed. I swell with happiness every time she discovers something new.

Little assistance necessary.

And she’s been discovering a lot. Crawling is passe. Now that she’s mastered it, she’s pulling up all by herself on sofas and coffee tables. She even shows a little bit of indignation when we put her in her scooter chair because she can go faster without its assistance and she knows it. She can feed herself her bottle now. When she reaches her milestones, I often get melancholy, but I like it that she can feed herself at least partially now because it gives me a couple extra moments to meander over my own coffee. Independence is good for everyone.

And words. There are words. Even though she’s unable to say them herself, she knows and responds to “breakfast”, “lunch”, “dinner”, “snack”, “bottle”, “bath”, “change”, “daddy”, “mommy”, “nap time”, “hello”, “goodbye”, and “car ride”. (She also responds to “Gangnam Style” but that doesn’t exactly make me look like the best parent.) B and I will likely start signing with her too, so if you have any experience with baby signs, please let me know in the comments because we need to start somewhere.

She found all the shells at Bubby’s house.

She literally started waving at us and other people overnight. When we were on the road for Christmas, we always stopped at Panera Bread for lunch because duh, it’s Panera and it’s the best EVER. Every time we went in, she waved at everyone and smiled and often squealed. I have no idea how she acquired the waving skill because it’s not something B or I really showed her how to do, so I guess it’s instinctual. Is it lame that I think she’s a genius whenever she waves at us and others? I think she’s a genius most of the time not because I’m overly doting but because I just can’t believe I CREATED this girl. It is amazing to me that at one point she didn’t exist and now she does. And not only does she exist, but she exists well and she is achieving things. Gah.

Strangers and extra activities are kind of a scary thing with her right now. We worked really hard to get her in a routine that she could depend on and to give her safety and security in her interactions, so it was only a matter of time until a deviation from those routines would scare her a little or at least put her in a tizzy. When we left her for an overnight visit with my mom while we were in Memphis, she had a hard time adjusting for the first couple hours (as did we). But eventually she realized that she was safe and loved so she relaxed. She is surrounded by people who love her and she knows it.

Taken approximately 11 1/2 hours into Christmas. It was a long day but she (and Grammy) were good sports.

I wrote about her dancing a few posts back, but dancing and swaying are a big enough thing for her that it’s worth repeating. She loves music and tempo and sways to the beat even when I’m doing something rhythmic like using the electric mixer or hammering a nail. I am planning on doing a post soon about some of the music she likes, which I think will offer an interesting postscript to the posts I wrote during my pregnancy about the music I imagined playing for her. I’m also contemplating putting up a video of her on the blog. I’ve been hesitant to do so in the past because I’m trying to define boundaries about what I will and won’t share here. Any thoughts (especially from the mommy bloggers) are, as always, appreciated.

So nine months. Three more and then she’s practically in college. I’m holding on. Happy nine months on this crazy planet, sweet girl.

We are the goodest.

The Other Side: Notes on the Eighth Month

Posted on December 4, 2012 by The Waiting

To the baby who will eventually read all these posts about her development over her first year:

I’m sorry this is going to be a short summary of all the stuff you’ve been doing. You are currently napping in your swing*, and I have no idea how long your slumber will last. Writing about you during your waking hours is out of the question, as you are in to everything and love to have my full, undivided attention.

*Which, incidentally, you totally busted out of a few days ago. I heard you screaming bloody murder and when I went to go check on you, you were dangling by your leg from the strap. My apologies for not buying you that baby straight-jacket that could have held you in place.

Crawling has given you a new lease on life. There is no turning back from your semi-independence. I think back on eight months ago when you were smaller than the throw pillows on the couch and could barely latch on when I fed you. Now you can make it across the entire apartment in about 15 seconds. You are growing too fast. You’re killing me, C. I want you to stay small, but with each new syllable that you utter, you are romancing me with the more mature you. You’re coaxing me with your delicate movements and I am beginning to wonder if all that time I was pregnant with you and when you were a newborn was just a figment of my imagination, since the child I have now is more a girl than a baby. These two yous can’t exist within the space of one year.

I am resigning myself to your 12 month old outfits, even though you’re only just now beginning your ninth month outside of me. I’m putting the clothes you’ve outgrown in a bag in your closet. It’s a big yellow bag they gave me at the hospital when I had you, a space to put all the personal effects of my pregnancy. Now it holds the footie pajamas I can’t pretend you can still wear. My organized self used to like cleaning out your drawers of the clothes you had outgrown, but now it makes me sad. Just one more night in your tiny green pajamas? Just one more morning with a long sleepy nursing session?

No, you have places to be and toilets to inspect. I don’t blame you for it, but I am already missing the girl you were this morning, only a few minutes ago. Yet I adore the girl you are now. You are beckoning me forward and holding my hand as I become the mom you need me to be, all while I hold you up right back.

All about the paci

Is it possibly that I’ve never put a picture of C in the bath tub on the blog? Oversight remedied.

We finally found the best remedy for achy teething gums: partially frozen zucchini.

This is the one and only outfit I bought for her before she was born. Good purchase.

She loves her blanket forts.

The magic of a blanket fort.

Time to lower the mattress.

The Other Side: Notes on the Seventh Month

Posted on November 7, 2012 by The Waiting

I am the parent of a seven month old child. This wallops me every time I think about it.

My seven month old child. B and I commonly refer to the summer months as “when she was a baby.” She’s clearly a middle schooler now that it’s fall.

Babies are a bigger deal than we give them credit for. Things we take for granted – feeding ourselves, our ability to put ourselves back to sleep when we wake in the middle of the night, and spacial awareness – are things that pose big challenges to them every day. Luckily, since they haven’t acquired the concept of giving up, they just keep on keepin’ on until they master these skills. It’s pretty admirable. Sometimes I wish I were a baby because I’d be learning new stuff every day. I’m not doing NaNoWriMo (I’m doing NaNoWriDecade), but if I told C to, she’d probably crank out a book. No promises that it would be all that good, but she’d give it the ol’ college try.

So! On with C’s newly acquired skills. This may be a long post. Heh.

First off, crawling. Crawling like a mofo. But you know this. C has places to go and dust bunnies to ingest, so she’s a busy girl. She can also sit up by herself completely unassisted.

The monster under the crib.

Napping has gotten a lot better. Although there are no hard and fast times that she will conk out each day, she has improved about 1000% in falling asleep for naps without the bottle. I will just put her in her swing – and POOF! – within about eight minutes she will usually fall asleep all by herself. (Running the vacuum doesn’t hurt, though). I’m calling Harvard on this one. She had a bit of sleep regression during the last week of October with the onset of all her new skills.

Since she was wearing a brown boyish onesie, I decided to put a ribbon on her head so people would know she was a girl when we went out. So when we took the ribbon off, her hair did this. LOL.

It was bound to happen eventually, but it looks like she has finally gotten sick. This is likely because she puts everything in her mouth and sucks her thumb*. But this morning when I was changing her, I noticed little splotches all over her torso. Thankfully, Ashley posted last month about similar symptoms in her daughter Sonia, and so I’m pretty sure C has come down with Roseola. Pretty yuck, but the moral to this whole story is that it pays to read blogs of people whose kids are a couple steps ahead of yours because when your kid finally comes down with something, you freak out a lot less. She’ll be OK.

*I was considering giving the thumb sucking item its own whole paragraph, not because it troubles me, but because it’s so cute. It’s the little things.

I may have written about this in the past, but I’m now going officially on the record saying that breastfeeding proper is pretty much over. She will nurse for about 15 minutes in the morning, but lately she’s been taking to biting and this is no bueno. I pump throughout the day so she is still getting breastmilk, but I’m not going to lie: I’m kind of over it. Since we’ve made it this long, though, I figure we’ll go for five more months. Famous last words. She’s a big fan of eating otherwise, although she’s not really at the point yet where she can feed herself her little baby crackers. She mostly just holds them in her fists where they then melt. I usually find them still in her hands 30 minutes later. Yum.

Her babbling is getting more and more defined each day. I love to hear her little coos and da-da-DAs. No ma-ma-MAs yet. She’s making me hold out. That’s OK, though. We have an understanding.

She loves her routines and we do too, but she really enjoys being out and about with us. We went to Raleigh last weekend to meet up with Kelly from Excitement on the Side and her kids*, and she just hung out in B’s lap the entire time and enjoyed herself. At some point, she became a baby who could do this! It’s no small thing.

*There will be a post or seven about this. The hangoutage was as awesome as you think.

A baby after her parents’ hearts

Happy seven months to our sweet girl! We love her so, so much. I could think of a more pithy and poetic way to describe my love for her but she’s exhausted me too much. So let’s just reduce it down:

Mommy=smitten

Baby=perfect

The Other Side: Notes on the Sixth Month

Posted on October 1, 2012 by The Waiting

Six months and one day ago, I was still a pregnant lady who could (in theory) sleep as late as I wanted, go to bed when I wanted, take a shower in complete privacy, watch every single episode of Arrested Development in one sitting on a whim, and get more done in one day than I can often get done in the space of one week these days. And do you know what? My life is about a bajillion times better now. This little girl has made me sing for my supper, but it turns out that when you have to work – really work – you feel pretty dang amazing at the end of the day. She has taught me to appreciate the tiniest little things in life as miracles. I can so see now why new parents constantly feel like their babies are geniuses. When you see a child grow from being a tiny sack of crying sugar in their first days to actually being able to move around on their bellies, you know that it’s a big freaking deal. She highlights every moment – even if she’s screaming – as the most special time I can imagine simply because she exists.

She’s pretty much the most adorable child in the history of the world.

Teeth have been happening. Last night, Miss C was gnawing on B’s finger when he let out an “ouch!” and followed it with a “no I mean really. OUCH.” I scurried over to pry open her mouth, and there I found a tiny white dot on her lower jaw. I squealed with delight at the prospect of my growing baby sprouting teeth and she was terrified at my squeal and promptly wept as if the news that Elmo had just been hit by a bus was trending. I have got to learn to keep the volume down.

Also, solid food is happening. FYI, “solid foods” is such a misnomer. There is nothing solid about cold pureed squash. So let’s just call it “human food.” She has been eating rice cereal for dinner for the past three weeks, and last week we started her on human food at lunch too. So far she has tried squash and avocado, both of which she likes. Not overwhelmingly so, but she has yet to reject the food, and I’ll take that.

She played, then she passed out. Extra points if you can spot the baby.

Her naps are becoming more consistent, although I know that now that I’ve said that she will likely go on strike and refuse to sleep for a week. It finally dawned on me that when she doesn’t nap well, it’s because she’s either 1, teething or 2, going through a growth spurt. I am so dense sometimes that it kills me. I console myself with the thought that I lit-rally have no idea what I’m doing as a parent and that I don’t have any family in town to help me. The learning curve is steep, but I’m not going to throw in the towel just yet on learning to be a parent whilst she learns to be a human.

She keeps a-rolling and a-rolling but hasn’t yet sat up completely unassisted yet. Interestingly, though, she has skipped ahead to what I like to call “pre-crawling.” On her stomach, she moves her legs and arms back and forth like she’s swimming and she gets super frustrated when she doesn’t go anywhere. It won’t be long, and she can take her sweet time as far as I’m concerned because I’m not ready to babyproof the apartment just yet. I’ve gotta finish making her Halloween costume. Priorities: I’ve got ‘em.

On the move

The more she does, the harder it is for me to re-calibrate my own life. Luckily, I’m finding it easier and easier to just give up control for five minutes and hand her off to B on the weekends and ask him for help when I need it. We got in a rut for awhile when I felt bad asking him for help and he didn’t really offer it because he thought I had everything under control because I never asked for help. But I’m getting more comfortable requesting assistance and resisting the urge to tell him he’s doing something “wrong” when he bathes her or feeds her. Of course, they get along famously. He can make her laugh in ways that I simply can’t. And he’s much, much better at coming up with new and interesting ways to entertain her, likely because he’s not here with her 80% of the time so he sees her with fresh eyes. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Actually, I do know: I’d be a crappy mom.

I know I’m biased but dear lawd my baby is beautiful.

So the sixth month. Happy half birthday to my precious Miss C! The love I have for her is just more than I can describe in a blog post. My life now is admittedly a lot harder than the one I had six months and one day ago, but I wouldn’t change it for all the tea in China. Or England. Or India. Or wherever they have good tea. She’s about 43,827,543,956 times better, easily.

The Other Side: Notes on the Fifth Month

Posted on September 3, 2012 by The Waiting

Full disclosure: this is the first The Other Side post that I have been truly giddy to share. Miss C is on fire, y’all. She is doing so much stuff that I can’t even handle it. Everyday is packed with new and fun things with her, so let’s get down to it.

First, the faces. With age comes the ability to be more expressive and to explore the ways she can contort her little mug. She likes to stretch her face around and clamp down her jaw a lot (especially when her gums are swollen). One of her more hilarious faces is the one we have dubbed “the Serious Cat” because it is reminiscent of the LOLcats picture:

…I know, it’s not an exact match, but just allow us to dork-out about our baby. She also sometimes looks like Winston Churchill when she sleeps:

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Her coordination is really developing as well. She has taken to holding the bottle once she’s gotten enough of it to fill her stomach. It’s her hobby. She also really likes to grab at my hair and my glasses, which would be annoying if she hadn’t complete endeared herself to me with every little thing she does. She likes to open and close her hands when she explores the world around her. Seeing her do this is just one of those things that inexplicably melts my heart. Her little inquisitive movements are just so precious and contented.

And her feet. Oh my, her feet. She grabs at them with her hands and chews on them. B thinks it’s funny/gross that she sucks on her toes, but I like to remind him that since she’s not walking, it’s actually way less disgusting for her to chew on her feet than it is for her to do the same thing with her hands.

She is officially a roller! She rolled over by herself when she was about sixteen weeks, but then we didn’t get any repeat performances for about 2 1/2 weeks. Then all of a sudden, everything just clicked for her. And she rolled. And rolled. And rolled. And why stop? She loves her new mobility, and now it’s time to start baby-proofing the apartment because she won’t be slowing down any time soon. Or ever. She can’t yet sit up all by herself without the Bumbo seat, but she does love for us to hold her up by her arms so she can stand. She’s really good at locking her knees and “supporting” herself.

OK, what else, what else? OH! OH EM GEE I swear she said “mama” a week ago. It was likely just her getting upset and saying “ma” twice in a row, but it was still the sweetest sound I have ever heard. Ever. She was playing in her playpen with me next to her in a chair, and I left for a second to go to the bathroom. She got upset because she didn’t know where I was, and that’s when she said it. Again, likely not a bona fide “mama” utterance because she won’t be truly verbal for some time, but I’ll take what I can get.

She’s not a huge fan of Go, Dog, Go! yet, but if she’s anything like me it’ll grow on her because I am obsessed with it.

She is becoming quite a child of the world with her “hobbies” and traveling. She really enjoys reading books with me; it’s part of her bedtime routine but we also read throughout the day.

Does she have favorite book? Erm, maybe? We’ve mostly been cycling through books I loved as a kid so she can be able to emulate my greatness, so that means lots of Dr. Seuss and PD Eastman books. Hop On Pop is waaaaaay more hilarious than I remember it. To date, her most exciting outings are to the library. Last time she went I thought she was going to lose it. She was shrieking with glee the entire time we were there. She also likes the park and usually falls asleep when I wheel her in her stroller over the gravel. She attended her very first birthday party this past month of her friend* A, who turned one. Still not a huge fan of taking her to the store. Mama’s got to have her private time with her lover, Target. B stays with her at home when I go and get the shopping done.

*It always cracks me up when people say their babies are “friends.” Yeah, more like I’m friends with A’s mom. C likely doesn’t even know A exists.

All dolled up for A’s first birthday

Things are not easy all the time, but the overwhelming consensus of the family can be neatly summarized with a question B asks me daily now:

“Is it just me or is she the most awesome, happiest baby, ever?”

It’s not just him. Miss C is a treasure. Every day I look at this child we created and I swell with pride and love.

*****

The Shotgun Fetus is now a Shotgun Baby! Congratulations to Atticus and his mom and dad! Now only Jells is left and then our plan for blogging baby world domination will go into effect.

*****

And last but not least, major props goes out to everyone who helped me on my quest to be featured on A Clown on Fire‘s blogroll. You guys are awesome. Happy news! The Waiting made it on! All your checks are in the mail. Thanks to l’Eric for making this fun contest happen.

The Other Side: Notes on the Fourth Month

Posted on July 30, 2012 by The Waiting

This is the awkward part when the new followers (welcome, by the way!) open the email or click on the link to this, my newest post since last Friday’s post was Freshly Pressed, and find out that this blog is essentially a (dum dum DAH)…

…mommy blog.

Don’t worry; I won’t be offended if you unsubscribe. But the gym post is proof that I do talk about things other than diapers and that my vocabulary isn’t limited to adorbs, so I do hope you’ll stick around. But today we are going to talk about babies, so sit tight.

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Please don’t eat me. But let me eat my hand, ‘k?

Miss C is four months old! What what! And ohmahgosh, you guys, she is The Best. I have tried to eat her several times because she is just so unbearably cute, but luckily B has stopped me before I get too far in preparing all the mise en place to go with her. I think I can now officially say that she sleeps through the night; I know I’ve been saying it for awhile, but I was always tempting fate by doing so. However, now that she’s 16 weeks old and she’s been sleeping in solid eight hour stretches since she was at eight weeks, I’d say it’s a habit. And boy oh boy, are we ever appreciative. Now, there are some caveats. She does sleep swaddled and she does fall asleep at the breast 99.5% of the time, so those are some habits that she will eventually have to be weaned from. However, for now, we’re going to let them slide.

Napping is another story. She is usually good about taking five to six 25- to 30-minute naps each day, but lately she’s become so enamored with everything that’s going on around her that she puts up a bit of a fight when we try to put her down. But hey, it’s my thinking that as long as she’s sleeping through the night, she can pretty much do whatever she wants during the day, short of inviting other babies for a cocktail hour at 5PM every day. Upper hand much?

Scarlett O’Hara baby

Here’s the part where I bang the wow-they-grow-so-fast drum once again. She is huge! There is such a black and white difference between a baby at four weeks old and a baby at four months old. At four weeks, she was still in her chopped liver state of being, as my mother affectionately calls it. She moved in slo-mo, didn’t interact with me unless you count feeding times as interaction, and still kind of looked like an insect. On her playmat, there is a little dangling monkey thing that I remember trying really hard to get her to engage with when she was tiny. She had no interest in it, obviously, and I attached some loco postpartum ennui to that toy. Now she not only plays with the monkey but can’t get enough of it. It’s bittersweet. She chats with us when we talk to her and gives us gigantic smiles and giggles when she first sees us when she wakes in the morning.

I mean, come on.

She has also discovered screens. Whereas I used to watch TV or watch YouTube when I was feeding her, I hesitate to turn them on now as she quickly gets fixated on them. I’ve always heard that babies between birth and two years should not be exposed to screens, so I’m going to try to keep her from them. That’s a pretty tall order, but we’re going to at least try.

Hooty hoo!

She is pretty much the most squishy, snuggly little gal you could possibly conjure up. She gets in good and cozy with us when we make a family sandwich. By the way, family sandwiches are the best kind. Om nom nom to a mommy, a daddy, and a bebe.

The Other Side: Notes on the Third Month

Posted on July 3, 2012 by The Waiting

So, maybe I’m a little late on the third month post since Miss C turned thirteen weeks last Saturday. But ever since we took our show on the road last week, it’s been a bit hard to keep up with her growth on the ol’ blog. This is humorous to me because of the proliferation of grandmothers in her life since we’ve been traveling, first in Florida with B’s mom Sidney and now in Memphis with my mom AND Sidney. I had planned on blogging nearly every day of this vacation, but the best-laid plans of mice and men… Oh, you know.

I realized a few days ago that I’ve reached the stage of her life as a baby and mine as a mom where I’m not too keen on putting her down or handing her off to others. I’m beginning to feel like I can handle her best, which isn’t always right, especially when I’m exhausted and therefore really should just hand her off so I can rest. But as soon as we get back to North Carolina, this really won’t be a “problem” for me anymore since we have no family there. I really should savor the opportunity to let others love on her.

The other day I was looking at a video of her when she was one day old. Who was that little baby? She moved in slow motion, making strange circles with her mouth and squealing like a kitten. We could swaddle her easily in the smallest receiving blankets we had and they’d stay put on her all through the night. Now, she’s a person, not just a prop in our parental pantomime. She’s what you think of when you think of a baby. She giggles, she holds her neck up, she babbles, she is fascinated with the world around her and interacts with her toys. She is trying SO HARD to roll over, and I expect that she’ll do it in a few days. Sometimes it seems like her body is in close connection with my mind because the moment I start to wonder when she’ll acquire a new skill, she’ll start displaying it.

Miss C loves faces so yesterday when we had a bona fide southern Sip N’ See at my mom’s – complete with cucumber sandwiches and raspberry ice tea – she was in heaven, looking at everyone with 100 times more fascination than they could have possibly had for her. She’s a very interactive person and is happiest when a moment of non-gassiness coincides with a moment of face time with me or B. I thought she wouldn’t make it through such a busy day full of people coming in and out of the house. She had her moments of fussiness and was certainly exhausted by the end of the day, but all in all she made it through like a trooper.

And that’s the running theme in her life right now: whenever I think some activity will be too much for her, she always proves me wrong. At some point her life became regularized through no effort of mine or B’s. She just transformed herself into a non-chaotic little being. The hugely long drive from NC to FL to TN was difficult but manageable. The Sip ‘N See was fine. She sat beautifully for her first-ever professional photos, although this was also due to the patience and talent of the photographer. Our old, dear friend Melissa came over the other day and took pictures for her for nearly three hours. I had dreaded the shoot because I had no idea how Miss C would do being dressed and undressed and finagled into poses for hours on hours, but she did wonderful. She’s in the zone in her life right now where we can rely on her to behave like a human, for lack of better words. Here’s a little sample of that wondrous day:

When Melissa posted this sample picture on Facebook from the shoot, I teared up. No, I cried. This is my baby. MY BABY. I could explode with love. She’s my angel.

Everyone tells you they grow up too quickly. I wish I could add to this idea in a new and original way, but I can’t. Everyone is right. Every instant with her is new and beautiful. I’m just drunk with adoration for this girl.

The Waiting

Turns out, it's not the hardest part.

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